DVR server on windows

Beta Community DVR Beta
#126

Thank you that seems to have worked!

#127

No, I am able to watch live TV now.

#128

I am having a few issues with the DVR. The first issue is when watching recorded shows I get some pixilation and freezing of the video. It is usually a few minutes into the recording. Signal strength and quality is 100%. I have FIOS and the cable runs from the ONT and is split 3 ways to my router and two primes. One of the primes has a cable card. This doesn’t happen while watching the programing live. Everything is connected CAT6 through a Gigabit switch. The second issue is comskip has been failing a lot recently with the following error. [DVR] Commercial detection failed with exit status 255 and [DVR] Commercial detection failed with exit status 3221225477 . It also cause a error in Windows saying to close Comskip.

#129

Can you tell me which shows comskip is failing on?

Are you comfortable on the command line and in the registry editor? I need someone who is seeing the comskip crashes to collect some more details for me.

#130

I can go through the logs and pull a list of shows. Let me what other data I can gather for you?

#131

First, you need to edit the registry to enable crash reports:

  • Run regedit.exe
  • Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting
  • Right click on “Windows Error Reporting”
  • Click New > Key
  • Rename the new key to “LocalDumps” (without the quotes) and hit enter

Then run comskip again to make it crash. Look at your logs to find a recent failure, and see what id it was (like commercial detection on file XXXX):

  • Run cmd.exe
  • Change to the comskip directory for that specific file, so if you’re recording into d:\dvr and file id is 6 you could run cd d:\dvr\logs\comskip\6
  • Run comskip again to make it crash: c:\programdata\channelsdvr\latest\comskip.exe --ini comskip.ini --output "d:\dvr\logs\comskip\6" --output-filename video "c:\dvr\TV\ShowName\EpisodeFilename.mpg"
#132

Ok…I did get it to fail again. What data would you like?

#133

Did you enable crash reports before it failed?

Open the start menu and type this, find the crash report and email to [email protected]

%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps

#134

I’m testing a HP Stream 200-010 with Windows 10 and Hardware transcoding works sometimes. Sometimes when using 1080p it will lock up even though CPU utilization is only around 60%. In task manager you can see the Ethernet Recieving drop off before the video stops but the CPU Utilization will stay at 51% or so indefinitely even if I stop the playback. I can start another show on my iPhone and CPU Utilization goes to 100% because two ffmpeg files are running. I have to End task of the ffmpeg to resume normal operations. Any Ideas?

#135

Can you check if your drivers are up to date with the Intel Driver Update utility?

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html

#136

If you can reproduce, use the Task Manager to generate a dump of the stuck ffmpeg and email it to me at [email protected]

#137

Fry’s had a decent deal on a refurb Lenovo M72e box, for $199. It’s a little chunky in size, but it has a 2TB drive, i3 processor, and Windows 10 preloaded. So I bought it, brought it home, installed DVR, and so far it’s been working really well. The only complaint I’d have, and the only fix for it is more money, is the hard drive is a bit loud. An SSD would fix that. The only three tweaks I made to it were:

  1. Set the auto login
  2. Turn off much of the power management
  3. Disable the power button. (I have a 2 year old, and he likes buttons)
1 Like
#138

I went back to the old laptop with Unbutu. Did you do something new with the software transcoding in the latest update? I can stream 1080p and I’m only using 7% CPU utilization when watching recordings and under 70% whatching live at 720p. Wow!

#139

Working well so far on my Windows 10 server! Have been waiting for this solution since HDHomeRun doesn’t seem to have an iOS app. I was using Plex DVR with HDHRViewer but it is clear that Plex was not meant for live TV and a pain to set recordings.

1 Like
#140

Sounds like that recording is already in h264, must be that cable channel has switched over already.

#141

So far I am very pleased with the performance of the windows version of channels DVR. Record quality is excellent and I haven’t had a problem yet. Exceeds my expectations!

I have one question.

I want to sleep my win 7 computer during the day and wake it in the evening when I want to record.

Do you see any issues with this approach?

1 Like
#142

The DVR is not designed to deal with sleeping so it might behave unexpectedly. You can try it, and if it doesn’t work out let us know what bugs you hit.

#143

All of my recordings must have been converted to h264 somehow? There is a huge difference in CPU usage between Live and recorded on all recordings from various channels. Not complaining.

#144

Many cable companies are switching all channels over to h264. Most of my HD channels on Comcast are h264 already. Check the channel lineup page on your hdhomerun to see which ones are marked AVC.

#145

Did it make much difference in file size?