AVS HiPix Version 3.5: Taking HDTV PVR to the next level…

[mkanet]

All,

This AVS HiPix software release is a very special one since it takes HDTV PVR to a whole new level with never-before-seen features in ANY HDTV consumer-level product. Plus, tons of bugfixes are included in this release; yes, even the much anticipated ones. All I can say is consider yourself very lucky if you have a HiPix card.

However, probably the most amazing part of all (you wont believe this!), is that this HUGE software update was created by one person, Jon Rhees. Some of us believe he’s part machine since there’s just no way one person can pump out this much code in such a short time period! I still don’t know how he did it. BTW: He said he has some more surprises later down the road...

I would like to also thank Jeff Kohn who updated the TitanTV scheduler and created our HiPix app installer; and Scott Field who fixed the SPDIF bug. Last but not least, I want to thank the rest of the AVS HiPix Team for hanging in there and offering great suggestions during internal testing.

AVS HiPix Version 3.52 RC 1 (http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/HiPix_352b.zip)

HiPix software download site:

http://www.midwinter.com/hipix

EDIT: I am getting dozens of PM's asking me where to buy a HiPix. Please send me a direct email instead if you want to buy a new HiPix card. Thanks!

Have Fun!
-Michael



NEW FEATURES:

Watch your OTA HDTV movies and shows without commercial interruptions!
- Automatically skips over detected commercial breaks for your recordings.
- Remove commercials permanently from your recordings. (Instructions below)
- Easy to read slidebar / timeline showing commercial breaks.

Built-in editing for your HDTV recordings. Yes, even in Full Screen HD mode using OSD!!!
- Conveniently edit your HDTV recordings either in full screen or using the HiPix control panel and VOP Preview Window.
- NO external editing software needed. Make edits effortlessly. (Instructions below)
- Easy enough to use for computer novices.

Still picture capture for ATSC, NTSC, and FILE.
- Capture hi-res still pictures in either full frame mode (weave fields) or single field mode.
- New tab in the HiPix Setup dialog called ‘Image Capture’ with image capture settings.

Completely new scheduler engine for much more dependable recordings and more flexible options
- Edit/add your scheduled recordings in Full Screen mode using OSD with arrow keys.
- Expanded number of scheduled events from 11 to 32
- New recording options for 'Once', 'Daily', 'Weekly', and 'M-F' or day of week.
- 'Disable' checkbox allows a recording event to be disabled without removing it.

Enhanced OSD File List Navigator
- Added a 'Folders' setting on the Setup->Recording tab which allows multiple folders to be specified (separated by semicolons) for searching
- Delete HDTV recordings; including respective directories. To delete, highlight a recording on the OSD and use the right arrow to highlight the 'Delete' icon, and then press “Enter”. Warning: pressing Enter on the delete icon will immediately delete your entire .TS program!!!

- Added 'END' and 'HOME' key support
- Added in Setup->Recording tab a 'Default Folder to Record To' section which allows a specific root folder to be specified where recordings are to be made to. A checkbox option is also added to mimic old behavior of the app (folder changes to track the last record location).

Miscellaneous Enhancements:
- Previous Channel/Input Hot-Key (default is alt-P)
- Added checkbox in Setup->General 'Play Files in Fullscreen' (defaults to ON), which affects whether HiPix switches to fullscreen mode when starting up a file.
- Skin files can be created on a per-resolution basis.
- Sped up One-Touch Record. Took out some delays in the code



BUG FIXES:

- Fixed a bug which prevented timer recording to drives with >120GB of free space.
- Made changes to fix Channel 1
- A fix for those experiencing the OSD not going away (not tested this yet)
- Fixed bugs we introduced in the OTA EPG so that works again
- Changes to allow files >2GB to be played back, with some improvements in navigation. Note: .TS file editor is *not* intended for non-indexed (single large files)
- Included Hibernation patch from previous interim release
- Missing one or more recordings on a daily/weekly setup doesn't mess up the schedule for future recordings (new scheduler engine)
- Bugfix for SPDIF audio setting crashing the HiPix app.
- Fixed a bug with stealth mode where no audio was heard when coming out of stealth mode while recording and VOP enabled.
- Corrected a bug in the OSD File browser which could cause errors with large number of TS programs listed.
- Fixed a bug on the OSD File Selector which was preventing program times from being displayed correctly.
- Fixed a bug on the OSD Record schedule which would show a bogus filename on empty entries.
- Fixed a bug on the OSD File Navigator which wouldn't always PLAY a file from the beginning.
- Using Standby Mode (System Tray) with Hibernation/Standby should no longer exhibit 'application preventing system from entering Hibernate/Standby' message.
- Removed the 'PrevInstance' error dialog
- Using 'Pause' during record will no longer cause recordings of a fixed duration to be cut short
- Time display inaccuracies for recording and playback are fixed
- HD Fullscreen mode (for loopback) was not covering entire screen.
- Overlay Error Dialog (for VOP) has been eliminated to avoid missing recordings. Now, if the overlay is unavailable, the VOP window itself will show the error.
- The way Meerkat and HiPix honors Daily/Weekly events has CHANGED. Before, if you scheduled an event for, say, two months from now, and then turned on WEEKLY, no recording would be made until two months from now (after which recordings would be made weekly provided I didn't miss one). Now, Daily, Weekly, and M-F modes will automatically move the record date to the nearest day/week/etc. so that recording will not be delayed. Also, missing a week or day, etc. should NOT affect future recordings



EDITING FEATURES:

Bookmark/Skip Editor:
When in FILE Mode, you will notice a yellow bar directly under the File Navigation slider. Also, on the OSD, there is a new bar directly above the navigation slider. Unless a file is loaded, these bars mean nothing. When a file is loaded, these bars act as a graphical timeline which directly relates to the navigational slider itself. The bars will show 'skip regions' and 'bookmarks'.

Bookmarks:
Allow you to place one or more bookmarks within your file for easy navigation and for defining future skip regions.

Bookmarks can be defined either by pressing the 'Define Bookmark' hotkey (shift-\) during playback or by right-clicking on the yellow bar and selecting 'Add Bookmark at Playback Position'

Skip Regions:
Allow a defined region to be automatically skipped during playback.

Skip Regions can be defined by pressing the '|<--' and '-->|' buttons in turn during playback. Double-clicking on the '|<--' button will adjust the start position of either the skip point you're currently inside with playback position or the closest one after. Double clicking the '-->|' button will adjust the end point of either the skip region you're currently within or the closest one before. If there are no skip regions between the current position and the end/beginning of the file, double-clicking the '|<--' and '-->|' buttons will create a skip region from the current position to the end/beginning of the file, respectively (crop).

Bookmarks can be converted into a skip region be right-clicking between the bookmarks and selecting 'Combine Adjacent to Skip'.

Skip regions can be turned into bookmarks by right-clicking on them and selecting 'Separate Skip to Bookmarks'

Skip regions and Bookmarks can be deleted by right-clicking on them and selecting 'Delete...'

Playback position can be moved to a bookmark position or skip region's beginning or end by right clicking and selecting 'Playback at...'

Auto-Skip mode:
A button on the Main Form as well as Hotkey ctrl-A will toggle Auto-Skip On or OFF. When Auto-Skip is ON, skip regions, when encountered during playback, will automatically be skipped.

Skip / Bookmark Editor:
Clicking on the 'EDIT' button (or right-clicking on the yellow bar and selecting 'Open Skip/Bookmark Editor') will bring up an edit dialog where bookmarks can be individually edited and tweaked, deleted, etc.

Skip Regions can be permanently applied to your recordings by opening the Skip / Bookmark Editor and pressing the 'Apply to .TS Files!' button. This will permanently edit your recording by removing segments which correspond to the Skip Regions which you've defined. This feature is optimized for speed. THIS CHANGE IS PERMANENT. FOR TESTING WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU CREATE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR RECORDING FIRST!

Triple-click ability to Edit In/Edit Out Buttons:
On the HiPix control panel, triple-clicking “Edit In” button will create a skip from current play position to end of file (crop), regardless of whether there are later skips/bookmarks. Triple-clicking “Edit Out” button will crop beginning of file up to current play position.

Skip Regions with the mouse on the OSD Timeline Ruler:
Left-click on timeline will Edit In at current play position; Right-click on timeline will Edit Out at current play position. Double-clicking and Triple-Clicking (see above) also work.



Commercial Detection Engine:

Automatic AR (Aspect Ratio) Commercial detection can now be enabled and adjusted on a global and channel-by-channel basis. Commercial detection takes advantage of the non-destructive nature of Bookmarks and Skip Regions to automatically define Bookmarks in the recording without sacrificing your recording (commercial guessing goofs won't lose part of your show).

Commercial detection is OFF by default. To enable it globally, go to the 'Recording' tab in Setup and press the 'Commercial Detection Defaults' button. A Dialog will appear allowing you to determine the detection algorithm to use, as well as algorithm parameters. You can also select commercial detection algorithm/parameters on a per-channel basis by using a new 'Commercial Detection Settings' button on the channel customization dialog.


AR-Based Auto Threshold:
This is the recommended algorithm available today in the code. This algorithm examines the video image and looks for side-bars indicative of 4:3 commercial content within a HD (16:9) show. The default parameters for this are Granularity=5sec, Min Thresh=3%, and ResponseRate=2sec. You need to try different settings to see what is best for you. For example, “mkanet” in SF Bay Area uses Granularity=45, Min Thresh=24%, and ResponseRate=2sec.

AR-based Manual Threshold:
This algorithm operates similarly but allows you to define an absolute threshold where side of the picture frame must pass.

AR-Based Change Detection:
This algorithm triggers bookmarks when a user-defined frame border change (sensitivity) is encountered.

Granularity:
Defines the Minimum number of seconds which must elapse between boormark creation. This helps avoid a lot of bookmarks being created within troublesome commercials, etc.

