Skipping playback and weird saving

[dc9mm]

I meant skipping not slipping I cant edit header

Ok have a problem with playback were it seems to skip maybe 30 seconds then continues to play back normally. So I went into windows explorer to try playing back the recording with windows media playe. BUT when I go to the folder were the recordings are stored I see it isn't just creating one mpg file for the show but many small recordings of the show. Here is a picture I took of the TV show How to get away with Murder.
http://www.pbase.com/dc9mm/image/161394708

so what the heck is going on? Why is it not just making one large mpg file for each recording but instead making many small files which iam betting is why its skipping as each time it switches to a new file to keep playing the show it skips.
So why is it creating many smaller files rather than just one large file.

System is windows 7 32 bit. 2 gig of ram dual core 3.2 gig. Running Sage tv 6.6.1 Capture cards are 2 Hauppauge 1600 and one older PVR-150 recording off STB with S-video for just the recording from the STB were the 2 1600 cards record from antenna for over the air hd tv. This is only happening with the recording's from the two 1600 cards recording over the air from antenna.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by dc9mm

I meant skipping not slipping I cant edit header

Ok have a problem with playback were it seems to skip maybe 30 seconds then continues to play back normally. So I went into windows explorer to try playing back the recording with windows media playe. BUT when I go to the folder were the recordings are stored I see it isn't just creating one mpg file for the show but many small recordings of the show. Here is a picture I took of the TV show How to get away with Murder.
http://www.pbase.com/dc9mm/image/161394708

so what the heck is going on? Why is it not just making one large mpg file for each recording but instead making many small files which iam betting is why its skipping as each time it switches to a new file to keep playing the show it skips.
So why is it creating many smaller files rather than just one large file.

System is windows 7 32 bit. 2 gig of ram dual core 3.2 gig. Running Sage tv 6.6.1 Capture cards are 2 Hauppauge 1600 and one older PVR-150 recording off STB with S-video for just the recording from the STB were the 2 1600 cards record from antenna for over the air hd tv. This is only happening with the recording's from the two 1600 cards recording over the air from antenna.

Sage does this if it experiences a problem that interrupts the recording. It will try to restart the recording and if it is able to, it re-starts as a new file. It keeps track of all the segments so it can play them back in order, but there will likely be gaps in the recording between segments (And you will likely see red marks on the playback bar where the gaps are).

There are many things that could cause a recording to be interrupted (it could even happen if you decided to re-start your PC in the middle of a recording, but I would only expect the recording to be broken into 2 pieces in that case).

The first question I would ask is did this only happen to one recording, or just to recordings made on one particular day, or is it happening all the time?

One possible cause would be a bad signal from your antenna or cable (your capture device may detect loss of signal and stop recording, sage sees this and attempts to restart the recording, repeating over and over).

Other possibilities include failing hardware (bad capture card, bad hard drive, bad memory, bad power supply, ...), overloaded CPU (something pegs the CPU at 100% and Sage chokes), bad drivers, etc.

If it only happened once to one recording, I would chalk it up to bad luck and forget about it.

Otherwise, I would try re-starting your PC to see if the problem goes away. If that doesn't work, I would start monitoring CPU, memory and disk usage to see if anything is being saturated and check SageTV and Windows error logs for clues about what is going wrong.

[dc9mm]

I did more searching today and came to same conclusion. When I rebuilt my system 2 months ago I didn't bother installing the new hard drive were it stores recordings. Iam in the process of installing new hard drive as I type this. so I will eliminate the hard drive as the problem. I will also check signal strength from antenna to see if that's a problem. Hopefully I can get this solved.

Oh its happening to most but not all of the over the air recordings but not from the STB and the PVR-150 card so maybe it is the antenna or one of the 1600 cards used to record over the air broadcast. I would think if it was hard drive it would also do it for the STB recordings but the STB recordings are with a s video so there not HD. So less bandwidth that old hard drive could handle? Either way new hard drive going in now. I bought the drive when I redid the whole PC but was to lazy to change it out with the new hard drive BUT iam doing it now.

At least I have a clue on what it may be. Thanks again

[dc9mm]

Ok this had my trying everything. I thought it was me needing a better antenna. BUT the Hauppauge 1600 card finally stopped working completely for just channel 7 abc. Replaced the 1600 card no more skipping recordings. To bad I already ordered a new larger antenna. Don't need a better antenna. Oh well.

