Topic: Bad TS Recording Quality - Take 2 (Read 27644 times)

robt · « **Reply #50 on:** August 12, 2017, 10:24:40 am »

Quote from: greynolds on August 11, 2017, 09:36:23 pm

As of this evening, the problem with watching live TV and recording TV remains.

I did a bit more investigation of recordings I haven't had time to watch yet, spread over the last few months. It looks like everything up to July 13 recorded just fine. There's 1 recording on July 14 that appears to be fine for the first ~30 minutes and then starts having the problem with audio dropouts and the picture breaking up. I've got a few recordings since then that look like they may be OK (I spot checked them, so haven't watched them all the way through), but everything else on and after July 14th appears to have the problem.

As I believe I said above, the MC recordings don't play properly in VLC either, so this problem isn't a MC specific playback issue of some sort - the files that MC is writing out have problems.

Greynolds

I hope I haven't hijacked your thread. I think we are seeing the same thing..

JimH · « **Reply #51 on:** August 12, 2017, 10:34:06 am »

Yaobing doesn't think so.

robt · « **Reply #52 on:** August 12, 2017, 11:20:13 am »

Quote from: JimH on August 12, 2017, 10:34:06 am

Yaobing doesn't think so.

I saw that, and he asked if I could play back a recording on another machine and see the same issues. He was apparently thinking my issue was local playback on my main machine.
But the screen grab when playing the recording on a different machine, using different software and even a different monitor shows that the issues were part of the recording and not part of the playback. It also shows that MC is doing something to the tv signal before its played back, or it wouldn't also be present on recorded material.

So, hopefully there is only one issue to be addressed here rather than two, which would be good news?

The one aspect I cannot investigate is if the problem is an interaction between HDHomeruns hardware / firmware and MC. But I can say that my HDHomerun works fine with every other piece of tv software I can find (I can now include Kodi as fine as well) so we just have one common factor left.

I'm not criticising here, MC is my chosen software and I love it. Just at the moment there is for me and another user a strange and frustrating issue.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #53 on:** August 12, 2017, 05:26:18 pm »

Greynolds and Robt, have you guys had a change in broadcast TV format recently? Perhaps one you didn't even know about? Does rescanning channels make a difference? Maybe note down the Video, Audio, and other format parameters such as interlacing, and then rescan and see if they change. The issue certainly looks like a deinterlacing issue.

I had some very minor video problems a while back when TV broadcasters changed the format of quite a few channels. I don't know if MC dynamically checks the format and changes, or uses the information it collects when channels are scanned, but my problem went away when I rescanned. I'm using an internal PCIe DVB-T tuner card though, so nothing to do with HDHomeRun.

greynolds · « **Reply #54 on:** August 12, 2017, 07:25:06 pm »

I don't believe the TV broadcast format has changed recently and it happens on both OTA and Cable channels on a mix of SiliconDust HDHomeRun (OTA) and HDHomeRun Prime (CableCard) tuners. I know that Comcast has been making some broadcast format changes, but my cable TV provider is Verizon FIOS and I don't believe they've made any changes.

Though they might be related, the problems robt and I are seeing definitely manifest themselves a bit differently.

I've included a screenshot taken with my iPhone 6S that illustrates what the problem I'm seeing looks like. The problem is sometimes much worse than that thick green horizontal line shown in the screenshot - sometimes the entire bottom or top half of the screen is blotchy like that. As said above, when the video breaks up like this, the audio will also skip briefly or cut out for several seconds; these recordings are pretty much completely unwatchable. The recorded TV files have the exact same playback issues whether I play them back in MC or other software, such as VLC, so it's definitely not something like bad MadVR settings in MC.

tzr916 · « **Reply #55 on:** August 12, 2017, 10:34:38 pm »

It looks to me like the robt issue is different than greynolds, or at least the on-screen manifestations appear visually different. The robt issue looks like vsync / deinterlacing, while the greynolds issue looks like horizontal blocks or large areas of the video breaking up into a garbled mess.

Unfortunately, despite building a whole new server PC about 10 days ago, I am (still) having symptoms exactly like greynolds, although maybe less severe. All of my recordings are watchable, it's just sad having to see the video breakup 4 or 8 or 12 times per hour, knowing that MC used to be capable of flawless recording

JimH · « **Reply #56 on:** August 13, 2017, 03:36:25 pm »

robt,
Thanks for posting the solution.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #57 on:** August 13, 2017, 05:55:10 pm »

Excellent Robt.

Greynolds, maybe it is time for a complete uninstall of all MC versions on that PC, after suitable backups, and a clean reinstall of MC23?

It could be some corruption in madVR, LAV, or DirectShow filters, which don't get updated with every version. You could just try deleting madVR and LAV, and having MC reinstall them when you play videos. But if something has broken the JRiver DirectShow filters, which would be more consistent with this problem, a reinstall is probably best. I'm suspecting corruption or a bad install, rather than a bug. The Version 21, 22, 23 on one PC issue could have contributed. Or Windows protecting a DirectShow filter and putting an old version back into the system folder? Something like that. (Which reminds me; I must uninstall all the old versions I have on my PCs. I still get caught out with some file association trying to start MC22!)