Minimum Threshold/Threshold/Sensitivity:
Defines a 'percentage' which represents the percent of sidebar area encountered in the video content. For example, with auto-threshold mode, the Minimum Threshold at 3% defines that video content with no more than 3% deviation in AR will not create any bookmarks. Or, for Manual Threshold Mode a Threshold setting of 10% means that a change in content which moves the sidebar area below/avove this threshold will create a bookmark.

Response Rate:
Defines the reactivity of the algorithm over time. A Rate of 2 seconds will require a stable AR measurement of 2 seconds before an action is taken. Setting this too low will cause momentary troublesome camera shots to create inadvertent bookmark events.

Currently Detected Value:
This field will show a reference threshold value for the currently-displayed video (for reference in adjusting thresholds)

Commercial detection can be configured differently on a channel-by-channel basis from the Channel Customize dialog and pressing the 'Commercial Detection' button.

NOTE: The commercial detection engine will automatically switch the display Aspect Ratio to 'NORMAL' at the start of a recording for proper operation.

Once a recording has been made, loading the recording file in FILE mode will show the automatically-generated bookmarks. Now using the Skip/Bookmark edit features allows these points to easily be converted to skip points and, if desired, apply the edits to the .TS file to permanently delete the commercials!

You also have the ability to auto-generate skips in commercial detection.



===============================================
3.51 Update:
===============================================

Here are all the changes:

New Bug Fixes:

-Division by Zero error when using the ‘Apply to TS files’ button with no skips defined
-Run Time Error "339" :Component mscomctl.ocx... on certain machines when using 'Apply to TS Files'
-Problem with ‘Weekly’ record schedules moving forward one day


New Enhancements:

-Allow folder name to be displayed instead of .TS filenames in file selector (option in Setup->Recording)
-Mouse click with no OSD to toggle fullscreen option in Setup->OSD
-Key-presses sent to main window should now work while in OSD File selector
-Pressing TV button on remote will now exit OSD File/Record dialogs



===============================================
3.52 Update:
===============================================

New Bug Fixes:

-Fix DST bug when the current date is in DST and the date of the recording is not, or vice-versa
-Fix bug that would sometimes cause repeating (daily/weekly) events to skip a scheduled event
-Fix some audio related problems when recording
-Fix some issues for commercial detection in Win9x
-Fix setup bug that could prevent the HiPix Scheduler program from getting updated if it's running during install

[GaryHDTV]

Coolest HDTV card on the planet :)

[brian_vh]

Hipix Rules! With all of these talented programers cranking out new code for our cards, who would want anything else!

Brian

[mkanet]

Well, I told you guys it would be hard for others to keep up...

[Mary H]

Sounds exciting! Is it recommended to remove an earlier version (3.0 Final) and drivers before installing?

[mkanet]

Mary H, that wouldn't be a bad idea.

[foundation]

Jon is part machine...part god.

At the rate the hipix is going I won't need my replaytv or tivo soon.

[FredV]

That's an amazing set of new features in 3.5, most of which would not have occured to me to ask for.

How does 3.5b relate to the DVD and hibernation patches? Are they incorporated now?

BTW, there's one feature I'm always surprised not to see added because it seems like a no-brainer to me: the ability to configure a desired output mode (1080i, 720p, etc) for each input mode. It would be easier to configure than the per-channel setting and more usefull since it would work for file playback as well. Any chance we could see this in an upcoming release? Pretty please?

- Fred

[bpearse]

We are not worthy!

Bob

[Fireball]

Wow! These are some cool features. Thanks! :D

[Joseph S]

Made changes to fix Channel 1 (not tested this yet)

Testing as soon as I can get it downloaded and installed. Thanks for the effort.

[shah8]

I repeat: We ARE NOT WORTHY

oh.my.god.

you know, the only thing left is to make the dvd function idiot-proof, and then you guys are left to some SERIOUS abusive software engineering tries. Some sorta conky live pause and, even more remote, hardware pass to software analog capture.

So really, all that is left is fixing the bugs, and I know there are bugs.

Darius

[Joseph S]

Made changes to fix Channel 1 (not tested this yet)

Testing as soon as I can get it downloaded and installed. Thanks for the effort.

After short term testing consisting solely of run app, close app, run app, close app, restart, run app etc...


IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you, 1.1 CBS is back!!!

1.1 along with 1.2 and 1.3 can now be successfully remapped to 58.1,58.2, and 58.3. Better yet, I don't even have to remap and can just use 1.1-1.3 as is.

Thank you very very very very very much. :D I can't wait to try all the extra features out Saturday.

[Bogney Baux]

I just recorded 'Presidio Med' on CBS. I watched the recording from the beginning and at the first commercial break it seamlessly started playing the second segment of the show.

I am very impressed. Thanks for a great feature.

[jsnides]

A sincere thank you to Jon Rhees and the HiPix gang. One question, Is the HiPix DVD patch have to be installed, with ver 3.5, for one to have DVD playback through the HiPix card?

Thanks again..

[vfrjim]

Is the HiPix DVD patch needed for one to have DVD playback through the HiPix card?

No it is not, I verified that it works tonite, works the same as it did before with the patch.

Jim

[jsnides]

Thanks. Is that a good thing Jim?

ps.. I did not c the tech thread..

[Foxbat]

Michael,
Please excuse the newbie question, but what are the minimum recommended system requirements and supported operating systems? (Now it sounds like I should have picked up that Compaq Proliant ML330 G2 with the IDE RAID for $545!)

[mkanet]

Roland, the HiPix will work on pretty much any PC that's 400Mhz or faster. It even works on my 4 year old PC. You can use either Win98SE, WinME, Win2k, or XP.

[PVR]

I run one HiPix card on a 400MHz AMDK6-2 with 64MB RAM, UDMA/33 hard drives and Win98SE.

That would be close to the "minimum" required machine.

If you have WinXP (which requires faster hardware) then you can consider the IEEE1394 filters to support connections to D-VHS VCRs which is likely to be better integrated in future releases.

Many of the new features are things which I put on a joint "wishlist" many months back. I am elated that Jon stepped up to the plate and did such a great job coding them for us all to enjoy.

The way the HiPix s/w devel has taken place is some what of a "take turns" mode with different people informally taking the lead for each new release. This has worked out well as it minimizes version control conflicts.

Long live the HiPix! Way to go Jon!

[kfall]

This looks like nice work. Thank you. The hangs with starting and stopping the app I had before appear to be fixed.

I will mention some less exciting news, however...

I have had the following error twice now:

Run-time error '401':

Can't show non-modal form when modal form is displayed

This happens when changing to full-screen mode or back every
once-in-a-while (infrequent, but not uncommon). I am doing something
a bit unusual: using the interface via windows terminal services
client and XP's sharing feature. This presents a nice way to access the htpc from my laptop on the couch via 802.11.

Another small (audio) question--

My system is such that I have two sets of digital audio outputs, one from the computer' m-board sound itself and the other from the HIPIX card. I have at one time or another verified that the hardware is capable of doing 5.1 channel audio through either of them. Since installing 3.5B I haven't yet observed more than 2-channel audio from the hipix card. I realize this could be due to the source material lacking >2 channels, but is there any reason I shouldn't expect either of these devices to be 5.1 capable when using this new 3.5 software?

Thanks again.
- Kevin

[bpearse]

I gave the new app a try tonight and is it ever great. Installed without a hitch. I did notice that the drivers, after update, seemed to still be old (I think 5/23/02 date?). Were the drivers not really updated? Just curious.

Now, a usage question. How do I get the full screen file menu to show folder names rather than file names. I often rename the folders to whatever the movie was I recorded after the fact. The file names always end up being atsc3.1 (I always record off the 5000 modulator channel). I tried selecting the box that says show folder names, but that had no effect. Any ideas?

Great new features. It will take me a month just to discover them all!

Bob

[ROBERT HUNZEKER]

New version is a vast improvement over 3.1. I now have DVHS playback that doesnt crash as soon as I click the button. I played back about an hour on a HD1000 and a 30000 and both played with only a couple of glitches, but these could be on the tape since DVHSTool is still a little buggy on my system. Did notice 2 things, if you hit DVHS button with a DTheater tape in the deck Hipix is very unhappy and locksup, also is there anyway to stop DVHS playback cleanly? the 1/2 sec video loop with machine gun audio is very annoying. The PVR stuff looks very cool, but i am a man of simple wants, rock solid harddrive recording and DVHS playback are all I want from Hipix software and I think that 3.5 is very close to that.

thanks

Bob H.

[stjr]

Thank you Michael and Jon for this new application. It appears to be much more stable for me than the 3.1 beta on Win98SE. I'm sure I will enjoy learning the new editing and commercial skipping features over time.

One change that I noticed in the 3.5 beta application (and the 3.1 beta as well) is that I cannot use a mouse click to exit the full screen mode. I have defaulted to using the "F" hot key to exit the full screen mode for now, but using the mouse was much easier. Am I missing something?

[drbenson]

On the other hand....

I cleaned out the 3.1 beta, running the cleaner, taking out all HiPix menu items from start menu, deleted HiPix from Program Files. Installed 3.5. Seemed to install fine, but I now have no HiPix.

When I attempt to start it, I get the modal "Unable to initialize HiPix Filter Graph". I click OK once, and the D-VHS button disappears, and the Filter Graph modal reappears. Click OK again, and the app closes.

What did I do wrong? I'm dead in the water here.

[mkanet]

drbenson, when you run the cleaner, it also removes the HiPix device driver. After you re-install the driver, you should be good to go.

[drbenson]

mkanet, you are, as usual, correct. I removed the HiPix in hardware manager, rebooted, reinstalled, and all is well, Thank you.

[p@55w0rd]

mkanet,

You guys are great!!!! I bet all those people who bailed out when the first new HD card came out are sorry now!!!:D I have one feature request. Can a feature be added that would allow the oldest recording to be overwritten if you run out of disk space. Or even better yet a option that allows you can flag past recordings to be overwritten. I sometimes just plain forget to delete past recordings and this feature would make my life easier.

