TV freezes on some channels when adverts come on (1 Viewer)

fitzy75

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January 20, 2007
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MediaPortal Version: 1.2.1
MediaPortal Skin: StreamedMP
Windows Version: XP Home SP3
CPU Type: Pentium 4 3GHz
HDD: Seagate Pipeline HD 500GB
Memory: 4GB DDR2
Motherboard: Dell XPS specific
Video Card: ATI Radeon X300
Video Card Driver: ATI 8.23.0.0
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live 24-bit (Dell specific)
Sound Card AC3: ??
Sound Card Driver: Creative 5.12.1.514
1. TV Card: Pinnacle 7010ix
1. TV Card Type: 2x DVB-T, 2x DVB-S
1. TV Card Driver: BlackGold BGT3540 6.0.0.49
MPEG2 Video Codec: ffdshow
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: ffdshow
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Freesat
HTPC Case: Dell XPS Gen4 Tower
Cooling: Stock Dell cooling
Power Supply: Dell specific, I believe around 450W
Remote: HP RC6 MCE Remote (using USB receiver)
TV: LG 19LS4D 19" & Panasonic Projector
TV - HTPC Connection: VGA(TV) & DVI(Projector using DVI-VGA adapter)


Hey guys

I've done a bit of research on this but seems to be an odd problem and differs from similar ones that some others have experienced, please correct me if I am wrong. I recently upgraded from 1.1.3 to 1.2.1 about 2 month ago and everything was going great for several weeks (and was previously working without problems on 1.1.3), but now on some channels, the TV video will always freeze when the adverts come on but I can still hear sound when this happens and MP is still responsive to the remote and keyboard. If I stop the TV and then start it again then it resolves the problem until the next time an advert comes on when it will freeze again, likewise, if it is playing an advert, and a TV show starts, it will freeze again. I can't remember the exact channels at the moment but 2 that I have had trouble with today have been ITV2 and ITV2+1 when viewing via DVB-S.

I have installed a few plugins recently, all plugins included with the StreamedMP skin, MP-TVSeries, Moving Pictures, Shoutcast Directory, Pandora, MyTorrents. I'm not sure if any of them have installed codecs, but as far as I know the settings hadn't been changed, I have set all codecs to ffdshow now (some of them were previously DXVA something or other) and the same problem still happens with this. It should be noted that KLite Codec Pack has always been installed since I started using MP on this machine and has not caused problems or been updated or changed since it was first installed.

I believe as it is only happening on certain channels that it's something to do with the broadcast but it was fine before and I'm not sure if it's something I've done that caused it or what it is. I also occasionally get the error "connection to the TV service has been lost" message about once a day which requires me to restart the whole computer (restarting the service on it's own doesn't appear to solve it).

Also another problem that I don't know if it is related or not but has been happening considerably longer (but doesn't bother me so much so I hadn't reported it sooner), is if I leave the TV on overnight tuned into a channel which stops broadcasting at a certain time (mostly BBC Three which cuts off at about 3-4am and begins at 7pm the next day), MP will have a black screen, freeze, and become unresponsive which would require it to be terminated with task manager, when this happens there is no audio either and the system tray icons behind the MP window seem to flicker above the MP window. As it happens during the night when we have usually fallen asleep it doesn't bother me too much but thought it would be worth mentioning.

As I have changed all the codecs to ffdshow now, I don't know if these are ideal or not and I didn't think to make a note of the original ones, could someone also advise which ones are recommended or work best on Windows XP? A screenshot of which ones go where would be useful too :)

If it makes any difference, I had a previous thread here when I was using 1.1.3 where one of the developers made a custom TV fix for me, I think the file was tvlibrary.dll, I don't know if this was reset when upgrading to 1.2.1 or not.

Let me know what logs you need and I'll attach them in my next reply :)

Regards
Rob


UPDATE: It's been working fine on Jeremy Kyle for over an hour which has advert breaks about every 10 minutes and it hasn't frozen in that time, but since the next show (Beauty and the Geek) has started, it now freezes at every advert again with the sound still working, this is on ITV2, so now it appears that when watching some shows it happens, others it doesn't :confused:
 

mm1352000

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  • September 1, 2008
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    Hi Rob

    I hope you are well! :)
    I'll get straight to the point: the TVLibrary.dll that I provided wouldn't have had any effect for this issue - it only fixed the scanning problem that you reported. That fix has been integrated into MP 1.2.x. This is something entirely different. I would suggest you post all the logs (Log Files - MediaPortal Wiki) - full context always helps us find problems faster. My suspicion is that the issue is something to do with TsReader, video codecs, and video resolution/format changes between programs and ads.

    mm
     

    charettepa

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    April 2, 2011
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    this may not exactly be the right thread but i am afraid that the one i am posting to may no longer be active as it appears i am the only one posting to it.

    i have had the same tv freezing issue for 1.2 and 1.2.1
    but not on commercials for me its when switching between 2 specific channels
    i am assuming the issue still exists in 1.2.2
    i have not been able to find out when it will be fixed
    however "mm1352000" has been able to modify the tvlibrary.dll to correct the issue
    i have not been able to get a hold of him
    can i please get the new patched tvlibrary.dll in order to continue using mediaportal

    thank you very much in advance for your help
     

    fitzy75

    Portal Member
    January 20, 2007
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    Hi again mm1352000 thanks for your reply.

    Just attached the logs for you, couldn't find a channel it was happening on right now (will try again in the morning) but here are the basic logs if that's anything to go by. I can't remember the exact times it was happening but it will be between 10am (Jan 4th) and 3pm it was happening regularly, the most problematic show was Beauty and the Geek (don't know if the title is mentioned in the logs) on ITV2+1 and ITV2.

    If you find anything related to disk space, I believe this may have caused a few crashes tonight when playing local media, not related to the originally reported issue though so don't worry about that, I have altered a few partitions to give me some more space.

    Hope this is enough to work with until I can reproduce it in the morning.
     

    mm1352000

    Retired Team Member
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  • September 1, 2008
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    Hi again Rob

    I'm sorry, the logs don't go far enough back. If you can reproduce new logs that would be excellent.

    mm
     

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