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[Daveyravey]

Yaobing

Not sure if this is anything anyone else sees but I have noticed a problem with using multiple tuners of different types.

Here is an example of my problem :-

I have 2 dual tuners 1 DVB-T2 and one DVB-S2 they pick up pretty much the same channel line up just one from Ariel and one from satellite. I have grouped all the channels so for example BBC one HD has 4 tuners available etc etc

I am recording a TV programme on Tuner 1 (DVB T2) and decide to watch another programme on a different channel. I quite often get a "No signal" message when I do this. If there is actually no signal surely the logical thing to do is to try tuner2 for the same merged grouped channel. In my case this does not happen. Is this situation normal or should MC try another tuner if there are more than 1 tuners?

Generally to get around the no signal problem I have to close mc20 and open again.

Regards

Dave

[Yaobing]

Currently this is not handled.  Tuner selection is static.  Once selected, there is no recovery if the selected tuner has no signal.  Maybe in the future this can be improved.

[CountryBumkin]

Perhaps a signal amplifier would help. Do you have a single antenna cable then use a splitter to feed each Tuner card?

[DocLotus]

Yaobing
Generally to get around the no signal problem I have to close mc20 and open again.

Same here except in my case it is not a "no signal" channel but a "low signal" channel. I have one channel that for some reason varies throughout the day from low to high signal strength. I have checked it on MS WMC Signal Strength test screen many times & it will vary from 1 bar (low) to 5 bars (good); while 6 bars is the best.

It seems that in many cases whenever MC TV encounters a low signal channel it will lock up (which is unacceptable behavior) requiring closing & re-load of MC.

This is one area where MS WMC does a better job as it simply blanks out (a totally black screen) all video & audio activity as the channels are being changed so if it encounters a low or no signal channel it simply ignores it & allows the viewer to move on to the next channel.

This is part of the same problem I had with slow (& locking up channel changing) when I was using Windows Default Direct Audio.  When I went to WASAI it solved part of the problem as WASAPI (like MS WMC) stops all AUDIO playback on channel change but does little to nothing to stop VIDEO playback which still causes hiccups such as this thread is reporting on.

I firmly believe all playback (both audio & video) should be stopped on channel change. I know in my heart it would resolve the channel changing hiccups that I & the threads OP are having & will result in a much smoother channel change transaction.

Please consider this as a request.

Thanks

[Daveyravey]

similar to my problem then. im sure having 2 different dual tuners is also having a problem. My terrestrial signal (ariel) is the one that has some signal issues due to weather but MC should really be smart enough to at least try to use a different tuner or abort the tuning gracefully instead of causing the programme to hang...............Its a sore point in my household!!! 

[Yaobing]

Just to clarify a little.

The program does not hang when there is no signal.  It just waits for signals.  Have you tried clicking the Stop button when you find it not showing any video as you expect?  It should still be responsive.  If not, we have a problem.

[DocLotus]

Just to clarify a little.

The program does not hang when there is no signal.  It just waits for signals.  Have you tried clicking the Stop button when you find it not showing any video as you expect?  It should still be responsive.  If not, we have a problem.

We definitely have a problem.

What happens in my case (and... it looks like the threads OP case) is that MC TV hangs on a low or no signal channel (which it has done to me several times already this morning (and it's only 6:15 AM). Once it hangs, I can't get back to the main screen to hit the stop button. I can't even stop it with my mouse button programmed to stop MC playback. Once it hangs all I can do is double click on the screen & MC will turn all white & produce a small pop-up dialog saying something like MC has encountered a problem & must close. So I select close MC & then re-load MC (must have done this several hundred times in the last month.

[JimH]

If it's that bad, I'd consider a different tuner or a better antenna.  The signal has to be there or MC can't work.

I agree we could handle the problem better though.

[DocLotus]

I firmly believe all playback (both audio & video) should be stopped on channel change. I know in my heart it would resolve the channel changing hiccups that I & the threads OP are having & will result in a much smoother channel change transaction.

I also believe that doing the above will (for many users including myself) resolve the problem of trying to use Red October HQ with MC TV.

