New User - No TV

[can3gxw]

Hey All.. hoping for some assistance.

I am looking at moving over from Beyond TV to Sage - I have the software installed and set up, but the TV feed is non-functional.

Whenever Sage tries to load/view/play anything through my Hauppauge PVR-150 the preview screen freezes and hangs the PC. The only thing that will allow me to do anything else is to bring up task manager and kill the Sage process.

I am using a Sempron 1.8 GHz with 1.5 GB RAM. Tons of drive space, and a Hauppauge PVR-150 card, getting fed through S-Video from my satellite box.

I never had any problems with Beyond (I disabled BTV completely until I can get this up and running)...

Anyone have any ideas on what the problem is or how to resolve it? I could go on with uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, etc, but there's no point if I really don't know what the cause is and end up removing the wrong thing..

Thanks in advance!

ps. In order to get by the initial setup, I just had to <tab tab tab enter> faster than the setup wizard could show the preview. LOL
Also - I tried modifying the video renderer/playback option in the configuration menu (no dice...)
-Video playback in the MediaCenter works fine...

[CollinR]

It's a driver/decoder issue, no clue why BTV wasn't effected. I would run the hwclear utility from Hauppauge and reinstall. Delete your sage.properties file and redo the setup wizard.

Can you make the WinTV application play?

BeyondTV and MCE recording services must be disabled.

[can3gxw]

OK - ran the clear utility and reinstalled all the drivers and apps.

WinTV shows a perfect picture.

Beyond is completely disabled at this point, and I am not running WinMCE. (XP Pro)

Deleted all the sage.properties files and forced Sage to go through the entire setup wizard again.

It gets to the "picture preview" and I see the same thing - the first frame of whatever is captured, and then the whole app freezes. The only way to get through is to kill it. I've gone through this several times and each time is the same result.

Any other thoughts? I'd be willing to post whatever logs/additional info anyone needs.
Thanks!

Gregg

[Brent]

Gregg,
Try going into the detailed settings, browse to "video/audio" and switch to overlay (or if already overlay switch to VMR9). You can always switch this back later.

Then see if you can get the video previews. Other things you can check are the video decoder settings.

Post back to let us know how it goes.

[stanger89]

Kind of sounds like you might have something corrupted in your SageTV install, and/or Java. I'd remove Sage and re-install it. I've seen the preview window not work before, but never had Sage lock up on it.

[can3gxw]

Hey guys... thanks for the tips...

I tried changing the two decoder options (I can't remember what they were called) - the one Brent mentioned, with the overlay/WVM(?)... and the one that actually says "decoder"... (forgive me if I am screwing up the terminology - I'm not in front of my HTPC right now).

I tried all combinations of these two and I actually got a few seconds of video playing (started getting all excited, but then... )

I can't remember now what combination gave me the "good video", but it only lasted about 3 seconds then froze, Sage hung, and CPU went back to 99/100%.

This is a brand new install of Sage, and reading some other threads about freezing video the Java thing came up, so I removed all the old "crappy" Java and installed the latest V6 (update 10).

Still no dice... short of a torch and reinstall... hmmm... ? Anything else?

The video card is brand new...

[can3gxw]

Started using SageMC tonight for regular video (divx files) and they play just fine. Kids loved watching Batman... LOL. I tried to then play one of my previously recorded BTV shows that was still in its full MPEG2 format, and guess what... SAGE froze. Had to kill it to move on. So, it seems that for whatever reason, Sage doesn't like the decoders that I have on my HTPC.

Here are the options that I have in my Advanced Setup. Maybe someone can share their two cents on what theirs are and maybe I can find the right combination?

VIDEO RENDERER: Default Video Renderer
Video Overlay Renderer
DirectX Video Mixing Renderer (VMR9)

MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter: Default
Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder
Intervideo NonCSS Video Decoder for Hauppauge
SageTV MPEG Video Decoder


While I'm trying to figure this out, I'm going to take one of my empty hard drives and try to build a new, ground up install with the bare minimum for apps and drivers. Naturally, it'll take the latest Java and SageTV with the Hauppauge drivers. Do I need to install FFDShow (or KLite), or do I recall someone telling me that Sage plays 'em all natively?

