New FusionHDTV Software - Page 53

You beat me to it. I hope I don't nuke my good installation trying to get the two files.

Chris

Dave, yep, that's it. Thanks for the link! (I hadn't realized that it was so long ago that this came up--April 2008)

Hello again-

I think I may be having a analog recording issue. I got CW_EPG up and running day. It was set to record 8 shows. They all looked like they started on time but only 2 of 8 actually recorded successfully. The only 6 only were partial recordings where it appears the file or stream was corrupted and then fusion stopped. Note some were avi and so mpeg2 so it wasn't just one codec. I thought maybe it was related to the automated recordings, but no, a manual one did the same thing.

Figuring it was the machine, I installed the F7USB on another machine and it looks like I'm having the same issue.

Anyone else ever seen this problem?

Thanks
Chris

Chris--

I have little experience with NTSC captures, but my first guess would be that you have a marginal signal to work with. Is the picture clear or snowy?

KAXKID has done a lot of FusionHDTV NTSC recordings, so he may have other ideas for you tomorrow (but it's past bedtime in FL now).

i gave up on using the mpeg2 encoder a while back when i found the wmv was fine. here's pic of my setting for fusion analog captures. i'm using 3.80.01 right now on winxp home sp3 and i have been too busy to try 3.81 yet. i have both a f3goldt pci and a f5usb, no f7usb.

i'm still stuck with recording cable analog. my comcast system still supplies analog for 2-61. some of those channels are also in digital but most of the non-premium cable only(fx, usa, syfy, spiketv, tnt, espn, espn2, speed, history, dsc, etc.) are still analog on the cable. i also get most of these in hd, but only thru the dct6200 stb. i bought a hdpvr to capture these in hd thru the stb, but i'm not really using it because of the use of the stb by the rest of the family.

to see what my choices are, type 32084 into the silicondust site:
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us

i'll add the ota that is shown on that site is not correct, because i'm really too far from the towers.

My answer is similar. One show is mostly filmed in SD. I can't record it in HD on my Fusion because of encryption and I'm too lazy to continuely rip it off my DVR through DVHS.

I managed to get 3 shows to record fine in a row on a different box so we'll see what happens today. The signal looks OK to me. All of my QAM channels show 100% and come in fine. There's some noise on the analog but I'm looking at a window on a 24" monitor so that's bound to happen. I should note I had this problem with avi and mpeg2 but I can try wmv for fun if I'm still having the same problem.

Thanks
Chris

Hi everyone-

Just an update: the recording problem I was experiencing appears to be a problem with the first computer I tried. On the other machine the recordings are working beautifully. I'm not sure if the issues is with my laptop or the intel SSD I put in there. The thing is on it's last legs (sounds like it's taking off at idle LOL) so it may just be a hardware problem.

For the record, the F7USB works for me under Vista 32 and 64 bit and works with CW_EPG under both systems as well. I don't need to launch either in XP compatibility mode or as administrator. Other tips:

- Still install 3.81 in compatibility mode and as administrator. The first time I installed without these options and had an incomplete install.

- The prior link about MPEG recording worked BEAUTIFULLY. Remember if you are doing this for DVDs to select "DVD" instead of MPEG2.

Otherwise, things work great.

I'd like to again thank TPeterson, KAXKID, Dave and the creaters of CW_EPG for all of their assistance and work on these issues. I was once a beta tester for DVICO and things have really come a long, long way.

Have a great weekend,
Chris

Can someone offer some insight? I've had a fusion 3 gold that has sat on the shelf for years because it never worked well. So recently, I pulled it out and installed the latest drivers and software on a clean XP image.

I'm using it for digital ATSC stations only. Signal is plenty strong. Live viewing is fine.

The scheduler is smoothed out and the recording function gives you the illusion that after about 7 years, DVICO has finally figured out how to fix simple bugs.

WRONG.

1) Scheduled recordings sometimes happen, but most of the time don't. This is a computer that's never powered off; recordings aren't back to back. No virtual channels; no nothing. Nothing weird at all.

