TV is stuttering at encrypted channels on Mini-PC (1 Viewer)

[Marcus Venturi]

Ordered a Sumvision Cyclone Mini PC in UK for my multi seat Installation.

Most things work so far, but if I try to watch scrambled channels from the server, the image on the client often stutters and freezes.
If I watch the same channels with my desktop everything works fine.

Watching not scrambled channels works perfect on the Mini PC.

The strange thing is that my Cine-S2 DVBS card and the CAM is in the server, so descrambling is done there.

As watching scrambled channels from my desktop - connected to the same server - works I have no idea why it shouldn't work with the Mini PC.

Any idea what's going wrong? Any help is appreciated.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

Are this channels 1080i ones? In that case you are probably seeing the effect if your CPU just throittling down because it overheats. Verify the CPU frequency. At the beginning it will probably run at 1.8 GHz and then quickly drop to 900 MHz

 

[mm1352000]

@Marcus Venturi
Please try using the default DirectSound audio renderer instead of MediaPortal Audio Renderer for TV.

 

[Marcus Venturi]

@mm1352000 : Wow! With the Default DirectSound Audio renderer it seems to work. Watching 2 encrypted channels on 2 different clients seems to be possible. The only thing I noticed is, when switching between encrypted channels while watching an encrypted on another client it sometimes hangs. But this seems to be a server side problem.

@HTPCSourcer : It stutters right from the beginning, even when the CPU is not hot, but I've seen that CPU usage is moving between 70% and 100%. So temperature might get a problem when running longer time. At least after testing 15 minutes it doesn't throttle (the case bottom is warm but not hot). I will test that tomorrow for a longer time and report then.

Thank you both for the fast response.

 

[mm1352000]

Wow! With the Default DirectSound Audio renderer it seems to work.

Mmmm, I suspected it might. As the wiki says:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...nfiguration/9_Codecs_and_Renderer/1_TV_Codecs

Tip
MediaPortal Audio Renderer is often recommended for smooth video playback. However, it may not work with your TV provider(s). If you have TV playback problems (pauses, unsynchronised video/audio, no audio at all) when using the MediaPortal Audio Renderer, try another option (eg. DirectSound).

In fact I do not recommend using MPAR for TV, regardless of provider. More often than not it seems to cause problems.

The only thing I noticed is, when switching between encrypted channels while watching an encrypted on another client it sometimes hangs. But this seems to be a server side problem.

That might be due to CAM capabilities/configuration.

 

[Marcus Venturi]

I testet the Mini-PC for longer than an hour. Looks like there are no temperature problems.

 

[Marcus Venturi]

@mm1352000 : Some findings concerning my CAM problems:

Sometimes when switching between encrypted channels and MTD, MediaPortal seems kick a channel on a tuner and tries to use the next free tuner which then hangs.

The following setting on my DELTACAM Twin 2.0 seems to solve that problem:

In Settings / Advanced Settings / CAM Settings / Descrambling Control

switch from "Deterministic" to "Predicted".

In "Predicted" mode the CAM always reports a not encrypted channel (if the CAID fits) before trying to decrypt. Looks like MediaPortal has problems if the channel is first reported as encrypted and later - if decryption is possible - as not encrypted (maybe a timing problem?)

 

[mm1352000]

In "Predicted" mode the CAM always reports a not encrypted channel (if the CAID fits) before trying to decrypt. Looks like MediaPortal has problems if the channel is first reported as encrypted and later - if decryption is possible - as not encrypted (maybe a timing problem?)

Sorry, I don't understand any of this part.

What do you mean by "...the CAM... reports..."?
What and how does the CAM report?

Probably the only way I will be able to understand is if you can provide TV service and TsWriter log files showing what you're describing.

Note that MediaPortal does not do any CAID processing when CAMs are used. In fact for Digital Devices all we do is pass the program number. The DD driver takes care of constructing the CA PMT decrypt request to pass to the CAM.

 

[Marcus Venturi]

Here a excerpt from the card manual:

Descrambling Control [Deterministic/Predicted]

Deterministic [default]

The DeltaCam flags the streams of a service as being descrambled only in case they are really
being descrambled. This enables very fine-grained CAM cascading capabilities.

Predicted

The DeltaCam already flags the streams as being descrambled in case it detects a match
between the supported CAS(CAID) of the desired service and the inserted SmartCard(s). At
this point however, it does not know for sure whether the service can really be descrambled.
The flagging might be wrong, for example in case the provider is not supported by the
inserted SmartCard(s) or entitlements are missing, resulting in a cascaded CAM not being able
to descramble the service either. Only use this setting if you experience unexpected delays
or “service scrambled” messages when switching services with your TV/STB!