Video is 90% static after initial channel change when video starts recording.

[fragmental]

I have the problem that others have discussed where on many recordings the first second or less will be another channel and then it will switch like in this post here http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=31317 which has been only mildly annoying.

Now, however, sometimes the video will start out as static and when it switches to my channel to record, only the top 10% of the video switches and the rest remains static. The sound is ok, but watching 10% of the top of a video is no fun.

I should probably open a ticket, but it seems to be something that is kind of new so I thought maybe someone else has had this problem, and maybe there is some way I can fix it.

This is part of a log pertaining to the latest recording that has this problem.

[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Attempting to dispatch Malcolm in the Middle on Antenna (Analog) - Mercury TV Card WDM Video Capture
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Using Fair quality.
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Using CyberLink encoder SDK
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Creating card builder for 'Generic Software Encoder'
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Set TV format to NTSC_M.
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting P-Frames to: 4
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting B-Frames to: 2
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting MPEG-2 constant video bitrate to: 2000000
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting MPEG-2 audio sampling rate to: 48000 Hz
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting MPEG-2 audio bitrate to: 224000
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting capture dimensions: 352 x 240
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting frame rate: 29.970000 frames/sec
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting capture dimensions: 352 x 240
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Setting frame rate: 29.970000 frames/sec
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Set capture dimensions: 352 x 240
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Set frame rate: 29.970000 frames/sec
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Device-specific capture graph built successfully!
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Using separate sound card for audio capture.
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Audio capture device:
[2006/9/11 15:59:00] Capturing audio from C-Media Wave Device.
[2006/9/11 15:59:01] Using "Video Tuner" crossbar input.
[2006/9/11 15:59:01] Setting country code: 1
[2006/9/11 15:59:01] Setting tuner mode: 1
[2006/9/11 15:59:01] Setting tuner for antenna input
[2006/9/11 15:59:02] Opening a new slice at D:\videos\Malcolm in the Middle-(Dinner Out - Episode 206)-2006-09-11-0.mpg
[2006/9/11 15:59:02] Marking the initial slice D:\videos\Malcolm in the Middle-(Dinner Out - Episode 206)-2006-09-11-0.mpg as a recording.
[2006/9/11 15:59:02] Library detected new media: D:\videos\Malcolm in the Middle-(Dinner Out - Episode 206)-2006-09-11-0.mpg.inprogress.xml
[2006/9/11 15:59:02] Library detected new media: D:\videos\Malcolm in the Middle-(Dinner Out - Episode 206)-2006-09-11-0.mpg
[2006/9/11 15:59:02] Using "Video Tuner" crossbar input.
[2006/9/11 15:59:03] Started recording to: D:\videos\Malcolm in the Middle-(Dinner Out - Episode 206)-2006-09-11-0.mpg
[2006/9/11 15:59:03] Successfully dispatched Malcolm in the Middle on Antenna (Analog) - Mercury TV Card WDM Video Capture
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] Dispatcher stopping padded recording: Malcolm in the Middle - Original Start: 4:00 PM, Original Duration: 1800 sec, Adjusted Start: 4:00 PM, Adjusted Duration: 1800 sec, Global Padding: 60 sec
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] Final length of D:\videos\Malcolm in the Middle-(Dinner Out - Episode 206)-2006-09-11-0.mpg is 528482304 bytes.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - Unprepare finished.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - StopBaseEngine begins.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - StopBaseEngine finishes.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - Entering finished label.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - SubmitPostProcess begins.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - SubmitPostProcess ends.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine succeeded.
[2006/9/11 16:30:01] Recorder stopped recording as requested.

[nanook105]

I don't see that tuner (Mercury TV Card WDM Video Capture) in the list of supported tuners:

http://snapstream.helpserve.com/inde...articleid=1126

[Terminal]

It has only started doing this after the upgrade? I have never seen a complaint like yours, of coarse I don't read all the threads, but I wonder if you may have some type of hardware problem. Also I notice this is a software encoder, how much CPU is your system using during a record? You are not by chance running something else during these times that it does this are you?

[fragmental]

Yes, I haven't seen the 90% static thing until recently, sometime after I upgraded. However, something else besides the upgrade could have caused it. I don't see it too often, but when it happens, it's really annoying. Especially on say a 2 hour long program, or something I really wanted to watch.
It may be a problem with channel changing in btv, which I had a little problems with before, like the channel not seeming to want to change, but now it seems worse after the last upgrade. Another problem I have seen recently, for example is that the top 10-20% of the video will be kind of transplanted to the bottom of the recorded video, and this also happened while I was changing channels.
At least once , while changing channels, I saw something similar to the static except instead of static it was a about a second the video from the previous channel looping.


The cpu usage of the recording is usually pretty low because I have an Athlon XP 3000+ and I've been using mpeg2. Other processes might take up a lot of cpu sometimes though, because this is my main computer I use for everything, but I usually don't run much during recordings. I don't think cpu usage has anything to do with the static.

One possibility I have thought of, was that it could have something to do with the software that came with the card. I use that software ocassionally, and when I opened it recently it was set to a channel that was static. Most of the time, in the first second of the recording, where the channel changes it changes from the last channel that was recorded from, but there might be some situations, like where I have ran the program my card came with where it was changing from that channel or something.

No, my card isn't officially supported, but I think it is basically a lifeview flyvideo 2000, with a different tuner chip and I think flyvideo 2000 support has been added recently...like 4.0 recently. The flyvideo 2000 is not listed in the list you linked to, but I think it is listed in another list...or maybe the flyvideo 3000 which is the same, but has stereo audio instead of mono. In all honesty, I have a lot more problems than this one. Most of them pertaining to audio, but the other ones I'm used to. This one is new.