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Hi, new poster after lurking for a while.
I came to computers late in life, mainly to digitize my CD collection and am not really that au fait with the inner workings and programming, so i need to keep things as simple as possible. I'm not stupid and have read extensively trying to get my head around stuff but it just doesn't compute, if you'll excuse the pun. I'm very practical minded and can build just about anything but 'puters remain a mystery to me. My other half says it's a left brain right brain thing. I have learnt enough to get my music sorted, which is my main aim but now i have moved onto Kodi for my visual kicks.
My problem: I have an Acer Revo 3610 PC, running Windows 7, to which i have attached a recently purchased AUGUST DVB T210 USB TV Tuner, with drivers downloaded and configured to work in WMC, with the intention of linking it to Kodi. It has found 156 channels including radio stations but the problem is that it doesn't work very well, especially in HD. Pictures break up and sometimes flash and lip synch goes in and out. Can anyone make a suggestion as to why this is happening? One suggestion someone gave me is that my PC CPU is not up to it but i have no idea. I want to get this sorted before i move on to the next phase of integration with SERVERWMC, which leads to my next problem:-
I thought i would have a go at setting this up last night to see if it worked any better than it does as a standalone Windows set up. I tried to download the Server programme but my PC told me i first need to download something called NET 4 (can't remember the exact name), which i tried 3 times to do with no success. My PC wouldn't do it, which baffles me as it is a Windows download.
So, i'm a bit stumped and hoping you good people can help me. I'm in the UK if that makes a difference and when i plug my aerial directly into my TV, i get a superb HD picture with no issues, which maybe rules out the aerial as a cause?
Sorry for the long first post and thanks in advance for any guidance.
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Hi. There is no reason to move onto serverwmc until you get WMC working properly. If wmc won't work well, neither will serverwmc. My guess is that your acer is not up to the task too - just a guess though. I think wmc will run a diagnostic to say if your pc is up to snuff for hd, I can't recall where that test is though, probably in the 'settings' menu somewhere. The best place to get this resolved is to take it to a wmc forum.
As for getting swmc installed, we do require .net 4. This is a software environment (or framework in ms parlance) that our program needs to have installed in order to run. You don't say what the error message is that you get when it won't install, so I can't really say much more about it. Probably best to talk to microsoft about that if you can't find any info online.
Sorry I can't be more help. I think you aerial is fine too, don't worry about that.
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Thanks Krusty.
At least i know i can't move on with the integration 'til this is sorted, so will try a WMC forum to get some answers before moving onto the ServerWmc bit.
Suspect i need a faster set up to stream HD, or a dedicated box separate from my PC that will run Kodi and stream live TV. Any suggestions would be welcome in case i decide on this route. Would the WETEK be an option?
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Afraid I'm not much help there either, I don't like to make hardware recommendations anyway. If you want to run wmc/serverwmc just remember you need windows. But there are lots of other pvr backends that will work with kodi in other os's so keep that in mind.
Also, don't forget to try what sbthomas said, try recording a show and seeing if playback is smooth.
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Thanks again, will do bit more research.
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2015-01-27, 16:19
(This post was last modified: 2015-01-27, 16:20 by stefcon1.)
I just tried the tuner again and with HD channels, the actual picture is good but lip synch is way out and the panning shots are not smooth. I also get the odd jump in the picture and very slight break up. I tried recording BBC HD and the same problems showed up in the recording as on the live broadcast. SD channels play a lot better, although with not quite as crisp a picture, as you would imagine compared to HD.
Doing a bit of reading, i find that others have complained that the ACER REVO can't do live HD TV, so i am now sure it is the PC that is the problem and am beginning to think that replacing it is the way forward.
So i am now looking for suggestions as to a suitable machine for my needs, which are to watch and occasionally record live TV and to manage my music listening through a Squeezebox Touch, wired up to my HIFI playing Flac files. Also streaming from the net with Kodi and general web browsing.
The other option is to buy a set top box for Kodi and TV duties and leave my PC where it is for the music and web browsing duties, although the PC is slow at those tasks and moving between tasks is quite tardy. I have a DVD writer and 1TB hard drive if that makes a difference.
Any recommendations would be appreciated.
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2015-10-11, 21:30
(This post was last modified: 2015-10-11, 21:34 by nmw01223.)
I know this is old now, but thought I would add my experiences as they may be of use. I have been trying to get good recorded TV using Kodi, Argus TV (also MediaPortal and NextPVR at times) using PCTV triplestick 292e receivers (2) and (originally) an August DVB-T210. All running on a Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop, 2GHZ, dual core, 4GB RAM, 250GB SSD, W7/32 + SP1.
Lots of picture breakup when recording.
Doesn't seem to be SD/HD related (similar in each case), and CPU load is only 10-15% in total. I tried killing off everything else (Windows update etc) that could be using CPU, all to no avail. No difference at all. Doesn't seem raw CPU power related.
The same occurs with Argus TV and Media Portal, and equally on the August stick and the PCTV ones. Doesn't seem related to the speciifc hardware or software.
There was a forum suggestion that varying USB voltage could affect the receivers. Ran them from external USB powered hub. No difference at all.
Tried all manner of aerial boosters etc. No effect, and anyway my TV and Topfield PVR all manage perfectly well.
Then I suddenly noticed that the break up only occurs when recording, not when watching live TV (with Kodi). Odd - much more work is being done when watching live as the stream actually has to be decoded, as opposed to just written to disk.
Experimenting more, I found that Kodi just needed to be running, not doing anything. If it was sitting there minimised when a recording occurred - perfectly good quality. If it wasn't - loads of picture breakup.
I then found that not just Kodi would save the day. Kodi of course is communicating with the Argus TV backend, and I thought it might be doing something that keeps some part of the back end alive, but no. I found that VideoLAN running - not doing anything at all, just started and minimised, no file or stream opened - had exactly the same effect. However any ordinary (non video) app - eg a spreadsheet - did not help.
That is as far as I have got, my suspicion is
- this is something to do with power saving / sleep
- some modern devices sleep at every miniscule opportunity to save power, maybe something is 'micro-sleeping', and when a data frame comes along from the receiver hardware, it takes too long to get going again, sometimes misses the packet, resulting in a broken up stream
- somehow, something in Kodi / VideoLAN is keep the system in a state of wakefulness so that this does not occur
- it is interesting that with Kodi running, it will not go to sleep - the screen will go off, but processing continues full tilt - the system is in a different overall state
I am a software engineer and I have been experimenting with thread execution states, to no effect so far. It may also be fixable by selecting the right power saving options, but if so I haven't found which.
If this helps anyone, and they can narrow it down still further, so much the better.