Maybe check back through the Release Notes and see when the last madVR update happened. I think that wasn't that long ago. Maybe that is when the problem started.

greynolds · « **Reply #58 on:** August 13, 2017, 07:31:26 pm »

Quote from: RoderickGI on August 13, 2017, 05:55:10 pm

Excellent Robt.

Greynolds, maybe it is time for a complete uninstall of all MC versions on that PC, after suitable backups, and a clean reinstall of MC23?

It could be some corruption in madVR, LAV, or DirectShow filters, which don't get updated with every version. You could just try deleting madVR and LAV, and having MC reinstall them when you play videos. But if something has broken the JRiver DirectShow filters, which would be more consistent with this problem, a reinstall is probably best. I'm suspecting corruption or a bad install, rather than a bug. The Version 21, 22, 23 on one PC issue could have contributed. Or Windows protecting a DirectShow filter and putting an old version back into the system folder? Something like that. (Which reminds me; I must uninstall all the old versions I have on my PCs. I still get caught out with some file association trying to start MC22!)

Maybe check back through the Release Notes and see when the last madVR update happened. I think that wasn't that long ago. Maybe that is when the problem started.

A fresh reinstall of MC23 strikes me as a pretty painful exercise and is something I'd prefer to avoid if I can. What settings will be restored from my library backup and what settings would I have to redo from scratch? Specifically, things like my Theater View settings, TV tuner configuration, hidden channels, and so on.

I have uninstalled all previous versions of MC at this point. After uninstalling the previous MC versions, I did run through the MC 23.30 install again this afternoon and did a "rescan" of the CableCard channels (which really just reloads the guide data - for CableCard MC doesn't do an actual scan using the tuners). Doing those things made no difference.

I can certainly try a fresh install of the SiliconDust stuff. If I exit MC and shut the service down first, MC presumably shouldn't even be aware that I did anything. I don't expect it to accomplish anything, but it should be easy enough to try and will help rule out one more potential culprit.

But some guidance from the JRiver folks would be appreciated...

tzr916 · « **Reply #59 on:** August 13, 2017, 07:48:09 pm »

I backed up from my old server machine, and restored into the new machine. Everything came over except channel icons and theaterview custom theme background so save those to a safe location, as well as any series cover art you want to re-instate.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #60 on:** August 13, 2017, 08:29:33 pm »

Settings are saved with a backup and can be restored to a new installation. I believe what Tzr916 says is correct, although there were a few little things missed in the past. You may want to wait for Yaobing or someone else to confirm everything is now backed up and restored. Or search the forum for recent discussion on the topic.

I also think that in the case of uninstalling and reinstalling on one PC, the Channel icons, Theatreview Backgrounds, Series, and Season Cover Art will be left in place, and should be found again by MC. I believe backups from all versions are also left in place. But it wouldn't hurt to save a copy of such things somewhere before uninstalling.

Yaobing · « **Reply #61 on:** August 13, 2017, 09:58:06 pm »

TV channels are saved in MC as main database entries, and thus will be restored upon a library restore, including Hidden or Favorite status (which are in Keywords tag). As far as CableCARD channels are concerned, the only data saved in a channel are channel number and an optional audio PID. So re-scanning, as greynolds noted, just grabs the channel name and channel number from the EPG xml file and probably will not have an impact on video glitches.

robt uses DVB-T, that is quite different.

greynolds · « **Reply #62 on:** August 14, 2017, 06:14:54 am »

Quote from: Yaobing on August 13, 2017, 09:58:06 pm

TV channels are saved in MC as main database entries, and thus will be restored upon a library restore, including Hidden or Favorite status (which are in Keywords tag). As far as CableCARD channels are concerned, the only data saved in a channel are channel number and an optional audio PID. So re-scanning, as greynolds noted, just grabs the channel name and channel number from the EPG xml file and probably will not have an impact on video glitches.

robt uses DVB-T, that is quite different.

So any guidance on how I should proceed and how much setup I would need to deal with if I completely uninstall MC and start over (with a library backup, of course)?

Will things like configured zones be saved in the library backup? Are all the folder settings (things like the recorded TV location) and the auto import configuration saved as part of the library backup?

I'm trying to get a feel for if this is something I can tackle quickly some evening after work or if it's something I better hold off till I have a bigger block of time free AND what I should do as far as taking notes and saving backups of files (series art, for example) that might get nuked when I uninstall MC.

greynolds · « **Reply #63 on:** August 14, 2017, 08:06:48 pm »

Quote from: greynolds on August 14, 2017, 06:14:54 am

So any guidance on how I should proceed and how much setup I would need to deal with if I completely uninstall MC and start over (with a library backup, of course)?

Will things like configured zones be saved in the library backup? Are all the folder settings (things like the recorded TV location) and the auto import configuration saved as part of the library backup?

