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Crash2009

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#61

Post by Crash2009 » Mon May 22, 2017 6:15 am

artm wrote:I don't have duplicates. The 200 range channels are SD channels - rather, non-HD channels.
Can you post a link to your channel list provided by your Cable Company?

Are you not subscribed to HD?

OR

I can look it up myself....Need the Zip and Lineup.

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#62

Post by artm » Mon May 22, 2017 6:23 am

http://forums.xfinity.com/comcastsuppor ... 1/C005.pdf

I'm in 02130, Digital Preferred package...SD in the 200's, HD in the 800's.
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
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Crash2009

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#63

Post by Crash2009 » Mon May 22, 2017 7:29 am

artm wrote:http://forums.xfinity.com/comcastsuppor ... 1/C005.pdf

I'm in 02130, Digital Preferred package...SD in the 200's, HD in the 800's.
I think I see what you mean now. Digital Preferred gives you a limited amount of HD channels.

Here is a diagram of what is going on in the background....

Any one of these little roadblocks could be stopping your sound.
Attachments
DRM-Diagram003.jpg

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#64

Post by artm » Mon May 22, 2017 1:43 pm

I keep some duplicate SD channels in case the HD version is out, or vice versa. The only real duplicates are a couple news channels, the movie channels are different.

Duplicates are not causing the problem, as they have unique call signs - if you thiknk that's the issue.

It could be a driver/card issue, perhaps I need a newer card with more horse power but I'm limited to half height and low power. I say more horse power because in the fastest fast forward of h.264 (DRM or not) there's much skipping; mpeg2 is still just fine.

I also get occasional pixelation on channel 810 - the new NBC mpeg2 channel. Signal is fine. Now, if it's true mpeg2 there shouild be no issue like the rest of them. That's why I think Comcast is fiddling with the stream.
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
Dell 780 SFF, i5, HD4000

JonDeutsch

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#65

Post by JonDeutsch » Sat May 27, 2017 1:38 am

I'm also caught up in this nonsense. Oddly enough, for me, the issue is intermittent "black screen" recordings on channel 818 (Comcast, MSNBC HD). I don't see any issues on any other channels right now being recorded.

Note that I've had to retire my Linksys DMA2100 extender and replace it with my old Xbox360 to have reliable extender coverage in this new H.264 world.

This is probably my final year with WMC given how we're seeing cracks in the pavement. Very sad. Until a solid streaming service w/DVR emerges, I want to try to make my current system work. The alternatives are all sooo compromised.

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#66

Post by artm » Sat May 27, 2017 2:16 pm

1. Do you have issues switching form the 800 channel block to the 200 - DRM or not?

2. Do you have issues with slow fast forwarding of recordings - DRM or not? Fast forwarding on the fastest setting.

3. What video card are you using?

I generally don't care about DRM channels, so I still am very pleased with WMC. It handled the Comcast switchover mostly fine, once I upgraded the video card. I feel resolving the fast forward issue (small issue really) will be done with a more powerful video card, or better driver. But, for the switching to black, that's a WMC or Comcast issue.
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
Dell 780 SFF, i5, HD4000

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#67

Post by JonDeutsch » Sat May 27, 2017 7:26 pm

artm wrote:1. Do you have issues switching form the 800 channel block to the 200 - DRM or not?
If channels are working, I've have no problems changing from any channel to any other channel when using the guide so far.
If a channel is not working (black with audio), then changing to other channels tends to work as well. Changing back to 818 goes black again until a PC reboot.
2. Do you have issues with slow fast forwarding of recordings - DRM or not? Fast forwarding on the fastest setting.
Nope.
3. What video card are you using?
I upgraded my card once this all happened so that I could watch HBO again - it's an Nividia GT730
I generally don't care about DRM channels, so I still am very pleased with WMC. It handled the Comcast switchover mostly fine, once I upgraded the video card. I feel resolving the fast forward issue (small issue really) will be done with a more powerful video card, or better driver. But, for the switching to black, that's a WMC or Comcast issue.

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#68

Post by artm » Sat May 27, 2017 9:03 pm

Fast forward: So you have smooth ff/rw, at teh fastest setting, DRM and not?