2) One of the recordings that did occur had severe sync issues between the audio/video. As in, over a second off.

Am I missing something? Is this stuff fixable?

You must be missing something, as basic ATSC recordings via scheduler have been working reliably under WinXP for several years. Are you exiting the FusionHDTV app after each recording (setting is in the Tray app Fusion Agent)? Why aren't you sleeping the PC when it's not in use?

What did you use for playback when you were seeing A/V lipsync issues? This is usually a station or a player (not FusionHDTV) issue these days, but rarely happens--and I've never seen a second's mismatch on a TS recording.

i've been looking around the new ability to use a "User Video Decoder" option in 3.81.00. lots of new possibilities are available depending on your installed hardware/software.

Here's an example of the programming that doesn't work correctly:

Scheduled Recording #1
Start @ 7:59PM - record Channel A for 66 minutes on Dual Express Tuner #1

Scheduled Recording #2
Start @ 8:59PM - record Channel B for 66 minutes on Dual Express Tuner #2

Scheduled Recording #3
Start @ 9:29PM - record Channel C for 36 minutes on Dual Express Tuner #1

What happens:
Recording #1 is fine.
Recording #2 starts but ends at 9:29PM, which is the time when Recording #3 starts.
Recording #3 is fine.

The recording progress bar shows that Recording #2 continues past 9:29PM but when everything's done after 10PM, the actual file that gets written from the buffers ends at 9:29PM.

If I just schedule recordings #1 & #2, everything works fine.

Before I submit a bug report to DViCO: Anyone else run into this problem? Or can confirm with a similar test? I'm on 3.80 running Vista 32-bit Home Premium.

Thanks!

I am exiting the FusionHDTV app each time. Not sleeping the PC because I figured that adds another variable to an already not-working scheduling system. Sync issues may be because I playback with zoomplayer, or because the CPU is underpowered (something I recently discovered - underpowered CPU won't fail outright when you throw a TS at it that's too much - just gets desynched).

To say I'm furious at the gall of DVICO to continue releasing products while never fixing their existing ones is an understatement. I'm a software developer; this is not a hard problem to solve, and yet DVICO doesn't seem to bother. My fusionHDTV recorder seems to record "when it feels like it". I can find no pattern to what it records and what it skips. I have several programs set up to record daily, Mon-Fri, and recording is spotty at best.

I find this very frustrating because the app, if it worked as advertised, would meet my needs. Is there any other free software that will function similarly (record per schedule)? I really don't want to spend my money purchasing a copy of beyondtv or sagetv--both are overkill for me--because DVICO is incompetent at solving 30 year old computer problems.

Is there a checklist of common causes for this? Is it worthwhile to file a support ticket with DVICO?

Is there a way to turn on logging so the app can at least tell me when it TRIED to start up, and why it did/didn't work?

Possibly.

1. What is your PC's motherboard make and model?

2. What are the 2 digits at the end of the part number of the Dual Express card's Connexant chip? ("-xxZ" --what is xx?)

No, because as I wrote before this is not a common problem. The vast majority of people find that FusionHDTV starts recordings very reliably with your tuner model.
I doubt it, since they are not devoting much effort to rare bugs (or, more likely here, configuration issues) with such an old card.
I don't think so, but did you try SysInternals debug monitor to see if its log is informative in this case?

Also, have you tried setting up some other repetitively scheduled task on that PC to confirm that the problem isn't with its BIOS or ACPI support?

Hi Terry,

It took me some time to find a cheap powered USB hub that worked correctly, but with it, my problem went away, as you predicted. No more sounds on resume, and the device works reliably.
Thanks for your help!
Marcelo.-

Terry,

PC motherboard = Dell Inspiron 530

-xxZ = 13Z (Rev 1.1 board)

Thanks for your response & help!

Well...if you'd had an nVidia 6150 chipset mobo, I'd have been sure that the problem was the 13Z Connexant part. But your mobo is an Intel chipset one, so I'm not certain. However, DViCo has said that they've changed the Connexant part from -13Z to -15Z because of motherboard incompatibilities, so maybe yours is still one of the bad combos. I suggest that you register on the FusionHDTV MyQ&A Forum and post a question there about whether the -13Z chip is known not to work well with the Intel G33 chipset on your motherboard.