I'm trying to get a feel for if this is something I can tackle quickly some evening after work or if it's something I better hold off till I have a bigger block of time free AND what I should do as far as taking notes and saving backups of files (series art, for example) that might get nuked when I uninstall MC.

@yaobing and @jimh any response to this? Please?

Yaobing · « **Reply #64 on:** August 14, 2017, 09:47:55 pm »

In general, settings are saved with library backup, and restored upon library restore. There may be rare exceptions. For instance, for a while I forgot to add TV channel ordering data to the backup (now it is part of the backup).

Recorded TV Location, yes it is restored. I don't use zones much, so I have no direct experience as to whether they are restored properly. They should.

Basically, you just need to:

1. Backup library
2. Uninstall
3. re-install
4. Restore library.

Have I missed anything?

greynolds · « **Reply #65 on:** August 14, 2017, 10:03:42 pm »

Quote from: Yaobing on August 14, 2017, 09:47:55 pm

In general, settings are saved with library backup, and restored upon library restore. There may be rare exceptions. For instance, for a while I forgot to add TV channel ordering data to the backup (now it is part of the backup).

Recorded TV Location, yes it is restored. I don't use zones much, so I have no direct experience as to whether they are restored properly. They should.

Basically, you just need to:

1. Backup library
2. Uninstall
3. re-install
4. Restore library.

Have I missed anything?

Thanks! If I get some time free in the next few nights, I'll take some notes on the items that are a bit unknown, such as zones, and give it a go. If I don't get time during the week, I should certainly be able to do it this coming weekend.

Yaobing · « **Reply #66 on:** August 15, 2017, 10:30:20 am »

robt,

I split your last few posts to a new thread. https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,111819.msg772447.html#msg772447

It does look like a completely different issue from greynolds'.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #67 on:** August 17, 2017, 12:14:27 am »

Greynolds, this thread should give you some confidence. Can't get a better test than carrying settings from Vista to a new Windows 7 installation.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,111836.msg772753.html#msg772753

greynolds · « **Reply #68 on:** August 17, 2017, 06:34:28 am »

Quote from: RoderickGI on August 17, 2017, 12:14:27 am

Greynolds, this thread should give you some confidence. Can't get a better test than carrying settings from Vista to a new Windows 7 installation.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,111836.msg772753.html#msg772753

Yeah, I spent a bit of time actually looking through the contents of the library backup zip file and confirmed that things like all of my zones and Theater View settings are in there. I'm confident enough at this point to proceed and hope to have the time available tonight; if I don't get to it tonight it will probably have to wait until Saturday as I'm going to be busy Friday night.

greynolds · « **Reply #69 on:** August 17, 2017, 08:35:57 pm »

I had some time available tonight, so I did the reinstall.

I did the following:

1) Make a library backup.
2) Uninstall JRiver. During the uninstall, I checked the option to remove all settings.
3) Uninstall the SiliconDust package / drivers.
4) Install the SiliconDust package / drivers and go through their setup.
5) Install JRiver 23.30.
6) Restore the library backup.

The good news is that all of my settings appear to have been restored, even my existing guide data remained.

The bad news is that this did not resolve the problem with live & recorded TV.

jmone · « **Reply #70 on:** August 18, 2017, 01:09:25 am »

I had similar issues with the original DVB-T HomeRun after a few years of flawless use. Turned out it was the Power Pack slowing failing to deliver enough current to the HomeRun. May be worth trying a different Power Pack if you have one with enough current. Just grasping at straws however.

Castius · « **Reply #71 on:** August 18, 2017, 02:06:13 am »

I haven't compared them in a long time. But when I was, I found that HD home run was using a lot more
Blurring on there viewer. I also had to force interlace to the right setting.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,92170.msg634371.html#msg634371

greynolds · « **Reply #72 on:** August 18, 2017, 05:58:29 am »

Quote from: jmone on August 18, 2017, 01:09:25 am

I had similar issues with the original DVB-T HomeRun after a few years of flawless use. Turned out it was the Power Pack slowing failing to deliver enough current to the HomeRun. May be worth trying a different Power Pack if you have one with enough current. Just grasping at straws however.

Given that the issue doesn't exist when I record TV from the same pool of tuners in Windows Media Center (which is running on a separate PC but connected to the same HP ProCurve Gigabit switch as the MC PC and the tuners) or when I watch live TV using SiliconDust's viewer app, this seems unlikely. But it's certainly possible since I've got MC and WMC setup to grab the tuners in different orders.

greynolds · « **Reply #73 on:** August 18, 2017, 06:03:26 am »

Quote from: Castius on August 18, 2017, 02:06:13 am

I haven't compared them in a long time. But when I was, I found that HD home run was using a lot more
Blurring on there viewer. I also had to force interlace to the right setting.
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,92170.msg634371.html#msg634371