[Such]

Coolest thing I've ever seen. Awesome!!!

Question, is there a way to have the commercial detection engine run against an already recorded program? Have a bunch of movies I've recorded & have been too lazy to go back and edit out the commercials. The engine looks to work perfectly for me - all my recorded stuff is HD and all the commercials are 4:3. Auto detection algorithm looks to work beautifully for me.

Thanks for the great work!

One more question of the development team: is AC-3 pass-thru still on the development list?

[MikeEby]

Originally posted by Such
One more question of the development team: is AC-3 pass-thru still on the development list?

AC-3 pass-thru did not work for me with 3.1 but works great with my Audiophile 2496 with the new 3.5.

Mike

[GaryHDTV]

Bob,
The driver itself has not been changed lately. It should be ver 3.0.4 (I think).
Gary

[dm]

Originally posted by stjr


One change that I noticed in the 3.5 beta application (and the 3.1 beta as well) is that I cannot use a mouse click to exit the full screen mode. I have defaulted to using the "F" hot key to exit the full screen mode for now, but using the mouse was much easier. Am I missing something?

same here. since i have a wireless mouse. it was nice to be able to use it to toggle full screen mode/on/off.

[Such]

Mike,
I didn't test AC-3 passthrough with the new version. Do you need to manually make the changes like the earlier version or does it work "out of the box"?

What audio mode do you use to get the passthrough (PCM)?

[markdl]

WOW! This sounds great! I can't wait to try it out tonight, now!

A question about the commercial autodetection - does it look for AR changes only to 4:3, or any change in AR from the normal 16:9? In Denver, on our ABC station, they broadcast all of the local shows and commercials stretched, rather than in 4:3 like the other stations do. Will 3.5 detect the change in AR to stretched and still bookmark out the commercials, or will it only work for the national commercials that the stations sends in 4:3?

[vfrjim]

Jsnides,
Since I had DVD playback in my prior install there may had been filters left from the DVD patch that I previously put in and Michael says that you need to apply the DVD patch to watch DVD thru the HiPix. I thought that the cleaner would have removed them, but I was wrong.

Jim

[mkanet]

Originally posted by Chuck Coughlin
mkanet,

You guys are great!!!! I bet all those people who bailed out when the first new HD card came out are sorry now!!!:D I have one feature request. Can a feature be added that would allow the oldest recording to be overwritten if you run out of disk space. Or even better yet a option that allows you can flag past recordings to be overwritten. I sometimes just plain forget to delete past recordings and this feature would make my life easier.

Chuck, it's a safe bet that pretty much everything you guys can think of, we have already considered. It's just a matter of time before we implement this feature. However, I'm not going to spoil any of the surprises in store for you guys.

[Tom Fries]

Originally posted by dm
same here. since i have a wireless mouse. it was nice to be able to use it to toggle full screen mode/on/off.

To get around this, I added a button to the OSD skin that will turn off full screen. If you poke around the source code for the skins you should be able to figure out how to do it. The file mode skin has this button.

Tom

[mkanet]

Tom, any chance you could share your modified skin with us?

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by kfall
I have had the following error twice now:

Run-time error '401':

Can't show non-modal form when modal form is displayed

This happens when changing to full-screen mode or back every
once-in-a-while (infrequent, but not uncommon). I am doing something
a bit unusual: using the interface via windows terminal services
client and XP's sharing feature.
- Kevin

Kevin,

Are you using XP's remote desktop specifically? Also, are you configure with loopback mode on? VOP on?, etc?

Thanks,

-Jon

[mkanet]

Jon/Kevin, I use XP's remote desktop to control my "backend" HiPix XP machine to schedule recordings only. I don't have loopback or VOP on on the remote computer.

[ADebar]

amazing, as usual. can't wait to get home to try this!

p.s. i have a new xbox live demo disk shipped from UPS at my house waiting and now this new hipix software, but i also have a major TEST tomorrow! f*** college!

[banzai99]

Sounds incredible, my HiPix just arrived and I can't wait to fire it up.

Even still I've already got a feature request:

How about we customize HDTVtoMPEG2 to read the new edit marks and output accordingly, rather than directly chopping the actual transport streams?

Or have a "Save a copy w/edits" option?

[mkanet]

banzai99, at the rate we're going, you may not even need to use HDTVtoMPEG2 and have the option to do everything inside the Hipix app.

[shah8]

It slices! It dices! Think you can put automated compression so we can just set the app to some sort of dvd2svcd app whenever we get 480i? That would be sooooo cool. Gets rid of commercials and compresses to either dvd or cd size.

Darius

[Joseph S]

Well, it looks like only part of the 1.1 problem is solved.

I was able to successfully remap 1.1 to 58.1, but after a restart of the app it doesn't work anymore while 58.2 and 58.3 still function. 1.1 as 1.1 does now function though whereas the previous editions didn't allow for 1.1. It just can't be remapped still.

Therefore watching is no longer an issue. Unfortunately, my attempt to use TitanTV to record Craig Kilborn last night resulted in 1 hour of black.

Here is the TitanTV listing on addition:
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Airing on WDJTDT 58.1 (46.1)

Note: NTSC Station is 58, ATSC is 46. It is scanned by the HiPix as 46 but automatically mapped to 1.1,1.2,and1.3.

Just now I tested and found that Titan TV tells HiPix to use 58.1, when 1.1 is the channel I need to record. Is there a way you can add an override channel option on the "Scheduling Info" window that shows up after one clicks the "Add to Schedule for Recording" or do I need to contact TitanTV to fix their information? Something along the lines of the way in which we can alter the subfolder, time, date, and weekly occurence.

[FredV]

Originally posted by Joseph S

Note: NTSC Station is 58, ATSC is 46. It is scanned by the HiPix as 46 but automatically mapped to 1.1,1.2,and1.3.


The mapping to 1.x is based on the PSIP, I assume. I may not know what I'm talking about here, but it seems to me you should be telling HiPix to remap 46.x (the actual channels) to 58.x rather than 1.x (already an alias) to 58.x.

Maybe that will "stick"?

- Fred

[drbenson]

The new features sound great, but there is a BIG HUGE HAIRY PROBLEM wih basic recording in the new version, sad to say.

This is a consistent, repeatable problem.

When I start HiPix after reboot, it initializes in about 20 seconds, and all is well. If I exit and restart, same thing. Smooth as glass.

HOWEVER, if I Hibernate the computer, then restart HiPix, it takes over 2 1/2 minutes to initialize, and tells me that signal strength is zero on all channels, with no change in input. I discovered this by scheduling a "dummy" recording to check waking from hibernation. Meerkat woke up the computer all right, and attempted to start HiPix, but I got a window suggesting that I check the antenna, and no recording.

This is going to be a BIG disappointment to anyone who has their computer set to hibernate and is expecting their recordings to occur. I'm sure glad I didn't rely on it to record CSI and ER this evening.

I hope a patch will be forthcoming instantly- waking properly from hibernation was a major win with 3.1, though it did require a patch. All the skip commercial stuff is nice, but I could do it with my remote. Recording something when I'm at work or otherwise occupied isn't something I can do another way.

[vfrjim]

drbenson, I have my HTPC wake up a midnight everynite and I have a recording scheduled for 12:30am, it does it and I told the HiPix to Hibernate after it is done, works fine, on this version and the last. Sometimes on the last version I would get an error on wake up, but the recording agent still recorded the show.

Jim

[ccclapp]

Originally posted by mkanet
Jon/Kevin, I use XP's remote desktop to control my "backend" HiPix XP machine to schedule recordings only. I don't have loop back or VOP on the remote computer.

I too am using XP Pro remote desktop. Everything seems fine, EXCEPT, I can not get the picture to play on the remote PC, i.e. HiPix loads, sound is heard, but if I select "show full screen" I get a gray screen that says "HD Full screen (Loop Back Mode)", but no TV image. Am I doing something wrong, or is this all that is possible?

Thanks

--Caleb

PS NICE JOB!!!

[bpearse]

drbenson,

Remember this is beta code. Reporting bugs is great. That helps us all. But expecting 'a patch to be forthcoming instantly' is not reasonable or even a very nice thing to say given the 'for free' nature of this software development and the fact, again, that this is still beta code. No flame intended here, it is just that we need to be very careful of being supportive and understanding of the AVS HiPix team. Hope you understand.



Bob

[rebrad]

I've been looking everywhere for the Hipix card. Does anyone sell them anymore?

[vfrjim]

I was reading in the other thread that hitting ESCape toggles out of "HD fullscreen mode", but have not tried it yet.

Jim

[vfrjim]

It may be available here: http://www.cellarcinemas.com/cgi-bin/store/contact.html , I would call them to see before you order it.

Jim

[thorr]

Awesome! I just saw this post that there was a new version. I haven't tried it yet, but will very soon. Thanks so much Jon for this wonderful edition that will cut out hours of editing out commercials that I was not looking forward to doing by hand. Also, thanks for the default recording location that you asked for input on awhile back.

Question: with the last beta version, my recordings of PBS always came out with glitches in them. Switching back to the 3.0 Final version provided perfect recordings. Is this a known problem, and has the 3.5 version fixed it? In any case, can I use the 3.0 driver with the 3.5 application?

Thanks in advance!

Mike

[mkanet]

thorr, what audio settings are you using? Also, what speed CPU do you have? Also, which audio settings have you tried?

drbenson, you might want to do a search on this forum about Hibernation and how some PC"s simply don't fully support it. Also, there are several people now who use Hibernation successfully with the HiPix already.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by drbenson
The new features sound great, but there is a BIG HUGE HAIRY PROBLEM wih basic recording in the new version, sad to say.

Drbenson,

This version of code (3.5) should already have the 3.1 patches applied, but I'll check tomorrow in case we made a mistake with the installer or something...

-Jon


ccclap,

Viewing full motion video via remote desktop is simply no feasible (with any solution).

