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Author Topic: FIXED: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)  (Read 6358 times)

jmone

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FIXED: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« on: January 05, 2010, 04:33:38 pm »

I'm not sure what has changed to cause this (as I don't remember this being an issue), but it is now taking a long time to start TV playback, eg:

From when I select "Watch" nothing happens (MC just sits there unresponsive), then at + 8 sec stuff starts to happen
- the HD Homerun tuner light to come on,
- MC screens goes Black (and "Waiting" appears if Timeshift is ON as it is setup) then after a few seconds the TV channel is displayed

The rest works as normal, eg:
- Channel change to a Ch in a Group (eg 7 to 7HD) is immediate
- Channel change to a Ch in another Group (eg 7 to 9) takes 2-3 Sec

If I press "Stop" I'm back to the beginning.

FYI
- Latest HDHomeRun (20091110Beta1) FW / App set to JR
- I don't think it's the HD Homerun as its tuner app works immediately
- Log File attached

Thanks
Nathan
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Yaobing

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2010, 06:05:51 pm »

Nathan,

It does not seem to be caused by any recent changes in MC.  The huge delay was in DirectShow graph-building and definitely had to do with your device.

Have there been any changes on your computer, or the driver for this device?

Let me explain what I found from the log file:

Normally, for most digital TV devices, there is a tuner filter and there is a separate capture filter.  The tuner filter connects to the capture filter.  

There are some devices that do not follow this pattern.  For those there is only one filter.  Your device happens to belong to this group.  We have not prior knowledge of how a device is configured, so we always try making connections of filters assuming there are two filters, and only to fall back to the second scenario after the initial attempt fails.  

Now with your device, only one filter, the tuner filter, is needed, but the same filter is also put in the capture filter category.  I do not know if this is the practice of all such devices.  When MC tries to load a capture filter, it actually finds one, although it is actually a tuner/capture combo device, and attempts to connect.  That connection would fail, but it does not fail immediately - it took 4 full seconds to fail.  Compounded by the fact that there are two similar devices on the same machine, we attempt such connection twice.  That was 8 seconds!  Adding time for other things, the entire graph building took more than 10 seconds (more than the 8 seconds that you thought it took  :P).

If you did not see that same behavior before, then it must be something new on your computer, as the graph-building part of MC has not changed at all.  That is why I ask whether your computer has changed.  In particular, could the no-capture-filter thing be the result of an updated driver from the device manufacture?
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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2010, 07:19:26 pm »

Uggg  :-[ - We were in a Rental for 9mth that did not have an aerial so my use of the HDHomeRun over that time was sporadic....and while it worked fine at one point, I've during that time upgraded from Vista --> Win7 RC --> Win7 + All the MC releases + Updated Filters + Updated the HDHomeRun to the latest FW / Versions as well......

There are a few other HDHomeRun users here - anyone else seeing this issue and can you please post a log file!

Thanks
Nathan

PS - Yaobing, it almost reminds me of the "good old days" trying to get DVB-T to work at all!
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Yaobing

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2010, 07:42:04 pm »

PS - Yaobing, it almost reminds me of the "good old days" trying to get DVB-T to work at all!

One of your fellow Australians has/had a Hauppauge Nova USB2 DVB-T TV device that also uses the combined tuner/capture filter scheme.  If needed I will put the HDHomerun into the same category, but only after verifying that it is the case for all.  It will be bad if only newer driver uses this scheme.
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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2010, 08:29:51 pm »

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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2010, 10:46:59 pm »

Hi Yaobing - looks like you are correct as always:

Quote
Confirming, the HDHomeRun uses a combined tuner+capture filter (all models).

More information can be found here:
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/hdhomerun_development.pdf
(skip to the BDA chapter)

Nick
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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2010, 10:50:14 pm »

The relevant section from the PDF is:

Quote
II.Windows BDA Drivers
The HDHomeRun Windows software include BDA drivers (32-bit and 64-bit) for use with third
party software.

Direct Show filter:
The BDA driver consists of a single Direct Show filter. The Direct Show filter is registered both as
a "BDA Source Filter" (KSCATEGORY_BDA_NETWORK_TUNER) and as a "BDA Receiver
Component" (KSCATEGORY_BDA_RECEIVER_COMPONENT) for compatibility. Only one instance
should be used (typically KSCATEGORY_BDA_NETWORK_TUNER).
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rpalmer68

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2010, 08:49:00 am »

I've noticed an issue since moving to Windows 7 (x64) with TV playabck.

One of my tuners takes about 8 seconds to start TV playback (see log1.txt) which is bearable but not quick.

My USB tuners are taking like 30 seconds to start playback and MC is frozen until playback starts (see log2.txt).

