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[christophe4jriver]

Hi all,

I'm new on this forum and I'm also a new user of MC13.

I've discovered MC13 while trying to find an alternative to my Vista Media Center which is crashing too often.

The end of the trial period is getting nearer and before purchasing the license I want to be sure that I'm able to deal with all the things I used to play with my old Vista Media Center without the bugs   

So my first impression is a very good one. The tool runs really fast and the Theater view is just amazing.
Photos, Music and Videos work perfectly but I'm facing issues while trying to make the TV module working.

So first of all my configuration is an Acer Aspire Idea 510 (Vista Home Premium) with two embedded Tuners that are named "Conexant Raptor BDA Tuner (Digital)" in the "Scan Channels" dialog box.

FYI the two tuners work perfectly under Vista Media Center and Media Portal (also tested).

So here is the description of the issue. Starting from a fresh system boot, I ran the MC 13 and scanned for channels with the following settings:
- Scan for digital channels
- DVB-T
 - Device: I tested my two tuners
 - Country: France
 - With and Without slower scan.

At the end of scan the MC13 finds perfectly all the french channels but when switching to theater view for watching them I'm getting the following error:
"Timout waiting for writer to start. Possible cause: no signal or faulty device"

I thought first that some Vista media center services were running in background and were keeping a hand on my tuners making them unavailable for other applications even if media portal works.
So I've disabled all Vista Media Center Services and restarted the system, cleaned all channels, and scanned again.
But I'm still getting the same issue.

I hope that someone here will be able to help because I really want to continue using MC13 but IMO this kind of tool is really usefull if all media including TV can be managed through the same interface.

Thanks in advance,
--CB

[JimH]

Yaobing is our developer for TV and he will probably answer soon.

The devices may not be compatible with MC.  It's odd that it finds the channels but won't play them.

Try changing the option for "Start in time shifting".

The error message sounds like a low signal level.

If you can get a log, Yaobing might be able to learn more.  You could email to yaobing at jriver with a link to this thread.

[Yaobing]

Another problem reported from France.

You two may or may not have the same problem, but finding things in common between you two may help identify the cause of the problem.

Please email me a log file.  yaobing at jriver dot com

[christophe4jriver]

Thanks for these fast answers.

I've just tried to turn off the time shift option. The error message above goes away but the screen remains black without any sound.

I'm for sure OK for emailing a log file but I'm not able to find such file out.

Where are the logs located? Should I turn on an option somewhere?

Thanks.

[mouffy]

Bonjour,
Comme il me semble que nous parlions la même langue, je peux peut-être t'aider pour envoyer ce log :
pour activer les logs, il faut aller dans le menu "aide", puis "journal" ; il faut cocher "sortie vers un journal" (qui créera les logs), puis en dessous cocher les éléments que tu veux consigner dans ce log (pour les problèmes de TV j'ai uniquement coché les journaux "TV" et "GENERAL", ça évite de surcharger le fichier).
Ensuite, redémarre MC13, là maintenant il enregistre ce que tu fais dans un log.
Une fois testé ce que Yaobing t'as demandé il faut l'envoyer par mail : soit tu utilise un logiciel de messagerie sur ce PC et dans le menu "aide" "journal" tu clique directement sur "envoyer par courriel" ; soit ce n'est pas le cas et le fichier sous Vista est situé dans le dossier c:\utilisateur\ton nom d'utilisateur\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 13\log.txt

Sinon j'avais exactement le même problème que toi pour la réception, et Yaobing est en bonne voie pour trouver la solution, ce matin le fichier qu'il m'a envoyé en test m'a permis de voir la tv s'allumer pour la première fois sur MC13 ! Et comme tout le reste du soft est tout simplement excellent, ce sera enfin une aternative complète à VMC

[christophe4jriver]

First part of this post in french for Mouffy who helped me for providing the logs:

Mouffy,
Merci pour ton aide je viens d'envoyer le log qui me permettra j'espère d'avancer vers une solution.
J'ai lu ton thread et il semble que tu aies reçu un fichier qui te règle tes problèmes. De quoi s'agit il ?

Peux tu me l'envoyer et m'expliquer quoi faire pour tester. Je t'envoie mon email par message privé si tu es OK.


Following in english:

Yaobing,

I've just emailed to you my log file.

I also read the thread created by Mouffy who is also a french MC user encountering the same issue that I've described.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=51731.0

I did the configuration you suggested to him meaning using VMR9 and Microsoft MPEG-2 video decoder but I was not able to turn off hadware accelaration.

Thanks in advance.

[christophe4jriver]

Hi Yaobing,

Thanks a lot for the great job you did. The patch you sent me works good.

I did quick tests and at first sight everything is almost OK.

I just got one channel frozen but changing the channel and coming back to the frozen one fixes the issue.

The only real issue I found is about HD channels. In france some channels are provided twice.

One version in SD and another in HD.

The HD channels seem to freeze and I Just hear strange noise as sound and a frozen image.
FYI the last channel in the log is an HD one.
For info my PC is connected via a D-Sub wire to the TV and not via HDMI.

So at this point I can just say thank you again  and say you that I will play with the TV in coming days for checking stability and will come to you back with a more complete report.

In the margin I'm currently evaluating your product before deciding to purchase it and seeing your fast reaction make me think that MC is a good choice.

Thanks,

[JimH]

This should be working in build 169, just posted at the top of this board.

[Yaobing]

The HD channels seem to freeze and I Just hear strange noise as sound and a frozen image.

Does this happen only when switching from an SD channel to an HD channel, or always?  In other words, if you start by playing an HD channel directly, does it work?  It could be an issue with audio decoder not being able to cope with audio format change.

[christophe4jriver]

First of all I confirm that build 169 does fix the issue. Thanks !

Now for HD channels it does not work in the 2 scenarios.
When changing the channels I got a frozen image (sometimes a black screen) and when starting by playing first an HD channel I got either a black screen  or the timeout message.

Next thing that can help you.

I also noticed that sometime, when starting an HD and then changing for an SD the sound is missing for the SD channel. Then I've to stop and start playing direclty the SD.

Thanks

[Yaobing]

I also noticed that sometime, when starting an HD and then changing for an SD the sound is missing for the SD channel. Then I've to stop and start playing direclty the SD.

This was what I had in mind when I asked the question.   Using AC3Filter may fix this problem.

[christophe4jriver]

I went to my digital TV option and I've chosen  an audio filter named "Ligos MPEG/AC-3/LPCM Audio decoder" but it doesn't solve anything.

Maybe I did not correclty what you expected me to do.

Could you please tell me how to proceed?

Thanks

[Yaobing]

Download AC3Filter installer file from AC3Filter site (click "AC3Filter 1.51a Installer" link on that page).

Run the installer.  Then choose AC3Filter from Media Center TV configuration:

Television View, Configure... > Settings..., choose the device, and click Configure... button on the right. 

On the resulting TV Options window, click Digital TV tab.  Select "AC3Filter" from the first drop-down list.

[christophe4jriver]

Thanks the AC3 filter solves the problem when switching fom a frozen HD channel to an SD one.

But this does not make the HD channels working. Any ideas ?

[Yaobing]

For some reason your device is not responding to tune request for HD channels.  Once channel is switched the device does not produce any audio and video data.

Please email me another log after you try to play an HD channel directly.

I wonder if this problem is unique to your device, or unique to France.

Mouffy, if you read this, do you have the same problem?