-Jon

[vfrjim]

Hey Jon,

I was wondering if you were aware of the problems playing "virtual dvd's" using the HiPix? I mount them with either Fantom CD or Daemon tools and they play fine with all the most popular players including the Zoomplayer, PowerDVD and WinDVD as long as I don't play them thru the HiPix, it just gets stuck at the NTSC noise screen and hitting space bar or enter does not let it play. Can you look into that?

Thanks,

Jim

[thorr]

Originally posted by mkanet
thorr, what audio settings are you using? Also, what speed CPU do you have? Also, which audio settings have you tried?

drbenson, you might want to do a search on this forum about Hibernation and how some PC"s simply don't fully support it. Also, there are several people now who use Hibernation successfully with the HiPix already.

I just use the S/PDIF on the Hipix. The setting I use is S/PDIF only. I have an Athlon XP 1800+ on an nForce m/b.

I tried the software, but not PBS yet because they are off air right now. It looks like the newest software comes with the 3.0 drivers (at least by the filename). I will try this tomorrow.

I tried the S/PDIF setting to use my RME soundcard without much luck. It appears that it is software decoding the sound to stereo rather than sending out AC3.

At first glance, it doesn't look like there is a way to remove commercials on old recordings. I haven't tried just playing one back to see if it detects commercials, but would that work?

One minor thing that might affect some people is the full screen file function does not detect Hipix files with the old naming convention (file.ts.0000). For people that have archived the files this way, this might be a nice addition.

Another thing I noticed is I tried to use the OSD for file navigation in the VOP window, but the software kicked it over to fullscreen mode automatically. I used the "always" option thinking it would work in either mode. For purposes of using a remote with the OSD file navigation, this would be a nice feature.

Please add this feature request to your list, if it is not already there. Could you at a minimum have a check-box for looping playback of files when it gets to the end? I record movies onto multiple DVD's, and it is kind of distracting when it jumps to the beginning, rather than stopping at the end. Another nice to have option over the minimum above would be to check for more files after the DVD is swapped out. And finally, a really slick option would be to be able to specify multiple playback devices with semicolons, so if I wanted to put 4 DVD's in 4 DVD drives for the whole movie, I could. The understanding would be that the folder name would be the same on all 4 disks, but the file number would increase. I actually have 4 DVD drives in 4 different computers so it would be neat to do this.

Overall I am very impressed with all of the new functionality. Keep up the great work! Also, thanks for the screen capture function. Just today I said "I wish I could make screen captures" and here it is!

[drbenson]

Sorry if I offended anyone on the team. I know that nothing is instant, in any software development. I have repeatedly expressed my great admiration and appreciation for the skilled developers that are protecting and enhancing our investment in the HiPix card.

I was reporting a beta problem I was having- consistently- which was a step backward from the 3.1 version, which hibernated and woke up properly on the same machine. It is a new machine, and does support hibernation properly- if anyone on the team is interested in the precise configuration, I can repeat it.

I signed back on to report that on further experimentation, the HiPix wakes properly from Standby. I can live with keeping the HTPC in that mode rather than Hibernate while the issue is investigated. If somehow I'm the only one in the community who experiences the problem, I'll just deal.

[drbenson]

A little bit more information, in case it's helpful: At any time after the computer has been through a Hibernate / awaken cycle, when I attempt to start HiPix, this is what I see in Task Manager (XP SP1):

Running for about 5 seconds, and the "dimple" appears on screen where the interface will be.
Not Responding for 90+ seconds, then the interface appears onscreen
Running for another 5 seconds
Not Responding for another 60+ seconds, at which point the screen fills (I have it set to open fullscreen) with black and the onscreen display tells me I have no signal strength.

Happy to test any ideas y'all might have tomorrow night.

[Tom Fries]

Originally posted by mkanet
Tom, any chance you could share your modified skin with us?

In the skin file navosd.osd, look for the following;
DrawButton(144,119,39,16,5,<OSDHeight>-0-125+6,"hk_ATSC")
DrawButton(184,119,39,16,5,<OSDHeight>-0-125+6+17,"hk_NTSC")
DrawButton(64,119,39,16,5,<OSDHeight>-0-125+6+17+17,"hk_Composite")
DrawButton(104,119,39,16,5,<OSDHeight>-0-125+6+17+17+17,"hk_S-Video")
DrawButton(34,168,39,16,5,<OSDHeight>-0-125+6+17+17+17+17,"hk_File")

Add this line as the next button to draw.
DrawButton(150,32,29,16,134,<OSDHeight>-32+4,"hk_Full Screen")

This will add the full screen button next to the Channel Up button.

Good Luck,
Tom

[Joe Q]

Originally posted by rebrad
I've been looking everywhere for the Hipix card.

Check your PM.

[sfgiantsfan]

Hey,

I have been fishing in the Ebay pond for a HiPix for A LONG TIME... anyone want to throw me a friggin' bone here! :)

I have almost pulled the trigger on the MYHD and the HiDTV... But everyone knows that HiPIX is where its at.

HELP!!!!

[ADebar]

ok i recorded a show and played it back. i see where it marked the commercials, but it doesn't skip by them. i tried to click the "edit" button and then click the "apply to .TS files" button, but it says "error 11" "division by zero"... what is wrong?

[tonyb100]

I can't load the xp drivers, a file is missing. -- HiPixDTV sys' on (unknown ) is needed.. The hareware wizard wants me to direct it to the file.

[jsnides]

Tony. I had the same problem. All you have to do is point ( browse) to were you extracted the files to.

[mkanet]

For those of you interested in buying a HiPix, please send me an email directly.

[mkanet]

Tom Fries, thanks! I added the button and it works great.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by ADebar
ok i recorded a show and played it back. i see where it marked the commercials, but it doesn't skip by them. i tried to click the "edit" button and then click the "apply to .TS files" button, but it says "error 11" "division by zero"... what is wrong?

ADebar,

Thanks! You found another bug for me! In any case, here's what you're missing (aside from the bug):

1. If you see little marks (like this: | ) where the commercials start and end then you're 90% there. These marks are called 'bookmarks' and they're different from what I call 'skip regions'. Bookmarks can be easily navigated by using the '[' and ']' hotkeys.
2. Bookmarks can be converted to 'skip regions' by right-clicking *between* them (on the windows desktop), and choosing 'Combine Adjacents to Skip'.
3. When 'AutoSkip' is ON (the green arrow on the control panel), skip regions will automatically be skipped.
4. *If you want* you can permanently apply skip regions by using the 'Apply to .TS files!' button. Unless you're archiving or trying to save space, this is *not* necessary to take advantage of commercial skips, though.
5. If you would like HiPix to automatically create skip regions instead of mere bookmarks, go to the commercial detection settings dialog and check the box 'Turn regions above threshold into skips'.

-Jon

PS: FYI, the bug you see will occur when trying the 'Apply to TS' button when no 'skip regions' are defined.

[vfrjim]

Who on the development team is working on the DVD playback, so maybe I could PM them personally, would really like to solve the problem.

Thanks,

Jim

[ADebar]

thanks jon. you da man!

[lennyr]

I'm loving the new release. No problems so far, and excellent new features. Great work!

I was wondering if this version should have removed the limitation about PowerDVD versions =< 1811? If it has, I have a bug (I'm running 2009); if not, I was wondering if a future version would remove this limitation.

[thorr]

The question in my long post was not answered yet so I will repost it here:

At first glance, it doesn't look like there is a way to remove commercials on old recordings. I haven't tried just playing one back to see if it detects commercials, but would that work?

Thanks.

[Mary H]

Originally posted by thorr
At first glance, it doesn't look like there is a way to remove commercials on old recordings. I haven't tried just playing one back to see if it detects commercials, but would that work?

Yes, I'd be very interested in doing that too! I have some Winter Olympics recordings I'd really like to streamline.

Great job, by the way! I'm gradually figuring out how to use the bookmarks and editing functions -- something that's always been at the top of my wishlist.

[Richard_P_Harvey]

I just attempted to test the commercial AR skip feature but the resulting recording (only 10 minutes and 1 commercial break) would not play back at all. What I would get when attempting to play it back was a still picture on the screen despite the fact that the OSD slider showed it was actually being played. I opened several of the .TS files and they all do the same thing, paused screen (full rez) and nothing else.

[mkanet]

Richard_P_Harvey, I dont think the problem you're having is related to commercial detection at all. You'd probably see the same thing if you were to do a recording without that option. Make sure that your IDE controller has DMA enabled and it's not in PIO mode.

[Richard_P_Harvey]

Michael,

I have been able to successfully record prior to 3.5 and I did double check just now and both my 80GB drives are running Ultra DMA Mode 2. I am able to playback older files that were created with 3.1 Beta just fine. And I just turned OFF commercial detection (back to the default) and it records just like it always did.

[chap]

You guys are the bomb!!! I have never been so happy about an old purchase I have made before. Its trully the gift that keeps on giving.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by Richard_P_Harvey
I just attempted to test the commercial AR skip feature but the resulting recording (only 10 minutes and 1 commercial break) would not play back at all. What I would get when attempting to play it back was a still picture on the screen despite the fact that the OSD slider showed it was actually being played. I opened several of the .TS files and they all do the same thing, paused screen (full rez) and nothing else.

First, let's figure out if this is related to commercial detection.

Method a:
Go to the directory where your recording is and rename the xxxxx.skp file to something like xxxxx.skp.sav. Then try opening your TS files again and see if they play.

-Jon

[jon_rhees]

drbenson,

I just completed several tests to verify that all of the Hibernation patches are in place in this 3.5 code. It operates identically to 3.1 with the patches applied.

Your issue sounds like you may have an old mqtvcom.dll or driver being used. Please verify you have only one mqtvcom.dll file on your system and that it is the one from the 3.5 .zip. Also please try copying the XP or 2K driver from the 3.5 zip (HipixDTV.sys) to your Windows\system32\drivers directory (should ask to replace, say yes), and reboot.