[trallyus]

Originally Posted by dc9mm

Ok this had my trying everything. I thought it was me needing a better antenna. BUT the Hauppauge 1600 card finally stopped working completely for just channel 7 abc. Replaced the 1600 card no more skipping recordings. To bad I already ordered a new larger antenna. Don't need a better antenna. Oh well.

One of my 1600 cards are doing the same as yours did and I had to replace it as well with a spare 1600. What did you replace your 1600 with if I may ask as my new 1600 is not picking up much

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by trallyus

One of my 1600 cards are doing the same as yours did and I had to replace it as well with a spare 1600. What did you replace your 1600 with if I may ask as my new 1600 is not picking up much

I had another 1600 card so just used that. Other wise I would have gotten a 2255. My 1600's seem pretty good at picking up channels, better than my TV tuner.

[trallyus]

Thanks dc9mm

I use a 2255 and a 1600 - you may want to know 2255 is a dual tuner while the 1600 is single

Also the 2255 is pci express and the 1600 is pci base and you should be able to use both those tuners if you have a pci express slot on your motherboard.

I use both of them now and the 2255 is way better then the old 2250 I used to use.

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by trallyus

Thanks dc9mm

I use a 2255 and a 1600 - you may want to know 2255 is a dual tuner while the 1600 is single

Also the 2255 is pci express and the 1600 is pci base and you should be able to use both those tuners if you have a pci express slot on your motherboard.

I use both of them now and the 2255 is way better then the old 2250 I used to use.

So can Sage get 2 sets of channels connected to an antenna with the 2255 and yes I have a PCI express 2 of them unused now? I could use another set of channels via antenna.

[trallyus]

Originally Posted by dc9mm

So can Sage get 2 sets of channels connected to an antenna with the 2255 and yes I have a PCI express 2 of them unused now? I could use another set of channels via antenna.

Yes the 2255 gets me 2 sets of channels over the air with digital tuning.

It recognized both tuners as tuner 1 and 2 and works great for me with a big regular rooftop antenna. I have no idea how it would work with one of those window antennas but if your using one of those on the 1600 then it should pick up the same channels or more.

Only problems I have with it is the sage tv signal strength plugin for sage tv did not work with it if I remember but the actual tv signal scan works great and to see the signal strength you actually have to go in to your scanned tv signal settings and view the channels that it found and it will show the signal strength then.

Also when you install the card , you need to let windows install the drivers first then reboot and install the newest drivers for the card then. After doing that and rebooting you scan for new channels

If you don't do the above you'll have problems with your card being detected or it will give you an error when scanning for new channels.

I only have one 2255 card installed as I only have 1 free pci express slot but with that and the 1600 I can record 3 channels at a time.

I do not know if 2 of them would work with your 1600 to actually give you 5 channels though since I can't do that myself

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by trallyus

Yes the 2255 gets me 2 sets of channels over the air with digital tuning.

It recognized both tuners as tuner 1 and 2 and works great for me with a big regular rooftop antenna. I have no idea how it would work with one of those window antennas but if your using one of those on the 1600 then it should pick up the same channels or more.

Only problems I have with it is the sage tv signal strength plugin for sage tv did not work with it if I remember but the actual tv signal scan works great and to see the signal strength you actually have to go in to your scanned tv signal settings and view the channels that it found and it will show the signal strength then.

Also when you install the card , you need to let windows install the drivers first then reboot and install the newest drivers for the card then. After doing that and rebooting you scan for new channels

If you don't do the above you'll have problems with your card being detected or it will give you an error when scanning for new channels.

I only have one 2255 card installed as I only have 1 free pci express slot but with that and the 1600 I can record 3 channels at a time.

I do not know if 2 of them would work with your 1600 to actually give you 5 channels though since I can't do that myself

Ok thanks for the info

[dc9mm]

I thought I had it solved but its still skipping BUT not always. Example I recorded a show on CBS at 8pm to 9pm recording fine one large file then on same channel from 9pm to 10pm it skipped making many small files of that recording which when played back skips for maybe 40 seconds or so making me miss parts of the recorded show. I have 2 Hauppauge 1600 cards and last night it skipped on both cards as it was recording a show on CBS and NBC at same time so both cards were being used and both recordings had that DARN skipping recording with a bunch of small files.

