- February 15, 2011
- 6
- 0
- Home Country
- United Kingdom
MediaPortal Version: 1.1.2
MediaPortal Skin: default
Windows Version: XP SP3
CPU Type: Pentium 3 Tualatin 1.4GHz
HDD: Western Digital 200GB PATA....
Memory: 256MB
Motherboard: Asus TUSL2-C
Video Card: Matrox G400
Video Card Driver: 5.96.4.0
Sound Card: Zoltrix Nightingale (C-Media 8738)
Sound Card AC3: er, yes
Sound Card Driver: 5.12.1.630
1. TV Card: Twinhan (VisionPlus) PCI
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: 1.2.1.9
MPEG2 Video Codec: nothing I've installed specially
MPEG2 Audio Codec: same
h.264 Video Codec: same
Satelite/CableTV Provider: UK free-to-air DVB-T
HTPC Case: Asus Vento tower
Cooling: big Zalman copper heat-sink, no fan
Power Supply: Q-Technologies 400W quiet PSU
Remote: VisionPlus bundled one
TV: Samsung SyncMaster 940MW
TV - HTPC Connection: VGA
Firstly, thanks to everyone involved in MediaPortal -- although it doesn't quite work for me yet, I can tell it's the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of people.
My problem is that I can't watch TV with my Twinhan DVB-T PCI card. Scanning for channels *almost* always fails with "No signal". This is using the TV Server configuration app, selecting the server and card, choosing the appropriate regional transmitter settings (UK - Oxford) and clicking "scan".
I know that my card and drivers work, because I can watch TV in VLC just fine by entering the right frequency manually. I can also see that the TV server scan is trying all the right frequencies. The "signal level" and "signal quality" bars stay at zero the whole time, and a red "No signal" message appears for each mux in turn.
I say "almost always" because I did *once* get it to tune in successfully to a couple of muxes. This occurred when I'd just been fiddling with a few settings: the "tune (seconds)" setting (in General Settings -> Scan; I increased it to 5), "linkage scanner" (turned on, was off) and "delay in seconds before TVServer detects cards" (set to 3). However, it only worked for the first two muxes, then did the usual "no signal" thing for the others. And even worse, without changing the settings from the apparently successful values, subsequent tuning attempts keep failing, *even* for the muxes that had worked the one time. Some channels are now in the channel list, but I can't watch them in MediaPortal -- no signal, again. I have tried some other values for the settings I fiddled with, but have had no luck.
One observation is that the server doesn't appear to be waiting very long before moving to the next frequency -- a few seconds at most, and less when trying the +/-167kHz alternatives. It doesn't seem to matter how many seconds I choose for "tune" in the settings. On the successful run, it seemed to spend longer on the frequencies that worked, although that's probably because it got a signal lock and was busy reading the channel info.
I've attached a log that has several failing runs and, also, the only two successful tunings. The first successful tuning is at 00:19:29, and the second (and final) one is at 00:19:52. All the others I've ever tried have failed.
I get this bug with version 1.1.2 of MediaPortal. But note that this log is generated by MediaPortal 1.0.2, because I've been experimenting with older versions to see if the bug is a regression. I really do get exactly the same bug with 1.1.2 -- I can post logs for that too if you like, but 1.0.2 just happens to be what I have installed right now, and the successful tunings in this log may be useful.
Thanks for reading, and for any help. I'm quite enthusiastic about getting MediaPortal up and running, so if a fix emerges for this bug, and one other that is a showstopper for my using MediaPortal (I'll post a separate report in due course), I'll be keen to make a donation to the project.
PS: I'm using the Twinhan 1.2.1.9 driver because 1.2.3.8 hard-locks my machine *extremely* reliably. From using other applications, I know that 1.2.1.9 works nicely and seems to be regarded as the most stable by a lot of users. Also, I know my hardware is old! But it's easily sufficient for standard-definition video, and it's quiet, and it works.
MediaPortal Skin: default
Windows Version: XP SP3
CPU Type: Pentium 3 Tualatin 1.4GHz
HDD: Western Digital 200GB PATA....
Memory: 256MB
Motherboard: Asus TUSL2-C
Video Card: Matrox G400
Video Card Driver: 5.96.4.0
Sound Card: Zoltrix Nightingale (C-Media 8738)
Sound Card AC3: er, yes
Sound Card Driver: 5.12.1.630
1. TV Card: Twinhan (VisionPlus) PCI
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: 1.2.1.9
MPEG2 Video Codec: nothing I've installed specially
MPEG2 Audio Codec: same
h.264 Video Codec: same
Satelite/CableTV Provider: UK free-to-air DVB-T
HTPC Case: Asus Vento tower
Cooling: big Zalman copper heat-sink, no fan
Power Supply: Q-Technologies 400W quiet PSU
Remote: VisionPlus bundled one
TV: Samsung SyncMaster 940MW
TV - HTPC Connection: VGA
Firstly, thanks to everyone involved in MediaPortal -- although it doesn't quite work for me yet, I can tell it's the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of people.
My problem is that I can't watch TV with my Twinhan DVB-T PCI card. Scanning for channels *almost* always fails with "No signal". This is using the TV Server configuration app, selecting the server and card, choosing the appropriate regional transmitter settings (UK - Oxford) and clicking "scan".
I know that my card and drivers work, because I can watch TV in VLC just fine by entering the right frequency manually. I can also see that the TV server scan is trying all the right frequencies. The "signal level" and "signal quality" bars stay at zero the whole time, and a red "No signal" message appears for each mux in turn.
I say "almost always" because I did *once* get it to tune in successfully to a couple of muxes. This occurred when I'd just been fiddling with a few settings: the "tune (seconds)" setting (in General Settings -> Scan; I increased it to 5), "linkage scanner" (turned on, was off) and "delay in seconds before TVServer detects cards" (set to 3). However, it only worked for the first two muxes, then did the usual "no signal" thing for the others. And even worse, without changing the settings from the apparently successful values, subsequent tuning attempts keep failing, *even* for the muxes that had worked the one time. Some channels are now in the channel list, but I can't watch them in MediaPortal -- no signal, again. I have tried some other values for the settings I fiddled with, but have had no luck.
One observation is that the server doesn't appear to be waiting very long before moving to the next frequency -- a few seconds at most, and less when trying the +/-167kHz alternatives. It doesn't seem to matter how many seconds I choose for "tune" in the settings. On the successful run, it seemed to spend longer on the frequencies that worked, although that's probably because it got a signal lock and was busy reading the channel info.
I've attached a log that has several failing runs and, also, the only two successful tunings. The first successful tuning is at 00:19:29, and the second (and final) one is at 00:19:52. All the others I've ever tried have failed.
I get this bug with version 1.1.2 of MediaPortal. But note that this log is generated by MediaPortal 1.0.2, because I've been experimenting with older versions to see if the bug is a regression. I really do get exactly the same bug with 1.1.2 -- I can post logs for that too if you like, but 1.0.2 just happens to be what I have installed right now, and the successful tunings in this log may be useful.
Thanks for reading, and for any help. I'm quite enthusiastic about getting MediaPortal up and running, so if a fix emerges for this bug, and one other that is a showstopper for my using MediaPortal (I'll post a separate report in due course), I'll be keen to make a donation to the project.
PS: I'm using the Twinhan 1.2.1.9 driver because 1.2.3.8 hard-locks my machine *extremely* reliably. From using other applications, I know that 1.2.1.9 works nicely and seems to be regarded as the most stable by a lot of users. Also, I know my hardware is old! But it's easily sufficient for standard-definition video, and it's quiet, and it works.