Snuff...where'd you go? I presume that you found a solution to the problem that you found, but it may help others to know what the issue was and how you fixed it.

I had briefly posted about some problems with getting the unit running under Windows 7. The card had worked in a limited test mode when I was running some of the Microsoft trial versions, but was more problematic now that I have installed the actual release version (Windows 7 professional 64 bit, Dell upgrade kit).

Using the 3.8.1 (or some such) release, I have been able to get the unit to provide digital service under QAM using the included drivers. I did try to remove the drivers and reinstall at one point...but it looks like the drivers are "sticky" and are resistant to removal under Windows 7 (at least in 64 bit mode). Funny, when I tried to install new drivers, I received an error message related to another country's driver set. What possibly complicates matters is that Windows 7 itself downloaded some driver updates for the Dvico card.

One thing I did find that might help others is that Windows 7 muted the sound from the card. So going into the audio settings from Windows and unmuting the card fixed my sound problems.

So far the most reliable method go getting the card to work is to simply copy my old Win XP settings; such as setting audio to CD in (even though the card feeds audio though the bus), etc.

I also solved a problem I had from Windows 7 where some digital QAM channels had no video. Trying a differing video driver (an option in the latest software version) actually fixed the problem. I was not expecting that.

Right now I am still trying to troubleshoot the analog. I know it can work, as at one point I only had analog (from cable) and no digital. Right now I have the reverse, digital but no analog.

I hope the recording is more reliable under Windows 7. I still get an old problem to recur under XP; when the unit basically stop recording almost right away. There is no pattern to why that happens. I did verify that manual recordings do work properly under Windows 7.

My real hope is that Windows 7 will turn out to be more stable over time and put some of the old XP issues to bed.

Overall still in fiddling mode.

Thanks for the update. Which Fusion tuner(s) are you using and what motherboard?

OK, I have updated the drivers. Basically I found a Q&A post by Dvico on some folders to delete (listed under Vista, but worked for Windows 7). This let me completely remove the drivers and then reinstall drivers.

Also found a download (mentioned here in AVS land also) of some mpeg2 drivers. These were left out of 3.8.1 (yeah, probably still in my xp install, but hey there was this nice download.....).

So now the card works in digital and analog mode. The card is the old fusion 3 gold; motherboard is whatever dell puts in the Vostro 420 (socket 775?). The motherboard seems to be specific to only this one Dell model as far as I can tell.

Now I'll probably dink around with some of the Linux utilities (I have been fooling around with this triple booting concept). The unit currently boots to XP, Windows 7 64 bit, and Ubuntu 9.1 64 bit. Guess the only missing goodie would be Snow Leopard...but I don't think that is supported by Apple (LOL).

Actually I have a similar problem where I have multiple shows scheduled for recording and both Channel 1 and 2 seem to be recording, but then as soon as the channel that has another recording scheduled immediately after takes over, I'll find that the earlier show was only partially recorded, say maybe the first 10 minutes. My only solution so far has been to reinstall the software and try to clean out the registry as best I can. Frustrating!

I have had periodic problems recording from QAM. These problems don't occur under ATSC. This is under XP with 3.8.

I will be experimenting for Windows 7 over the next few weeks and I'll fill y'all in. I only "tape" Austin City Limits, and even then only artists that appeal to me....so it might be a while.

This sounds like a cable signal quality issue...... If ATSC is ok, then so should be QAM.....

Yes, I would agree that most likely the culprit is Comcast.

Not necessarily their fault. The symptoms you describe sounds like what I've seen with a weak signal. It may be their fault, or may be that you have too many splits.

Does the Fusion software stop recording if the cable loses its' signal? Comcast has been doing some major upgrading here in the Seattle area and I guess I assumed that the software would keep recording until the timed event was done. If it stops due to signal loss then I probably don't have any problems on my end.