That definitely isn't the problem here as we aren't talking about something like a subtle overall softness to the picture where it just generally looks better played back via other means. If you look at the screenshot I posted above, the issue is that the picture is breaking up into rectangular green blobs and the audio keeps cutting out. It's also not a MC playback chain problem (such as having Red October set to HQ when the PC doesn't have the horsepower for it or choosing the wrong scaling options in the MadVR config) because the recordings made in MC fail to play in other players, such as VLC, too.

greynolds · « **Reply #74 on:** August 18, 2017, 06:04:33 am »

jmone · « **Reply #75 on:** August 18, 2017, 04:44:15 pm »

Quote from: greynolds on August 18, 2017, 05:58:29 am

Given that the issue doesn't exist when I record TV from the same pool of tuners in Windows Media Center (which is running on a separate PC but connected to the same HP ProCurve Gigabit switch as the MC PC and the tuners) or when I watch live TV using SiliconDust's viewer app, this seems unlikely. But it's certainly possible since I've got MC and WMC setup to grab the tuners in different orders.

Yeah I know your WMC install does not show the issue, but I brought it up after reading that you did have the same issue with the Silicon Dust viewer at one point as well. It is worth a shot. Mine was a dual DVB-T and I got these lost packets (video blocks, dropped audio) sporadically as well and could not work out what was going on (I thought it was poor signal quality). Anyway gave the logs to the SD guys and they suggested swaping the PSU out. Had one on hand that fit and had more than the necessary amperage and it solved the issue at the time (I have the V2 DVB-T tuner).

greynolds · « **Reply #76 on:** August 18, 2017, 05:11:30 pm »

Quote from: jmone on August 18, 2017, 04:44:15 pm

Yeah I know your WMC install does not show the issue, but I brought it up after reading that you did have the same issue with the Silicon Dust viewer at one point as well. It is worth a shot. Mine was a dual DVB-T and I got these lost packets (video blocks, dropped audio) sporadically as well and could not work out what was going on (I thought it was poor signal quality). Anyway gave the logs to the SD guys and they suggested swaping the PSU out. Had one on hand that fit and had more than the necessary amperage and it solved the issue at the time (I have the V2 DVB-T tuner).

I could easily swap the power supplies I have around. I've got 3 of the SD HDHomerun Primes. Recordings in WMC seem to be good 100% of the time (very occasional blips which IMO are to be expected once in a while, but never the blocky stuff or audio dropouts like I'm seeing in the JRiver recordings) while the recordings done in MC seem to be bad nearly 100% of the time and generally throughout the recordings. Another thing I could try is temporarily switching the tuner priority around in MC and see if that helps (simply disabling some of the tuners would do the trick). Swapping the tuner priorities around in WMC is a more difficult thing to try.

jmone · « **Reply #77 on:** August 18, 2017, 05:51:16 pm »

Good Idea. If you have a window without any recordings being done at all try MC on each tuner on each of the Homerun to see if it isolated to one tuner or if it is across all (it would help rule out the HW).

JimH · « **Reply #78 on:** August 18, 2017, 06:24:20 pm »

Testing one at a time would be good. Testing without WMC in the picture would also be good. It has caused problems in the past.

tzr916 · « **Reply #79 on:** August 31, 2017, 03:47:02 pm »

Quote from: tzr916 on August 12, 2017, 10:34:38 pm

...the greynolds issue looks like horizontal blocks or large areas of the video breaking up into a garbled mess.

Unfortunately, despite building a whole new server PC about 10 days ago, I am (still) having symptoms exactly like greynolds, although maybe less severe. All of my recordings are watchable, it's just sad having to see the video breakup 4 or 8 or 12 times per hour, knowing that MC used to be capable of flawless recording

I wonder what happened to greynolds?

My tv recordings have actually gotten much better after replacing my standard RF cable splitter with one of these: CSAPDU5VP five port passive forward/reverse amplifier I've tried amplifiers before, but this one is the only one that plays nice with modems and tuners. My ceton SNR numbers are way better, especially on the "local" mpeg2 channels. I'm close to retracting my statement about MC recording abilities being flawed. So far so good... let's see how it goes late Sept prime time premiere week.

jmone · « **Reply #80 on:** August 31, 2017, 05:28:43 pm »

I'd be interested in how Greynolds went as well. FYI - when I had this issue I:
- Replaced the antenna and had the signal strength measured at the mast head and the main point in the house
- Terminated all unused coax points
- Played with splitters, amps etc
- Sent logs to SD etc.... who then said, swap out the PS which fixed it.

greynolds · « **Reply #81 on:** August 31, 2017, 07:29:53 pm »

Hey guys, I haven't responded for a bit because I just haven't had enough time to run a ton of tests. I started a new job recently...

My limited testing seems to suggest:

1) When only JRiver is accessing a tuner (whether it be OTA or CableCard), everything seems to be fine. Note that I haven't had a chance to test this as extensively as I'd like yet, so this is just a preliminary finding at this point.

2) When either or both WMC systems in the house (my brother and I each have separate PC's running Windows 7 & WMC all sharing the same pool of tuners) are using 1 or more tuners from the tuner pool the WMC recordings come out just fine without any issues and Live TV is fine.

