Novelty of Recording TV is Long Gone...Now Fix It

[ToxMox]

FYI all versions of Java after 1.5.0_05 have memory leaks and problems with Sage. Do you only experience Sage crashes when watching shows? If so you may want to try different audio/video decoder combinations or try updating or going to an older version of the PVR-150 drivers.

Other than that it sounds like you've ruled out almost everything hardware wise except for the motherboard and processor themselves.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

FYI all versions of Java after 1.5.0_05 have memory leaks and problems with Sage. Do you only experience Sage crashes when watching shows? If so you may want to try different audio/video decoder combinations or try updating or going to an older version of the PVR-150 drivers.

Other than that it sounds like you've ruled out almost everything hardware wise except for the motherboard and processor themselves.

Actually, I am running 1.6 beta build 97 ( I think 96 was okay too) no handles issues.

B

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Major_A

3. Add a reminder option, I don’t need to record everything, sometimes I just need to be reminded to switch the channel

I have a plugin that I wrote for myself that I could clean up and post to do this.

BobP.

[Major_A]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

FYI all versions of Java after 1.5.0_05 have memory leaks and problems with Sage. Do you only experience Sage crashes when watching shows? If so you may want to try different audio/video decoder combinations or try updating or going to an older version of the PVR-150 drivers.

Other than that it sounds like you've ruled out almost everything hardware wise except for the motherboard and processor themselves.

Why would the Hauppauge card drivers affect lockups during playback? The show/movie is already recorded but as soon as I select watch now SageTV locks up.

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I have a plugin that I wrote for myself that I could clean up and post to do this.

BobP.

That would be much appreciated.

Originally Posted by samgreco

I would lay my money on the motherboard.

I had a Soyo Dragon in my Sage server and I would get random file corruption, only in Sage. Whenever I had to reboot, Sage would forget that it had a second PVR250. And I could never run another app like XLobby or other frontend without problems,

I switched to an Asus board and haven't had a SINGLE issue since. I haven't needed even a reboot in months.

And remember that the original Soyo tested perfectly. It still works, just not with PVR250s. I did try it later with other PVR software and had similar issues, so it wasn't Sage, but the combination of hardware.

I hope that's the case, like I said in a couple weeks I'm picking up a new X2 processor and am going to transfer my A64 3500+ and older AV8 into my HTPC.

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

pls post full output of java -version

How? Can I do this through the JAVA console in the Control Panel?



Thanks everyone, I honestly did not expect this kind of helpful suggestions/support.

[blade]

Maybe I missed it, but are you running VMR9 or Overlay? Is FSE enabled or disabled and is 3d acceleration turned on? What decoder are you using?

IMO you need to set things up with the simpliest settings and go from there. I'd try Overlay, Sage Decoder, 3d acceleration off, FSE off, no FFDshow. If you can get that stable then start tweaking the settings for better PQ and performance.

Also I wouldn't try to overclock until Sage was stable. I ran Prime95 for hours on my HTPC without a hiccup and 5 minutes into watching a show it crashed. I slowed things down a bit and it's been rock solid ever since.

Do the recordings that freeze Sage play ok in WMP? When you go to watch a show try pressing play instead of ok and see if it still freezes up. This will bypass the popup with watch now. Some people have problems when selecting a show through the popup.

[Major_A]

VMR9
FSE disabled
3D Acceleration on

The latest nVidia PureVideo decoder.
Deinterlace Control - Automatic
Deinterlace Mode - Automatic
Enhanced nView Support - Prefer VMR9

The recordings play fine in WMP, I'll try selecting play instead of using the popup.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by Major_A

Why would the Hauppauge card drivers affect lockups during playback? The show/movie is already recorded but as soon as I select watch now SageTV locks up.

That would be much appreciated.

I hope that's the case, like I said in a couple weeks I'm picking up a new X2 processor and am going to transfer my A64 3500+ and older AV8 into my HTPC.

How? Can I do this through the JAVA console in the Control Panel?



Thanks everyone, I honestly did not expect this kind of helpful suggestions/support.

open cmd prompt, type java -version [enter], click program icon on top left window, select mark, highlight all text, left click, paste to forum.

B

[Major_A]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

open cmd prompt, type java -version [enter], click program icon on top left window, select mark, highlight all text, left click, paste to forum.

B

java version "1.6.0-beta2"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-beta2-b86)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-beta2-b86, mixed mode, sharing)

[Humanzee]

I had an ECS board running with Sage for a couple of years, then I bought a new graphics card and it just wouldn't work. For the life of me I couldn't get it to work correctly. Turned out to be chipset drivers. You might give it a look. I moved sage to a different computer anyway as my better machine was under used. The only crashes I get now seem to be related to me tinkering with things that I shouldn't. Otherwise it just works. Good luck.

[Major_A]

Unfortuately for me nVidia hasn't updated the nForce3 drivers since last year and those are the ones I have.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by Major_A

java version "1.6.0-beta2"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-beta2-b86)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-beta2-b86, mixed mode, sharing)

Here's mine:

java version "1.6.0-rc"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-rc-b97)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-rc-b97, mixed mode)

You need to update to the snapshot builds to stop vmr-9 issue creates too many hadnles and locks up sage.

