TV Only works first time (1 Viewer)

[doncoolio]

Hi,

I have an issue where the TV card seems to work only on the first access. As in I can watch TV, but if I exit,, media portal, or press the stop button, or simply turn the TV off (left menu in my TV), then it doesn't come back on. It is as if the TV wasn't really turned off and mediaportal still has a handle on it and hence can't open it again. I've tried to look through the logs and there are no obvious errors and it "seems" to be fine.

Is this a known issue?
What extra info can I provide to help resolve this?
My DVB-S Card is a twinhan AD-SP200(1027) of which I added support from in capturecards.xml

Thanks,

Giulio

BTW, the TV Server service also takes ages (10's of minutes) to shutdown, if it ever does, which may be related.

 

[Spragleknas]

You need to follow the guidelines for support request.
Link in my signature. Hope things works out for you

 

[doncoolio]

TV-Server Version:
MediaPortal Version: 1.0 RC2
MediaPortal Skin: Standard/Default
Windows Version: Vista SP1
CPU Type: ADM BE-2350
HDD: WD 500GB x3 in RAID 5
Memory: 2GB DDR2
Motherboard:
Video Card: onboard
Video Card Driver: 175.19
Sound Card: onboard
Sound Card AC3: none
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Twinhan AD-SP200(1027)
1. TV Card Type: DVB-S
1. TV Card Driver: V1.0.2.9
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: NVIDIA Video
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow
h.264 Video Codec: CyberLink h.264/AVC Decoder (Azurewave)
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Atrs 28.2°E 2A/2B/2D Eurobird 1
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote:
TV:
TV - HTPC Connection: S-VIDEO (1st monitor), HDMI (2nd monitor)

OK, above are the specs of the system. Tried again tonight and got a different reaction. Managed to stop start the TV 4 times, no problem. Then went to watch some videos (xvid using my videos), then went back to My TV and just selecting it showed the blue background of the skin in full screen but it never loaded the TV. Waited a few minutes, then killed mediaportal in task manager as it was "Not Responding". Clicking end task crashed mediaportal, attached is the log.

I wondering if it is a codec thing? Might try swapping to the others available, whats the suggested ones to use?

Thanks for your help.

Giulio

 

[doncoolio]

OK, happened again today, trying to tune into radio 1 over DVB-S. See the end of the log for attempt to tune.

On a side note, I noticed in the logs that at certain times it fails to connect to the DB saying failed login which is stranage. I don't see how it can work most of the time then suddenly fail unless MP is forgetting part of the connection string somewhere.

 

[doncoolio]

OK, after some hunting I seem to have it more stable. The changes I made were:

1) I had a dummy DVB-T driver for my DVB-S card (from when I tried to get it to work in Vista Media Centre). Although I uninstalled this MediaPortal still thought it was there as described here and here. So I deleted the non existant card and it seemed a bit better.

2) Next, I originally swapped all codecs to ffdshow, this actually caused more issues. SO I swapped all video codecs back to NVIDIA (mpeg) and Cyberlink (h.264), leaving ffdshow for audio.

Now all seems much better (so far) apart from:

1) In DVD player, if I select to skip to Root Menu and the play a DVD, the video just shows a black screen, however if I skip to any location then it works. Playing a DVD normally seems to be OK.

2) Loading the guide and swapping channels seems to be very slow (about 20 seconds), not sure if this is mediaportal or my tuner. Any idea where I can look to see where the slow down is?

OK, slowness in loading is definitely mediaportal as the native software that came with the card changes channel in 1.5-2 seconds. Mediaportal also has the dvanatage of a RAM driver whereas the native software is going to disc.

 

[infinite.loop]

Is this a known issue?
What extra info can I provide to help resolve this?
My DVB-S Card is a twinhan AD-SP200(1027) of which I added support from in capturecards.xml


BTW, the TV Server service also takes ages (10's of minutes) to shutdown, if it ever does, which may be related.

erm....

why do you add the support to the capturecards.xml when you use the TV-Server?

the TV-Server is not using this xml......

 

[doncoolio]

Really? It seemed to only find it after I modified the file. When I get home I'll try to remove the file and see if everything works.

 

[infinite.loop]

Really? It seemed to only find it after I modified the file. When I get home I'll try to remove the file and see if everything works.

this file is not even located in the TV-Server installation folder.....

are you sure that you understood how MediaPortal and the TV-Server were working?

1) In DVD player, if I select to skip to Root Menu and the play a DVD, the video just shows a black screen, however if I skip to any location then it works. Playing a DVD normally seems to be OK.

read "Display Issues" in the manual.​

OK, slowness in loading is definitely mediaportal as the native software that came with the card changes channel in 1.5-2 seconds. Mediaportal also has the dvanatage of a RAM driver whereas the native software is going to disc.

no clue what you mean by "RAM driver"......

fyi, tv-server changes channels in 1 - 1.5 seconds here.​

 

[doncoolio]

I've renamed CaptureCardDefinitions.xml so Mediaportal wouldn't find it and everything still works as I would expect after your comments above.

However, what I didn't expect is that changing channels is now faster. Still slow but it now takes 5-7 seconds which makes me think MP was getting it's nickers in a twist somewhere.

On a side note, I forgot to mention that when I deleted the capture card in TV Server, I couldn't via the config GUI so I deleted the line from the Cards table in SQL Server.