Unuseable recordings due to dropouts
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 10:11 am
I've already tried to get some help on this with no replies (see 29/8/15). Basically, TV recordings drop out all the time and are mainly unuseable. Sometimes the corruption is light (but always there) and it is watchable, sometimes it is so bad it is totally unwatchable. Similar dropouts on live TV viewed via Kodi. Most testing is done with manual service recording to minimise how much s/w is involved, but also be scheduler console recording (starting from standby).
The system is a Toshiba Satellite pro laptop dual core 2GHz, W7 SP1, 4GB RAM, 250GB SSD disk, latest Argus TV, Kodi 15.0, originally an August DVB-T210 USB single channel tuner, now replaced by a PCTV triplestick 292e (all latest drivers).
I have tried:
- killing off AV (Kaspersky).
- setting Windows autoupdate to manual.
- removing Windows media centre (which seems to have it's own update regime).
- killing the Windows 10 'please install me' update.
- Using an external hub (D-Link) for consistent USB power.
- Swapping from the DVB-T210 to the 292e (only ever one at a time).
- Doubling the TV buffer size, no of TV buffers, record buffer size in the recorder config (without really knowing what affects what).
- Using an aerial amplifier, no change and anyway the TV and old Topfield PVR manage just fine.
Nothing has any real effect. Nothing in the task manager tasks list seems to correlate either, and I've also tried recording various parameters using perfmon but couldn't correlate it with errors. The only slight trend is that possibly there are more errors when it has woken from standby (recording a schedule set up in the scheduler console) than when recorded from the recorder console service, or from the Kodi UI. Ie the difference between a background task and foreground - but it is very difficult to be sure, both will have errors.
Recording CPU load is typically 10-15% overall, of which 5-10% is the Argus recorder process.
The DVB-T210 used to put detected PCR errors into the log, the 292e doesn't, but picture breakup is very similar. Basically there's nothing in the log with the 292e - just record started, record ended.
I'm at my wits end, cannot think of anything else to try. I am assuming it is latency and buffer overflow servicing the h/w receiver of some form. It is completely unuseable and I'm about to give up on Argus and try some other s/w, maybe MediaPortal, or possibly dump the whole project and fork out for a newer boxed PVR.
However, before I do that, are there any suggestions on what I can try to resolve this? Argus is a really nicely structured bit of s/w - if only I could get it to work.
The system is a Toshiba Satellite pro laptop dual core 2GHz, W7 SP1, 4GB RAM, 250GB SSD disk, latest Argus TV, Kodi 15.0, originally an August DVB-T210 USB single channel tuner, now replaced by a PCTV triplestick 292e (all latest drivers).
I have tried:
- killing off AV (Kaspersky).
- setting Windows autoupdate to manual.
- removing Windows media centre (which seems to have it's own update regime).
- killing the Windows 10 'please install me' update.
- Using an external hub (D-Link) for consistent USB power.
- Swapping from the DVB-T210 to the 292e (only ever one at a time).
- Doubling the TV buffer size, no of TV buffers, record buffer size in the recorder config (without really knowing what affects what).
- Using an aerial amplifier, no change and anyway the TV and old Topfield PVR manage just fine.
Nothing has any real effect. Nothing in the task manager tasks list seems to correlate either, and I've also tried recording various parameters using perfmon but couldn't correlate it with errors. The only slight trend is that possibly there are more errors when it has woken from standby (recording a schedule set up in the scheduler console) than when recorded from the recorder console service, or from the Kodi UI. Ie the difference between a background task and foreground - but it is very difficult to be sure, both will have errors.
Recording CPU load is typically 10-15% overall, of which 5-10% is the Argus recorder process.
The DVB-T210 used to put detected PCR errors into the log, the 292e doesn't, but picture breakup is very similar. Basically there's nothing in the log with the 292e - just record started, record ended.
I'm at my wits end, cannot think of anything else to try. I am assuming it is latency and buffer overflow servicing the h/w receiver of some form. It is completely unuseable and I'm about to give up on Argus and try some other s/w, maybe MediaPortal, or possibly dump the whole project and fork out for a newer boxed PVR.
However, before I do that, are there any suggestions on what I can try to resolve this? Argus is a really nicely structured bit of s/w - if only I could get it to work.