B

[Major_A]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Here's mine:

java version "1.6.0-rc"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0-rc-b97)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-rc-b97, mixed mode)

You need to update to the snapshot builds to stop vmr-9 issue creates too many hadnles and locks up sage.

B

Sounds good, you would you be a nice guy and point me in the right direction?

[ToxMox]

I believe this is the snapshot release.
http://download.java.net/jdk6/binaries/

[bcjenkins]

Thanks for doing the link, I was on my way out the door last night when I posted the comparison. Two things though:

1. Snapshots released weekly, the version I am on will likely disappear today. Don't know what bugs may be reintroduced.
2. If the file is named .zip, name .jar, run it and replace the 1.6.0 dir in your c:\pro..\java dir

B

[mayamaniac]

This is a tough one to figure out, you'll just have to take all the suggestions posted and keep on narrowing down to the specific problem. If you have the patience for it, I bet the problem will be nailed down eventually. Usually AMD coupled with VIA chipset motherboard spell disaster, but you have an nForce2 chipset, so it should be better. But then again you have a budget brand in ECS, so who knows whether the board is the problem or not. If you are getting a new CPU and mobo soon, then maybe just forget about fixing this thing and hope it works better on the new hardware. If its an option, I would go with intel processor and intel mobo instead of AMD/nForce combo.

As for SageTV, it runs very stable when there are no software/hardware conflicts. Is it stable on all hardware configurations? Of course not, SageTV is a little more picky with the hardware it runs on then other common softwares, so there's always a chance it won't run well on your system.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I have a plugin that I wrote for myself that I could clean up and post to do this.

BobP.

Since everything you watch is recording anyway and Sage pops up a dialog asking if you want to change the channel, isn't that the reminder for most users? I do have multiple tuners, and could see this as a possible benefit, since Sage will just record the show if it has an available tuner without asking. I guess it would be a nice option to use with Favorites, so if you're watching something and a Favorite that is flagged for reminders (or you have flagged a specific show) you can immediately opt to not watch (or record it) when it comes on. However; I hate commercials so badly that I usually won't watch a live show - at least not until it's about 30% through it so I can skip through the commercials.

Can you post what you have so I can take a look?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by scoful

Since everything you watch is recording anyway and Sage pops up a dialog asking if you want to change the channel, isn't that the reminder for most users? I do have multiple tuners, and could see this as a possible benefit, since Sage will just record the show if it has an available tuner without asking. I guess it would be a nice option to use with Favorites, so if you're watching something and a Favorite that is flagged for reminders (or you have flagged a specific show) you can immediately opt to not watch (or record it) when it comes on. However; I hate commercials so badly that I usually won't watch a live show - at least not until it's about 30% through it so I can skip through the commercials.

Can you post what you have so I can take a look?

Sure - tonight I hope. In it's current format I have to manually complete the import in Studio - I missed a link somewhere - will try to fix that but not the other quirks that I want to eliminate.

As far as how it operates. I programmed it to work as close as possible to how "Reminders" work on my Moto-6412 cable box. This does not replace favorites and is only useful for LiveTV - that's why I never posted it. Didn't think many people would want it. They might like it when just starting out with SageTV but once you start selecting favorites and using IR it is less useful. I really only use it on premium channels where you don't get commercials and usually not real often. Anyway what it does is display a transparent menu similar to a program Guide single show entry for all shows selected for this plugin that are currently airing or will be airing within the next few minutes (time before show is configurable). If you have used NIELM's dynamic menus then this is similar to the Guide entry displayed at the bottom of the screens in the dynamic menus. This menu will appear shortly before the show is to start but is also possible to bring up by pressing select while watching a video. Then you can scroll through all of the ones in the list and select any of them. This kind of makes it like previous channel except you can go to more than just two channels.

BobP.

Edit: In order to finish it up I had to do more than I thought. It should be quite functional and some/most? of the quirks have been eliminated.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by scoful

Since everything you watch is recording anyway and Sage pops up a dialog asking if you want to change the channel, isn't that the reminder for most users? I do have multiple tuners, and could see this as a possible benefit, since Sage will just record the show if it has an available tuner without asking. I guess it would be a nice option to use with Favorites, so if you're watching something and a Favorite that is flagged for reminders (or you have flagged a specific show) you can immediately opt to not watch (or record it) when it comes on. However; I hate commercials so badly that I usually won't watch a live show - at least not until it's about 30% through it so I can skip through the commercials.

Can you post what you have so I can take a look?

The Reminders plugin has been uploaded here. Maybe later I will start a support thread but for now you can PM me with question or start a thread of your own.

BobP.

[dbfresh23]

Hmmm, well look at that. At first I figured that this seemd like a pretty useless plugin, but now after seeing the pics I have a better idea of what it's doing and it's actually a pretty cool idea. I'll grab it and give it a shot too.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

Hmmm, well look at that. At first I figured that this seemd like a pretty useless plugin, but now after seeing the pics I have a better idea of what it's doing and it's actually a pretty cool idea. I'll grab it and give it a shot too.

Just uploaded a fix so if you got it before this post download again please. Also I thought it would probably be fairly useless to most people that's why I haven't uploaded it until now. Hope you like it.