Discontinuities in Vista

[lehtikissa]

Problem: DVBViewer (3.8.0.0 & 3.8.1.10 beta) suffers from discontinuities when there's other activity in my Vista. Switching to logon screen, for example, can cause 10+ discontinuities.

 

Result: Glitches in recordings etc.

 

Workaround: View/Close Graph. After closing the graph, discontinuities vanish and the recordings are perfect.

 

Tried without success:

 

1. Change Video Decoder: doesn't matter whether DVBViewer uses CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD7), DScaler Mpeg2 Video Decoder, ffdshow Video Decoder or Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder.

 

2. Enable/Disable Audio/Video Format Detection.

 

3. Set DVBViewer's task priority to Realtime.

 

Any ideas so I could both watch & record at the same time? Might not be a bug, but a problem with my configuration.

 

System configuration:

 

TV card: Terratec Cinergy 1200 DVB-C (driver version 4.8.18)

Mainboard: ABIT AB9 Pro (P965 chipset)

Graphics card: Club-3D ATI Radeon X1950PRO (Catalyst 7.9)

support.zip

[Moses]

your other activities (like switching to logon screen which seems to be a mad idea, while recording, in my eyes) cause to heavy last on the cpu or other parts of the system, so DVBViewer can't keep up with the stream and pakets are lost. You could try to activate the smart buffer in options->recordings and set it to some > 10 MB and you should increase priority of DVBViewer, too.

If that does not help, close graph while recording. You can watch the recording while it's still recorded. If you want to do some of your more heavy actions you can stop the playback and resume it after the action...

[lehtikissa]

Thanks for the reply!

 

Switching to logon screen isn't essential and it was an example of something causing many discontinuities in a short time. Unfortunately I get random discontinuities also during normal activity like copying files or launcing applications. Increasing the buffer or priority has no substantial effect.

 

I wonder why discontinuities occur only when the graph is open? It is hard to believe that the video decoder is so CPU intensive. According to Task Manager, DVBViewer uses only 3-6% when the graph is active. Of course, it doesn't use almost any when it is closed, but there is plenty of CPU time for other apps.

 

Why are the video decoders (if they're the cause) so sensitive even when the priority is realtime? Or does the priority setting affect only the core application, not the decoders?

 

Is it possible to shield the essential functions from the adverse effects non-critical components such as video decoders can cause? Ie. even if the decoder can't handle the stress, recording functionality wasn't affected.

 

Of course, I'm not aware of DVBViewer's internals, but if heavy action doesn't affect recordings without graph, wouldn't separating core functionality from the graph/decoders ensure error-free recordings?

Edited October 3, 2007 by lehtikissa

[Moses]

maybe it's not the last on cpu but something else.. I don't know... or it's some interference somewhere? Somebody had random discontinuties, when he activated DXVA / Hardware Decoding... it can have many reasons.

 

You could try to run one DVBViewer with closed graph, recording and playback something else or the recording with some other media player or with another instance of DVBViewer and see if that causes problems, also.

 

In most cases recordings are not affected, if the video output runs into troubles. So there could be something else on your system... or vista is more problematic here? I don't know

[lehtikissa]

You could try to run one DVBViewer with closed graph, recording and playback something else or the recording with some other media player or with another instance of DVBViewer and see if that causes problems, also.

This causes no discontinuities:

 

1. View/Close Graph

2. Play .ts file in VLC / Play 720p .avi in MPC

3. Switch to logon screen (my favorite stability test )

4. Resume to Windows

5. Stop recording

 

Few additional observations:

 

- If video is active in DVBViewer and I switch to logon screen, the sound intermittently breaks and presumably also the video. This is probably when the discontinuities happen.

- This does NOT occur with MPC or VLC: sound is continuous.

- Could this be related to the Vista issue I posted earlier ?

 

maybe it's not the last on cpu but something else.. I don't know... or it's some interference somewhere?

Possible, but what? Today I even switched my SATA drives from IDE to AHCI as it seems the discontinuities coincide with intensive disk activity. No luck.

 

Somebody had random discontinuties, when he activated DXVA / Hardware Decoding...

Is this the same as PDVD's "Use Hardware Accelerator" ? It's disabled.

 

or vista is more problematic here?

It is possible this is a compatibility problem with DVBViewer and Vista. Although I'd be more certain if some other Vista users posted similar experiences.

 

I'll try how DVBViewer works in XP some day.