3) When either or both WMC systems are using 1 or more tuners AND JRiver MC is using 1 or more tuners, the WMC recordings and Live TV are still fine, but the JRiver MC recordings and Live TV have the problems described earlier.

4) In any of the prior 3 scenarios, the SiliconDust viewer app running on the JRiver MC PC has absolutely no issues playing Live TV on either OTA or CableCard tuners, again from the same pool of tuners.

I have had JRiver configured to record to a UNC path (ie: \\{servername}\JRiverRecordings) for several years without any issues up until this point and I wasn't having any issues with TV recordings or Live TV up until recently. Reconfiguring JRiver to write to a local path (either to the same drive or a different drive) doesn't resolve the issue. In anticipation of the obvious question, I've gone with the UNC path as it makes it easier to move things around any time I want to as I just need to make sure the network share name is the same.

Given that there aren't any issues with recordings in WMC, I'm pretty confident that both my OTA and CableCard signal quality is fine and the readings I see in the SiliconDust for signal strength and quality are typically at or very close to 100% any time I check them.

JimH suggested that WMC has caused issues in the past, but that certainly doesn't explain why point number 4 works.

The only performance parameter that appears to be a bit concerning on the JRiver PC is that memory utilization tends to be in the ballpark of 70%, but CPU performance is typically below 10% and network utilization is usually well under 10% when JRiver is recording (and otherwise "idle", as in I'm not playing a video or listening to music).

RoderickGI · « **Reply #82 on:** August 31, 2017, 08:04:55 pm »

So if all the above hold true after further testing, those results would point to MC not receiving the same priority as WMC or the SiliconDust viewer either on the network or from the SiliconDust Hardware / Firmware.

Another test you might try is to have both WMC PCs recording using all tuners, half on each say, and see if any of those recordings show any problems. If all recordings are good then the SiliconDust is capable of streaming from all tuners at once and it shouldn't be assigning a lower priority to MC that results in dropped packets and hence image breakup.

Do you have QoS (Quality Of Service) set up on all your MC PCs and intervening hardware?

Unless of course MC is just doing something different when another application is using a tuner on the same hardware, like issuing "keep the connection alive" commands or something. Only detailed logs at the SiliconDust end will show if that might be the case. A network packet sniffer on the MC PC might pick up dropped packets though, and confirm a network stream continuity issue.

Some nitty gritty work required.

greynolds · « **Reply #83 on:** August 31, 2017, 08:44:10 pm »

Quote from: RoderickGI on August 31, 2017, 08:04:55 pm

So if all the above hold true after further testing, those results would point to MC not receiving the same priority as WMC or the SiliconDust viewer either on the network or from the SiliconDust Hardware / Firmware.

Another test you might try is to have both WMC PCs recording using all tuners, half on each say, and see if any of those recordings show any problems. If all recordings are good then the SiliconDust is capable of streaming from all tuners at once and it shouldn't be assigning a lower priority to MC that results in dropped packets and hence image breakup.

Do you have QoS (Quality Of Service) set up on all your MC PCs and intervening hardware?

Unless of course MC is just doing something different when another application is using a tuner on the same hardware, like issuing "keep the connection alive" commands or something. Only detailed logs at the SiliconDust end will show if that might be the case. A network packet sniffer on the MC PC might pick up dropped packets though, and confirm a network stream continuity issue.

Some nitty gritty work required.

I can pretty easily run a test with my WMC PC using a bunch of tuners, but would have to coordinate with my brothers to run a test with the 2 WMC PC's using an even split; perhaps over the long weekend. I have done this sort of thing in the past where I've had my WMC system simultaneously recording 12 channels (since I have 9 CableCard and 10 OTA tuners, it would obviously be a mix of OTA and CableCard) without any issues, but haven't run that specific test recently. Given that the problem surfaces with as few as 2 total tuners in use (JRiver using 1 and one of the WMC PC's using 1) and that I have recently had 3 recordings going on my WMC PC while my brother was using at least 1 tuner without any issues with the WMC recordings, I'm guessing that this test will go off without a hitch, but I'm certainly willing to give it a go.

QoS is turned on on my WMC and JRiver MC PC network adapter settings, I would have to have him check his. My HP ProCurve switch doesn't appear to have a QoS setting.

One thing that has certainly occurred to me is that the JRiver MC PC, which is running Windows 10, has integrated motherboard Intel networking, but is using Microsoft drivers because Asus/Intel don't have Windows 10 drivers available and the latest Windows 7 drivers available from Asus seem to be fairly ancient. Driver packages that are available direct from Intel won't install on the integrated motherboard chipsets. But again, if the SiliconDust viewer app isn't have any issues, why should I be blaming something other than JRiver?

FWIW, the JRiver PC has an Asus P6X58-E-WS motherboard, an Core i7 950 CPU, and has 12GB of RAM. Video playback of all other media (including Bluray rips and even 4K video files, all output at 1080P) is fine with JRiver configured for Red October HQ. I've tried switching to Red October Standard, but that doesn't make any difference (nor would I expect it to given that the recordings themselves have issues when played on other players such as VLC). Most of my JRiver recordings happen when JRiver is otherwise idle.

