Stuttering on LiveTV (2 Viewers)

[putkonen]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. However, I don't think that the issue is related to my display adapter. The problem only occurs with live tv and new recordings. If I watch recordings which were done before last Sunday (when I installed Vista), they work fine. Live tv looks like there is a short loss of signal once in 10 seconds or show. I never saw this behaviour with XP, so I suspect there might be something to change in my Vista configuration.

Attached is a log, I did a brief test around 17.3.09 19:36.

 

[tourettes]

Attached is a log, I did a brief test around 17.3.09 19:36.

Most likely a signal error, or something wrong with tge DVB card drivers.

17-03-2009 19:36:02.124 [fa4]Video Continuity error... d ( prev 8 )
17-03-2009 19:36:02.527 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... 3 ( prev 0 )
17-03-2009 19:36:02.577 [fa4]Video Continuity error... b ( prev f )
17-03-2009 19:36:02.677 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... 8 ( prev 6 )
17-03-2009 19:36:19.873 [fa4]Video Continuity error... f ( prev 8 )
17-03-2009 19:36:19.873 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... c ( prev a )
17-03-2009 19:36:20.378 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... 5 ( prev 2 )
17-03-2009 19:36:21.134 [fa4]Video Continuity error... c ( prev 6 )
17-03-2009 19:36:21.134 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... 3 ( prev 1 )
17-03-2009 19:36:23.503 [fa4]Video Continuity error... f ( prev 7 )
17-03-2009 19:36:23.503 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... d ( prev b )
17-03-2009 19:36:24.159 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... 1 ( prev f )
17-03-2009 19:36:24.159 [fa4]Video Continuity error... a ( prev 5 )
17-03-2009 19:36:30.309 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... e ( prev b )
17-03-2009 19:36:30.766 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... 7 ( prev 5 )
17-03-2009 19:36:30.919 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... c ( prev a )
17-03-2009 19:36:32.532 [fa4]Audio Continuity error... e ( prev c )

 

[Lotsofjazz]

...Most probably the drivers as it was OK with XP. Did you do a clean Vista install or an update from XP (if possible at all... I don't know)?

Re-install and/or update the tuner card drivers might help.

I still cannot see your configuration, but if you have the FireDTV or floppyDTV card you must install the BDA drivers and NOT the MCE drivers.

Because you are now using Vista, RAM may be an issue with your on board GFX card. Because Vista uses much more RAM then XP, there might be not enough left for the GFX.. I know some motherboards regulate this RAM distribution automatically, but if your BIOS has the option to set it fixed to a higher value I would choose that option. You need at least 256Mb of RAM for your GFX card, if possible 512Mb or more. It is at least worth to try as it is very easy to adjust in the BIOS.

Lots

 

[Freekazoid]

I am having the same issues as some other people here, with video continuity issues appearing in my logs. However, it was working fine before and as my HTPC system is not my primary system I have not made any installation or hardware changes that could cause this.

Specs
AMD 64 3500+ 2,2ghz
Windows XP Professional SP3
MediaPortal 1.0 stable
1GB DDR3200 ram
Geforce 6600GT 128mb
2x 250GB 7200RPM 8mb cache HDD
-- I know these aren't exactly top specs, but they used to handle mediaportal TV fine. I could even watch 720p movies no problem!

(Timeshift buffer is on disk D:/ , primary disk C:/ holds windows, mediaportal and recording folder)

I am getting loads of stuttering in live TV, sometimes MediaPortal itself is also acting slow during TV watching. However, I can perfectly watch TV in the FireDTV viewer, and I have 100% signal in that program. I checked the TV Config for MediaPortal and was having 100% signal as well.

I have tried the following:
Several codecs, was set to ffdshow, tried MPA/MPV and Cyberlink Hardware Decoding codecs.
Moving timeshift buffer to a different disk
Removed virusscan software
Reinstalled/Updated drivers and firmware for DTV Card
Reinstalled/Updated Nvidia drivers
Turned off plugins and switched to Blue3
Rescan TV channels

 

[putkonen]

I have 4 gigs of RAM and the maximum (512 megs) allocated to display adapter.

I don't think that the signal is weak as I've used MP with XP for more than a year and never saw this issue.

I did a clean Vista install.

 

[Freekazoid]

A clean install of MP seems to have fixed my issue. I'll report back a bit later though, as I'm not sure what the problem was and if reinstalling resolved it forgood.

 

[putkonen]

Have already confirmed it's working now for you? I installed both Vista and MP from the scratch when I moved to Vista so it would be strange if reinstall fixed it.

 

[Freekazoid]

Yup, it seems to work perfectly fine. Please note that I did a complete removal including registry keys. I uninstalled both the TV Server/Client, MediaPortal AND the MS SQL server. I then rebooted my PC and installed MediaPortal again and redid all the settings etc.

 

[putkonen]

TV Server configuration shows full signal quality for both of my DVB-C cards. Still there are those errors I had in the log once in 5 seconds. Strange!

If 1.0.1 arrives soon I could do a fresh install. I'm using MySQL, and a similar setup was working fine in XP.

 

[burken]

TV Server configuration shows full signal quality for both of my DVB-C cards. Still there are those errors I had in the log once in 5 seconds. Strange!

If 1.0.1 arrives soon I could do a fresh install. I'm using MySQL, and a similar setup was working fine in XP.

Do you have EPG grabbing turned on on your DVB-C cards? It can cause stuttering in some cases.
If that doesn't help, try to find out what happens every 5 seconds. Eg. some hard drives have very aggressive power saving features that causes them to try to park their heads very often. That can be such a thing you should look for.

burken