Black channel PC reboot: I never need a reboot to get picture back. Usually going up/down one, two or three channels does it - along the 200 range; going back to the 800 range also usually does it. A WMC restart certainly does it, but that is rarely needed.

I'm running a GT710, which is pretty much as high as I can go for my setup (power consumption limit, 20W); the 730 is more than double that. Maybe I can do better with the driver. What version is yours?
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
Dell 780 SFF, i5, HD4000

stuartm

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#69

Post by stuartm » Sun May 28, 2017 2:41 am

You might get away with a 730 anyway. Video decoding in WMC does not really stress the video enough to pull lots of power so a 730 probably wouldn't take that much more than a 710.

e.g. this card
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... -_-Product

is rated at 23 watts versus the 19 a 710 is rated. Probably only draws a few watts more than a 710 doing video.

sgbroimp

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#70

Post by sgbroimp » Tue May 30, 2017 5:17 pm

Just to add my two cents here. I use a Ceton pcIe6 tuner with Intel Core i3 and HD 2000 Graphics. Can't tune Comcast's HD Premiums but I live with that watching them on SD. OK until recently, then all of a sudden sound only. Tried reboot and fresh WMC signal set up, but no joy. Turns out that a call to Comcast tech and a signal reset (took 5 seconds or so while I was on the phone.) fixed the issue, but this is the second or third time this has happened. Just wanted to point this out for others who make think it is their equipment: i.e. if rebooting your PC and re-doing your WMC signal set up does not work, call Comcast before you buy some new hardware or throw in the towel. (I wonder If Comcast is doing something funny even wit their MPEG2 transmissions.)

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#71

Post by artm » Tue May 30, 2017 5:29 pm

That is interesting about the signal reset; first time I've heard of that.

I suspect Comcast is not sending a standard signal through - intentionally. Piss off WMC and Tivo users to get ont heir Xfinity system. That will never happen to me. I'm waiting for FIOS to get here (Boston) and say goodbye to Comcast.

As for your issue with the premium channels: it's a well known issue with Intel graphics . I was on HD3000 and had to move away from it to a separate video card (Nvidia GT710). Solved that.
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
Dell 780 SFF, i5, HD4000

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#72

Post by sgbroimp » Tue May 30, 2017 9:00 pm

I am envious, Art. Here at the CT shore (East) we have a choice of Comcast, Comcast or Comcast. No FIOS, no U-Verse. Like others and yourself, I also suspect a non conforming signal from them. I may get a card if things get worse but we watch little premium content so not worth it at the moment. If they go to a lot more MPEG4 that could change my mind. Sure wish we hjad your options.

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#73

Post by JonDeutsch » Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:37 am

So to mitigate my problem, I seem to have two options:

1. Get rid of HBO on my cable and move to HBO Now.
2. Preferably, figure out some PC automation that checks to see when I record an HBO show, and after that happens, schedule a PC reboot at 4AM afterwards.

How can I go about creating #2?

Thx!
Jon

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#74

Post by DFox » Thu Jun 01, 2017 5:46 am

Jon, as with any automation just make sure that your logical criteria and actions fit 100% of the time, and you aren't going to for example miss recordings (like back to back HBO) or you're rebooting when something else is going on. But if what you are asking for is that straight forward then it should be relatively easy, logically speaking, to implement.

There are a few ways to do this, like creating an active monitor process, etc. But I usually prefer to use as much of what is native to Windows before writing custom stuff. Therefore, I would suggest starting with Windows Task Scheduler. It has a trigger option for Event Log entries, and you create a new one that fires from the Media Center recorded event. However, you can't get granular to parse out the message such as HBO in the text, so instead you run a PowerShell command after every recording to go back into the Event Log and look for the finished recording Event.

Within PowerShell you can parse out Event Log message text, so if it doesn’t have HBO in the message then exit out. If it does, then schedule the reboot.

