Black/Blank video, but sound works

[AWS]

Before I go and request Sage support help, does anyone else get a blank/black screen while playing back a recorded or "live" tv show? You can hear the soundtrack and you can use the remote to go back to the menu, but that video portion of the show just disappears. If you go to the menu then go back to your TV show, it'll work again just fine - well at least until it does it again. It seems to happen at any length of time once you start watching TV. I can't say for sure it does/does not happen with DVD playback since I haven't played a DVD in a while and this problem just started to occur four days ago.

SageTV 4
Default JAVA that came with the installer
TT / NVIDIA codecs (1.88)
Unlocked SageTV "secrets"
Neilm's customizable menus

[Commodore 64]

That happened to me when I had FSE activated. Once I disabled that, everything works fine. I don't know if it matters, but I also use the nVidia codecs from Theatretek.

[Humanzee]

I saw that when I didn't have the TV set as the primary monitor, but it was different on different video file types. DirectX works better on the primary monitor. Also, FSE works best for me. With out it I get micro stuttering.

[AWS]

I just took off the FSE and I still have the problem. I have only a STD TV hooked up to the HTPC.

[Ashman]

I'm having the exact same problem.

This is only happening since I've upgraded to Sage 4, but it happens both when watching live TV or watching recorded programs.

I'm using the Sonic decoders and I'm noticing that the hard drive is churning like a banshee while the sound is playing. I can pause the program, and the sound stops, but the hard drive never stops churning and the video doesn't come back until I either invoke the menu or "stop" the video.

Once I do that, then everything settles down and I can continue watching the program.

It's happening often enough though that I'm considering using Zoom Player to watch my recorded shows instead because it's so annoying...

[Commodore 64]

Last night I was fooling around configuring SageTV and audio output to my receiver (it had been in the shop getting repaired). I was dealing with some sound issues when using the nVidia Audio Decoder and the Default DirectSound Audio renderer.

When I was playing Live TV, the sound was vacilating between PCM and DD signals, causing the sound to fluctuate between silence (during the PCM bits) and sound (during the DD bits). I ended up installing the full version of AC3 filter so I could configure it.

Anyways, I ran into a problem that is similar to what you are experienceing when I was messing with AC3 filter configuration. I set AC3 filter to S/P DIF pass through for Mpeg Audio, DTS and AC3 and also set AC3 filter to be used for all audio streams. I ran into the "black screen video/audio playing" problem again. I was able to solve the problem by setting AC3 Filter to use the 'Default Wave out' Audio renderer (set this in both AC3 filter properties AND SageTV Audio/Properties).

Now everything is just peachy. I'm not sure how much of this is pertinent to your issue, but I would encourage you to do some trial and error configuration with your audio settings. It seems counterintuitive that an improper audio setting would cause video dropout...but maybe it somehow interferes with the graph or something.

[amg]

I'm having a similar problem. Start playing a recorded show and I get audio but no video. I have to restart Sage to get video.

The problem only started after upgrading to 4.0. I was using 3.07 fine for a while with dynamic menus + comskip + hidden features (malore view).

To begin to troubleshoot I went back to the default STV. No problem there. Then I added hidden features. No problem there.

I imported the comskip playback stvi and the problem came right back.

Anybody else experience anything like this? I assume not too many people are. I am open to suggestions on how to find the other something that causes an interaction between comskip and the video not showing.

Sage TV 4 ( service mode)
Default STV + hidden features + comskip stvi
S-Video out to SDTV.

amg

[AWS]

Well I watched TV for a few shows last night and the "black out/audio working" problem only occured one time and it was right at the start of the evening. I did mess with my AC3 filter through WM10, DVD, Advanced and told it to not even use it - to use the NVIDIA codec instead. I also turned off the FSE mode. After making those two adjustments, I didn't have the problem for the remander of the night. So you could be onto something with the AC3 filter issue, Commodore 64. When I get home tonight I want to try and make it the default again and see what happens.

I don't know what the AC3 filter does and why I'd need it. I need to research that topic. Currenlty I'm just using the NVIDIA Audio codec output to my DirectSound Audigy 2 then to my speakers. Is the AC3 filter to audio as the NVIDIA Post Processor is to video? Or is it a replacement of some sort?

[Commodore 64]

http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/

There is some info there. AC3 filter allows a lotof customization of audio streams. In our case, we just want to pass through the audio data through S/P DIF. I do not know how to access the configuration for the Nvidia decoders to do that, but I do know how to configure AC3Filter to pass through stuff. That's why I use AC3 filter.

An interesting point made somewhere on that website I linked is that when AC3Filter is installed, it has the highest merit of any filter installed. This may mean that even if you tell SageTV to use nVidia Audio Codec, AC3Filter will try to maintain it's merit. This could create problems in the playback graph, so if you do not plan to use AC3Filter, you need to go to the System tab and enable the "prefer other renderer" checkbox.

I was having some odd issues last night, and even though I got it sorted out, I may try to play with the nVidia Audio Decoder again just for kicks.

[jphhughes]

I don't know if this will help but when I turned off AC3 by selecting the "prefer other renderer" I did this by using media player, tools, dvd advanced. Then I restarted Media play and again went to tool, dvd , advanced whihc brought up the Nvidia codex configuration screen wher you can select speaker setup and tell it to use a receiver and s/p dif.