How to maximize recording quality

[RedDwarf]

What can I do to reduce the chances of stream errors while recording?

 

I have noticed that power saving can destroy recordings, things like HDD's that power down, even if it's a different drive to the one used for recording, freeze the PC until the disk spins up. That has caused errors in the past.

 

Are there any settings changes that can make recordings more reliable because ATM they are not and my PC cannot be used while recording. The more I do on my PC the more likely it is that it will ruin a recording. Simple things like starting applications can cause stream corruption.

 

Only one or two recordings are usually down AAT. I have tried running DVBViewer at Above Normal, High and Realtime priority with no improvement. Recordings are usually done on a data drive with not operating system present.

 

Are there any adjustments to settings I can make to eliminate it or at least reduce the chances of it happening?

[RedDwarf]

I use Windows XP Pro SP3 if it makes a difference.

 

Stream errors have occurred while I was stopping a recording. It created immediate stream errors in another recording which was being done at the same time.

 

It things like this and similar situations like when applications are started while a recording is being done that I need to prevent.

 

So does anyone know of anything which would help?

 

Can any windows settings such as caching or anything else help? Any DVBViewer settings that would help?

 

Some help with this would be appreciated.

[RedDwarf]

What is the best settings for DVB Source? Is DVB Clock worth enabling?

[majstang]

This sounds to be hardware related. One or more components cant cope alright. Posting a support.zip increases the chances for you to get help.

http://www.DVBViewer.tv/forum/topic/2210-how-to-post-bugs-or-problems-correctly/

[RedDwarf]

This sounds to be hardware related. One or more components cant cope alright. Posting a support.zip increases the chances for you to get help.

http://www.DVBViewer.tv/forum/topic/2210-how-to-post-bugs-or-problems-correctly/

Thanks for pointing out about the support tool, it's very easy to forget about it. An updated version since the last time I downloaded as well.

 

Mystique SaTiX-S2 Dual DVB-S2 PCI-e driver 1.0.0.19 this is the latest driver which provides proper/accurate quality information. All later drivers show >=80% quality as being 100% and with a dish which provides quality bordering on 80 +-2/3 any updated driver is useless to me. The developers won't listen and won't accept that no enthusiast wants a driver to decide what quality is acceptable, each case is different and it's the user who should decide, they give a "they know best" type of attitude and the card sellers have blocked all attempts that I have made to contact the developers about my concerns. I recommend that no one purchase these rubbish TV cards. That is just the tip of the iceberg with these cards because there are countless other problems with them on some systems.

 

Gigabyte GA-X48-DS5 with Intel X48 Chipset

 

nVidia GT240 1GB PCI-e driver 197.45

 

Windows XP Pro SP3 with Enable write combining active

support.zip

[majstang]

Well, if these cards are rubbish a good start here is to see if recordings are stable only using your DVB-T devices. If recordings are stable then it should be easy pinponting which device gives you trouble.

[RedDwarf]

Well, if these cards are rubbish a good start here is to see if recordings are stable only using your DVB-T devices. If recordings are stable then it should be easy pinponting which device gives you trouble.

They are not cheap, they cost more than other makes. Maybe I was being unfair about them. The the card is designed by another company and the people who sell it alter the drivers to work with their card so they work with their card id. They have been very difficult and unhelpful over a number of things, including sending me a faulty card and when I received the replacement it had no full height bracket so I could not install it. They claimed for weeks that they had sent the bracket but it was returned to them which was rubbish as the card arrived without a problem so why should a tiny bracket have difficulty? It took weeks to get the bracket off them and the one I got was not the steel chrome plated bracket which I had previously but a cheap alloy bracket. I have tried to contact the driver developers about the quality reporting but the sellers have put up all sorts of barriers to prevent me asking the developers why they are reporting the quality as they do when they didn't with the first two or three drivers.

 

So I am stuck using quite an old driver because of it and it does not support the CI slot that I purchased the card for. So overall I am very annoyed at the cards sellers who do not keep their word. They said they would refund the faulty card return costs and they never did. Little things like this mean I would never recommend this card to anyone.

 

I have tried my DVB-T card after your suggestion, which was a good idea , it has none of the problems that I experience while using the Sat card so it does look like a driver issue. I have started many applications, started and stopped two recordings at the same time and no stream errors occurred.

 

I will try an updated driver to see if the problem is rectified and if so I will have to try and approach the driver developers directly and bypass the card sellers who are an unhelpful bunch of B######s.

Edited April 9, 2011 by RedDwarf

[RedDwarf]

The latest drivers don't have the same problem but still show the quality as being 100% all the time on every channel I have tried, rather than reporting the real quality which is lower at around 80%. I don't know of any of card/drivers which do this.

 

The newest drivers show a hand on the Video recorder plugin window which partly hides the tuner number which isn't very nice to see as it makes it difficult to identify which tuner is being used. It's not my mouse pointer because that is an arrow.

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[Tjod]

Don't use the Videorecorder Plugin. It is outdated and was not updated for a long time.

And the support will be drooped in the next version.

[RedDwarf]

I don't like the recording service and nothing else does what videorecorder does that I know of.

[Tjod]

If you don't like the Recording Service. Use the DVBViewer Pro for recording. You don't need any plugins ther.

[RedDwarf]

With Videorecorder I can monitor stream errors in multiple recordings just by looking at the corresponding window. I don't know any way of doing that with the regular DVBViewer recording method. DVBSource only works for the current channel, I don't think it can work for alternative recordings on other hardware devices.

 

 

I've worked out why the hand is there covering the tuner number, it's because the tuner name is longer on those drivers and it pushes it under the hand which I can't say I ever noticed before.

 

The drivers are crap anyway because they don't allow tuning or scanning of transponders which are marked as encrypted. That is yet another stupid idea the driver makers have made because it prevents even seeing what channels are on a transponder or what audio and bitrates are available. With newer drivers everything disappears off the map when encryption is marked. Earlier drivers did allow it, it's just the recent that don't. I have installed a newer driver but one which still allows tuning and scanning of encrypted marked channels. The stream errors seem to be gone with this driver.

[Tjod]

With Videorecorder I can monitor stream errors in multiple recordings just by looking at the corresponding window. I don't know any way of doing that with the regular DVBViewer recording method.

Enable "Write Log-file" and Write extended Log-file

http://en.DVBViewer.tv/wiki/Options_Recordings#Write_extended_Log-file