JimH · « **Reply #84 on:** September 01, 2017, 06:59:04 am »

A test without WMC would be useful. MC has an option to disable WMC when needed. Please try that.

It's possible that WMC is just helping itself to some resources when needed.

The other solutions mentioned by jmone and RoderickGI might also be useful.

I know this is an important issue for you, but it just doesn't look like an MC problem at this point. Yaobing has spent a lot of time on it and he's excellent at finding problems.

greynolds · « **Reply #85 on:** September 01, 2017, 07:29:23 am »

Quote from: JimH on September 01, 2017, 06:59:04 am

A test without WMC would be useful. MC has an option to disable WMC when needed. Please try that.

It's possible that WMC is just helping itself to some resources when needed.

The other solutions mentioned by jmone and RoderickGI might also be useful.

I know this is an important issue for you, but it just doesn't look like an MC problem at this point. Yaobing has spent a lot of time on it and he's excellent at finding problems.

@JimH, based on your comments, it sounds like you're assuming that WMC is running on the same PC that JRiver is running on. As mentioned earlier in this thread and should be clear from my recent posts, WMC is running on separate PC's and can't be running on my JRiver PC because it is a Windows 10 system and WMC isn't available on Windows 10 (without some ugly hacks and even then I'm pretty sure recent updates have rendered those hacks useless).

And yes, this is a pretty important issue because the problem is making MC completely useless to me for TV functionality, which is a big part of my intended MC usage.

Given that the MC TV functionality had been working well up until the problem started a few months back, something obviously changed relatively recently that's causing the problem and I'm fairly confident it is something to do with the PC JRiver is running on (such as a Windows 10 update) or JRiver itself. Given that the SD Viewer works just fine on the PC, I'm more than a bit puzzled why you're so confident that the issue isn't a MC problem...

I'm more than willing to spend money to upgrade the hardware on this PC if I were confident that it would solve the problem, but I don't want to simply throw money at the problem when the same hardware had been working just fine for the TV functionality for the last few years and isn't showing any obvious signs of failure.

JimH · « **Reply #86 on:** September 01, 2017, 07:34:20 am »

Did you try the suggestions of jmone about power supply, etc.?

I don't read the entire thread before posting.

greynolds · « **Reply #87 on:** September 01, 2017, 08:32:43 am »

Quote from: JimH on September 01, 2017, 07:34:20 am

Did you try the suggestions of jmone about power supply, etc.?

I don't read the entire thread before posting.

No, I haven't had time to try all the suggestions yet (which is why I hadn't posted an update until I was pinged last night). I don't think they all apply to my situation as I clearly don't have a signal strength issue given that ALL WMC recordings, both OTA and CableCard, are fine and the MC problem is for both OTA and CableCard channels.

With the long weekend coming up, I'm hoping to find some time to do things like swap the power supplies on my SD tuners around to hopefully rule out a bad power supply.

My gut feeling is that the problem is somehow network related, but I'm truly baffled why the SiliconDust viewer app works just fine on the same PC if that's the case. Windows is also claiming a pretty low network utilization percentage, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time that motherboard integrated networking was the culprit for weird network problems, though issues are usually with non-Intel based integrated networking.

JimH · « **Reply #88 on:** September 01, 2017, 08:57:45 am »

Quote from: greynolds on September 01, 2017, 08:32:43 am

I clearly don't have a signal strength issue given that ALL WMC recordings, both OTA and CableCard, are fine and the MC problem is for both OTA and CableCard channels.

I don't think you should assume anything. Try to keep an open mind about where the problem is.

Quote from: tzr916 on August 31, 2017, 03:47:02 pm

I'm close to retracting my statement about MC recording abilities being flawed. So far so good...

greynolds · « **Reply #89 on:** September 01, 2017, 09:11:07 am »

Quote from: JimH on September 01, 2017, 08:57:45 am

I don't think you should assume anything. Try to keep an open mind about where the problem is.

Keeping an open mind is obviously important. But at the same time, I'm attempting to narrow the scope of possible issues so I can hopefully track down the culprit. Given that I'm having absolutely no signal strength problems with my WMC recordings across the same pool of tuners and the same channels (I currently have WMC and JRiver setup to record the same shows with the long term goal being to eventually shut down WMC), it strikes me as reasonable to rule out issues with my antenna, distribution amp, and cables and with my cable TV signal, splitter, and cables. If I had a signal strength problem, I would expect to see the same problem in WMC and the SiliconDust Viewer app.

greynolds · « **Reply #90 on:** September 01, 2017, 08:22:59 pm »

Ok, so I was able to leave work early and run a few tests during the course of the afternoon and early evening. Here's what I've found so far:

1) JRiver MC Live / Recorded TV was still having issues recording even just 1 TV show or playing Live TV even if no other tuners are in use by the 2 WMC PC's.

