I get corrupted recordings after 1 to 2 days of uptime

[jbromwich]

I'm using a WinPVR 350 (hardware decoding only) with Sage 2.1.

For the first 24 to 36 hours or so, my system works great. Then I'll come home from work, and I'll find that the first few recordings of the day are perfect, but the rest of the recordings are completely corrupted! By corrupted, I mean that Sage can play the mpg just fine, but there seems to be another frame (both video and sound) interleaved throughout the whole recording. It is of course, completely unwatchable. (It's not a playback problem; the mpg is still corrupted when I view it on a different computer with WinAmp) If I reboot, subsequent recordings work just fine... for about another 24 to 36 hours, then the problem starts again at some random time.

Once this "corrupted" state has been entered, if I watch live TV, it is also corrupted in the same way. Good recordings made earlier, however, play back just fine. By the way, no recordings are partially corrupted... they are either completely fine or completely corrupted. I have eliminated just about everything I can think of that might be causing it. (ie. No event or usage pattern that I can identify coincides with the start of the corruption).

Firstly, has anyone else ever experienced this? What the heck is causing it?
Please... ANY suggestions would be very welcome since I am completely out of ideas.

My application software:
Sage 2.1 + EPG plugin for Zap2it Canadian listings. That's it. No other plugins or updates.

My drivers:
I'm using only the driver software that came on the CD in the box right now. (ie. the card driver is version 1.18.21.22266). I'm not going to upgrade just for the hell of it unless the new version (1.18.21.22301) states that it fixes this problem specifically (which it doesn't).

[SHS]

One possable is that PVR 350 it overheat that cuase it

[spanky]

JBromwich, are you starting a recording right after you reboot or are you waiting awhile? I haven't experienced this but if a simple reboot fixes the problem then I don't think it would be a heat issue with the PVR-350 since the card would not have enough time to cool off in the minute or so that the reboot would take but if you were waiting awhile before starting your next recording I could see how heat might be a factor. What happens if you simply shut down and restart Sage? Maybe it's some kind of memory leak. Also, I don't know if this would enter into it, or if who would be able to answer this, but could the fact that your CPU does not meet minimum system requirements affect your Sage set up?

[jbromwich]

Thanks SHS and spanky for your suggestions...

Spanky has a very good point and I'll explain what it led me to conclude...

Here's my update. To cut a long story short, I discovered a pattern and set up an experiment today to catch it in the act. I scheduled a recording on channel 5 followed immediately by a recording on channel 4 and then one again on channel 5. As I predicted the first 2 were fine and the 3rd was corrupted. My theory was correct... Anything that gets recorded after I've recorded on channel 4 gets corrupted. Why on Earth would that happen you ask? Well, since I don't have cable, channel 4 has pretty bad reception for me. So to compensate a bit, I always record stuff on channel 4 at quality "BEST". That's the difference; everything else is always recorded at "CVD" quality.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the corrupted recording always has one frame from something else interleaved throughout the recording. In today's experiment, I lucked out and this frame was the station identification logo of the previous recording's channel! This leads me to guess that when the recorder switched from resolution "BEST" (channel 4) to resolution "CVD" (channel 5), the last frame from channel 4 (the channel 4 logo in this case) got "stuck" in the output buffer or in some way didn't get cleared. This frame then got repeatedly included in my new channel 5 recording.

Now, you're right... that doesn't sound like a heat problem does it?

... but how to fix it? Well, I could get cable I suppose (and thus only record at "CVD" quality), or I could try other recording qualities in case it's only "BEST" that causes the problem when followed directly by "CVD". Anyone know how I could further narrow down this bug enough to report it?

I'll also try Spanky's suggestion of just restarting the Sage application (and the service too). That will help rule out the hardware being the problem I guess... and I'll check for memory leaks too...

... damn I wish I had the source code and a debugger!

Julian.

[justme]

You could contact Frey support. I'm almost certian 2.1 has the ability to enable debug logging, but you'll have to get the procedure from Frey. This log and your reproducable experiment may provide usefull data. Frey Support may also send you a custom DLL to further narrow your issue down. Of course I'm assuming that Frey can fix it. It may be more of a Hauppauge issue, but still Frey now has some pull with Hauppauge.

Anyway... It looks like the 2.2.x RCs may be getting closer to final release code, so if you'd like to see this bug fixed(maybe aready handled by a 2.2.x beta) for 2.2.x release version I'd file a report ASAP.

/justme