HD-PVR Stops Responding ~Once/Day

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by sic0048

So if you installed the items in a different sequence, I would recommend that you try my method. It should only take a few minutes to do and could make a big improvement. Please give feedback if it does or does not work for you.

I agree, I followed your How-to, but then I was rebuilding my server from scratch anyway. Mine has been 100% stable since I did that, and covered teh IR port.

[ijourneaux]

I didn't ahve to wait long. 3 recordings worked. The next three failed. I will try to replicate the steps exactly when I get home tonight.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by ijourneaux

I didn't ahve to wait long. 3 recordings worked. The next three failed. I will try to replicate the steps exactly when I get home tonight.

On the 3 that failed, see if it was all on the same drive. If so, check and see if it's a seagate drive.

[ijourneaux]

I reinstalled my hauppauge drivers and software a few nights ago. The only difference was that I installed the PVR-150 drivers last so I would use the IRBlaster on the PVR-150. Of all of things I had done before, that was the only change that made an easily observable difference. Using the 1.0.5.6 drivers.

I have run for 2 days now without hanging. I don't think this means I am out of the woods yet but atleast moving in the correct direction.

Before I moved the IRBlaster from the HD-PVR to the PVR-150, the HD-PVR hangs almost (95%) always occurred when a new recording wa starting. When using the IRBlaster on the PVR-150, the hangs are always mid recording. Here the recording is ok for the first 15-20 of a recording. Then the HD-PVR hangs usually with the Blue vanity light on. At that point the HD-PVR needs to be power cycled before the HD-PVR can make a new recording.

THe hard drive for recordings is a Seagate.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by davephan

I will try changing one more variable. I just received a USB PCI card today.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815104216

I will install the USB PCI card and hook up the HD-PVR to the USB PCI card, and continue to monitor the server for lockups.

I also bought this USB NEC card to see if my ~1 second skips in the recordings would go away and it got worse with this NEC usb card.

I am not getting the lock-ups, but I do get skips/freezes during recordings - it varies.

Anyways, this solution made things worse for my setup. I reverted back to using the usb on the motherboard.

[davephan]

I get small freezes in my recordings if I am running too many processes. I tried running 4 comskips at once, which is too many. I also tried running the videoreddo quickfix on the same system, which also caused the small freezes.

How many things are going on besides recording and playing TV programs?

I found it helps to run processes with another computer, with a mapped drive, such as quick fix or editing. It also helps to limit the Comskip processing to two processes at the same time.

Dave

[joe123]

Originally Posted by davephan

I get small freezes in my recordings if I am running too many processes. I tried running 4 comskips at once, which is too many. I also tried running the videoreddo quickfix on the same system, which also caused the small freezes.

How many things are going on besides recording and playing TV programs?

I found it helps to run processes with another computer, with a mapped drive, such as quick fix or editing. It also helps to limit the Comskip processing to two processes at the same time.

Dave

Yes, exactly. The more things going on, the more "small freezes" I get in the recordings. I have one HD-PVR and Dragon Global showanalyzer, and Playon.

I can make the freezes happen without fail when I watch a recording and I hit stop (any recording), I get the freeze - the HD PVR top blue bing light goes off and back on for a fraction of a second.

I was hoping the NEC usb card would help, but it really REALLY made things worse - I started getting the red icon stop recording errros when I was not getting those before.

[davephan]

The ShowAnalyzer version 1 does not work very well at all for TS files. You should consider using the Comskip donor version instead. I used to have a 3 gig dual core. I switched to a quad core 3 gig, which helps. Try using Comskip, run only 1 Comskip process at a time, and make sure Comskip is running at "low" priority. To check, hit 'Control-Shift-Esc' for the 'Windows Task Manager', right click on the 'Comskip.exe' process, hover over 'set priority'.

You can also 'off load' things to other computers, like Comskip. If you do that, you should use 1 gig cards, a 1 gig switch, and high speed cable. You could also try using extra network connection between your SageTV computer and Comskip processing computer.

Dave

[tomfisk]

Originally Posted by davephan

The ShowAnalyzer version 1 does not work very well at all for TS files. You should consider using the Comskip donor version instead. I used to have a 3 gig dual core. I switched to a quad core 3 gig, which helps. Try using Comskip, run only 1 Comskip process at a time, and make sure Comskip is running at "low" priority. To check, hit 'Control-Shift-Esc' for the 'Windows Task Manager', right click on the 'Comskip.exe' process, hover over 'set priority'.

