weird codec problem

[vanir]

I'm having some rather bizarre problems with my SageTV setup, and I think they're related to my MPEG2 decoder.

About a month ago, my SageTV locked up and wouldn't restart, so eventually after bashing my head against it for a week I just rebuilt everything. SageTV 2.1 seemed to install just fine but when I went to view live TV, it gave me an error message:

"There was a MPEG-2 video error in playback details: Failed connecting video stream to overlay mixer ErrCode = 0x80040217"

So I went to look in the Troubleshooting FAQ and it seemed to point to me needing a video decoder installed. (That's funny, I don't remember installing one the last time!) So I hunted around for one and eventually ended up with the latest version of ffdshow.

Well, that worked. Sort of. I could now watch TV and record and everything, but it was dropping frames like mad (10-12FPS). I turned off every option I could find, but it was still horrible quality. I left it like that for a couple weeks (I had surgery and was in no mood to be tinkering with MPEG codecs ), and today I went in search of an alternative. I figured ffdshow must be crappy or something.

So I found a couple of the codec packs at www.free-codecs.com, and tried installing those as they had more MPEG-2 decoders than I could shake a stick at. Specifically, I installed the K-lite codec pack.

I restarted Sage, thinking I would find lots of brand new codecs to play with. Instead, the listing for ffdshow was gone, and in its place was Cyberlink DVD Decoder. I'd heard of that, so I tried it. And all of a sudden I am back to square one, and I'm getting that weird "you need a decoder" message I was getting before.

After bashing my head against it all afternoon again, I eventually tried installing a slightly older version of ffdshow, and for some reason this one seems to like to give me a decent framerate. But try to use Overlay instead of VMR9 and Sage will crash out to the desktop.

This is weird and I'm about to murder something. Anybody got any ideas?

FYI my system specs: AMD Athlon 2400+, 768M RAM, Windows XP Pro (SP2), JRE 1.4_04, SageTV 2.1, 100gig 7200rpm EIDE HD, and 2 PVR-250's

thanks!

-Matt

[korben_dallas]

Spend $19.95 USD at http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html

[vanir]

It'll be my luck the damn thing won't recognize this one either. Still worth downloading the trial and checking though, so thanks.

Just so I can stop this from driving me insane.... I swear I didn't install any DVD decoders the first time I set my sage up. At least, intentionally. Is going out and getting one seperately a necessary step?

[CyRex]

IMO I think in general it is best to stay away from those codec packs if you can. Now there is a bunch of stuff installed on your machine that most likely will not need... It may be harmless, or it may lead to future config problems.

Also, although ffdshow (sorta) worked for you, it is not actually used by Sage as a decoder. It works as a post-processor so you can apply filters / effects such as resize, noise reduction, sharpness, etc. to your video stream. When selecting ffdshow as your encoder in Sage, it will end up using whatever the default codec on your system is, along with ffdshow for processing.

-Dan

[spanky]

Vanir,

When you did your original install of your PVR-250 did you follow the normal Hauppauge install? If so, you probably were using the InterVideo decoders that Hauppauge provides for use with the WinTV application.

[vanir]

Originally Posted by spanky

Vanir,

When you did your original install of your PVR-250 did you follow the normal Hauppauge install? If so, you probably were using the InterVideo decoders that Hauppauge provides for use with the WinTV application.

You know, I didn't use the CD with the PVR-250 drivers that came bundled with the sageTV software this time around... I downloaded them from Hauppauge. And I don't think I have the WinTV application installed.

DEFINITELY have to try that when I get home. Thanks.

[vanir]

Originally Posted by CyRex

IMO I think in general it is best to stay away from those codec packs if you can. Now there is a bunch of stuff installed on your machine that most likely will not need... It may be harmless, or it may lead to future config problems.

Also, although ffdshow (sorta) worked for you, it is not actually used by Sage as a decoder. It works as a post-processor so you can apply filters / effects such as resize, noise reduction, sharpness, etc. to your video stream. When selecting ffdshow as your encoder in Sage, it will end up using whatever the default codec on your system is, along with ffdshow for processing.

-Dan

Yeah, I was a little iffy about installing that thing but I was running out of options and I dare not miss Battlestar Galactica.

I was a lot more worried about spyware than anything else though. Kind of afraid to see what Adaware tells me now.

Thanks for the info on ffdshow, though. I'm just curious as to what it was using as the default codec now.

[vanir]

Spanky, I went and downloaded the Intervideo decoder direct from Hauppauge at:

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/suppo...vr250-350.html

Now everything works _great_. That seemed to be the problem the whole time, thanks for the help!

- Matt