2) The SiliconDust viewer app continues to play Live TV on the same PC that JRiver is installed on without any issues.

3) I ran a network bandwidth test between my JRiver MC PC and one of my other PC's using the iPerf utlility and ended up with TCP performance numbers just under 1Gb in both directions over several test runs. This suggests that the switch and network cables are OK and that the network ports in the PC's are good. This didn't test huge amounts of data, but at least confirms that I don't have a bad network cable that's limiting me to 100mbps performance on the JRiver PC. My understanding is that the iPerf tests check for things like data errors and data loss and no errors were reported.

4) I started 13 (yes, THIRTEEN) recordings on my WMC PC (8 CableCard and 5 OTA) while my brother has a CableCard recording going on his WMC PC and I'm using the SiliconDust viewer app to watch another OTA channel on the JRiver PC. Despite WMC being a bit sluggish due to all the activity, each of the 13 recordings will play without any audio or video issues, my brother isn't complaining about any issues, and the SiliconDust viewer app is displaying the channel just fine. This test is making use of all 9 SiliconDust CableCard tuners and 6 of the 10 SiliconDust OTA tuners. I let this test run for 15-20 minutes before I started to cancel the recordings so I can get on with watching something shortly.

5) I'm going to go out on a limb and go with the assumption that my tuners and reception are not the issue.

6) Something else I JUST did after completing the big recording test was to run the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Setup program again on the JRiver PC and switch the BDA Compatibility Mode away from J River Media Center (to Default), clicked the Apply button, then closed the app. I then re-ran it and switched back to J River Media Center mode and clicked the Apply button again. After doing this, Live TV in JRiver seems to be OK at the moment. I've had temporary success a few times over the last few months, so it's definitely too soon to declare victory, but at this point I'm going to stop experimenting and see what happens over the next few days. I'll also keep my fingers crossed...

greynolds · « **Reply #91 on:** September 01, 2017, 11:06:26 pm »

That was short lived; the problem is back again...

jmone · « **Reply #92 on:** September 02, 2017, 12:48:01 am »

Is it on every tuner?

RoderickGI · « **Reply #93 on:** September 02, 2017, 01:08:21 am »

Quote from: greynolds on September 01, 2017, 11:06:26 pm

That was short lived; the problem is back again...

But it does say something about the nature of the problem, doesn't it? My understanding (because I don't have these tuners to test) is that there is no driver for these network tuners. Rather the setup program is used to configure the tuner firmware directly, in the case of MC, telling it for example that it will be talking to a MC installation.

Could it be that the WMC installations then come along and tell the tuners that they are working with a WMC installation, and changes the setting back? They may be able to do that without running the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Setup program.

Obviously there is a difference between the way the two applications work with the tuners, other wise there wouldn't be a separate BDA Compatibility Mode for J River Media Center.

Perhaps shut down the WMC PCs altogether, then run the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Setup program again, switch the BDA Compatibility Mode as you did before, then see how long MC runs without the issue, and without the WMC PCs running.

If you could do the above for a few hours while using MC, then start the WMC PCs again and see how long it takes for the problem to return, you may be able to confirm the above.

Why did it work before and stop working now? Well, there were some firmware changes on the SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuner not so long ago weren't there? Regardless, MC has required HDHomeRuns to use the JRiver setup profile for some time, and what you did fixed the problem.

Is there some way to read the configuration of the SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuners without using the setup program? Perhaps with a browser directly. Just to confirm what the setting is in the tuner.
EDIT: Perhaps by going to the http://my.hdhomerun.com/ page, which seems to try to detect a HDHomeRun.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #94 on:** September 02, 2017, 02:16:27 am »

Yep, it looks like you have an incompatibility in setup requirements. See http://my.hdhomerun.com/instructions/windows-media-center/

Quote

Windows Media Center

HDHomeRun Setup:
Launch HDHomeRun Setup.
Set the BDA Compatibility Mode to Windows Media Center.
Set the Signal Type
Click OK to save and exit.

You can't have the BDA Compatibility Mode set to both "Windows Media Center" and " River Media Center" at the same time. So it looks like WMC and MC have been fighting over the tuners. Or more correctly, WMC has been trashing the setup MC needs. Maybe SiliconDust can confirm, or their diagnostic logs might show something.

Also their Firmware Changelog shows a couple of things that may have an effect, plus better logging. Are you on the latest firmware? https://www.silicondust.com/support/downloads/firmware-changelog/
Actually their Software and Firmware Changelogs are pretty good, going back to the beginning. Kudos to them. https://www.silicondust.com/support/downloads/

Jim, is there any reason why JRiver isn't mentioned along with other 3RD PARTY MEDIA CENTER APPLICATIONS on the SiliconDust site? After all, they have had JRiver Media Center support for nearly eight years.

PS: My humble apologies if I am completely wrong, because, as I said, I don't have or use these tuners.

JimH · « **Reply #95 on:** September 02, 2017, 07:40:17 am »

RoderickGI
Thanks for all the help.

