System Freeze While Recording With Hauppauge Nova-t-usb2

[gabier]

Hi,

 

I record movies from DVB-T TV with a Hauppauge Nova-T-USB2, and DVBViewer is a very good piece of software to do it. My problem is that at random, I would say "sometimes" (in the preceding weeks it would be best qualified as "fairly often"), I experience system freezes (more rarely Blue Screens) while recording.

 

Of course this always happen in the middle of a movie I would indeed love to have in my DVD collection. I moved from the native Hauppauge software WinTV2000 because there were Blue Screens VERY often. And indeed DVDViewer is definitly better in that respect. But the crashes are still there, and I wonder how I could reach a really secure recording scheme.

 

I now that it is quite impossible to know the exact reason of such random freezes, but maybe some of you can help me to answer some questions from their experience :

Did any of you experience such freezes with DVD-T recording with DVDViewer, and if yes with what DVD-T tuner device ?

Does any of you as an opinion about who is responsible for these freezes (tuner, Hauppauge driver, DVBViewer) ?

Can you advise wich DVD-T tuners devices are best with DVDViewer, for reliability and sensitivity ?

 

Thanks for all advices

 

Gabier

[Moses]

hm, maybe disable av while recording could help a bit here, if you don't use it already.

[HenPen]

If you have the Media Center edition (and don't use it) disable those services as well. And of course any unnecessary startup stuff you find when you run "msconfig" and go to the Startup tab.

 

I have this problem occasionally and the normal log files record nothing . I'm going to try Microsoft's Dr. Watson (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308538) that can be configure by running "drwtsn32."

 

If DrWatson doesn't work I see there's many others out there....

Edited April 30, 2007 by HenPen

[gabier]

hm, maybe disable av while recording could help a bit here, if you don't use it already.

 

Hi Moses,

 

What is "av" ?

 

Gabier

[Griga]

What is "av" ?

Audio/Video. E.g you can start recording, and then perform View -> Close Graph, which shuts down playback completely, without affecting the recording.

[gabier]

If you have the Media Center edition (and don't use it) disable those services as well. And of course any unnecessary startup stuff you find when you run "msconfig" and go to the Startup tab.

 

I have this problem occasionally and the normal log files record nothing . I'm going to try Microsoft's Dr. Watson (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308538) that can be configure by running "drwtsn32."

 

If DrWatson doesn't work I see there's many others out there....

I do not run Media Center, and, when recording I disable all network connexions and all external peripherals (except the usb Wireless mouse and keyboard).

I always tidy up the startup services, and there are not many left. Mainly Norton antivirus. Is NAV a possible cause ?

As for Dr Watson, I do not know it. Would it record something if the system freezes because of a driver or an application ? In fact it seems to be active anyway, but its log does not contain anything about my freezes. What do you mean with ther's many others out there.? I tried a few years ago to understand who to use WinDbg, but it was too complicated. Are there more simple debugging softwares ?

 

Gabier

[Lars_MQ]

blue screen an system freeze in XP can normally only be cause by a driver. So candidates are graphics, audio, of course dvb and maybe harddisc (in case of conflicts with other devices). the viewer can not cause a bluescreen by itself, it does not have the systemrights for it. maybe there is something in the windows eventlog?

 

Oh I forgot the ram and thermal problems. It's hard to track down. does it _only_ happens while recording? then i would defenitly look at the harddisc part.

[gabier]

Audio/Video. E.g you can start recording, and then perform View -> Close Graph, which shuts down playback completely, without affecting the recording.

 

Hi, Griga

 

hey, I did not know this command . I will use it in the future.

 

Gabier

[gabier]

blue screen an system freeze in XP can normally only be cause by a driver. So candidates are graphics, audio, of course dvb and maybe harddisc (in case of conflicts with other devices). the viewer can not cause a bluescreen by itself, it does not have the systemrights for it. maybe there is something in the windows eventlog?

 

Oh I forgot the ram and thermal problems. It's hard to track down. does it _only_ happens while recording? then i would defenitly look at the harddisc part.

 

 

Interesting views. I agree that the driver only can cause the system crash, but the application can send "unusual data" that the driver cannot understand, can't it ? Of course the driver should not crash anyway but nothing is perfect, and I think this is why a poor piece of software such as WinTV2000 cause more crashes then DVBViewer, with the same drivers.

Now, let us concentrate on drivers.

First thing, there is nothing in the Windows eventlog.

Second, I think that it happens only when recording, but in fact I mainly use the device and viewer for recording. I will have the display running more often to sort out this issue.

If it is the HD, I don't know how to "look at it", apart from installing updates of the driver. I installed yesterday 2 updates of the SATA driver. My HD is a generic drive which came in my Dell 9100. It is a 250 Go SATA 7200 rpm drive. Do you know any way of tracing drive problems ?

 

 

Gabier

[Griga]

more rarely Blue Screens

What does the blue screen report? Usually it displays which sys or dll file caused the crash.

[gabier]

What does the blue screen report? Usually it displays which sys or dll file caused the crash.

 

No, unfortunately, the Blue Screens never reported the faulty program. It reported only the fault type. I tried to debug the crash dump but I am not a specialist and did not learn anything from it.

 

But maybe things look better. I updated SATA driver and BIOS. I also updated DVBViewer (I was several versions late), and now I have no more hangs up. I ran for testing 20 hours of display and 23 hours of recording, without any crash. I cross fingers, as we say in French...

 

Gabier