All the RO HQ problems that I've had while using it were not that great but with the other channel changing problems we are experiencing it compounded the hanging up problem.

What I'm saying is... blanking all audio/video on channel change should resolve most (if not all) of the channel change problems AND allow many of us sitting on the borderline of performance to also use RO HQ with the TV... now THAT would be simply GREAT .

[DocLotus]

If it's that bad, I'd consider a different tuner or a better antenna.  The signal has to be there or MC can't work.

I agree we could handle the problem better though.

Not a tuner problem... 2 Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2255 Dual Tuner PCIE (the latest design with latest drivers). It works flawlessly on MS WMC.

Not an antenna problem... am running separate amplified (identical dual antennas) into each tuner. MS WMC Signal Strength scan reports all 21 channels (except the one that varies through the day) at maximum signal strength (6 green bars).  It works flawlessly on MS WMC.

[Daveyravey]

i must admit if I use red October standard I do not get half as many hang ups or freezes as with using red October HQ.
I have weird things like picture of channel before and audio of new channel showing using ROHQ.

Blanking all video / audio on channel change does sound like a good idea that may fix a lot of these issues we have.

I would also like to see other tuners being utilized if the signal is low or absent. Isnt that the point of having multiple tuners?

If for example I had a programme set to record and it failed to see a signal it should in reality at least try the other tuners before stopping recording or in my case mostly the programme just hangs

[Daveyravey]

same for me the tuners work fine in WMC.

[JimH]

Davey,
What are the tuners you use?

[DocLotus]

Been meaning to mention this for awhile on this thread...

I believe it has nothing to do with the fact that we are both using TWO tuners.,.. I had the same problem when I was using only one ATI tuner & a different amplified antenna.

Now... that said, I notice that we are both using TV cards with DUAL internal tuners (each TV card has TWO tuners in it). I'm wondering if for some reason or another MC TV is having as problem with that scenario?

[CountryBumkin]

I think the problem is with madVR (RO+HQ).
I had trouble with madVR crashing a while back when the "live" TV signal went bad (like during a storm). I had to use RO Std to get around this problem. I reported it and sent crash logs to madVR. Madshi made improvements which greatly imporved things - but may not have eliminated the problem completely. I don't know.

I'm back on RO+HQ and have not had any issues lately, but I don't watch enough Live TV to know for sure. I record 95% of my Shows to watch later.

You may want to switch to RO-STD for a while to test, or download the latest version of madVR to compare with the version MC uses.

[Yaobing]

If there is no signal at all, MC will just wait for a long time.  No hanging should occur.

If the signal is poor, it conceivably could produce bad data that causes some component to fail, possibly madVR.  Can we confirm that this only occurs when madVR is in use (i.e. ROHQ)?

[DocLotus]

You may want to switch to RO-STD for a while to test, or download the latest version of madVR to compare with the version MC uses.

As you also discovered RO HQ increases the hang up problem; for that reason I use only RO Standard.

Would really like to use RO HQ as it does produce a slightly better picture (have conformed that on several occasions with MC TV's Quality & Resolution both of which are showing higher numbers for RO HQ).

[DocLotus]

If there is no signal at all, MC will just wait for a long time.  No hanging should occur.

If the signal is poor, it conceivably could produce bad data that causes some component to fail, possibly madVR.  Can we confirm that this only occurs when madVR is in use (i.e. ROHQ)?

I get hangups on both HQ & Std (much slower channel changing on HQ). Also get more picture breakup on channel change on HQ.

[DocLotus]

One other thing I've been meaning to mention that may or may not be related to this problem...

Sometimes when using the Ctrl-B (Back) command to jump between the last two watched channels the sound will revert to a Micky Mouse-like fast, high pitched sound on only one of the two channels. Before Ctrl-B I found no way to stop it once it started other then to close & re-load MC. With Ctrl-B I at least can stop it by repeatably selecting Ctrl-B several times & the sound will eventually revert back to normal.

This happened long before the Ctrl-B switch was recently introduced so it is in no way a preoblem with Ctrl-B.

[Daveyravey]

Davey,
What are the tuners you use?

http://www.dvbsky.net/Products_S952.html
http://www.dvbsky.net/Products_T9580.html