BTV 3.5.1 - Slow Exit from Live TV

[Karma2004]

Hello All,

I tried 3.5 when it came out and reverted back to 3.44 because of slow exits from Live TV.

Downloaded 3.5.1 last night and installed. Still get the same issue.

DELL P4 3.2
1 Gig Ram
Nvidia GeForce FX5200
Hauppauge PVR USB 2 - Driver Version 2.2.58.22194

Have tried both the NVIDIA Video Decoder and the InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder. Same problem with both.

I saw an FAQ about shutting down as many background apps as possible to possibly help this. I get the problem with only Norton Anti Virus running so I'm pretty clean on background activity.

This may have been answered before, but I could not find it in the forum.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks much!
Karma

[rkuo]

This is a long shot, but try shutting BTV down completely, then look in settings.xml in the Beyond TV application, try looking for the SinkUseBuffering setting and set it to "0". Again, it's a long shot, but worth trying.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if Norton was causing the problem (you'd be surprised how many problems it causes for various programs), so you might want to turn it off completely while you are testing.

If that doesn't fix it, I'm fairly certain that some other fixes we're evaluating and testing may also address the issue as well.

[Karma2004]

Thanks for the advice, but I still have the same issue. It "seems" to be related to how long LiveTV runs before exit. Like more than a couple of minutes and it hangs. Exit right away and it seems to exit quickly.

Not a scientific observation... just something I've noticed.

Karma

[Rich A]

Saw your post and although I almost never watch live tv, I gave it a go on my own newly upgraded to 3.5.1 system. Exit from live is almost instant. I tried pausing the show for several minutes and playing for a long time.

Norton can really slow things down as was mentioned. I don't have any Antivirus software on my HTPC, but then it's a dedicated unit and the only outside connection is to Snapstream servers for the guide info.

You might check the windows task manager to see what processes are running? Could be something is cooking in the background that you don't know about.

If it's a PC that you use for other purposes as well, then watch out for spyware and adware. It's becoming an epidemic in some areas.

That by the way, makes me think about others who are having stuttering playback and large CPU use issues. I wonder if we are over-looking the obvious? If the machines are multi-use and used day to day for normal PC use as well as a PVR, then the first thing that should be done is a good cleaning and checking for that stuff.

Sorry to digress. That thought just came to me and I don't believe I've ever seen mention of it in any of the forums.

[nanook105]

I have an open bug on this back to the last couple of betas before 3.5. Unfortunately, it is very random. I have had it after watching live TV a short time, long time (I've even left it on for days at a time and it didn't happen). I have dedicated PCs for my PVRs, and don't run any antivirus. Very frustrating

[Karma2004]

Nanook, knowing it's random is frustrating but somehow oodly comforting that it's not my config. Maybe a fix will come along soon.

Rich, that PC is also used for recording (audio - I'm a musician/songwriter) so the machine is pretty well optimized. Next to nothing running other than norton. Maybe I'll rip it out and see what happens.

Thanks again...
Karma

[wheemer]

I had this before in earlier betas, sometime it took wuite a while before bringing me back to the main screen. I still do get it with 3.5.1, but it is nowhere close to as long. More like a momentary pause before the main screen. And sometimes it's an instant exit, very random in it occurance.

[Bilar Crais]

I too am still experiencing this with 3.5.1. It is quite random.

[SteveG]

Slightly-OT:

In Norton's Options (I'm not on my PC right now, so I don't know exactly where it is) set it to exclude your BTV folders from automatic scanning. Make sure to add the Live TV buffer folder as well. This may not fix this particular issue, but I've found it helped my set up.

[greyhound]

Is it a slow exit or hang? It might be worthwhile to to take a few userdumps of the process spaced apart by x minutes or seconds in order to try to indentify the thread that is the problem. You might even be able to get some stack information to localize the problem down to the specific call. There are a couple of tools to do this.

User dump:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;241215

ADPlus:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;286350

ADPlus comes as part of the debugging tools.
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtoo...nstallx86.mspx

I think you can hot key userdump. I'm not sure ADPlus would be useful unless its a true hang.

[noodleNT]

Good point SteveG!
I am noticing some bogging down all of a suddend and will give this a shot. I had it set that way on an earlier test machine and it did make a difference. Forgot to do it on the production box.

[wheemer]

Right-O modifications to Norton made... Thanks for the tip!

[Bilar Crais]

Originally Posted by SteveG

Slightly-OT:

In Norton's Options (I'm not on my PC right now, so I don't know exactly where it is) set it to exclude your BTV folders from automatic scanning. Make sure to add the Live TV buffer folder as well. This may not fix this particular issue, but I've found it helped my set up.

I've been doing this as a matter of course since the tip first appeared in the installation wizard. But apparently, when you uninstall BTV, as I just did prior to installing 3.5.1, you have to reset the exclusions after a fresh install. I'll bet I won't have any more trouble now.

[nanook105]

Is it a slow exit or hang?

Mine have always been a slow exit (sometimes over five minutes). I see that others have gotten a hang, but I'm not sure if it is because they didn't wait long enough, or if it was truely hung

[Karma2004]

FYI... in my case, like nanook, it's always a slow exit. I also run in the 3 to 5 minute range. Don't think I've ever had a true hang.

Also, last night I tried different decoders and got the same issue with the Intervideo Non-CSS, NiVidia, and both Snapstream decoders. I all cases, it was random as to when it would happen.

I'd be willing to provide the userdumps of my system when this happens if someone will give me direction on when to do so (meaning do you want the dumps just as BTV starts to exit, a couple of minutes into the exit, and after the exit?). Do I post them to this thread of send them to someone at Snapstream?
Karma