You can also 'off load' things to other computers, like Comskip. If you do that, you should use 1 gig cards, a 1 gig switch, and high speed cable. You could also try using extra network connection between your SageTV computer and Comskip processing computer.

Dave

Have to disagree with you on this one Dave. ShowAnalyzer works like a champ with the HD-PVR TS files and commercial detection is as accurate as comskip. A 1 hour TS file takes about 5 minutes on my quad core system using ShowAnalyzer. Comskip (donor version) putts along and takes between 45-60 minutes.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by tomfisk

Have to disagree with you on this one Dave. ShowAnalyzer works like a champ with the HD-PVR TS files and commercial detection is as accurate as comskip. A 1 hour TS file takes about 5 minutes on my quad core system using ShowAnalyzer. Comskip (donor version) putts along and takes between 45-60 minutes.

Really? I haven't had that experience with version 1. Maybe I did not use the latest version. I have a couple of i-7 quad core 3 gigs computers. I could try the most recent version with one of them and test it again. The last time I tried it, it was a royal pain to get the key working. I kept getting a expired message. The key is really a pain. I don't know why there are so many fields to fill in. Copying and pasting usually didn't work either.

When I tested the commercial processing, I did not find it was very accurate. It falsed quite a bit, detecting commercials that didn't exist, and missing actual commercials. Sometimes it worked though.

Do you trigger ShowAnalyzer with SJQ? That's a requirement for me. I have 23 channels that are non-commercial that I do not process.

I'll try to test it again soon and see if my opinion changes about the performance. My opinion won't change about the 'key', since that is absolutely the worst key system I have ever used.

Dave

[sleonard]

I have to say that my experience is similar to tomfisk's. The current version is very efficient. I routinely have 3 analyzers running concurrently as the files are being recorded and it takes 2%-3% CPU each in my quad core server. Accuracy is about the same as the 0.9x versions were on standard def mpeg2. Not 100% but good enough even without any tweaking. Tweak-ability is currently being worked on as an upcoming feature with the new and improved SchoolHouse but patience is required when waiting on Jere's future releases. As for registration issues, I've never experienced them myself but I believe Jere has solved most, if not all of them.

S

[tomfisk]

Originally Posted by davephan

Really? I haven't had that experience with version 1. Maybe I did not use the latest version. I have a couple of i-7 quad core 3 gigs computers. I could try the most recent version with one of them and test it again. The last time I tried it, it was a royal pain to get the key working. I kept getting a expired message. The key is really a pain. I don't know why there are so many fields to fill in. Copying and pasting usually didn't work either.

When I tested the commercial processing, I did not find it was very accurate. It falsed quite a bit, detecting commercials that didn't exist, and missing actual commercials. Sometimes it worked though.

Do you trigger ShowAnalyzer with SJQ? That's a requirement for me. I have 23 channels that are non-commercial that I do not process.

I'll try to test it again soon and see if my opinion changes about the performance. My opinion won't change about the 'key', since that is absolutely the worst key system I have ever used.

Dave

Yes, I trigger ShowAnalyzer from SJQ (an excellent utility!). The ShowAnalyzer User Interface shows I'm running 1.0.54.772. As far as key issues are concerned, that is confusing. The UI shows I have 0 days left of 30...but it still keeps working. I just ignore it

[joe123]

Originally Posted by davephan

The ShowAnalyzer version 1 does not work very well at all for TS files. You should consider using the Comskip donor version instead. I used to have a 3 gig dual core. I switched to a quad core 3 gig, which helps. Try using Comskip, run only 1 Comskip process at a time, and make sure Comskip is running at "low" priority. To check, hit 'Control-Shift-Esc' for the 'Windows Task Manager', right click on the 'Comskip.exe' process, hover over 'set priority'.

I found the problem!

A priority issue. I had SageService.exe set to "Above Normal". At this setting or at "Real Time" was causing the small freezes in my recordings.

When I set SageService.exe to "Normal" priority I no longer get the small freezes in my recordings.

By the way, yes, I have Showanalyzer 1.0 always set to "Idle" priority and Showanalyzer is the best in my opinion. Much better than comskip.

Anyone having the small freezes in recordings may want to try this and see if it helps. For me, I can re-produce it easily by switching the priority back and forth.

