Lockups with 2.2 and a WinTV 350

[Crashless]

Thanks for all the info insomniac. I'm planning Saturday as my toubleshooting day. Hopefully I'll get a bead on this thing and take it out.

[insomniac]

side note:

I have had good luck w/ xp sp2. What os/ver are you running?

Originally Posted by Crashless

Thanks for all the info insomniac. I'm planning Saturday as my toubleshooting day. Hopefully I'll get a bead on this thing and take it out.

[Crashless]

W2k. Haven't had the initiative to upgrade. I have a copy of windows server 2003 laying around, and plan to install it when 1. C: crashes. 2. I get a new MB/CPU for my main system.

I don't want to have to reinstall everything I've worked on the last year, or deal with problems associated with an upgrade of that difference. So I've kinda been putting it off.

[insomniac]

FWIW, 2k3 has been rock solid on my server machine w/ a Intel 865 PERLL mobo. I would definately say that it might be a worth while upgrade...

[Crashless]

Ug. I know, I know...everyone has said that....

<whining>It's just so much work....</whining>

I just wish AMD would release their dual cores already so I can upgrade. They just announced that June is their expected release. So I figure around Christmas will be my time.

[insomniac]

1-2 hours, tops :P

[Sethbo]

I've got the same problem that's already been posted countless times...350 card, athlon 63 3200+, and a chilly 33.7 F. As soon as I start SageTV and it finishes initializing, it freezes. No sound, no audio, no menu, just a black box.

I have to kill the sage process in the task manager to close down the app. I can start WinTV2000 - shipped with the 350 - right away and it will work without any kind of issue. When this happened to me before, I had to uninstall and reinstall Sage.

So what gives? It doesn't seem to be the CPU, the temp, or even the card.

Thanks

[Crashless]

Is it a new box? Have you even gotten Sage to start?

It's possible your sage install is messed up.

If you have started Sage, and then enabled the 350 output, THEN you got this behavior - are you using the latest drivers? Latest Java? Have you tried reinstalling SageTV?

Try moving your sage.properties file out of the directory, and starting again.

Otherwise, if sage has NEVER worked. Uninstall/Reinstall...and get it working without enabling the 350 output. THEN try enabling it.

Note: The Sage window will be black on your monitor when you're playing a file if you have h/w only enabled.

[insomniac]

when this happened to me, it was my audio configuration that caused it...wish i could remember the resolution....

I suggest putting everything on default(render and codec). As I recall, this helped me out to get the hardware output going..just play around until it doesnt crash. Write your changes down when you find one that works

I.

[insomniac]

hey crashless,

did you ever have any luck with your config? It seems like you have a very similar setup. Seems like you should be a lucky one like me....

I.

[Sethbo]

My install did work once upon a time, then I started get the black screen of death, with no output of any kind - and that's when I did the reinstall. All the drivers are up to date, and I just uninstalled sage and reinstalled, but still no luck. Can't even access the menus. I may go back and retry the hauppauge driver installation along with Directx...

Thanks for the help...

[1972]

Has anyone ever found a working sollution for the EOF problem?

[fieldeffect]

Originally Posted by 1972

Has anyone ever found a working sollution for the EOF problem?

Yes, don't use the 350 for output

I thought I read somewhere that one of the STVs either did or was planning to stop playback just before EOF as a workaround. I didn't notice or keep up with it because I stopped using my 350 ages ago.

I've been using my 350 just as an input card for ages now, because the resale value is so low that i'd probably have to sell my 350 and spend extra money to get a 150

Best advice to troubled 350 users is buy an XCard. It seems like a lifetime ago that I used to use my 350 and have to deal with crashes and hangs and loss of sound sync every couple of days.

Nick.

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by fieldeffect

Yes, don't use the 350 for output

I thought I read somewhere that one of the STVs either did or was planning to stop playback just before EOF as a workaround. I didn't notice or keep up with it because I stopped using my 350 ages ago.

I've been using my 350 just as an input card for ages now, because the resale value is so low that i'd probably have to sell my 350 and spend extra money to get a 150

Best advice to troubled 350 users is buy an XCard. It seems like a lifetime ago that I used to use my 350 and have to deal with crashes and hangs and loss of sound sync every couple of days.

Nick.

I know I tried everything that I could think of to get better results with the 350.

The EOF bug is basically when you playback a video file and the airing that comes after it is not currently being recorded. In other words, let's say you're watching a 10pm show. If your system didn't record the show that follows it at 11pm, it would crash. It seemed like a null-pointer exception.

When you watch live TV and timeshift it, it doesn't occur.

You can try mine to see if you get results with it. I think a few other STVs took out the message box that says "Playback finished. Delete?".... That Event Trigger seemed to do it also.

Let me know....
Lauren

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by insomniac

hey crashless,

did you ever have any luck with your config? It seems like you have a very similar setup. Seems like you should be a lucky one like me....

I.

Sorry I missed this post.

Still not perfect, but much better now w/ h/w only decoding turned off. (so the s/w decoder is working...) which sucks, because it eats tons of CPU, but at least it's a little more forgiving.

Though right now the system won't even boot. I switched the screen resolution and all of a sudden nothing works...I can get to safe mode, but can't track down the problem. I hate computers....

[jphhughes]

The EOF bug is basically when you playback a video file and the airing that comes after it is not currently being recorded. In other words, let's say you're watching a 10pm show. If your system didn't record the show that follows it at 11pm, it would crash. It seemed like a null-pointer exception

So would a possible workaround be to pad the end of recorded shows to record one or two minues of the next show or does the next show need to be set as a full recording.

PS: I still use my 350 and enjoy the clear sharp picture it generates. No matter how may times I try and adjust the 250's (I have) they never come close to providing the same picture quality.

[1972]

Originally Posted by Crashless

Sorry I missed this post.

Still not perfect, but much better now w/ h/w only decoding turned off. (so the s/w decoder is working...) which sucks, because it eats tons of CPU, but at least it's a little more forgiving.

Do you use the TV-OUT of the PVR-350 in this situation?

[1972]

Originally Posted by laurenglenn

tch live TV and timeshift it, it doesn't occur.

You can try mine to see if you get results with it. I think a few other STVs took out the message box that says "Playback finished. Delete?".... That Event Trigger seemed to do it also.

Let me know....
Lauren

I also tried that one (in SageMC), but with no succes
Also tried to give SageTV the highest prio, this seems to work better, because it is a SYSTEM task that goes to 100% CPU. By giving SageTV higher prio it gets above the SYSTEM task, but than a crash/reboot occurs some minute later

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by 1972

Do you use the TV-OUT of the PVR-350 in this situation?

Yes. It has by far the highest PQ I've been able to get. SDTV is interlaced, it should be watched interlaced.

Right now I've just gotten very good at pausing right after a show ends. Doing this, I get no crashes, but unfortunately it isn't perfect - some shows that go over (Comedy Central, you know who you are.) cause crashes on a regular basis.

[insomniac]

if you have the prompt for delete after show ends, turn it off. This will probably help. Mine does not crash, but it did hang for 5-10 seconds now and then when this setting was enabled.

I.