I bought a new TV antenna a much larger Channel Master ultra 60 which does in fact pick up more channels but I really don't care about these other channels. I just want to major networks,nbc,cbs,abc,foc,WB and PBS,

The only other thing would to replace both 1600 cards with say the Hauppauge 2255 I talked about in above posts. BUT I don't want to spend a 100 bucks to still have the same PROBLEM. These 1600 cards worked fine on my old system running windows XP. Is this a possible problem with the driver for Windows 7 32 bit since these 1600 cards are older discontinued cards?

Like I said it doesn't happen every time. I recorder 4 shows other night 2 recorded just fine 2 others didn't. same networks, cbs and nbc. With new antenna signal strength is quite strong. OH it NEVER skips if watching LIVE tv.

I also have an older hauppauge PVR-150 card which is the card that records shows off my Verizon STB via S-video which works fine so it cant be something like the hard drive as skipping would occur on recordings from that card which DONT happen. Its just the 2 1600 cards that record the over the air HD that have the problem.

I also tried instead of using an antenna at all use the clear QAM off the verizon cable BUT found out that SAGE then mixes all the channels on all three cards. Example if I set channel 2-1 on the 1600 card it also ads that to the PVR-150 card BUT the PVR-150 card cant pick up that channel as its ONLY connected to the STB via S-video cable with AV cables for audio part. plus having cable channel 552 on PVR-150 card which is TNT on STB is also added to both 1600 cards which of course cant tune in an encrypted channels. Sage mixes all the channel choices to all 3 cards which I found out cant be stopped. So Clear QAM cant help me.

[trallyus]

Use separate channel line ups for your 1600s and your 150. I do this with my 1600 and 2250 since my 1600 is not as good at catching signals now then my 2250.

Also what I did with my tuners since they were skipping too was change any tuner in the recording options to the actual channel name. It was a pain in the butt to do all my recordings like that but it really helped.

That way my tuners were not bouncing all over the place to tune a show.

Check to see if your disk drive is set to hibernate in your computers power settings and if so disable it for a day or two to see if that helps.

Try playing the recorded shows with something like vlc and see what your skips look like playing the recordings back with it. More then likely you may need better codecs if your using the default sage tv ones and you'll find that out with vlc if during those skips in your recording show artifacts in vlc when playing back the files and only skips with sage tv playback.

Don't forget to go in to your antivirus programs and your antispyware programs and exclude the directories sage tv is in as well as the directory sage tv recordings are in. Doing that will stop them from monitoring your sage tv's files being written as they are recorded that could be causing problems as well.

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by trallyus

Use separate channel line ups for your 1600s and your 150. I do this with my 1600 and 2250 since my 1600 is not as good at catching signals now then my 2250.

Also what I did with my tuners since they were skipping too was change any tuner in the recording options to the actual channel name. It was a pain in the butt to do all my recordings like that but it really helped.

That way my tuners were not bouncing all over the place to tune a show.

Check to see if your disk drive is set to hibernate in your computers power settings and if so disable it for a day or two to see if that helps.

Try playing the recorded shows with something like vlc and see what your skips look like playing the recordings back with it. More then likely you may need better codecs if your using the default sage tv ones and you'll find that out with vlc if during those skips in your recording show artifacts in vlc when playing back the files and only skips with sage tv playback.

Don't forget to go in to your antivirus programs and your antispyware programs and exclude the directories sage tv is in as well as the directory sage tv recordings are in. Doing that will stop them from monitoring your sage tv's files being written as they are recorded that could be causing problems as well.

Not sure what you mean about "Actual Channel Name" Under setup of each 1600 card the choice is Channel Sorting Method: Choices are

Channel Number or Channel Name or Channel Description.

I have it as Channel Number. So I should switch it to Channel Name??

As far as the hard drive the C drive is a solid state but all recording go to D drive a mechanical drive but both drives are set not to sleep ever.

I don't have any anti Virus as this PC is used ONLY for sage TV so no anti Virus needed.

