Technisat Skystar S2 - no recovery after discontinuity

[Andrey123456]

I am not sure wahat is the source of discontinuity - my sixth sense says that it is PCI problem or memory leak inside driver, not analog signal quality.

What is is really interesting how discontinuity is handled. If it happens, stream freezes, number of qued buffers in DVB source filter property window increases up to aproximately 128. If discontinuity is short, the card will recover in most cases and I can see svideo and hear sound. If number of qued buffers is more than 100 - no video and noise insetad of sound. Rebuld graf or switchng channel resolves the problem.

 

May be this situation can be detected and graf can be rebuild automatically?

 

I did this test on two computers - more or less behaviour of the card is the same.

 

Steps to recreate the problem: degrade signal quality by covering LNB or just disconnect RF cable. Be carefull!!! it's better to use electronic switch insead of manual disconnection.

 

TT-S2-3200 in this case also beats Skystar S2. There is much less hang-ups because of discontinuities.

[Griga]

Please read this

 

http://www.DVBViewer.info/forum/index.php?...st&p=259757

 

and tell me if it's the same problem. The "Retune on missing stream" option may help. Nevertheless DVB devices shouldn't behave like this

[Andrey123456]

My problem is exactly the same as yours. The difference is that I opened View->Filters->DVB source and watched what was giong on. I tried to activate Retune option. It helps a little in normal operation, but in case of long time signall loss is useles.

 

As I told, I saw increasing number of qued buffers. I think this is the place where we should dig to find a problem.

 

If you want I can repeat the test and send you screenshots and may be other information, just tell me what.

[Griga]

If number of qued buffers is more than 100 - no video and noise insetad of sound. Rebuld graf or switchng channel resolves the problem.

Well, if Rebuild Graph fixes it, it seems to be more or less a follow-up DirectShow resp. playback problem, caused by corrupted data that can not be handled by the decoders anymore.

 

If a DVB device really stops delivering data after signal loss Rebuild Graph won't help.

 

As I told, I saw increasing number of qued buffers.

May be due to corrupted time stamps. Is "Check Timestamp Continuity" switched on?

[Andrey123456]

As far as I remember on. I am not at home now, so can not go and check. I did not change default configuration. This evening I will play with this parameter an I will tell you results.

 

Before I put Skystar2 card inside HTPC it was installed in my desktop. There discontinuities were awful problem, I played with all parameter checkboxes in DVB source filter and nothing helped. I decided to switch DVB cards between computers. After this manipulation I got perfect performance of TT-S2-3200 (started to work stable with Retune After Missing Stream = 0) an better performance on SS S2 no hang-up on short discontinuities, much less discontinuity events.

 

You are right about direct show, but why TT-S2-3200 works much better in the same system? It hangs only on encrypted channels after very long time of signall loss. I use Cyberlink PDVD7 decoders and Overlay videorenderer

[Andrey123456]

I also remember that video PCR clock stopped and then became negative, then counter stucked when the problem occured

[Andrey123456]

After replacing PDVD7 SP decoder with NVIDIA decoder recovery after discontinuity works. Now on FTA channels behaviour of SS S2 and S2-3200 is identical.

 

Encrypted channels issue is still there and applicable for both cards. Meanwhile I assigned one of remote buttons to Rebuild Graph function. This is the only solution and it is done in DVBDream automatically . It has an option to rebuld graph if buffer que is out of sync. I hope to see this option in further versions of DVBViewer.

 

On attached screenshots you can see what was going on there yesterday. Finally I chose NVIDIA decoder. Motherboard GA-E7AUM-DS2H.

[kaiser.wilhelm2]

How is it possible to have issues with encrypted channels in combination with the SkyStar S2 card due to the fact that this card is not equipeed with a CI slot...?!

[Andrey123456]

Formally you are absolutely right. But take to consideration that I do not think that non-FTA issue is a problem of DVB card. It is behaviour of DVBViewer under certain conditions that may be interesting to developers.

 

By the way there is an experimental option for external CI. So, SS-S2 can be used to watch encrypted channels. And this issue can be applicable there too.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Andrey123456

[Andrey123456]

After additional investigation I understood the sequence of comming to problematic state: DVB card causes discontinuity - (the reason is not known and it is a subject for additional topic) Discontinuity makes crazy some plugin that I use. Plugin makes crazy video decoder. As result rebuld graph required. Rebuild graph resets plugin. If I just reset plugin, effect is the same as rebuild graph.

 

Thanks for help. Even though it is not DVBV problem, think about my idea about rebuildig graph in case of error.