Once started both take about 4 seconds to change channnels.

I wasn't having any issues under XP with either tuner, although I did feel TV playabck had got a bit slower.

I also notice there are a whole lot of "Null Renderer" entries in the log and when I right-click and select "Filters" which weren't in XP.... what are they??

Richard
 

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cncb

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2010, 09:28:19 am »

I'm sure you have tried this but just in case: I was having long delays for my HDHomerun to tune a channel (in different software, not MC) and rebooting the HDHomerun fixed it (unplug, wait, re-plug).
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Yaobing

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2010, 12:00:57 pm »

I've noticed an issue since moving to Windows 7 (x64) with TV playabck.

One of my tuners takes about 8 seconds to start TV playback (see log1.txt) which is bearable but not quick.

This one seems to be OK.  The log shows 6 seconds delay, most of which was waiting for the tuner to produce data.


Quote

My USB tuners are taking like 30 seconds to start playback and MC is frozen until playback starts (see log2.txt).


This one had the same problem as Nathan's Silicondust device.  I wonder if this is a trend on Windows 7.  It actually took 147 seconds to build the graph.

Quote

I wasn't having any issues under XP with either tuner, although I did feel TV playabck had got a bit slower.

Can you still test the USB device on an XP device?  If so, please post/email me a log, or simply post the graph info.  I need to make sure fixing it for Windows 7 does not break it for XP.


Never mind.  I found an old log you sent me last April.  The graph did not have a whole lot of NULL Renderers, so I assume it was from an XP.  The TV device also used only one filter, not two.  There was a delay of about 6 seconds (a lot better than 150 seconds that you are experiencing now).

Quote

I also notice there are a whole lot of "Null Renderer" entries in the log and when I right-click and select "Filters" which weren't in XP.... what are they??

The Microsoft MPEG-2 Demultiplexer filter on Windows 7 (and maybe some versions of Vista) is different from that on XP in that it has a whole lot of output pins for audio and video.  I have not understood the reason for that, and have not understood how to effectively use them.  Thus I am still just using the first two available pins for audio and video and connecting the rest of them to NULL renderer.

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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2010, 01:34:39 pm »

Yaobing - new logs send via e-mail with the test DLL -  ;D much quicker!
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Yaobing

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2010, 02:35:19 pm »

Yaobing - new logs send via e-mail with the test DLL -  ;D much quicker!

There is still an inexplicable delay.  Graph-building took 8 seconds.  The delay appears to come from loading the tuner filter itself (unfortunately I did not add enough logging to pin point to it).  There was a nearly 5 seconds period during which TV was in waiting while MC enumerated your hand-held devices.  This could be just due to your HDHomerun needing rebooting.

EDIT:

Your second run in the same log did not show much delay.  The graph-building only took 3 seconds, of which 2 seconds was spent dumping graph info to log file.  So maybe Handheld device enumeration had something to do with the delay during the first run.
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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #12 on: January 06, 2010, 02:49:55 pm »

I did some more testing is TS off (and have sent you the log files to confirm):
--> Initial Tune after first running MC = under 5sec (still quicker), then
--> Press Stop --> Initial Tune = 2-3sec, then
--> Channel Changes withing the group = 1 sec
--> Channel Changes to another group =  2-3 sec

Thanks
Nathan
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rpalmer68

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #13 on: January 06, 2010, 03:03:56 pm »

Yaobing - new logs send via e-mail with the test DLL -  ;D much quicker!

Much quicker here too.... have emailed log.

Richard
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jmone

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #14 on: January 06, 2010, 03:29:42 pm »

Your second run in the same log did not show much delay.  The graph-building only took 3 seconds, of which 2 seconds was spent dumping graph info to log file.  So maybe Handheld device enumeration had something to do with the delay during the first run.

Send another log on this one....
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Yaobing

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #15 on: January 06, 2010, 04:22:18 pm »

Thank you both for testing.
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rpalmer68

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Re: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #16 on: January 08, 2010, 05:12:18 pm »

Thank you both for testing.

Thanks for the quick fix!

Just a thought, there are bound to be other tuners/drivers that have this same issue.

I'm not sure how you've fixed it but I assume  it's driver specific and you have coded the fix for our two drivers, so would a tick box option to enable this fix in the TV tuner settings area be worth considering so it's available for any driver/tuner that exibits the issue?

Cheers
Richard
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jmone

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Re: FIXED: Odd Inital Delay tuning a TV Channel (HD Homerun)
« Reply #17 on: January 08, 2010, 07:32:14 pm »

....or since the current code ends up determining that it has a combined filter the first time (eg it works but takes a long time), can it just from then on just self config to use the one filter?
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