Thanks everyone for your input! I want to like it.. really I do... just the start of the is what hurts... LOL

"Never give up! Never surrender!"

[stanger89]

Do not install codec packs.

Sage should play MPEG-2 fine out of the box. If WMP plays MPEG-2, then Sage should play them fine with all your decoders/renderers set to "Default".

But above all, Sage should not be freezing when you try to play them. If it's a decoder problem, then you'll get a message saying so, or a black screen.

The fact that Sage freezes indicates you've got something more fundamentally wrong with your Sage install than just decoders.

Have you uninstalled Sage and Java and just reinstalled Sage (it will install a bundled Java)? Have you tried enabling debug logging and checking the logs? Is Sage really frozen, does Home take you anywhere, spinning circle? What happens with the stock STV?

[can3gxw]

Thanks for the insight, Stanger... I'll try getting rid of Sage and Java completely, then try a fresh install. I'm also getting rid of some dust ROUSes that I just found on my CPU HeatSink... sheesh.. LOL It's been a while I guess since I've done my house cleaning.

Updates to follow folks! Don't give up on me!

[can3gxw]

OK - uninstalled Sage completely... trying to go through the configuration wizard again, and the same thing is happening... setting the video source to "S-Video" is driving Sage to take 100% of the CPU and nothing moves in the app.

Spinning wheel came up.... VERY (!!!!) slow to move. was barely able to get the cursor down to the bottom to the "device input to use..." to move off to the next screen.

Went through the rest of the setup, set my channels, etc...

Skipped the "test your basic, medium, advanced video settings" part, and went straight for the "SETUP" screen, into the DETAILED SETUP and set both the RENDERER and MPEG2 decoder to DEFAULT.

Went to LIVE TV, got my show information, a spinning wheel for about 2 seconds, a frame of my show, and then stop. Screen is now frozen on a nice picture of a desert island (LOL), but it's just not moving.

CPU is currently bouncing back and forth from 89 to 99 % and the screens not moving. When I try to go back, nothing happens. The only way to get out is to kill the process.

I know that I cannot compare this to BTV, but that worked right out of the gate, and this is starting to frustrate me as you can probably imagine.

I will be trying to create a new build this weekend so hopefully it is just something that is on the PC that's causing some conflicts. Otherwise, I will need to go back to Beyond...

If anyone has any other suggestions, I am MORE than open to try them.

Thanks!

[stanger89]

What's the log say, see the FAQ on how to turn on debug logging.

[can3gxw]

Here's the debug log... last line "hang detected"...

The rest means nothing to me...

All I did was enable the logging, start Sage and went straight to "LIVE TV".

[stanger89]

You might want to try submitting a support request.

[can3gxw]

Yah... did that first to see what ideas they would give. Got a response last night:

Use the configuration utility to set the video playback settings in Sage. Go
to Setup > Run Configuration Wizard > Configure Video Playback. Start with
basic and test things out.

Not much help there at all... d-uh.

I'll be trying a fresh build this weekend on a spare drive and will post my results.

[can3gxw]

Monday night - fresh build of WinXP Pro

- installed Hauppauge drivers
- installed Sage
- ran setup config
- got TV video... YAY
- tried to play an AVI file... booooo - didn't work
- installed KLite Codec Pack (for the DivX... Sage wouldn't play them "out of the box")
- AVI files play now
- Still have TV

Picture looks better than... um... BTV..

I think things are just about there. I just installed the SageMC and it looks fine.

Tomorrow night will be a time for Ghosting it!

Thanks to everyone for your help and assistance... guess my HTPC was just due for a major overhaul. Time to sit back, watch some movies and eat some