Recording problem with Plextor PX-TV402U. Video frame gets stuck

[Dargason]

Not at all, but it will have to wait until I get home tonight...

I tried re-installing some old DVD player software I had (it came free with my video card, I think) and that gave me some new (cybervideo?) codecs, but it didn't fix the crashing problem.

I tried re-installing WinTV, and that didn't help either.

I also ran into another kind of crash -- this time it said "pure virtual function call" and it occurred when I had finished watching a program and I was trying to "close file". Not sure if it is a new problem or one I just never ran into before.

It's really strange that I have re-installed everything but I can't get back to the same behavior I had when I first installed SageTV. Could it be there were some register settings or something that didn't get re-set?

I just got a reply back from the Sage support folks and they recommended I try the latest beta, so I intend to try that tonight.

Thanks a bunch for the help -- I really like the potential of SageTV, but at the moment I can't help but wonder if it's all that it's cracked up to be.

Mike

[insomniac]

Ive been following this thread just out of interrest of the plextor encoder, but thought that I should chime in. Have you guys with sync problems tried running in overlay mode? If not, try it. It will take some load off the processor and might help keep sync better. As I recall, back in the creative DVCR days, the more load on the display machine, the better chance for you to lose audio sync and or freeze. The only way that I could reliably watch live tv using the DVCR card was to have a server/client environment. e.g. server hosting the card, client streaming the output. The server wouldnt be affected by the heavy cpu overhead of the graphic display, thus not causing the sync issue as much...

anyway, I guess that there is 2 things you could test.....


Just some thoughts. Hope they help.

I.

[Dargason]

Thanks for chiming in -- more help is always better.

Isn't overlay mode a playback setting? I'm pretty sure that my audio sync problem is a recording issue, since once the program is recorded, the problem is consistent on that file. I'm pretty sure (though not 100% certain at this point) that I even tried playback using media player and it was exactly the same.

In any case, I think I am using overlay... the VMR9 image quality looks horrible to me.

[insomniac]

Yep, it is the display setting. But if you happen to be playing back a recording or watching live tv at the same time your plextor box is recording something, this might create the cpu strain which is screwing up the muxing. This was absolutely my problem until I switched to server/client to offload the graphic cpu strain from the encoding server.

This to me, sounds exactly the same as the DVCR and I would be willing to bet the farm on it

I.

Originally Posted by Dargason

Thanks for chiming in -- more help is always better.

Isn't overlay mode a playback setting? I'm pretty sure that my audio sync problem is a recording issue, since once the program is recorded, the problem is consistent on that file. I'm pretty sure (though not 100% certain at this point) that I even tried playback using media player and it was exactly the same.

In any case, I think I am using overlay... the VMR9 image quality looks horrible to me.

[zinkpig]

The problems occur even when the computer isnt being used at all. Although I haven't seen this issue in the recent past. I am recording in mpeg2 mostly and the just the odd recording in divx, probably not using it enough for this to arise again.

[Dargason]

Insomniac, I agree with zinkpig that this (the audio sync problem) isn't related to CPU usage since the worst cases I've observed were recorded when the PC was otherwise idle (and me too... sleeping). Some of the other issues (video lockup, for example) could be though.

[insomniac]

Are you using comskip?

Originally Posted by Dargason

Insomniac, I agree with zinkpig that this (the audio sync problem) isn't related to CPU usage since the worst cases I've observed were recorded when the PC was otherwise idle (and me too... sleeping). Some of the other issues (video lockup, for example) could be though.

[insomniac]

btw:

Im trying this out to put a bunch of SVCD's onto DVD. You can use a few of these freeware utilities to fix your sync issues maybe..

I.

[Dargason]

Well, I don't think I'm using comskip -- I haven't seen any references in any of the setup pages. Does it even exist in SageTV 2.1?

[insomniac]

If you dont know what it is, then nope . it comes with a few popular stv's and or a plugin type setup for commercial skipping.

