MediaPortal TV = No Video/Audio

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night

21 posts

Geek

#26014 9-Sep-2008 17:36

TV Tuner: My Cinema U3000 Mini (A USB tuner which can receive Freeview etc)
Running XP SP2, MediaPortal 1 RC2

The following is my TV config for Media Portal
http://www.iforce.co.nz/i/2c005fd58e8032ff45dad4545f4473aa.JPG

And yet when I load MediaPortal and go to My TV, all I get is a blank screen with no audio (my tuner is being used as the green light comes on)
http://www.iforce.co.nz/i/2486ec65121cc5758bc72bed68e98286.JPG

I can get TV perfectly fine using the small program "MPTvClient", but MediaPortal just won't work

Any ideas?

And on another note: I would love to record the stream, which I guess MediaPortal would do if it worked?
edit. No idea how to make images or even links in this forum

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21 posts

Geek

#164000 12-Sep-2008 14:26

For the forums where everyone tells me to go ask for help, I'm suprised no one has any ideas

Little

82 posts

Master Geek

#164006 12-Sep-2008 14:51

Is h264 enabled in FFDSHOW? You can download and use the Arcsoft Totalmedia Theatre software and use the codec provided. This will timeout after the trial and no longer be of any use.
FFDSHOW should only be used if your pc has plenty of grunt.

night

21 posts

Geek

#164012 12-Sep-2008 15:30

Reinstalled FFDShow and made sure h264 was enabled etc, still no change
Can't download the TotalMedia as I'm on a very strict cap at the moment, 100~mb is too big haha

I mainly wanted to use MediaPortal to record, but is there something else I can use? DSCaler wouldn't detect anything, and I can't work out how to get VLC to record when using MPTvClient

sbiddle

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#164014 12-Sep-2008 15:44

You ideally need to be using PowerDVD7 or 8 or Arcsoft as your H.264 codec.

What specs is you system?

night

21 posts

Geek

#164023 12-Sep-2008 16:20

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40 GHZ
2GB RAM
Direct x 9.0c
8800 GTS Nvidia
300GB HDD
Realtek HD Audio Output (on board)

kiwijunglist

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#164036 12-Sep-2008 16:58

Try

TV Server Config -> TV Channels -> Preview

You should get picture and sound.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

night

21 posts

Geek

#164067 12-Sep-2008 18:13

I've reinstalled MediaPortal, and rescanned the channels.
Tried the preview, and I get a blank window with sound - will go change the decoder settings and test it again

Tried ffdshow, Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD7), Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD7 Home Network), and MPV Decoder Filter - none show a picture
The above settings are in Media Portal Confguration, and all under MPEG-2 Video Decoder as I have no other option for H.264 other than FFDShow

Kind of weird that PowerDVD isn't listed under H.264 - maybe that's my problem

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night

21 posts

Geek

#164079 12-Sep-2008 18:53

Reinstalled PDVD and it's done the trick :D

Woot, thanks so much for the help!

night

21 posts

Geek

#164107 12-Sep-2008 21:07

Ok now I have a problem with watching my recorded TV!
The output is .TS, but VLC will crash when attempting to play it (and the beta), as will WMP, and even PDVD Deluxe can't play it

VLC will crash after around a second, and PDVD just becomes completely lagged out - I have to spam the stop button until it responds
I've tried setting MediaPortal to .mpg format, but this doesn't even seem to record (it creates 0kb .mpg file)

As an example: http://www.iforce.co.nz/i/b3e23696092512e8d1811591579a1dc2.JPG
PDVD can't get past the first frame etc

I've also tried converting it using HDTVtoMPEG2, but this just creates 3kb file >_>

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#164157 13-Sep-2008 09:24

Now I'm confused. After reinstalling PDVD7 were you able to get preview of recorded TV channels with picture in Mediaportal TVServer config?

If so, it may be a codec issue. Download Graphedit. Open MP in "windowed" mode & start watching TV. Open Graphedit & click on 'file>connect to remote server'. Then on the listed stream. This will tell you what codecs your system is using.

Can't help with VLC as I've never used it. What happens when you try using MP for the file payback?

Also, don't set your records to .mpg. The option doesn't work with AVC H.264 files.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector

night

21 posts

Geek

#164203 13-Sep-2008 13:07

http://www.iforce.co.nz/i/490d20ee2aae851f99912447aa750f41.JPG
That's the graph from MPortal when I'm watching TV

http://www.iforce.co.nz/i/f38cc2224064939aa4d580792553ea5a.JPG
And this is when I'm watching the recorded TV in MPortal - where playback is fine

I originally thought that playback would be a piece of cake on regular players such as WMP/VLC etc, but now I see it isn't, and so I wanted to encode the TS into something else - but it seems this won't be happening anytime soon (I read the Freeview encoding threads) even though it's just TV 2/3/4

night

21 posts

Geek

#164216 13-Sep-2008 14:13

It seems MediaPortal has a feature which you can use to transcode to MPEG-2 or WMV - would this solve my problem? I tried to compress a recording I took, but the feature shows 0 objects to compress :(

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#164221 13-Sep-2008 15:12

No. The transcode plugin won't work with NZ's FreeviewHD broadcasts. There are only limited transcode options available at present. There are threads on this forum discussing what apps you can use for this process, which I see you've found.

Next, I assume you have changed your record options back to .ts from.mpg in MP TVServer config>record settings>recording folder.

Now: the Graphedit images look good. If you right-click on a *.ts recorded file, what size do you get? It should be over 3GB for an analogue (ie. Prime) 1 hour record & 7-14GB for a SD movie on an HD channel -ie. TV3. If they are in order, I would say the records are good & there appears to be an issue with codecs during playback.

Open Graphedit go to, 'file>render media file' & browse to your *.ts file location & click. It may come up with an error box about unsupported file types. Just close. The codec graph will be displayed. Click the green play button. Does the record playback?

night

21 posts

Geek

#164224 13-Sep-2008 15:26

Yeah GraphEdit plays the recorded show perfectly, so I guess that indicates a codec issue with other players as you suggested?

Thanks for the help btw, much appreciated :)

kiwijunglist

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#164229 13-Sep-2008 15:57

my experience of playing .ts files

the internal mp player is very good for playing .ts files from freeview
mpc-hc isn't good
pdvd8 ultra player works most of the time

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

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