Problem with recording on multiple tuners (1 Viewer)

[mm1352000]

As ever, thanks for your time and help.

No problem.

I know it might be hard to understand - but we can (and often do) watch things recorded months ago. The programme that caused me to post the original query had been recorded on Sept. 9th - rather more than 10 days ago. I looked for old logs to see if I could work anything out myself, but nothing from then of course.

Okay, well I guess you could create a Windows scheduled task to copy out the TV Server log files every day or something like that.

It's not a guide info issue either. In this particular instance the .xml file for this programme was correctly showing the description and scheduled time (1 hour plus 7 pre and 15 post minutes) but the actual length of the recording was 53 minutes.

Right, that's a pretty sure sign of a signal glitch.

Would a break in signal strength cause a recording to simply stop?

Yes, for some tuners... but not for all, because some tuners automatically recover/retune when a "break" occurs.

 

[wjw]

Yes, for some tuners... but not for all, because some tuners automatically recover/retune when a "break" occurs.

If that really was the cause of the problem then it looks as though my tuners don't.

If you delete all your channels then all your schedules that refer to specific channels (eg. "every time on this channel") will also be broken. That is, if they're not automatically deleted at the same time the channels are deleted. Therefore if I were you I wouldn't do this.

Had suspected there might be something - although I had hoped that schedules would be preserved independently and tuning details only looked up at the actual times of recording. If that's not to be then I need to be extremely careful. Another option might be to make sure that recordings are only ever scheduled via TVWishlist so that in the event of any changes like this one could just run that again immediately after making any changes to tuning cards etc. so as to easily rebuild the recordings schedule.

Thanks again.

 

[mm1352000]

If that really was the cause of the problem then it looks as though my tuners don't.

...so if we assume for now that the problem is signal related [until more info can be gathered] then the best solution would be to improve your signal strength/quality. Tuners don't usually stop streaming unless the interruption is relatively severe and/or prolonged.

although I had hoped that schedules would be preserved independently

To be clear, you are consistently referring to tuning details (each channel has zero or more of these) whereas I am referring to channels (which are the "things" that are actually linked to schedules). If you actually do mean tuning details then please be aware you can delete and recreate the tuning details for a channel without wrecking the schedule(s) associated with that channel. The critical point is that you can't delete the channels.

If you decide to look further at this then I'd suggest it should be easier to manually check the tuning details for channels against KingOfSat, which should have most if not all of the details you would need to compare against. You only need to check the channel(s) for which recordings have been cut short.

 

[wjw]

Another occurrence of my problem as described in the first post. A programme stopped prematurely, even though the is recorded in the .xml file as having completed normally. This time I have a log!

An extract from the full log is attached. I have taken out what I believe to be the relevant chunk of time, starting with the note that it is time to record the selected programme and ending with what appears to be the final act at the lines:

[2015-12-29 20:15:12,255] [Log ] [27 ] [DEBUG] - MediaInfoWrapper.MediaInfoWrapper: Inspecting media : D:\Recordings 5\BBC2 HD\Christmas University Challenge\Christmas University Challenge - 2015-12-29 - S5 - E7_10 - Durham v LSE.ts
[2015-12-29 20:15:12,258] [Log ] [27 ] [DEBUG] - MediaInfoWrapper.MediaInfoWrapper: VideoDuration : 245480
[2015-12-29 20:15:12,261] [Log ] [27 ] [DEBUG] - D:\Recordings 5\BBC2 HD\Christmas University Challenge\Christmas University Challenge - 2015-12-29 - S5 - E7_10 - Durham v LSE.ts duration is 245, TimeIntBwThumbs is 92

A 30 minute programme, starting 7 mins. before and ending 15 mins. after. However, when going to view there is only about 4 mins. of actual recording.

Can anyone see anything that suggests why? What does the "duration" of 245 mean in "Christmas University Challenge - 2015-12-29 - S5 - E7_10 - Durham v LSE.ts duration is 245"

Help please!

 

[mm1352000]

An extract from the full log is attached.

This extract doesn't hold much meaning. If I were you, the place I'd start looking is in the TV service and TsWriter log files. Confirm that TV service appears to start and stop the recording at the intended times. Confirm whether there are any indications of problems (eg. continuity errors) in the TsWriter log, particularly at/around the 4 minute mark.

Can anyone see anything that suggests why?

Not in that snippet. That's from when you view the recording.

What does the "duration" of 245 mean...

245480 is the duration in milliseconds.
245 seconds is ~4 minutes, as you say.

[edit: I see you attached the TV service log file extract while I was replying. The recording starts at 19:23. 4 minutes later, BINGO (!):
[2015-12-29 19:27:05,204] [Log ] [12 ] [INFO ] - Controller: find free card for channel Channel 5
...
[2015-12-29 19:27:05,414] [Log ] [12 ] [INFO ] - dvbs:BuildGraph
...
[2015-12-29 19:27:05,476] [Log ] [12 ] [INFO ] - dvb: -TBS 6982 BDA Digital Capture A DVBS
[2015-12-29 19:27:05,476] [Log ] [12 ] [INFO ] - dvb: -TBS 6982 BDA Digital Capture B DVBS

In other words: you triggered loading of your Hauppauge tuner. As part of that loading, some of the TBS tuner components were also checked. TBS tuners are prone to dropping their stream in such circumstances. Consider preloading them.]

 

[wjw]

edit: I see you attached the TV service log file extract while I was replying.

Yes, simply forgot to do it properly!

Anyway, thanks for identifying the possible problem. I'll do as you suggest. Pity about that characteristic of the TBS tuners- but it probably explains the other times this has happened. Unfortunately it really looked like a good value card.

 

[RobNorthcott]

FWIW, that sounds extremely similar to what was happening to me a couple of months back when I started using a TBS dual DVB-S2 tuner. In my case, setting the lower-priority tuner to preload fixed the problem (thanks mm1352000 )

I've had a couple of cut-short recordings since then but it's been times when it's been so windy I'm not surprised the signal dropped. IME the TBS tuners do seem a little more prone to giving up in these situations than the BlackGold one I had before, but only during fairly extreme weather (which we've had a bit of recently of course!)

 

[wjw]

And I thought I'd done a reasonably detailed search to see if I could find anything on this problem before posting! Just shows how much the proper wording of the question matters.

I've now set both the TBS tuners to preload - hope I get the same result as you seem to have!

 

[RobNorthcott]

My thread is here if you're interested - sounds like a very similar thing to your problem so hopefully preloading will be the solution in your case as well.