So switching to "Channel Name" is about the only thing I could do other than spending more money and replacing the two 1600 cards with a new 2255 card. Trying not to waste more money. If it would fix the problem I would be ok spending the money BUIT if I spend the money on a 2255 and problems still occurs with that card boy I would be pissed at myself.

I will try the Channel Name thing, not sure why this would do anything but worth a shot. Tonight it recorded Law&order SVU skipping and also Supernatural skipping but then recorded Chicago PD fine same channel as Law&Order was on and recorded Code Black fine too on CBS, .

I downloaded VIC video player and tried playing the Law&order that made many small mpg files seems to play them back ok BUT since Sage created many small files I can have VIC play back each small file one at a time were in Sage I just pick Law&Order and it plays back all the small files one after the other were it freezes were it skipped and missed that time in between each skip. In other words it plays back then all of a sudden it freezes then after a period of time say 45 seconds or so it continues play back BUT I miss that 45 seconds of playback so I don't see what happened during that missing part of recording.

Oh I use NVidia PureVideo Bronze I bought way back like around 2008 because with the Sage default Mpeg2 Video decoder filter it never played back well on my first PC I built back around 2008 which was a single core 3 gig hertz PC running win xp.

I could get another codec BUT which one and from were?? Another Nvidia codec??

[trallyus]

I use the nvidia purevideo codecs too and they work great for me.

I will warn you that sometimes you can't get rid of skipping due to sun activity and propagation as I guess tonight was a crappy night as I use a regular roof antenna and while recording criminal minds my recording lost the signal 15 times which is unusual.

Sunspots used to be a pain in the butt back before digital tv was implemented and it's still a problem today only people don't notice it as much as that would explain the skipping from your signal being disrupted like mine.

Weather and sun plays a huge part in tv reception like on foggy days your Over The Air reception will be greatest it ever has

Not sure if your tuners accept H.264 codecs but for that I use Corecodec but like I said sometimes the sun will mess up your recordings with it's cycles.

It's why Shortwave Radio reception is great 1 hour and crappy the next

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by trallyus

I use the nvidia purevideo codecs too and they work great for me.

I will warn you that sometimes you can't get rid of skipping due to sun activity and propagation as I guess tonight was a crappy night as I use a regular roof antenna and while recording criminal minds my recording lost the signal 15 times which is unusual.

Sunspots used to be a pain in the butt back before digital tv was implemented and it's still a problem today only people don't notice it as much as that would explain the skipping from your signal being disrupted like mine.

Weather and sun plays a huge part in tv reception like on foggy days your Over The Air reception will be greatest it ever has

Not sure if your tuners accept H.264 codecs but for that I use Corecodec but like I said sometimes the sun will mess up your recordings with it's cycles.

It's why Shortwave Radio reception is great 1 hour and crappy the next

I cant imagine sun spots PLUS I get a really STRONG signal. I used my old setup since 2008 and never had this issue I rebuild a new system and win 7 and now have this problem. I would go back to Win XP but my motherboard chipset wont allow that. I changed the channel naming like you said but doubt that will do anything. Will see tonight. I guess I will have to throw more money at it and try a 2255 card, after that iam done and might consider a TiVo unit. This is really ticking me off.

What I have be doing is using my on demand and re-recording the shows with the PVR-150 card as there not watchable if its a skipping recording, I miss way to much and don't have a clue whats going on in the tv show.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by dc9mm

I cant imagine sun spots PLUS I get a really STRONG signal. I used my old setup since 2008 and never had this issue I rebuild a new system and win 7 and now have this problem. I would go back to Win XP but my motherboard chipset wont allow that. I changed the channel naming like you said but doubt that will do anything. Will see tonight. I guess I will have to throw more money at it and try a 2255 card, after that iam done and might consider a TiVo unit. This is really ticking me off.

What I have be doing is using my on demand and re-recording the shows with the PVR-150 card as there not watchable if its a skipping recording, I miss way to much and don't have a clue whats going on in the tv show.

Have you checked your Windows logs for hardware errors?
Have you tried installing your card in a different slot?

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Have you checked your Windows logs for hardware errors?
Have you tried installing your card in a different slot?

Ok I just checked the event log for Hardware (had to look up how to do that), nothing in there, no events.