-Jon

[drbenson]

I will try it this evening. Thanks for the help!

[DAP]

Another data point for hibernation:

I was not home last night when my computer was scheduled to record Monk followed by CSI (this is in the SF Bay area). When I got home, I tried to play the Monk recording, I got an hour of a still frame. This still frame is the last frame from whatever was displayed before attempting to play the file. I gave up on Monk and tried the CSI. The CSI played perfectly. Does anyone in the SF Bay area know if there was a problem with ABC when Monk was on? If not, there may be a problem with the wake from hibernation behavior.

[mkanet]

While you're seeing the still frame, does the audio cut in and out?

[markdl]

DAP - that's exactly the problem I'm having with my ABC station in Denver, but I'm not doing anything with hibernation. My problem is due to TitanTV remapping my ABC digitial channel from 17-1 to 7-1 (which is our analog channel). I either get nothing, or get the last frame of what was playing. My recordings work just fine when I set a manual timer.

[sjchmura]

Does anyone know if the software will allow you to edit any transport stream *.ts??? I ask this as it would be GREAT to use the eidting features on the MyHD streams that are identicle. Does the software require the hardware to be installed?

[sek]

Yet another data point. I'm running WinXP with hard disk power down at 20mins. This setup appears to work fine with 3.1. I just installed 3.5 yesterday. Setup a bunch of recording via titantv. Last night I had "Friends"(8:00-8:32pm, NBC), "Push, Nevada"(9-10pm, ABC) and "Without a trace(10-11pm, CBS)" scheduled. Here is the problem...

Friends was scheduled for 32mins starting at 8pm, but it kept on recording until it crashed at around 10pm when I tried to stop it because I noticed that it didn't record "Push, Nevada". I watched it and it apparently recorded NBC from 8pm til it crashed.

After I restarted the system it appeared to record "without a trace" at 10pm on CBS successfully for an hour. However, when I play this back, I get still image and no audio from 20 mins into the recording until it stop recording. Not sure if this is has to do with having disk power down at 20mins.

Has anyone seen this probem?

Thanks!

Steve

UPDATE:

Hmmm... I'm unable to reproduce these problems. Not sure what was up with my PC last night. I'll keep on testing...

Thanks! for reading...

[DAP]

Originally posted by mkanet
While you're seeing the still frame, does the audio cut in and out?

No audio at all, it is as if the hipix recorded a channel that was off the air (not broadcasting).

[bbq@KL]

Would you please add 1024x576, 800x600 and 800x450 to the list of supported resolutions? Thanks.

[mkanet]

All,

Jon is just quick as lightening. He already has the version 3.51 update ready. You can download it here (http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/HiPix_351.zip).


Please replace C:\Program Files\HiPix DTV-200\HiPix DTV-200.exe with the one inside the zip file.


Here are all the changes:


New Bug Fixes:

-Division by Zero error when using the ‘Apply to TS files’ button with no skips defined
-Run Time Error "339" :Component mscomctl.ocx... on certain machines when using 'Apply to TS Files'
-Problem with ‘Weekly’ record schedules moving forward one day


New Enhancements:

-Allow folder name to be displayed instead of .TS filenames in file selector (option in Setup->Recording)
-Mouse click with no OSD to toggle fullscreen option in Setup->OSD
-Key-presses sent to main window should now work while in OSD File selector
-Pressing TV button on remote will now exit OSD File/Record dialogs

[vfrjim]

bad link on that file Michael.

I have a suggestion, do you think in the future maybe another option could be set so that you could check box the day(s) of the week that you would want to record on cause if you choose M-F and the show starts at 12:30am, it is technically saturday and the event will not record. So, then you need to choose daily and delete the two days of recordings that will be incorrect, just a suggestion of a feature that could be useful.

Thanks,

Jim

[ccclapp]

Originally posted by vfrjim
bad link

Ditto

[mkanet]

Ooops... sorry. Try it again.

[ccclapp]

That did it.

Thanks!

[thorr]

Not that anyone is obligated to, but why won't my question get answered? A simple "That capability does not exist" or "that will work" will suffice. Thanks:

"At first glance, it doesn't look like there is a way to remove commercials on old recordings. I haven't tried just playing one back to see if it detects commercials, but would that work?"

[mkanet]

Thorr, that feature is not yet available.

[thorr]

Thanks for letting me know.

[Timpanogos]

Tom Fries/Mkanet I desire to modify the navosd.osd file to add the button but don't have a clue how to get inside the file to view/edit its contents... any help as to the procedure?

[mkanet]

Timpanogos, notepad.exe :)

[thorr]

mkanet,

I tried recording a short segment on PBS, and it appears to be working well with 3.5. It can be hit or miss, so if I start to have problems, I will let you know. (Earlier I posted that version 3.0 worked well, but 3.1beta did not).

[WishIdInventedTivo]

Originally posted by mkanet
New Enhancements:

-Allow folder name to be displayed instead of .TS filenames in file selector (option in Setup->Recording)
-Mouse click with no OSD to toggle fullscreen option in Setup->OSD
-Key-presses sent to main window should now work while in OSD File selector
-Pressing TV button on remote will now exit OSD File/Record dialogs

Jon, not everything works:

Folder Name - Works.

Mouse Click - Don't know as I only use a remote control with Girder.

Key Presses - Does not work. I changed Girder to use the targets I previously posted which work for all other HiPix functions. Had to revert back to sending to foreground application only when in file/record dialogs.

Pressing TV button - What TV button? Doesn't help if not using the HiPix remote. I think it would be best if pressing the key that brought up these screens was the same to get you out. Another option would be 'F' but the problem with that is if pressed twice it toggles full screen however this might be the best solution. What I'd like to avoid is having tie up a button on my MX-500 remote that's only purpose is to exit the file/record dialogs. I'm already short on buttons due to the new features.

Thanks.

[jon_rhees]

WishIdInventedTivo,

Oh, I see.

Anyway, what method are you using to send keystrokes to the app?

-Jon

[bpearse]

Originally posted by bpearse on 10/10/02

How do I get the full screen file menu to show folder names rather than file names. I often rename the folders to whatever the movie was I recorded after the fact. The file names always end up being atsc3.1 (I always record off the 5000 modulator channel). I tried selecting the box that says show folder names, but that had no effect. Any ideas?


And then, about 24 hours later:

Originally posted by mkanet on 10/11/02

New Enhancements:

-Allow folder name to be displayed instead of .TS filenames in file selector (option in Setup->Recording)



OK, I gave drbenson sort of a good natured hard time for asking for fixes 'instantly', thinking that was being unreasonable. But hell, I just got a big enhancement within 24 hours of asking! :eek:

Monday, I am asking the boss for a big raise. I'm feeling lucky....;)

You AVS HiPix guys are just out of control! :D

Bob

[WishIdInventedTivo]

Jon, from my original post....

I use Girder with my MX-500 IR remote control and everything works great except for moving around in the file navigator/pick list. Here are my Girder target settings:

Name: HiPix DTV-200
Class Name: ThunderRT6FormDC
Executable: HIPIX DTV-200.EXE

This works for everything except the file navigator/pick list. To get the left/right/up/down arrow keys to work I have to disable the target settings and instead use "send to foreground task". I would prefer to configure this for the correct HiPix target so keystrokes will always go to the right place.

Thanks!!

[Timpanogos]

Mkanet, thanks! The full screen/desktop button modification via notepad went without a hitch. You guys should include the button on the next release... Jon's 3.5 update patch also was installed without problems. Guys, thanks for making the HiPiX my favorite tech toy in my HTPC!

[WishIdInventedTivo]

Jon,

I just sat down to watch some TV and discovered problems with 3.5.1. With the 3.5.1 update my Girder commands don't seem to be working right. Also, if I press ESCape while in full screen mode then HiPix quits completely instead of just toggling full screen mode as was previously the case. I'm reverting back to 3.5.0. Nearest I can figure is it's because HiPix has been running for a while and recently also recording.

Update1: Reverting to 3.5.0 didn't resolve my problem so I assume at this point the old version isn't happy with the new registry entries so I am cleaning out everything HiPix related and will hopefully be able to re-install 3.5 and overwrite the HiPix defaults by restoring my 3.5 registry backups and get back to where I was yesterday. Hopefully.

Update2: Well the Windows and HiPix gods must be looking out for me tonight because I was able to revert back to last night by doing the clean, re-install, and restore of registry backups. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but things seem to be working with 3.5.0 as expected. I was about to say you have no idea how close I was to jumping out the window... then I remembered I am preaching to the chior! It is so frustrating when really great stuff you've become dependant on isn't working right....

[tonyb100]

well after getting my hipix to come back to life. ( how many days or hours no one knows) I was able to get teh 3.5 app installed.

wow this is great! I love teh ability to get screen shots. to use for a desktop and the commercial skip is fantastic.

haven't had much time to play with the other features but so far this is outstanding.

Too bad more people can not join the fun.

[drbenson]

jon_rhees, I checked the mqtvcom.dll file, and found file dated 10/8/2002 time 10:06pm in the HiPix DTV-200 folder. I haven't a way to compare it to the one contained in the .exe. The only other file with that name on the computer is in a folder I created to hold the hibernation patch for 3.1. I also copied the .sys file as suggested.

Bottom line: Exactly the same problem. I even, just for beta giggles, renamed the new mqtvcom file and copied the old one in its place, but it didn't help- when I resumed from hibernation, I got a new message: Unable to Open/Refresh HiPix Application (ActiveX component can't create object), but the app still spent minutes Not Responding before telling me I have no signal.

BTW, the 3.51 build was no help either (not that it was supposed to be). I remain frustrated.

[jon_rhees]

drbenson,

If you still have the patch.exe on your system, try running it and see what it tells you.

-Jon

[Rfutscher]

I just want to thank all the developers for their hard work. Now that the stations in town have updated their digital transmission systems and with the new software I am a happy camper.