You can schedule the reboot within the PowerShell itself. Or there are two different ways from the command line, which is what the PowerShell will run when it detects HBO recorded. For the command lines, either create a new scheduled task for the 4am reboot. Or calculate how many seconds from now is the next 4am and then run the shutdown command with a wait that number of seconds. The latter, or native PowerShell restart, are cleaner because you don't have to create another scheduled task in your system, but the former is actually easier because with Task Scheduler you can just specify a time. Actually I need to check more on that one because you may still need to calculate the current date and add a day if it's before midnight, or not it after midnight. Or maybe Task Scheduler just does it for you from the command line. Hmm, maybe either method you’ll need to calculate. For the native PowerShell restart, you'll still need to calculate when.

You can also create the Scheduled Task within PowerShell, but same potential calculations would apply as the command line.

Alternatively, instead of Task Scheduler you can use the EventTrigger command, but it no longer offers much advantage over Task Scheduler since Windows 7 because it can now trigger off of Events. Plus it is easier to administer through the UI. VBScript is an alternative to the PowerShell I mentioned above.

I realize I wrote a bunch, but it is actually pretty simple. In summary, create a Scheduled Task that triggers from Media Center Event log recording success, and then the action is to run a script, which determines either to do nothing or restart x seconds from then.

Let me know if you need any assistance with any of this.

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#75

Post by Ken H » Sat Jun 03, 2017 6:24 pm

Just so everyone's clear, this is not just a recording issue. It's an issue recording or watching live TV. And it's happening wherever Comcast has changed the video they deliver into customers homes. I never had any kind of issue like this before and only since Comcast recently changed the video format has the no video with sound problem happened.

I use three different PC's for WMC. Two with AMD quad core processors, one with an AMD R7 240, one with an nVidia GT730. The other is a laptop with an Intel dual core processor and intregrated Intel graphics. All of them have the exact same problem.

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#76

Post by JonDeutsch » Sun Jun 04, 2017 5:28 pm

Thank you for the detailed explanation! This may be too much work for me to undertake -- I might just schedule a nightly 3AM reboot and keep it simple. Bad move?
DFox wrote:Jon, as with any automation just make sure that your logical criteria and actions fit 100% of the time, and you aren't going to for example miss recordings (like back to back HBO) or you're rebooting when something else is going on. But if what you are asking for is that straight forward then it should be relatively easy, logically speaking, to implement.

There are a few ways to do this, like creating an active monitor process, etc. But I usually prefer to use as much of what is native to Windows before writing custom stuff. Therefore, I would suggest starting with Windows Task Scheduler. It has a trigger option for Event Log entries, and you create a new one that fires from the Media Center recorded event. However, you can't get granular to parse out the message such as HBO in the text, so instead you run a PowerShell command after every recording to go back into the Event Log and look for the finished recording Event.

Within PowerShell you can parse out Event Log message text, so if it doesn’t have HBO in the message then exit out. If it does, then schedule the reboot.

You can schedule the reboot within the PowerShell itself. Or there are two different ways from the command line, which is what the PowerShell will run when it detects HBO recorded. For the command lines, either create a new scheduled task for the 4am reboot. Or calculate how many seconds from now is the next 4am and then run the shutdown command with a wait that number of seconds. The latter, or native PowerShell restart, are cleaner because you don't have to create another scheduled task in your system, but the former is actually easier because with Task Scheduler you can just specify a time. Actually I need to check more on that one because you may still need to calculate the current date and add a day if it's before midnight, or not it after midnight. Or maybe Task Scheduler just does it for you from the command line. Hmm, maybe either method you’ll need to calculate. For the native PowerShell restart, you'll still need to calculate when.

You can also create the Scheduled Task within PowerShell, but same potential calculations would apply as the command line.

Alternatively, instead of Task Scheduler you can use the EventTrigger command, but it no longer offers much advantage over Task Scheduler since Windows 7 because it can now trigger off of Events. Plus it is easier to administer through the UI. VBScript is an alternative to the PowerShell I mentioned above.

I realize I wrote a bunch, but it is actually pretty simple. In summary, create a Scheduled Task that triggers from Media Center Event log recording success, and then the action is to run a script, which determines either to do nothing or restart x seconds from then.