EDIT: Sorry, the priority setting was not really the issue.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by tomfisk

Yes, I trigger ShowAnalyzer from SJQ (an excellent utility!). The ShowAnalyzer User Interface shows I'm running 1.0.54.772. As far as key issues are concerned, that is confusing. The UI shows I have 0 days left of 30...but it still keeps working. I just ignore it

The UI also counted down to 0 days left for me, which I thought was flaky, even though it is supposedly registered. I had McAfee AV, it thought that ShowAnalyzer 1 was a Trojan. I switched to Symantec when the free cable modem provided software switched to Symantec. Symantec also thinks that ShowAnalyzer is a Trojan, even though it shouldn't be a Trojan.

In any event, I'll try ShowAnalyzer again.

Dave

[joe123]

Originally Posted by davephan

I had McAfee AV, it thought that ShowAnalyzer 1 was a Trojan. I switched to Symantec when the free cable modem provided software switched to Symantec.

Norton (Symantec) is horrible - it's one of the worse and over bloated anti-virus program available and hard to remove.

I have prevx ( http://www.prevx.com ) and it's the best one so far for my SageTV setup.

[joe123]

For whatever it is worth, I found the fix for my setup.

Let me first say that I tried EVERYTHING listed here, including buying the NEC USB PCI card and connecting my HD-PVR to it, sitting the HD-PVR on it's side, black tape over the HD-PVR, the plastic chicken over my system, all to no avail.

I upgraded my system to a quad AMD Phenom II, MSI motherboard and DD3 memory and ALL OF MY HD-PVR recording Skips and the rare but occasional HD-PVR stops producing data (Red SageTV Ico) HAVE ALL GONE AWAY!

NO MORE HD-PVR skips/pauses during the recordings nor any other problems.

Before the upgrade, simply watching a recording and stopping it would make the HD-PVR stop recording for around a second - producing skips/pauses in the recordings.

With my new setup, I tried EVERYTHING and I cannot get the HD-PVR to lock up NOR to skip during the recordings. I can run several ShowAnalyzers all doing around ~300 MB/Sec and all 4 cores at 100% CPU and I CANNOT get my HD-PVR to lock up nor experience any recording skips.

I should also mentioned that I re-installed XP OS fresh ( formatting C: drive). I also did this about a year ago (Fresh OS install) with my old setup trying to fix the HD-PVR problems to no avail.

With my new setup, I kept all of the same disks. I upgrade the motherboard, cpu, memory. Same power supply, same disks, same case.

It's amazing how well the HD-PVR now works and flawless recordings.

CORRECTION: RAN ROCK SOLID FOR 2-3 MONTHS THEN STARTED GETTING LOCK-UPS LIKE BEFORE.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by joe123

I upgraded my system to a quad AMD Phenom II, MSI motherboard and DD3 memory and ALL OF MY HD-PVR recording Skips and the rare but occasional HD-PVR stops producing data (Red SageTV Ico) HAVE ALL GONE AWAY!

Just out of curiosity, what were the system specs before the upgrade? (It might be in the thread somewhere, but I'm too lazy to go back over 17 pages to find it).

[joe123]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Just out of curiosity, what were the system specs before the upgrade? (It might be in the thread somewhere, but I'm too lazy to go back over 17 pages to find it).

Intel dou core. 3.0ghz, ecs motherboard, ddr2 memory.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by joe123

Intel dou core. 3.0ghz, ecs motherboard, ddr2 memory.

So no slouch!

I'm glad you got it working. We'll probably never know why it gave you troubles on the old system. I've been lucky enough to get a stable HD-PVR setup on two different machines (an older P4 setup I use to have and now the system listed in my signature).

[joe123]

Originally Posted by sic0048

So no slouch!

I'm glad you got it working. We'll probably never know why it gave you troubles on the old system. I've been lucky enough to get a stable HD-PVR setup on two different machines (an older P4 setup I use to have and now the system listed in my signature).

I spent several months trying to figure out what was causing my HD-PVR skips and problems with my old setup. I spent much more time and money than I care to admit.

It's sad to see SO MANY here also having HD-PVR issues. After my upgrade, I have had ZERO problems with my HD-PVR. I almost cry everytime I see how stable my setup is now.

For anyone interested, here is the setup.
Fry's Hardware Special for $180