I know that not every feature on the wish list will be add but here are my votes for new features:

1) A decimal point button on the main window so I can select sub channels with the mouse.

2) To have Hipix switch to analog NTSC mode when a sub channel of 0 is selected.

3) Be able to add analog NTSC channels to the channel list. Some channels don’t carry the same programming on both analog and digital. When I am surfing I would like to be able to scan both analog and digital.

4) Be able to send the transport stream to my ATI video card for decoding and display. The new AIW 9700 is reported to work with a second tuner.

5) To be able to save just the MPEG stream for reduced file size. For example channel 2 in Baltimore sends three program streams. One is the program as an HD signal, the second is a standard definition stream, and the third is a weather radar display. I don’t need to record all three. It goes without saying that I would also like to play back the MPEG file.

[drbenson]

Jon- thanks for THE SOLUTION! I applied the old patch, got a "patch completed" message, and HiPix now wakes the computer from hibernation and records properly. Dunno what was going on, but applying the patch solved it.

Now the only thing I can't get it to do is put the system back to sleep after recording. On the Recording tab, I have selected the Hibernate radio button and checked the check box.

Will this work only after ALL scheduled recordings are complete? If so, it'll never happen because I have a number of weeklies on the schedule. If this is the designed behavior, I'd like to request a future enhancement that would allow HiPix to record a show, then go back to hibernation.

[mkanet]

Dr. Benson, there's an opion in the HiPix config to put the HiPix in Hibernation mode after a recording (Win2k/XP). I'm glad you got it working though.

[aviators99]

Hi guys,

I don't know what happened...everything was working pretty well before I installed 3.5, and now I can't get playback to work any more. Everything stutters horribly (video and audio). I tried removing everything and running cleanup and re-installing but it didn't help. I'm running Windows ME on an Athelon 1.2ghz.

Thanks in advance for any ideas..

Ron

[drbenson]

mkanet, is it just a matter of clicking the Hibernation radio button? If so, I've already done that, as detailed above. Should the Shutdown After Last Recording checkbox be checked on the recording tab, or unchecked?

By the way, is this version supposed to work with Zoom Player for DVD playback? Is it just a matter of running the old DVD addon, or is there something newer? So far all I get is a distorted NTSC screen and a hard lock of the computer when I put in a DVD with Zoom Player set to autoplay it. I have input the corrected filtergraph from the other thread.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by drbenson
Jon- thanks for THE SOLUTION! I applied the old patch, got a "patch completed" message, and HiPix now wakes the computer from hibernation and records properly. Dunno what was going on, but applying the patch solved it.

Hmmmm.

Now the only thing I can't get it to do is put the system back to sleep after recording. On the Recording tab, I have selected the Hibernate radio button and checked the check box.

Will this work only after ALL scheduled recordings are complete? If so, it'll never happen because I have a number of weeklies on the schedule. If this is the designed behavior, I'd like to request a future enhancement that would allow HiPix to record a show, then go back to hibernation.


Do you by any chance have a loopback setup, and were you in fullscreen when the recording finished? The app is designed to *not* try to hibernate/suspend/etc. *if*:

a. The app 'thinks' the user is present (user has switched to fullscreen)
-or-
b. another scheduled recording is coming up soon.



-Jon

[trstout]

Amazing work! Great job HiPix team. It's exciting to see that new features keep coming so fast.

Trevor.

[JustMike]

I've upgraded from an old 2.1 (I think) version to the new 3.5.1 version, and it seems to be working okay so far -- I'm able to tune and play back old files.

However, my TitanTV integration appears broken. I get this message when I click the "Add to Schedule for Recording" button:

Unable to read program info from file "C:\Documents and Settings\Mike Kobb\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\45YR4TY7\program[1].tvpi"

Any ideas? I don't seem to have the "Local Settings" folder at all.

Thanks!

[mkanet]

Mike, TitanTV's site is broken after "their" upgrade.

See:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179355

[JustMike]

Oh, one other thing. I'm begging here: please, please let me select the "Fill" size on widescreen content. Why? Because my local WB station broadcasts 4:3 content upconverted to 720p with sidebars. Even on shows that are letterboxed. So, I end up with a "windowboxed" picture that I can't zoom. If this is technically feasible, please consider it for a future update. If not, could you please let me know so I can stop asking? ;)

[mkanet]

Mike, you "can" select fill aspect on WB/UPN/etc. I do it all the time for "Enterprise" to zoom it to fullscreen 16:9. However, I think the zooming feature on HiPix only works on 480i content.

[JustMike]

Michael, well poop! Thanks for the info. I'll email TitanTV right away.

[JustMike]

Yes, I can do it on Enterprise (480i), but it doesn't work on 720p or 1080i. If that's technically possible, it would sure be great. "Stretch" works on 720p and 1080i, but not "Fill"!

[drbenson]

Hey, Jon- no fair making the software smarter than I am! Now that I understand, all is perfect. I had HiPix set to come up in fullscreen.

By the way, this points up the need for some sort of 'user manual' that explains how the many features are designed to operate. Could be online somewhere. Digging through long threads for answers to questions like this is a waste of everybody's time, and I want you developers to spend yours on the software!

[Fireball]

What steps to you need to perform to get the DVDupdate to work? I had to install the addon patch after installing 3.51 in order to get dvd playback to work.

[mkanet]

Hi Fireball,

Have you tried reading the, "FULL DVD playback support on HiPix! (DVD add-on beta 1)" thread? I know it's relatively long, but that's currently the best resource to learn how to do DVD playback with the HiPix. The DVD playback, in it's early stages is meant mainly for people with Zoom Player experience and basic DirectShow experience.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164080&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

[Fireball]

Yes, I have it working but I had to reexecute the dvd addon code after installing 3.50/3.51. Works great but just wondering if that was what I had to do. Every once in awhile on a DVD exit, zoomplayer gets hung so I didn't know if this was the correct installation method.

Thanks again HIPIX Team!! Excellent work! :D

[mkanet]

I thought I would post a few examples of what commercial detection looks like on the HiPix app control panel for those of you who haven't tried this awesome feature yet. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to show what it looks like in full screen currently. Also, I've posted the commercial detection settings that I use in the SF Bay Area which works for ALL my HD shows from all TV networks (WB, FOX 480p, ABC, NBC, CBS).

http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/Settings.bmp

http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/Kingofqueens.bmp

http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/Yesdear.bmp

http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/Stiilstanding.bmp

[JustMike]

Nice! Can't wait to try!

[bpearse]

Michael,

I have been VERY successfully using the commercial skip feature. What I did was bring up the commercial settings dialog box, and watch the "Currently Detected Value" to see what each station is using. I found that a single setting worked fine across all the bay area channels that I watch. I use 45 Second Granularity (I assume no commercial break is shorter than that), 10% min threshold (typical value is 28% for commercials, so this seems a safe place to be), and 1.6 seconds for response rate.

Every once in a while, I would still see a frame or two of a commercial using the 2.0 second default response rate, so I switched to 1.6 seconds. Not sure if that helped or not, but I have not seem any commercial frames showing up lately.

I also find that the skip function is not as good as doing the 'apply to .ts file' which removed the commercial from the file entirely. The remove function make a cleaner skip for me. And since that saves disk space, all the better.

This is THE killer feature for release 3.5, IMHO. It is incredible. How did you guys even think of this? Using black bar detection for commercials is genius. The fact that it works so well is incredible.

Nice job!

Bob

[Mary H]

Michael or Bob, do any of the settings you quote work with a station that zooms the commercials? That's what I'm seeing with KCRA-DT (NBC) in Sacramento. I'll test it out myself, of course... but thought perhaps you had already encountered that situation.

[GrantR]

looking for commercials by looking for blank sidebars only works when the show is widescreen and the commercials aren't. If the show is not widescreen, or the commercials are, then we're screwed and have to do it by hand. I presume with the HiPix software you could mark all the start and end commercial points with bookmarks yourself, then convert them to skip areas and let the software do it's usual from then on?

[Mary H]

Originally posted by GrantR
looking for commercials by looking for blank sidebars only works when the show is widescreen and the commercials aren't. If the show is not widescreen, or the commercials are, then we're screwed and have to do it by hand. I presume with the HiPix software you could mark all the start and end commercial points with bookmarks yourself, then convert them to skip areas and let the software do it's usual from then on?

Yes, I have done the marking manually, converted to skip areas, and it works fine. I realize there has to be some degree of sidebar for the built-in detection to work. I'm just hoping that there might be some detectable difference, even if overscan hides it. I'll be able to record a couple of NBC shows this evening, and I'll check them for any AR difference.

I'm also curious about Fox' 480P widescreen shows.

So much fun! This is indeed a great addition to the software.

[bpearse]

Mary,

Many stations still leave some sidebar even when they stretch or blow up commercials to fill the entire screen. The reason is that they assume some overscan (5%+) and will still leave sidebars there. Whereas true HDTV content does not. To test this, bring up the dialog box that allows you to veiw the "currently detected value" for min threshold. For HDTV, min tresh is 0. See if it is non zero for commercials.

Bob

[mkanet]

bpearse.

I also switched mine to 1.6 respons rate. I just recently put it back to 2.0. They both seem to work the same.

[Mary H]

OK, I just checked NBC's "American Dreams" broadcast on KCRA, and the commercials ranged between 12 and 15%. So I reset the minimum threshold to 10%. I had it on 25% before, so that's why they weren't detected. I'll see how it does on "Boomtown" later this evening.

3 networks down, only Fox to go. (I know, it's not really HD... but I happen to like Firefly and John Doe. Guilty pleasures, I guess.)

Thanks for the help and advice!

[JustMike]

Okay, small problem (but annoying). I'm getting a frequent audio/video glitch watching recorded shows. I timed it, and it appears that they all happen precise multiples of 1 minute apart (give or take for my response time to click the stopwatch).

So, from this, I deduce that the problem is happening at the transition between the .ts files.

Are there any commonly-known causes for this problem? We saw this very rarely with the 2.x software, but got something like a dozen glitches in tonight's Alias.

