MVP Client 1.3.0 (2005/08/16)

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by Matt

I only had this early in the development.

Is this happening with all your MPEGs?
What's the source of the MPEGs showing this behavior?
What's the bitrate, resolution, etc. of these MPEGs?

-Matt

No, it does not happen with all of my MPEG's. The source is either a PVR-250 or PVR-350 (I honestly don't know how to tell from the mpg itself which it was recorded on.) The source for both the PVR-350 and PVR-250 is a standard cable connection (coax.)
I record in the 1.8gb / hour (dvd extended play) setting that comes default with SageTV.

Thus far, it has happened on both a new recording (recorded last night) and an old one (recorded six weeks ago.) They were not the same television show.

I'm sorry I'm being so vague here, I just don't know what else to share?

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by kevthor

Now this probably doesn't have anything to do with the software but more of a hardware limitiation, but I notice some choppiness with the MVP. I am running it and the server on a 100MBps half duplex switch. My shows are recorded at 5.6GB an hour though.

I don't really understand why it would be choppy though because when I'm watching the client on my 54MBps wireless laptop the shows play completley fine. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks
Kevin

Have you tried hitting pause for a few seconds and then hitting play? I get the choppy playback sometimes and it seems like the playback is running into the end of the buffer. Pausing for a few seconds seems to fix it..

Randy

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by SprDtyF350

Have you tried hitting pause for a few seconds and then hitting play? I get the choppy playback sometimes and it seems like the playback is running into the end of the buffer. Pausing for a few seconds seems to fix it..

Randy

If that's the case, could it not be a connection speed issue? I saw on the Hauppauge web site that they have a support question specifically about the connection speed:


http://www.hauppage.com/pages/support_mediamvp.html

TCPIP Optimization for better network performance
TCPIP Optimization - to improve the network performance when sending video to the MediaMVP


Hope this helps.

[krutaw]

Has anyone noticed that the playback on the MediaMVP is quite a bit darker than on say the PVR-350?

I noticed this last night when I converted the Episode 3 teaser trailer to MPG2 and then played it through the MediaMVP. I then walked into the other room and played it through the PVR-350 and it was much much lighter on the PVR-350.

Are there any settings for hue/brightness/contrast etc?

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by krutaw

Has anyone noticed that the playback on the MediaMVP is quite a bit darker than on say the PVR-350?

I noticed this last night when I converted the Episode 3 teaser trailer to MPG2 and then played it through the MediaMVP. I then walked into the other room and played it through the PVR-350 and it was much much lighter on the PVR-350.

Are there any settings for hue/brightness/contrast etc?

Okay, so I got a lead on this one. It appears that the transparency of the OSD is interfering. Specifically, if I set the "GuiServer.semitransparency" low enough, I don't see the darkness while actually playing the video. The problem becomes that I can't see the OSD. It's odd though that this didn't seem to happen until after hours of use on the MVP. Odd..

[Matt]

Originally Posted by krutaw

Okay, so I got a lead on this one. It appears that the transparency of the OSD is interfering. Specifically, if I set the "GuiServer.semitransparency" low enough, I don't see the darkness while actually playing the video. The problem becomes that I can't see the OSD. It's odd though that this didn't seem to happen until after hours of use on the MVP. Odd..

There is a bug in the MVP Client where the screen will stay dark if the aspect ratio is something other than Full.

I never noticed this because I only use "Full". I cannot actually set the aspect ratio in the MVP so there was no reason to test this ;-) (BTW, if someone knows a way to change the aspect ratio similar to what SageTV can, but with the original Hauppauge software, I'd be interested to hear how to do this).

So, set the aspect ratio to Full and videos will be much lighter

> Are there any settings for hue/brightness/contrast etc?

Not that I know of. You can use the Hauppauge software to change the flicker reduction. Setting it there will make it persistent and the MVP Client will also use it afterwards.

-Matt

[Matt]

Originally Posted by SprDtyF350

Have you tried hitting pause for a few seconds and then hitting play? I get the choppy playback sometimes and it seems like the playback is running into the end of the buffer. Pausing for a few seconds seems to fix it..

Randy

Do you also get this for recoded shows or just for Live TV? I know it exists for Live TV, but I don't know how I could slow down the MVP to not catch up with Live TV.

-Matt

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by Matt

There is a bug in the MVP Client where the screen will stay dark if the aspect ratio is something other than Full.

I never noticed this because I only use "Full". I cannot actually set the aspect ratio in the MVP so there was no reason to test this ;-) (BTW, if someone knows a way to change the aspect ratio similar to what SageTV can, but with the original Hauppauge software, I'd be interested to hear how to do this).

So, set the aspect ratio to Full and videos will be much lighter

> Are there any settings for hue/brightness/contrast etc?

Not that I know of. You can use the Hauppauge software to change the flicker reduction. Setting it there will make it persistent and the MVP Client will also use it afterwards.

-Matt

Ack, I forgot that I was playing with the aspect ratio at about the time that the problem started.

Good call, that helped alot.

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by krutaw

Has anyone else had a problem with the playback becoming out of sync when using either the commercial skip or fast forward? I can usually put it back into sync by merely hitting the rewind button once, but it'd be really nice if I could figure out how to keep it from happening. Ideas?

