HD-PVR Unstable lately

[inskeepp]

Hi,
Anyone else having problems with the HD-PVR with the latest beta versions?
It was solid for me under v6 and all the v7 beta versions up until .18, .19 and now .20. I think the last one that was stable was .16, but not positive. I think I skipped .17.

Now it is stopping and restarting several times in an hour show. If I am watching live, at the front end of the buffer then the video gets stuck when the HD-PVR stops and restarts. The audio continues once the HD-PVR starts recording again but to get the video to unstick I have to skip back in the video buffer.

Anyone else?

Thanks
Pete

[fidget]

I haven't had any problems for a while. Although I didn't record much off the DishNetwork bud last night, both programs half hour recorded without any problems.

[davephan]

I haven't had any HD-PVR problems in two weeks since I upgraded the HD-PVR driver to version 1.5.7.0 6/23/2010. Before upgrading the HD-PVR driver, I was having problems usually more often than every two weeks. The updated HD-PVR driver might have fixed the problems.

I am still using SageTV version 7.0.16.238 and Java version 1.6.0_10.

Dave

[inskeepp]

The last stable config I had was also 1.5.7 with Sage 7.0.16 and Java 1.6_10.
(This is all on a win7 64 bit with a ATI 4850 and 4 gigs RAM.)

I skipped update 17 but things went south with .18.
I have since tried .19, .20 and upgrading java to the most recent version which I think is update 24. Each update seemed to have no affect, very unstable.

Anyway, if/when you update to 7.0.20 please let me know if you have any problems or not.
Thanks

[PLUCKYHD]

I have been rock solid on 7.0.17 I just upgraded to 7.0.20 and haven't had any issues yet.

[Skirge01]

We've noticed something in the past couple of days (which would encompass .18 and .20), but I haven't taken the time to try and track down the recording dates or if something was happening on the server. Playback works fine and then, all of a sudden, the recording jumps ahead a few seconds. A single press of the rewind button jumps back to before the skip and it plays through just fine the second time. I was thinking this was just a bad recording or some high network/server activity. I'll do some checking this evening.

[Diego Garcia]

I updated to build 20 the other day, and I've experienced several instances of the HDPVR shutting down and being reset since then. However, the first beta I installed was build 17 or 18 (don't remember which), so I can't say that the problem reappeared.

[inskeepp]

I guess I will uninstall as much as I can and do a clean install V7 beta .16 to see if the problems go away.

[inskeepp]

I could not get a working install of 7.0.16. I uninstalled Sage, deleted the sage directory and removed everything from the registry I could find.

I'm back on .20 with java 6 update 10. Still get lots of pauses which sometimes leads to a frozen screen till I RW or FF.

One interesting thing I noticed is that the vidoe timeline seems to get messed up. When there is a gap in the recording because of the HD-PVR shutdown the timeline seems to think there is no gap in the video. So if there was a 10 sec HD-PVR shutdown and you were watching live TV it would look like you were actually 10 seconds behind live.
I see the same sort of thing that I used to see watching playon web videos where I can FF ahead and then the video indicator ticks backward.

[gplasky]

The latest java is 6 update 22. Why are you running update 10? I have 1 HD-PVR with the latest 1.5.7 drivers, plugged into the mb USB with SageTV 7 7.0.20. I use USB-UIRT for tuning the setbox. Not missing a thing. Is it your recording or playback you're having trouble with? Does the video play OK in another player?

Gerry

[vividweb]

I upgraded my HD-PVR drivers this weekend to 1.5.7 and upgraded sage to 7.0.20 and have had more issues than previous. I haven't had any failures, but have had poor recordings where the audio is scrambled until the HD-PVR is powered off and on. Then it works fine. While the audio is being recorded scrambled the lights on the HD-PVR are flashing on and off, but Sage is not reporting any issues.

[inskeepp]

I reverted to java 6 update 10 because that was the version my hd-pvr was last stable with. I tried upgrading to 22 but it made no difference so switched back to eliminate as many variables as possible.

I'm getting gaps in the video corresponding with the HD-PVR blinking off. It happens regardless of if I am watching live, delayed live, or a recording. The drop outs happen several times in a half hour show and last a few seconds.

Sage's reaction to the gap is different for live. If I'm watching live, I'll often get a stuck picture. The the audio eventually comes back but the video stays frozen.
If I wait and ff or rw I can get the video to get unstuck. If I rewound then when I hit the video from the gap then the video jumps. No red spot or jump in the timeline, just a video jump. If I ff all the way to live this is the scenario I see the timeline tick backwards.

Watching delayed live or something previously recorded it is similar to above but no frozen picture.

I do not notice any garbled audio like the above post.

In the past as recent as v7 .16 and as far back as v6 I had pretty reliable HD-PVR performance. When it did fail, I got a gap in the recording but I also seem to recall a red spot in the timeline and sometimes a video interrupted alert.

I'm not sure about other video players. The HD-200 in extender mode does not seem to get stuck video but there is a jump or gap in the video. I've tried the Microsoft decoder and Cyberlinks (H.264/PDVD9). I got more less stuck video with Microsofts but still gaps where the HD-PVR failed.

I'll try some recorded video if a different software player tonight.

[bulaman]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I have been rock solid on 7.0.17 I just upgraded to 7.0.20 and haven't had any issues yet.

same

[toricred]

Same here.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by inskeepp

I'm getting gaps in the video corresponding with the HD-PVR blinking off. It happens regardless of if I am watching live, delayed live, or a recording. The drop outs happen several times in a half hour show and last a few seconds.

Sage's reaction to the gap is different for live. If I'm watching live, I'll often get a stuck picture. The the audio eventually comes back but the video stays frozen.
If I wait and ff or rw I can get the video to get unstuck. If I rewound then when I hit the video from the gap then the video jumps. No red spot or jump in the timeline, just a video jump. If I ff all the way to live this is the scenario I see the timeline tick backwards.

Watching delayed live or something previously recorded it is similar to above but no frozen picture.

I do not notice any garbled audio like the above post.

This is the behavior I had and an RMA cured it. I have also seen some dropouts due to poor signal, significantly during a hellacious thunderstorm a about a month ago. If you have a TV with component cables nearby, hook up to the passthrough on the HDPVR and see what happens when the HDPVR is blanking out.

Also the HDPVR is very sensitive to drops in audio via TOSLINK. If you are using optical, you could try switching to composite to see if that has any effect.

[damian.flynn]

Some people have switched from native HDPVR support to using this via DVBlogic, and appear to have pretty good success. Maybe worth considering (I dont have one but reading some posts on the forum and my blog indicate good expereince)

www.dvblogic.com, and check out my blog on the setup - its focused on thier TVSource plugin, but some of the readers have used the HDPVR option instead.

[madpoet]

I'm suddenly having a ton of problems myself... if the DVBLogic really fixing problems?

[vividweb]

Rolling back drivers has helped, but my channel changes have doubled in length (7 to 8 seconds). Recordings don't seem to suffer from this, but live tv hurts.

[Skirge01]

For those having issues, by any chance did your STB recently get a software update?

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by madpoet

I'm suddenly having a ton of problems myself... if the DVBLogic really fixing problems?

I have not been running DVBLogic long enough to say it fixes the HDPVR problems. These HDPVR can run awhile trouble free and then BAM!.. But the automatic HDPVR recycling hook is nice to have and hopefully it will save the recording. Channel changes are quicker. Also DVBLogic allows me to use my STB channels on every network attached MC computer in the house. DVBLogic 3.2 beta just added streaming to an iphone...