Stuttering/Corruption in OTA TV after random period of time (1 Viewer)

[jickler]

Hi everyone! I'm new to Mediaportal, but I'm really enjoying it. Made the switch from XBMC because I wanted to get better live TV functionality, and with a little regex tweaking the MP-TV/Moving Pictures plugins do a much better job scraping the library on my roommate's media server, which has a lot of questionably named files.

Anyway, the problem I'm having is that after watching TV for a certain period of time, the quality inevitably begins to degrade. Once it starts deteriorating, it continually gets worse until it's completely unwatchable. The visible symptoms are heavy artifacting, stuttering, and sound distortion. It used to happen after 10-20 minutes, but lately it's been stable for up to several hours before beginning to degrade. I moved my timeshift buffer to a ramdisk and installed the SAF codec pack that seems to be popular here. I'm not sure if that's what led to the improvement or if it was just coincidental.

I attached my logs and put my system specs in my profile, so hopefully I've included all the necessary info.

Thanks for your help!

EDIT: I forgot to add that when I plug the antenna directly into the TV I can watch everything without issue, which rules out the question of signal quality.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello and welcome jickler

Thanks for the log files and the system information - can't tell you how nice it is not to have to ask.

So, we have the classic continuity errors in the TsWriter logs. This means the problem is a TV Server problem; nothing to do with playback (MediaPortal). Most common causes of these log entries are:

1. Poor signal quality.
2. Stressed HDD.

There are other causes like overheating components, but they tend to be much rarer.

From the readings in your log files, your signal quality looks okay (though don't take that as a guarantee - there is no substitute for checking with professional equipment). So, I'm leaning towards option 2.

Do you run Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials (or any other security software)?
Security software is a classic cause of symptoms like this. It stresses out your HDD by monitoring TV Server's every move.
So, if you do run software like this, please ensure you've added exceptions for the MediaPortal and TV Server program, timeshift, record and configuration/data folders.
If not, please open task manager (ctrl + alt + delete), go to the performance tab, and open the resource monitor. In there, please take a look at the HDD/IO utilisation levels when the problem is occurring. Is something heavily using your HDD?

mm

 

[RonD]

This may not apply to your problem but something to check. Make sure you have disabled virus scan software like Microsoft Security Essentials, Defender etc, from real-time scanning your recording folder, timeshift folder, and at least the MediaPortal Client Log folder. My system was working fine but started having major problems a few weeks ago. see the following message. hmm must have hit post at about the same time

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/mediaportal-vs-microsoft-security-essentials.124689/

 

[jickler]

Wow, thanks for getting back to me so quickly!

I run Sophos but I have realtime scanning disabled. I also went ahead and excluded the Mediaportal folders from any sort of scanning just to be safe. The problem was still occurring just now with between 2-5% disk usage and ~30% CPU usage, on a channel that I tuned on my TV without issue.

I can't seem to enable to DXVA in the PDVD13 codec, thus the high-ish CPU consumption, but that's an issue for another thread at another time. At any rate, I've experienced this problem using both LAV and ffdshow, so the choice of codec is probably irrelevant to this particular problem.

 

[RonD]

I use DXVA with the LAV codecs/filters that are suggested when you download and install MePo. Works fine on my systems.

 

[jickler]

Yeah, I'll probably switch back to those. I just tried the SAF codecs as part of the process of elimination for this problem, but there was no noticeable difference.

 

[mm1352000]

Right, okay.

The disk usage sounds fair... but the CPU usage seems a bit overboard. You shouldn't need DXVA for OTA TV. I mean, it is only MPEG 2 not h.264/AVC.

Which process is using all the CPU?
Also, how full is the HDD you're using for timeshifting (C: by default)?

 

[jickler]

Mediaportal is using all the CPU. Everything else is almost completely idle. I'm using a 2GB ramdisk for timeshifting, with the settings laid out here: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...k_for_Timeshifting/Suggested_Ramdisk_Settings

 

[mm1352000]

Okay, that changes a few assumptions I made. A RAM disk is unlikely to get too stressed even with security software.

I'd suggest to double check the RAM disk is not running out of space. It shouldn't be if you've configured it according to the wiki... and in that case I think we need to reconsider the signal quality possibility.

How are you splitting the signal between your TV and your PC?
Would it be possible to try to remove the split and see if that helps the situation?
Does the problem vary from channel to channel? I note that according to your scan logs the channels with the lowest signal quality are WCVW-HD (82%) and the 3 WCVE channels (85%); best is WRIC TV and LiveWel at 98%.

 

[jickler]

I'm not splitting the signal between my PC and my TV. I've been switching my antenna between them to test the results. Tonight in particular, my girlfriend wanted to watch Reign on WUPV. When I started it on my computer, the stuttering and corruption occurred immediately, which is actually somewhat uncommon as it usually takes time to kick in. When I disconnected the antenna from my computer and moved it to the TV, the picture and sound were perfect for the duration of the show. Then when I reconnected it to my PC after her show was over the channel was unwatchable.

The problem does sometimes vary from channel to channel, but there's no discernible pattern. The other night I couldn't watch any channel clearly except for WCVE, which as you pointed out gives me the weakest signal.