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[Marko]

jeez this is frustrating!!!

The TV's broke again.
About 3 builds back it was working better than ever before. By this I mean that for the 1st time, MC was able to play, record and playback TV using it's default settings. Now, sadly, I get audio but no picture, only a black screen, and also, if I set MC in maximised, mega-me (pixOS), tv channels showing in playing now, TV displayed above, the display window seems to have lost the right hand side of its frame.
like so..

this, imo, makes MC look a little disjointed/off-balance and is a distraction.

Could you guys test your tv's please, as if this is a bug, it needs highlighted pretty quick.

Yaboing, any ideas m8?

Media Center Registered 9.0.154 -- C:\Program Files\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1610 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 649 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929)wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)

Ripping /   Drive M:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive Q:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Drive R:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  Drive R: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PX-W1610A   Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:16  MaxSpeed:16  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: Yes /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

There is definitely a problem.  We're trying to find it.

[Marko]

np's Jim, thanks for acknowledgement.

-marko

[Yaobing]

Marko,

Can you check your recording profile and see if it is set at "640 x 240 JRiver Codec Timeshift, WMV recording 29.97fps" (the first preset profile) or "640 x 480 JRiver Codec 29.97fps" (the third preset profile). Either of these would put a 640 x 480 video resolution on the capture pin, which the Hauppauge cards can not handle.

Please try selecting "640 x 240 JRiver Codec 29.97fps" (the second preset default), and see if your problem goes away.

[Marko]

Marko,

Can you check your recording profile and see if it is set at "640 x 240 JRiver Codec Timeshift, WMV recording 29.97fps" (the first preset profile) or "640 x 480 JRiver Codec 29.97fps" (the third preset profile). Either of these would put a 640 x 480 video resolution on the capture pin, which the Hauppauge cards can not handle.

Please try selecting "640 x 240 JRiver Codec 29.97fps" (the second preset default), and see if your problem goes away.

Yup, I'm on the 2nd preset default. As a quick test, I tried them all, and none of them gave a picture.
What were those alternative drivers you linked to before? I can't remember their name, and the backup copy I kept was on a HD that died rather suddenly!!!! Anyways, they're the ones that I'm using, not the Hauppauge ones.

There's no mention of this in the fix list for .155, but I'll check it out just the same. I'll report back here instead of the bug thread to keep things tidy.

-marko

[Marko]

Hokay, here's more........
Now using build .155....

Still no TV picture, only sound, but if I start time shifting, I get a picture, but, wait for it, no sound. Instead of sound, there is a steady 1 second beat that gets slowly louder and louder. If I try recording, then playback the video, I get both sound and picture (from the video file)

-marko

[Marko]

Given the fact that I've got an SB Audigy player soundcard, and it would appear to have "issues" with regards to timeshifting and audio output, I'm willing to put that to one side for now and troubleshoot it later once the TV is running and recording correctly in normal mode.
Any ideas why in normal mode there's sound but no picture, but, in timeshifting mode there's a picture and, assuming that if I fiddled enough with the audigy, sound, maybe.

[Yaobing]

Marko,

Please also make sure preview is displayed at 640 x 240 or lower, besides selecting correct recording profile.

To set preview video size, go to "Advanced Properties" and double-click "Video Preview Pin...". In the resulting dialog, select a size 640 x 240 or 320 x 240. You may also try different Color Space settings - YUY2, UYVY, RGB etc. Experimenting with Color Space settings in "Video Capture Pin..." too.

[RMB]

TV is really broken completely

I have completely re-installed all the ATI drivers, and MC - no change (even with 156)

When MC tries to initialise TV, it gets a fatal error and halts.

The ATI TV works fine.


Media Center Registered 9.0.156 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows 2000  Workstation 5.0 Service Pack 3 (Build 2195)
AMD Athlon 1095 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 245 MB, Free - 49 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106
Shell32.dll: 5.00.3502.6144wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive G:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: No /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  No burners found.
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

It's working for me on WinXP with an ATI All in Wonder card.

