[confirm] TV picture freeze, MP unresponsive, ends in BSOD (1 Viewer)

[doveman]

Can you completely remove the nvidia decoder?

I have mentioned previously that the Nova-T 500 is not a happy beast under XP. You indicated that you knew about the problems and had them under control with an appropriate software update. I can't comment on that since I have not followed the problems with this card since moving to Windows 7.

However, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with MediaPortal that means it canot work with a Nova-T 500. Mine is damn near bulletproof, albeit under Windows 7.

None of the team as far as I know are using XP any more, and maybe it is a good time to upgrade. There is little doubt that you are experiencing hardware or driver problems.

Have you tried dropping back to the last version of MP that worked for you and seeing if the problems disappear?

Mark

I will try removing the Nvidia decoder if it happens again, but hopefully it won't now I'm using the Cyberlink one.

Regarding the Nova-T 500 and XP, from the Hauppauge thread it seems it's just fine with XP SP2 but that SP3 had a problem with it. As I mentioned before, an update to the usb dlls has sorted that out and the problem with BSOD that it caused was quite obvious as the BSOD always mentioned usbehci.dll.

It would be unfortunate if the team abandoned XP, as an awful lot of people (certainly that I speak to, maybe not on this forum) have no desire or intention to move to Windows 7 and it would certainly add to the cost of building a MP machine, making alternatives that still support XP more attractive.

I don't quite understand why you suggest dropping back to an earlier version of MP if you're sure that it's a hardware or driver problem. I can't remember if I was using the Nvidia decoder with RC5 as sometimes when I update MP I start with the Cyberlink decoder and then another MP update comes along before I have the chance to try other decoders, but I certainly used it with a fairly recent RC without any problems. Perhaps the Nvidia decoder has problems with Cat 10.5, which I've only updated to recently, or maybe it's less forgiving of bad signals than the Cyberlink decoder, and crashes and leads to BSOD.

Anyway, hopefully things will be ok with the Cyberlink decoder.

I use the NVidia MPEG2 decoder on XP and have no issues with BSOD etc.

I was having a few issues with MP and replacing the TV card solved it. I now have
PEAK DUAL DVB-T Digital TV PCI Card: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

which cost me about £30 (which is fairly cheap for a dual DVB-T and I see is on now for £23 probably plus postage)

This card resolved all the issues I was having (standby, resume, crashes etc) in one go.

Probably not what you want to hear but this might be a solution?

Cool, thanks for the tip, that's about 1/2 the price of the Nova-T 500 so I'll bear it in mind if I need another card.

Is it a USB bridge design like the Nova-T 500?

 

[jameson_uk]

Cool, thanks for the tip, that's about 1/2 the price of the Nova-T 500 so I'll bear it in mind if I need another card.

Is it a USB bridge design like the Nova-T 500?

No appears to be direct PCI and have had no issues what so ever with resume

 

[elliottmc]

I don't quite understand why you suggest dropping back to an earlier version of MP if you're sure that it's a hardware or driver problem.

Well, if you drop back to an older version and things work fine, then it is a recent change in MediaPortal that is causing your problem. If not, then chances are it is a hardware/driver problem.

Mark

 

[doveman]

Cool, thanks for the tip, that's about 1/2 the price of the Nova-T 500 so I'll bear it in mind if I need another card.

Is it a USB bridge design like the Nova-T 500?

No appears to be direct PCI and have had no issues what so ever with resume

Makes it even more attractive. The Nova-T 500 seems to be OK now, but it took a lot of work to get there so a more simple PCI card, with no USB gubbins, would definitely be my choice if I need another one. Cheers for the info.

I don't quite understand why you suggest dropping back to an earlier version of MP if you're sure that it's a hardware or driver problem.

Well, if you drop back to an older version and things work fine, then it is a recent change in MediaPortal that is causing your problem. If not, then chances are it is a hardware/driver problem.

Mark

Fair enough. I'll probably just stick with the Cyberlink decoder if it doesn't give me any problems though, as I can't be bothered going through all the hassle of downgrading MP to try and find out where the problem with the Nvidia one started. I might see if there's a newer version of the Nvidia decoder and try that with RC6 (or later) sometime.