Let me know if you need any assistance with any of this.

artm

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#77

Post by artm » Sun Jun 04, 2017 5:45 pm

I find that when I switch channels on the same tuner I usually get the black screen. If I open the channel to another tuner (that's not in use), i do not get the black screen.

So, why not tune to something and leave that tuner active. Then when the recording kicks in it will go to another tuner.
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
Dell 780 SFF, i5, HD4000

artm

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#78

Post by artm » Sun Jun 04, 2017 7:18 pm

Never mind, this does not work. For me, going from 800 block to the 200 block, DRM or not, gets a black screen. I then need to go up a channel or a few until it recovers. Then going down to the desired channel, or tuning directly, works.
-Art --
Win7 Ultimate x64 (NO UPDATES!), EPG123 v1.1.19, Schedules Direct, HDHomerun Prime,
Dell 980 SFF, i5, Nvidia GT710
Dell 780 SFF, i5, HD4000

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#79

Post by bernarda » Tue Jun 13, 2017 2:44 am

I have a Ceton Eth6 on Fios and I sometimes get this too. All my channels are MPEG2. It sometimes happens when changing channels I have to change channels a few times more to get the tv back. But it's always a problem when recording marathon shows. For example if Comedy runs 4 Futuramas in a row, it will usually give me a corrupted file or black screen with audio.


However I think I found a work around. If I right click channel, edit channel then, click Sources, and then split the sources into separate channels, I can record without problems. I have to manually set the recordings so each starts on a different tuner. If recordings go back to back on the same tuner then it will frequently be a corrupted recording.

JonDeutsch

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#80

Post by JonDeutsch » Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:55 pm

Ugh - even my 3AM reboot solution isn't working well! When my HTPC reboots, it apparently sends a CEC code to turn on the TV and receiver! UGH!!!
JonDeutsch wrote:Thank you for the detailed explanation! This may be too much work for me to undertake -- I might just schedule a nightly 3AM reboot and keep it simple. Bad move?
DFox wrote:Jon, as with any automation just make sure that your logical criteria and actions fit 100% of the time, and you aren't going to for example miss recordings (like back to back HBO) or you're rebooting when something else is going on. But if what you are asking for is that straight forward then it should be relatively easy, logically speaking, to implement.

There are a few ways to do this, like creating an active monitor process, etc. But I usually prefer to use as much of what is native to Windows before writing custom stuff. Therefore, I would suggest starting with Windows Task Scheduler. It has a trigger option for Event Log entries, and you create a new one that fires from the Media Center recorded event. However, you can't get granular to parse out the message such as HBO in the text, so instead you run a PowerShell command after every recording to go back into the Event Log and look for the finished recording Event.

Within PowerShell you can parse out Event Log message text, so if it doesn’t have HBO in the message then exit out. If it does, then schedule the reboot.

You can schedule the reboot within the PowerShell itself. Or there are two different ways from the command line, which is what the PowerShell will run when it detects HBO recorded. For the command lines, either create a new scheduled task for the 4am reboot. Or calculate how many seconds from now is the next 4am and then run the shutdown command with a wait that number of seconds. The latter, or native PowerShell restart, are cleaner because you don't have to create another scheduled task in your system, but the former is actually easier because with Task Scheduler you can just specify a time. Actually I need to check more on that one because you may still need to calculate the current date and add a day if it's before midnight, or not it after midnight. Or maybe Task Scheduler just does it for you from the command line. Hmm, maybe either method you’ll need to calculate. For the native PowerShell restart, you'll still need to calculate when.

You can also create the Scheduled Task within PowerShell, but same potential calculations would apply as the command line.

Alternatively, instead of Task Scheduler you can use the EventTrigger command, but it no longer offers much advantage over Task Scheduler since Windows 7 because it can now trigger off of Events. Plus it is easier to administer through the UI. VBScript is an alternative to the PowerShell I mentioned above.

I realize I wrote a bunch, but it is actually pretty simple. In summary, create a Scheduled Task that triggers from Media Center Event log recording success, and then the action is to run a script, which determines either to do nothing or restart x seconds from then.

Let me know if you need any assistance with any of this.

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