[Yaobing]

RMB,

Please see the thread "To RMB - Re: Trying to Watch TV Locks PC with fata" here http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1050937709

[Marko]

more updates and obbo's......

Yaboing, I'd already fiddled around with the pin settings on the advanced tab with no joy. Your post prompted me to try once more, and while I still had no joy, I did manage to get a still picture that refreshed every 30 seconds or so. Getting warm, i thought!!!!
When playing around in preview pins and capture pins and recording codecs and sound and crossbars I got hopelessly lost. I couldn't remember for the life of me what was where and when b4 I started (pen and paper? what's that then?) so I deleted TV settings from the registry, nipped off to hauppauge for their latest and greatest, ran HCWclear.exe then started over...
I installed "wintv2k352_21079.exe" (application) and "wdm335_21093.exe" (driver), checked things were OK by scanning for channels and viewing (not recording) using the winTV 2000 software. All was well.
Fired up MC and went the same way, and once again all was not so well, so, with a little more care, I began playing with codecs and pin settings again.
Now, I've got things working in MC, but....
something keeps setting the capture/preview pins back to 640 x 480, so each time MC is closed, and I go back to TV I have to go reset them.
Oh yeah, changing channels via the right-click menu still doesn't update the info in the player control area, thus messing up the Next and Previous buttons.

Been a busy few weeks for you Yaboing? Keep at it m8, you do a great job and I know you'll nail it soon.

-marko

[Yaobing]

Here is what you will need to do to keep the settings stick:

1. Select a recording profile "640 x 240 JRiver Codec, 29.97fps", or lower, do not select "640 x 240 JRiver Codec Timeshift, WMV Recording, 29.07fps". (I think I will switch the two for default selection, to reduce confusion). This is import because the settings here take precedence over the setting you do in the "Advanced Properties".

2. In "Advanced Properties", go to "Video Preview Pin..." and change the video size to 640 x 240 or lower.

3. DO NOT go to "Video Capture Pin..." unless you need to change the Color Space setting. The video size for capture is already set in step 1 above, and what is more confusing is that the 640 x 240 size does not show up as being selected when you go to this dialog (it always shows 640 x 480 when it should show 640 x 240).

If you have done 1, and 2, you have set the video size on both preview pin and capture pin.

Hope this is more clear. This whole thing got started because I implemented the still picture capturing on the capture pin - that means both the capture pin and preview pin are "activated" even if you are not recording.

[Marko]

Reeeesuuuuuuult!!!!!!!!

Yaobing, 1st things 1st though....
Gotta apologise for getting your nick wrong, sorry 'bout that, no offence meant

Moving on then.... (These are just niggles, TV playback and recording appear to be working OK now and I'm keeping an eye on that other thread re. Audigy's + timeshifting)
The resulting .avi files I get from MC's TV recordings take on a really bad "letterbox" display rendering them virtually unwatchable using MC. I can play them back using PowerDVD, and it manages to fill the TV screen (using TV-out of course) while maintaining a watchable picture. The quality isn't the greatest, lots of moire effect etc, but I put that down to hardware limitations, would you agree?
Windows XP is unable to "summarise" the avi file (right-click > properties > summary tab)
Not sure what's going on there either.

I'd love to be able to watch the .avi's using MC. Is there something else I'm missing or is this something to look out for in the future? I'm assuming the letterbox thing is down to the 640 x 240 stuff us hauppauge users are saddled with.

Nice work Yaobing, thank you.

-marko

[Yaobing]

I'm assuming the letterbox thing is down to the 640 x 240

Yes, the 640 x 240 video size is cause. There is a reason for using the resolution. Without getting too much in detail, let me just say it is the largest possible compromise we can use. You could try 320 x 240 and sacrifice a little more clarity of pictures.

Ideally, MC should be able to play the 640 x 240 video and stretch it back to 640 x 480.  Since I am not the one who works on the video play back, I do not know what is involved in fixing this. Someone will eventually get it done.

[Yaobing]

Marko,

I just tried MC build 157. It does play AVI files correctly. For files recorded at 640 x 240, you need to set aspect ratio for playing (right click menu - Aspect Ratios).

[Marko]

Indeed it does