Turning Timeshifting OFF causes loss of sound and stuttering TV (1 Viewer)

[TesterBoy]

MediaPortal Version: 0.2.2.0
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo (4x3)
Windows Version: WinXP Pro SP2
CPU Type: AMD Athlon™ 64/FX/X2
HDD: 250GB
Memory: 1GB
Motherboard:
Motherboard Chipset: GeForce something or other(?)
Motherboard Bios:
Video Card: Gigabyte GV-NX73G128D
Video Card Driver: nVidia Forceware 91.31
Sound Card:
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Hauppage WinTV PVR 150
1. TV Card Type: analog
1. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: MPV
MPEG2 Audio Codec: MPA
Satelite/CableTV Provider: SkyTV (NZ)
HTPC Case: Shuttle SN21G5
Cooling: Silent X ICE
Power Supply:
Remote: MS MCE
TV: Panasonic TX68P150Z (CRT)
TV - HTPC Connection: S-Video


Error Description
To produce the logfiles, I did the following (plus using the testtool to gather everything up):

1. Turn Timeshifting and TV OFF;
2. Shutdown MP;
3. Clear event logs etc (TT Step 1)
4. Start MP
5. Go to (My) TV
6. Turn TV ON (TS is still OFF)
7. Waited (should be visible in the logs?)
8. Turned TV Off
9. Turned TV off again (see below)
8. Shutdown MP
9. TT Step 2...

The wait is sufficient time for

a) the sound to first start stuttering and then disappear completely, and
b) the TV picture to start stuttering at around perhaps 2-5 frames per second.

This situation would remain until I turn timeshifting ON, at which point the sound returns and the picture smooths itself back out again.

Note: I had to turn the TV off twice - I think I got a second keypress from the OK button, whcih turned TV on again for me... (I'm using the MCE Remote Replacement Plugin, and sometimes it seems to repeat... That's a different problem, obviously)

AFICR, this has always happened since I got MP - I am forced to use Timeshifting...

 

[TesterBoy]

@^#$%

Obviously, I had a momentary lapse of reason when posting last night - this should be called "Turning Timeshifting OFF causes loss of sound and stuttering TV".

Sorry guys...

 

[ronilse]

Hi,
Changed the topic, so maybe someone can confirm it, will test it tomorrow after a good night sleep

Regards
Roy

 

[TesterBoy]

Good news (sort of): We have found a work-around for the problem. Setting the Process Affinity for MediaPortal to a single CPU fixes both this problem, and the timeshifting/recording-duration problem talked about at https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/showthread.php?t=11675

This has worked so far for dgtalzone and me.

To set the affinity temporarily (until MP is restarted) use Task Manager; right click MediaPortal.exe and select "Set Affinity..."

To set it permanently, use the "Microsoft Application Compatibility Manager" from the Microsoft Download Centre - see https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/showthread.php?t=3017 for details

Ronilse - is this the fix? Or should it be a change to MP (presumably there's something non-threadsafe)?

 

[DalaNorth]

Microsoft has release a fix for dual-core related problems that has solved a lot of problems for me here at work. I haven't tried it for MediaPortal, but IF it solves your problem we won't have to spend several development hours hunting down the threading issues.

Patch: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=C2AB5A48-8240-4934-BBD8-34FB8A0FCE3B
Info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896256

/DalaNorth

 

[TesterBoy]

I have now installed the MS hotfix, and can say that it doesn't have much (if any) effect on the timeshifting problem.

It has improved the (possibly related) problem with the recording duration being weird, but hasn't fixed it completely - the error in the recorded duration is now much less (21:15 for a 20 min recording), and may be related to the length of the recording. Testing continues...

 

[TesterBoy]

All fixed

In the end, I didn't bother with the AMD optimiser, since the hotfix does appear to have fixed all these problems properly once I fixed the registry (according to the instructions at the second link above), and added /usepmtimer to the end of the last line of my BOOT.INI

For detailed instructions on the last bit (which I didn't see at MS?) see

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

Don't know if it's documented anywhere else...

I'm now running with the affinity fix disabled - MP is running happily in two cpus...