My machine is a 1.1GHz Tualatin PIII with 256MB of RAM recording to a Maxtor 80G drive on its own IDE bus (separate from the system disk). DMA is enabled and so forth.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by JustMike
Okay, small problem (but annoying). I'm getting a frequent audio/video glitch watching recorded shows. I timed it, and it appears that they all happen precise multiples of 1 minute apart (give or take for my response time to click the stopwatch).

So, from this, I deduce that the problem is happening at the transition between the .ts files.

Are there any commonly-known causes for this problem? We saw this very rarely with the 2.x software, but got something like a dozen glitches in tonight's Alias.

My machine is a 1.1GHz Tualatin PIII with 256MB of RAM recording to a Maxtor 80G drive on its own IDE bus (separate from the system disk). DMA is enabled and so forth.
Mike,

Before you jump to that conclusion (although it may be correct), try playing back a recording and jumping, say, 30 seconds into the recording. Then see if the glitches still happen on the 1-minute boundary. If the glitches *always* happen on *file* 1-minute boundaries, then this is likely the cause. Otherwise, its very possible something else on your PC is being active every 1-minute.

-Jon

[Ken Erickson]

Jon,

I recorded Enemy of the State saturday night with the commerical filter on. Ran into the 339 rt error so I installed 3.51 and fixes that problem. After running the editor to remove the skip sections I noticed that there were 4 sections left. These sections where all 14x9 ar whereas the movie was 16x9 and the running time was over 2 minutes. I tried the run the editor again to remove the remaining sections but nogo. I have not tried to manually remove the remaining sections (yet).

[spearse]

Help-
I just upgraded my HTPC from Win93SE to XP. I re-installed Hipix 3.51. I get a "Can't load filtergraph" error and crash out of program when I try to start the application up. I have installed the XP drivers that come with the 3.51 software.

Is this a case of old registry and driver files from 98 hosing up XP?
Thanks!
spearse

[mkanet]

spearse, you need to install the XP drivers that's inside the 3.5 zip file.

[erdc]

Have you fix the PID 0x25 audio problem with this new release?

[spearse]

Sorry MKAnet, I meant I already loaded the drivers in the 3.5 version (not 3.51) for XP. Perhaps it's not taking. I will purge all remnants of old drivers and try to re-install. Am I correct that the filtergraphs are found in the drivers?
Thanks
Spearse

[mkanet]

spearse, check your Windows XP device manager. You're getting that error because the XP driver isn't installed.

[WishIdInventedTivo]

Originally posted by JustMike
Okay, small problem (but annoying). I'm getting a frequent audio/video glitch watching recorded shows. I timed it, and it appears that they all happen precise multiples of 1 minute apart (give or take for my response time to click the stopwatch).

So, from this, I deduce that the problem is happening at the transition between the .ts files.

Are there any commonly-known causes for this problem? We saw this very rarely with the 2.x software, but got something like a dozen glitches in tonight's Alias.

My machine is a 1.1GHz Tualatin PIII with 256MB of RAM recording to a Maxtor 80G drive on its own IDE bus (separate from the system disk). DMA is enabled and so forth.

JustMike,

Try this. Assuming there are no other bookmarks, mark the current place, stop playback, restart playback, jump forward to this bookmark. I've experienced this problem from time to time with 3.1 and now 3.5 and the solution has been to begin playing the file at the beginning again.

[ccclapp]

Does the Skip Commercials feature only work with HD shows, or any ATSC broadcast? I am guessing only with HD, because that would create the differences between the show and the commercial the HiPix is looking for.

--Caleb

[mkanet]

Caleb, it works with any HD show; including FOX 480p widescreen. Even if your commercials are stretched; there's still enough of a difference between the commercials and the HD shows for the HiPix to detect the commercial break.

For 4:3 shows, you can still very easily edit out the commercials.

[WishIdInventedTivo]

jon_rhees,

Can you look into the problem I reported with 3.51 and Girder? See my 2 posts on page 6 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178484&perpage=20&pagenumber=6).

It's like the HiPix targets have been changed and HiPix is getting confused when Girder sends it keystrokes. Before attempting to switch back to 3.51 again I'd appreciate if you can confirm that the targets I was using are correct and will now work for the file navigator pick list and schedued records screens. Last time I tried 3.51 my system got mucked up.

Issues are:

1. Have the HiPix targets changed from 3.5 to 3.51?
2. Do the pick list and scheduled recording screens now use those targets (they did not before)?

Thanks.

[ccclapp]

Originally posted by mkanet
For 4:3 shows, you can still very easily edit out the commercials.


Do you mean manually, by replaying the file and setting bookmarks at all commercial start and end points, and then converting the bookmarks to skip zones?

--Caleb

[mkanet]

Caleb, yes manually.

[mkanet]

Here's another example. Last night's TV show Alias.

"Alias" commercial detection.

http://www.midwinter.com/hipix/alias.jpg

[Mary H]

Originally posted by Mary H
OK, I just checked NBC's "American Dreams" broadcast on KCRA, and the commercials ranged between 12 and 15%. So I reset the minimum threshold to 10%. I had it on 25% before, so that's why they weren't detected. I'll see how it does on "Boomtown" later this evening.

Just to follow up: The 10% setting worked perfectly on "Boomtown", so I'm a happy camper! Thanks again for the help.

[GrantR]

mkanet: do you find when detecting commercials in Alias that the HiPix software is a little late restarting the show when the entry back into the show is one of those scenes where the location name (eg: Sri Lanka) gradually zooms in on a black background? There's no activity in the sidebar areas until the name gets large enough to fill the screen. This is behaviour I see with my HDTVtoMPEG2 commercial detection, but it's easy enough to adjust the point back by hand afterwards anyway.

[shah8]

does this commercial editing feature mean I'll never watch abc live again?

Heh heh heh, you guys done shown Enemy of the State 3 times! I DARE you to show Indiana Jones once again with my SUPERTIVO ready and able to save the day!

Darius

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by WishIdInventedTivo
jon_rhees,

Can you look into the problem I reported with 3.51 and Girder? See my 2 posts on page 6 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178484&perpage=20&pagenumber=6).
....

I'll look into this as soon as I can -- sorry, but haven't had time in the past few days...

I *did* make a change in 3.51 to try to address this but did *not* test it and it wouldn't surprise me if it still doesn't work.

-Jon

[mkanet]

GrantR, I haven't studied it that closely. Once in a while I will see a glimpse of the commercial break. That's about it.

[JustMike]

Originally posted by jon_rhees
Mike,

Before you jump to that conclusion (although it may be correct), try playing back a recording and jumping, say, 30 seconds into the recording. Then see if the glitches still happen on the 1-minute boundary. If the glitches *always* happen on *file* 1-minute boundaries, then this is likely the cause. Otherwise, its very possible something else on your PC is being active every 1-minute.

-Jon

Hi Jon,

Good point. I checked, and it looks to me like my guess was right. The counter displayed if I hit "Pause" after each glitch seems to indicate that it's on file boundaries:

1:59
3:59
4:59
etc.

Any thoughts on what might cause this problem? It appears to me as if the problem lies during the recording process, since it always glitches in the same places.

[jon_rhees]

JustMike,

Not necessarily. To determine whether record or playback is the culprit, do the following simple test:

1. Concatenate two of your minute files together:
'copy file1 /b + file2 /b newfile /b'

The rename or delete the original minute files so they aren't used, and rename the newfile to be the name of the original file1.

*IF* the glitch disappears for the minute boundary which is now inside this new file, its a playback problem. If it still exists, its a recording problem.

-Jon

[thorr]

Just a quick FYI, I think you only need one "/b" in the above command.

[JustMike]

Okay, I'll try that. But if it were a playback problem, wouldn't the glitches either happen at every file boundary or at random ones, rather than at the same boundaries every time?

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by JustMike
Okay, small problem (but annoying). I'm getting a frequent audio/video glitch watching recorded shows. I timed it, and it appears that they all happen precise multiples of 1 minute apart (give or take for my response time to click the stopwatch).

So, from this, I deduce that the problem is happening at the transition between the .ts files.

Are there any commonly-known causes for this problem? We saw this very rarely with the 2.x software, but got something like a dozen glitches in tonight's Alias.

My machine is a 1.1GHz Tualatin PIII with 256MB of RAM recording to a Maxtor 80G drive on its own IDE bus (separate from the system disk). DMA is enabled and so forth.

I have the same problem. I think It started when started to record with 3.51 or 3.5.
I just know that every program that I recorded the last few days has produced this stuttering. Prior to that I have never seen that problem. Both of my machines each with a Hipix card. Although I can only record with one. I did notice alot of problems with alias but attributed them to the local affiliate.
I think I'll try going back to 3.5 or 3.1 to see what happens.

[mkanet]

Thanks for your feedback guys! The more reproducable the problem, the easier it will be to fix it :)

[ccclapp]

Mike (or others):

With dual HiPix cards in 2 networked PCs, can one record to file from one pc with commercials edited out (skip regions), and then play the file back on the 2nd PC while the 1st pc is still recording, i.e. can one play the file AS it is being recorded. If so, one can truly watch "Live TV" without commercials.

Joe Q said you were the guy for this one:

"Don't know about that. Ask Mkanet since he has dual Hipix cards networked together.
I only have MYHD cards and they do not do 'on the fly' commercial deletion.
That's what the FF button on the remote is for"

This also looks like another plug for the great work of the HiPix team

Thanks

--Caleb

[mkanet]

Caleb, the .skp file doesn't get created until after the recording is complete. Therefore, you won't be able to do it the way you described with this version.

[ccclapp]

Originally posted by mkanet
Caleb, the .skp file doesn't get created until after the recording is complete. Therefore, you won't be able to do it the way you described with this version.

Oh that's too bad! This would have been really good. I may be stretching, but I hope your reply leaves open this possibility for the next release. My wife, for one, would vote with both hands for this feature.