I was wondering if it was using your cpu during these off times. If not, that kills my theory.. Just make sure that your machine doesnt have any scheduled events that might be cpu intensive during these off times that the plextor is recording. This will help weigh this out as a possible cause to the problem.

I tried...

I.

Originally Posted by Dargason

Well, I don't think I'm using comskip -- I haven't seen any references in any of the setup pages. Does it even exist in SageTV 2.1?

[Dargason]

Of course there are some things running in the system tray, though I don't think any of them would cause high CPU or disk usage. It's hard to say for sure though... you never know when Windows/Java is going to decide to do garbage collection, for example.

Thanks for trying! I'll let you folks know if the beta update fixes anything.

[Dargason]

Ok, just in case anyone is still following this thread, I thought I'd give you an update.

I never got to install the beta. I discovered that WinDVR was also crashing, and I decided that my system must have been messed up somehow during the un-installing I did -- perhaps a .dll file got deleted or something. So I went through the painful process of reformatting and re-installing my system, followed by the Plextor, intervideo, java, and sagetv software.

Now I am happy to say that the crashes are gone -- "Great" works great! And as a bonus, the VMR9 renderer actually looks good now (before, the image was grainy and speckled). I occasionally see some horizontal lines that move around a bit, but I suspect this is that "tearing" problem I've heard mentioned in the forum.

Last night I scheduled it to record about 10 1/2-hour long shows (using "great"). I checked them briefly this morning and the audio sync was fine. I set it up to do the same thing while I'm at work today using the "DivX HT High Quality" setting and I'll check it when I get home tonight.

[korben_dallas]

Good to hear. As a sidenote, Frey is working with DivX to address the mpg-to-avi transcoding issues.

[Dargason]

Ok, it's confirmed.

Using the DivX HT High Quality mode for repeated long recordings on the same channel results in bad sync between the audio and video (video is ahead of audio). The same problem doesn't happen with "Great" quality mode.

Now... how do I go about getting this problem fixed?

Mike

[korben_dallas]

Submit a support request or beta bug, depending on your SageTV version.

[follower]

I have seen the audio out of synch problem with all levels of DIVX encoding. I am so happy the Sage dev folks are working on this issue.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by follower

I have seen the audio out of synch problem with all levels of DIVX encoding. I am so happy the Sage dev folks are working on this issue.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the transcoding problem mpg-to-avi is a different issue than the Stuck Frame problem or the Audio Sync problem. Frey is aware of the transcoding issue. For the other two, I have no idea because I never reported them as bugs so wouldn't have been contacted by Frey.. thought they were resolved with either WinXP SP2, the Plextor drivers, or SageTV beta since I haven't seen these problems in a long long time.

I'd strongly suggest that any repeating problem/issue be reported by every user so that Frey can determine its nature and affected audience.

[Dargason]

Well, I'm sure they'll first tell me to update to the latest beta, which I haven't done yet. I'll try that and if the problem persists I'll send in a bug report.

[follower]

I am on the latest beta and am still having the problem. This is a problem that is hard to figure out. It looks like it is maybe 10% of the divx encoded recordings.

[laddepp]

I've been having problems with Divx audio sync since I bought SageTV a month or so ago. I created the following thread in the Hardware group discussing my issues.

http://sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=10279

I formatted/reinstalled my system three times, replaced the hard drive, used various versions of SageTV, and turned off all but the most critical services (WinXP Pro). I think the problem is the mechanism that unwraps the file to an AVI. The audio falls out of sync every single time, when enable_mpg4_timeshifting=true. It doesn't matter if I'm watching the show, or Sage just sits on the main menu (not rendering) while I record. If I set enable_mpg4_timeshifting=false, the resulting AVIs are in sync, every time. mpeg2 recordings are in sync, every time.

I've been writing Sage Support, and I've tried all of their suggestions, but no indication as to whether they know that it might be a problem. They told me that they cannot reproduce these problems. I know they are trying to help, but so far none of their suggestions have helped.

In any case, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only person with this problem.