I also regularly get this problem. I have seen it on Live TV and also on Recordings. My fix has been to press 'stop' and then select the recording from the menu to continue from the previous position. I'll test more but I don't think I've had the same success using the rewind button to fix the problem.

Another problem I have is that the 10-sec rewind button just doesn't seem to work well - it usually just goes back about a second and it's really hard to get it to go back further with multiple presses of the button. Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

Both these issues mean I can't currently replace my STB, but I'm looking forward to getting the problems ironed out - this is an awesome piece of work!

Andy.

[AndyS]

UPDATE: The 10-sec rewind fix works some of the time but not always. Starting a recording that has not been previously watched can result in the sync problem. I can also cause the sync problem using the 2-min ffwd button.

On another issue - I'm getting reboots of the box from time to time. Someone mentioned it could possibly be related to overheating but I'm not convinced that that is what's causing the reboots. Is anyone else seeing this?

Andy.

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by AndyS

UPDATE: The 10-sec rewind fix works some of the time but not always. Starting a recording that has not been previously watched can result in the sync problem. I can also cause the sync problem using the 2-min ffwd button.

On another issue - I'm getting reboots of the box from time to time. Someone mentioned it could possibly be related to overheating but I'm not convinced that that is what's causing the reboots. Is anyone else seeing this?

Andy.

Hmm... Well, my problem may have been simply a breaking in period. Basically it looks like I just had to let it work itself out. Thus far today, it looks like the problem has solved itself. Or maybe I'm just getting lucky today. lol

[krutaw]

Has anyone gotten Ripped dvd's to play through the mvpclient yet? If so, what software did you use to rip the dvd?

[PGPfan]

I don't know if this will help since I still haven't gotten my client set up yet, but since the MVP has no way to decode AC3 audio it probably wont play ripped material unless it is encoded with 2ch audio. I've been able to play the 2ch rips with no trouble on the MVP (original MVP software) so I'd assume that this limitation will exist for the Sage client.

-PGPfan

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

I don't know if this will help since I still haven't gotten my client set up yet, but since the MVP has no way to decode AC3 audio it probably wont play ripped material unless it is encoded with 2ch audio. I've been able to play the 2ch rips with no trouble on the MVP (original MVP software) so I'd assume that this limitation will exist for the Sage client.

-PGPfan

Well, according to Matt's known issues, you have to re-encode the audio into mp3 before the MVP will play the DVD. The real question for me is, exactly what software is recommended, and does anyone know of prescribed settings to perform the rip?

I tried ripping the audio out into seperate mp3's, but I don't think that's quite what he meant.

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by Matt

Do you also get this for recoded shows or just for Live TV? I know it exists for Live TV, but I don't know how I could slow down the MVP to not catch up with Live TV.

-Matt

I only get it during live TV. And not all the time. Pausing for a couple seconds makes it ok. I also believe that the computer makes a difference. Using my VIA based AMD XP2400 I had all sorts of weird stuff going on. Back to my NForce based XP2800 and playback/responsiveness is much better.

Randy

[AndyS]

I'm using the MCE STV with the MVP and it's generally good, but if I'm listening to music (for instance) and the MVP is thus showing a Sage menu, the MVP's screen-saver kicks in after 60 seconds, which is pretty annoying for me. I believe I've disabled all screen-saver settings in Sage. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Andy.

[PGPfan]

If this is indeed deemed a bug, please allow this to be 'toggled' since I use a CRT projector for display and it is suseptable to "burn-in".

-PGPfan

[Matt]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I'm using the MCE STV with the MVP and it's generally good, but if I'm listening to music (for instance) and the MVP is thus showing a Sage menu, the MVP's screen-saver kicks in after 60 seconds, which is pretty annoying for me. I believe I've disabled all screen-saver settings in Sage. Does anyone have a fix for this?

The MVP screensaver kicks in if the screen is not updated for some time. Since the MCE STV doesn't update the time (yet?), you get the MVP screensaver. Doesn't happen with the original STV.

Originally Posted by PGPfan

If this is indeed deemed a bug, please allow this to be 'toggled' since I use a CRT projector for display and it is suseptable to "burn-in".

Haven't tried, but you should be able to use the SageTV screensaver (but then you'll lose the ability to minimize the window to the Tray).

-Matt

[fidget]

I was just playing with my MVP and I noticed something bad. Unlike the normal Sage client, the MVP client is brought to its knees if you perform a file transfer while watching a program. I applied the TCP/IP optimization registry settings from the Hauppauge site (and rebooted), but copying a file from that machine will render the TV unwatchable (pauses, etc.). Even adjusting the priority of the client to High does not solve the problem.

Is anyone else seeing this problem? Does anyone know how I can adjust the Quality of Service (QoS) on the MediaMVP so its network traffic can have a higher priority than a file copy?

[pbennington]

hi I currently have an epia m10000 hooked directly up to my tv with a pvr250 while the picture quality is good it's not perfect, probably down to the software decoders and spped of processor, I have been looking for a hardware decoder that doesn't use pci as the epia only has one slot, would the mvp be the solution as I believe it does the decoding? is the picture quality likely to be better? Currenlty th eepia runs at about 40% - 60% when software decoding, would this be reduced as, as I understand it sage wouldn't be doing the much, the pvr 250 would encode and the mvp would decode, is this correct? Can the mvp handle mame etc or not?