I have 3 PCI slots I use two of them now with the two 1600 cards and the third has the PVR-150 card in it so all slots being used now.

Will see tonight if changing the channel name makes any difference, plus its super windy tonight with sideways rain. Still tuning in all channels just fine when I watch them live. If I watch channel 2-1 NBC with just the TV and its tuner it sometimes locks for a second BUT using Sage and the 1600 card smooth no lock ups so the 1600 card has better tuner than my TV does. OLD lcd tv.

[trallyus]

Originally Posted by dc9mm

Ok I just checked the event log for Hardware (had to look up how to do that), nothing in there, no events.

I have 3 PCI slots I use two of them now with the two 1600 cards and the third has the PVR-150 card in it so all slots being used now.

Will see tonight if changing the channel name makes any difference, plus its super windy tonight with sideways rain. Still tuning in all channels just fine when I watch them live. If I watch channel 2-1 NBC with just the TV and its tuner it sometimes locks for a second BUT using Sage and the 1600 card smooth no lock ups so the 1600 card has better tuner than my TV does. OLD lcd tv.

How has your reception been lately dc9mm? So far my recordings have been recording nicely with my 1600 even though for some reason it no longer pulls in all the channels it used to.

In example ABC and NBC are useless with the 1600 but come in great with the 2255.

I plan on getting a usb tuner from Hauppage tomorrow that is a dual tuner but someone said they never got the dual tuner to work with sage tv but if it works better then my 1600 in picking up channels I don't mind that as the 1600 is a single tuner anyway

They did say it worked as a single tuner.

[dc9mm]

Originally Posted by trallyus

How has your reception been lately dc9mm? So far my recordings have been recording nicely with my 1600 even though for some reason it no longer pulls in all the channels it used to.

In example ABC and NBC are useless with the 1600 but come in great with the 2255.

I plan on getting a usb tuner from Hauppage tomorrow that is a dual tuner but someone said they never got the dual tuner to work with sage tv but if it works better then my 1600 in picking up channels I don't mind that as the 1600 is a single tuner anyway

They did say it worked as a single tuner.

I have no problems with the 1600 cards pulling in stations. I get something around 20 channels BUT I only tune in nbc 2-1 . cbs 4-1. abc 7-1, fox29-1, wb 23-1, pbs 17-1 oh and 49-1 plus I get all the cable channels through my Verizon STB.

Weird thing is even when I recorded one of those shows that skipped if I was watching it live it was like normal it JUST recorded with the skipping and played back with the skip BUT if I watched it live while it was recording it had no skip only in the recorded show but as I watched it live it was normal no skip. So its not that it isn't getting a strong signal rather something weird on recording the show to hard drive.. My 1600's have better tuner than my TV itself does.

Oh YOU are getting sage TV with both tuners on the 2255 card right? As i still might get a 2255 to try and replace my two 1600 cards as long as the 2255 has use of both tuners in Sage.

Last night it was recording Brooklyn 99 and Madam secretary. It started doing the skipping as I checked the hard drive and saw small files being recorded so I canceled each recording and restarted them then it recorded one large file like its supposed to. I caught it right at beginning of show about 3 minutes in. So no idea why it sometimes does this and sometimes not. Its not signal strength. I know this as I had 4 recordings a few nights back when the wind was blowing up to 55 mph which always hurts signal strength and all 4 recordings recorded normally.

I think this has something to do with windows 7 as the 1600 cards worked perfectly in win xp but this new motherboard can be used with win xp or I would have used win xp.

[trallyus]

It sounds like some other program is accessing your hard drive while it's writing the files to disk. By any chance have you tried to tuner preroll plugin with sage tv yet.

Also not sure if I mentioned this but check your power settings in windows 7 as when I had windows 7 it was constantly falling back to trying to hibernate my disk drive when not in use even though I kept turning it off a few times. I finally had to turn it off and then reboot for it to stick if I remember right.

Yes the 2255 has 2 tuners that can be used at one time. I use the digital tuners in mine but it's also supposed to have analog tuners as well but I recommend you either use all analog or all digital as trying anything else is a bad idea.

It's basically a 2250 only of newer design is all and mine worked better then my 2250.

http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr2255.html