I don't know why SiliconDust doesn't give JRiver more attention. They clearly know we're here. For many years, most of their business was probably centered around WMC, so maybe they let other things slide a little. If enough users asked, they might add JRiver.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #96 on:** September 02, 2017, 08:13:26 am »

Jim, many of the other Media Center products on the SiliconDust Third Party software section just have a logo and behind that a link to their web page or forum. I thought you might like to send a Logo file to them and the link to the forum, for them to add to that section. Shouldn't take much other than asking, I would think. Couldn't hurt.

Oh, and you a welcome.

greynolds · « **Reply #97 on:** September 02, 2017, 09:34:21 am »

Quote from: RoderickGI on September 02, 2017, 01:08:21 am

But it does say something about the nature of the problem, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, it doesn't because I've had a number of cases during this period where TV suddenly worked fine for some period of time. Sometimes just for a few minutes while testing and sometimes I was able to get a random good recording.

Quote from: RoderickGI on September 02, 2017, 01:08:21 am

My understanding (because I don't have these tuners to test) is that there is no driver for these network tuners. Rather the setup program is used to configure the tuner firmware directly, in the case of MC, telling it for example that it will be talking to a MC installation.

Could it be that the WMC installations then come along and tell the tuners that they are working with a WMC installation, and changes the setting back? They may be able to do that without running the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Setup program.

Obviously there is a difference between the way the two applications work with the tuners, other wise there wouldn't be a separate BDA Compatibility Mode for J River Media Center.

Perhaps shut down the WMC PCs altogether, then run the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Setup program again, switch the BDA Compatibility Mode as you did before, then see how long MC runs without the issue, and without the WMC PCs running.

If you could do the above for a few hours while using MC, then start the WMC PCs again and see how long it takes for the problem to return, you may be able to confirm the above.

Why did it work before and stop working now? Well, there were some firmware changes on the SiliconDust HDHomeRun tuner not so long ago weren't there? Regardless, MC has required HDHomeRuns to use the JRiver setup profile for some time, and what you did fixed the problem.

I've always understood the BDA Compatibility setting to be a per-PC setting. SiliconDust sets up a virtual BDA driver on each PC that serves up access to the tuner. That is where the compatibility mode gets switched. So you can't expect JRiver and WMC to play nicely with the tuners if both software packages are running on the same PC, but should be able to expect them to play nicely when running on separate PC's with the SiliconDust software configured appropriately on each PC.

Regarding firmware updates to the SiliconDust tuners, I hadn't touched the firmware in well over a year until the problems started. One of the steps I took a few weeks ago was to update the SiliconDust firmware and software to the current version on all tuners and all of the PC's that access the tuners.

I could theoretically shut the 2 WMC PC's down for a few hours in the middle of the day sometime this weekend while nothing is scheduled to record (I'll have to coordinate this with my brother) but I'm not going to leave them that way when we have recordings scheduled as I just can't rely on the JRiver recordings to be playable at this point. A brief test window like that could potential provide some useful info if the TV problem remains, but won't be a long enough sample set to be useful in determining if the problem is related to JRiver and WMC fighting over tuner configuration.

One other thing I can try is to reconfigure JRiver to make use of some OTA PCIe tuners I have installed in that PC and record / watch some TV using those tuners. Those tuners are currently assigned to BeyondTV (which has coexisted just fine with JRiver for 4+ years now, but without any tuner sharing going on), but I can certainly pirate them for testing purposes and perhaps permanently as I really haven't made use of BeyondTV for quite some time now. That would at least give us some more data to work with, but obviously wouldn't resolve the problem for CableCard content.

Yaobing · « **Reply #98 on:** September 02, 2017, 10:30:24 am »

One way I know WMC does not play nicely is that it grabs a tuner as if no other applications will ever use the device. It does not test whether the device is already in use before it tries to use it, on different machines or on the same.

greynolds · « **Reply #99 on:** September 02, 2017, 12:04:05 pm »

Quote from: Yaobing on September 02, 2017, 10:30:24 am

One way I know WMC does not play nicely is that it grabs a tuner as if no other applications will ever use the device. It does not test whether the device is already in use before it tries to use it, on different machines or on the same.

WMC attempts to grab a tuner. But when the tuner WMC is trying to grab is in use, WMC displays a popup message that the tuner isn't available (or something similar) and then moves on to the next tuner based on the configured priority, but I've never seen it cause any actual problems elsewhere, such as messing up a recording that was already in progress in JRiver as the SiliconDust drivers won't allow the software that's requesting the tuner to force the existing connection to break. Up until the recent problems, JRiver and WMC have been sharing the same pool of tuners without any problems for quite a while. I've carefully configured tuner priorities in JRiver and the 2 WMC PC's to minimize the odds of more than 1 PC attempting to grab the same tuner as those popup messages in WMC, while harmless, get to be annoying when they happen.

The TV problem with JRiver also happens if no other SiliconDust tuners are in use (which can be verified with their HDHomeRun Config app, which shows the IP address each tuner is connected to or "none" if the tuner isn't currently in use).

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