--Caleb

[mkanet]

Caleb, remember pretty much anything you guys can think of... you know the rest. :D

[Bogney Baux]

I have had one recording that had a problem with the automatic commercial detection. It appears that the markers are offset by about 10 seconds. When a commercial starts, it plays about 10 seconds of it. Then it jumps to the HD program, but it skips the first 10 seconds of it.

All my other recordings have been perfect and all have been off the same CBS station. I am using the default settings. Should I make any adjustments?

[jon_rhees]

Patience, Caleb,

We'll likely do one better...

-Jon

[markdl]

Ok, this one is definitely 3.5 specific, so I'll post it in this thread, rather than in the general support thread.

I had CSI:Miami set to record tonight, set by a manual timer. I was watching football on ABC with the hipix up until the CSI recording fired. When the recording fired, the channel changed, and I lost all sound. There was no audio being sent out of the hipix at all. My receiver sat there blinking waiting for the audio to come back, and it never did. As soon as the recording was done, I switched back to the hipix, and the sound had not come back. I tried changing channels up and down, and still no audio. So I exited the hipix app, and then restarted it and the audio was back. I pulled up the recording, and the audio is there, so the audio did record, it just didn't get sent out of the hipix. My hipix audio is set to be SPDIF only. This never happened with 3.1, and is happening everytime with 3.5.

I wrote in the other thread that it was an intermittent problem. After further testing tonight, I lost audio everytime a timer fired. Using SPDIF only should completely bypass the sound card, but if it matters, I have an MAudio Audiophile 24/96 sound card in my hipix computer, and am running XP Pro (pre SP1).

[mkanet]

Mark, this happened to me once before as well.

[JustMike]

Originally posted by jon_rhees
JustMike,

Not necessarily. To determine whether record or playback is the culprit, do the following simple test:

1. Concatenate two of your minute files together:
'copy file1 /b + file2 /b newfile /b'

The rename or delete the original minute files so they aren't used, and rename the newfile to be the name of the original file1.

*IF* the glitch disappears for the minute boundary which is now inside this new file, its a playback problem. If it still exists, its a recording problem.

-Jon

Jon, I confess complete surprise. I concatenated two sets of files around these reproducible glitches, and playback of those segments is now flawless. :confused:

So, do you have any suggestions for possible causes and solutions to this problem?

I have no other significant applications running on the machine that I'm aware of, so I wouldn't expect it to be busy doing something else.

Thanks!

[rf22]

This commercial detection feature is awesome.:)

I was such an atrim nut when it came to editing shows. Especially when the atrim program starting using .10 of a second I was hooked. I was wondering if in future releases if you could add tenths of a second to the commercial skip function.

Thanks for all the hard work. I have two HiPix cards networked together and with all the new features I may end up with more :p who knows.

Rick

[roddie]

Mike,

I have no other significant applications running on the machine that I'm aware of, so I wouldn't expect it to be busy doing something else.

Not sure if you've tried this, but maybe it will help.

Bring up the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Escape), click the Processes tab (if it's not already clicked), and then click the CPU column to sort by CPU usage. If it's something on your system that is causing the interruption, you should see it pop up to the top of the list when it happens.

Good luck!

[Such]

Not sure if this has changed in 3.5, but I never noticed it before.

I've been successfully using the hibernation feature since the patch was first released. Before 3.5, the HiPix used to Exit, leaving only the scheduler running before it would hibernate.

Now, after 3.5, the HiPix stays running in the foreground when it Hibernates, and is sitting there active in the foreground after you wake the PC up from Hibernation.

I'd prefer it to exit, but don't want it to Exit to System Tray (as that had caused problems in the past).

John, can you tell me what's changed and/or if it's now OK to "Exit to System Tray" when using Hibernation?

Thanks,
Such

[ccclapp]

Since no one else has asked this, the answer is probably obvious, but...wont the skip commercial feature create skip zones equal to the entire recording of non-HD ATSC shows?

Thanks

--Caleb

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by Such
Not sure if this has changed in 3.5, but I never noticed it before.

I've been successfully using the hibernation feature since the patch was first released. Before 3.5, the HiPix used to Exit, leaving only the scheduler running before it would hibernate.

Now, after 3.5, the HiPix stays running in the foreground when it Hibernates, and is sitting there active in the foreground after you wake the PC up from Hibernation.

I'd prefer it to exit, but don't want it to Exit to System Tray (as that had caused problems in the past).

John, can you tell me what's changed and/or if it's now OK to "Exit to System Tray" when using Hibernation?

Thanks,
Such
Such,

First of all, this is not new. There is (and has been) logic in Meerkat & HiPix that if HiPix is running at the time your machine goes into standby or hibernation, HiPix *will* shut down, and then when you return to operation, Meerkat will *start back up* the HiPix. This is what is happening. This feature is actually causing a problem with another user, but I'm not aware of whom uses this feature today.

Secondly, you *can* now use the 'exit to system tray' along with Hibernation. However, at this time because of the above feature, you will see the HiPix app start back up (not in tray) after resuming (unless you have 'startup in standby mode' checked)

-Jon

[markdl]

Originally posted by mkanet
Mark, this happened to me once before as well.

Re: no audio while timer recording - is there a workaround for this until the next release (when it's hopefully fixed)?

[Such]

Just one more note/clarification on the hibernation issue:

Prior to 3.5, when I told HiPix to Hibernate after a recording, it closed itself prior to hibernating, now it stays active & thus, is there when the computer comes out of hibernation.

This was not the case before (I believe), the HiPix would exit before it hibernated. Not a big issue as it functions OK after awaking, but I would prefer an option to have it exit prior to hibernation as I generally don't want the HiPix running when I re-awaken my PC.

Thanks again for the great features. Still struggling to get the commercial detection settings to work in the CT market.... just tweaking I'm sure. Got the %'s down based on channel, but the threshold and response numbers are tough to pin down - they do a really bad job of commercial breaking on the digital channels hear, jumping in and out, and different black bar sizes for national/local commercials.

Having the ability to create skips for already recorded shows would be a great help when troubleshooting detetection settings..... know it's on the wish list already.....

[JustMike]

Roddie, thanks for the suggestion. I did try this, and basically while playing back the video I had the System Idle task using 95% of the CPU and a System task using 3%. Everything else was using 0%, and the overall CPU usage is something like 5%. There's a little burble at the file switch, but it's a couple of percent, and the CPU loading is still nearly zero.

I also tried the Performance Monitor app. As you might expect, there's a tiny hop in the disk queue when the file switch happens, but otherwise not much. The activity is much less than, say, a 1-minute skip generates.

So, Jon or anybody, any ideas what could be causing this problem?

[mkanet]

Mike, out of curiosity, do you have any USB devices on that PC? Also, did you change any of the driver settings in the Windows registry such as:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HiPix\BoardInfo]

"MaxReadSize"=

"MaxWriteSize"=

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by Such
Just one more note/clarification on the hibernation issue:

Prior to 3.5, when I told HiPix to Hibernate after a recording, it closed itself prior to hibernating, now it stays active & thus, is there when the computer comes out of hibernation.

I have to disagree. Although it may *appear* that the HiPix app stays active through hibernation, it does not. The HiPix app is actually shut down when Hibernation starts, and then Meerkat starts it back up when hibernation ends. To you, it appears it was always running.

-Jon

[JustMike]

Yes, my wireless keyboard/mouse combo is a USB device.

[DAP]

Originally posted by markdl
Ok, this one is definitely 3.5 specific, so I'll post it in this thread, rather than in the general support thread.

I had CSI:Miami set to record tonight, set by a manual timer. I was watching football on ABC with the hipix up until the CSI recording fired. When the recording fired, the channel changed, and I lost all sound. There was no audio being sent out of the hipix at all. My receiver sat there blinking waiting for the audio to come back, and it never did. As soon as the recording was done, I switched back to the hipix, and the sound had not come back. I tried changing channels up and down, and still no audio. So I exited the hipix app, and then restarted it and the audio was back. I pulled up the recording, and the audio is there, so the audio did record, it just didn't get sent out of the hipix. My hipix audio is set to be SPDIF only. This never happened with 3.1, and is happening everytime with 3.5.

I wrote in the other thread that it was an intermittent problem. After further testing tonight, I lost audio everytime a timer fired. Using SPDIF only should completely bypass the sound card, but if it matters, I have an MAudio Audiophile 24/96 sound card in my hipix computer, and am running XP Pro (pre SP1).

I have seen this problem also. For me it is only an occasional problem.

[DAP]

Feature request:

Have the onscreen display turn on when the signal strength fades below a programmed level.

On both monday night football & CSI Miami, the signal (ususally pegged at 85) slowly faded to zero for about a minute. First warning I got was the picture breaking up. If I'd had warning, I could have tweeked the antenna, and though I could not have seen anything when the signal was zero, I could have seen more of both shows as the signal was fadeing out, and when it was fadeing back in.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by DAP
I have seen this problem also. For me it is only an occasional problem.
For those of you losing audio when a timer recording starts up, can you
1. Tell me if you lose audio when manually starting a recording (hitting the REC button)
2. Tell me you Audio Mode setting and which audio jack you're using on your PC?

Thanks!

-Jon

[markdl]

Jon -

No, I have never lost audio when just pressing the record button. I'll try it a few more times tonight, but I've never had the problem by just pressing record.

Audio mode is SPDIF only with a digital coax cable attached to the hipix daughterboard.

Need any other info? This problem never happened (to me) in 3.0 or 3.1.

[Bogney Baux]

I also had the no audio problem. It was on a scheduled recording, and I only use the analog outputs of the Hipix card.

[mkanet]

Ive only had the audio problem once. This was on a scheduled recording. The recording itself had audio when I played it back. I'm using DirectShow for the audio setting. Unforunately, I can't reproduce it.

[banzai99]

I've haven't gotten the HiPix analog audio out to work at all in 3.5 (even when just watching things live). With DirectShow or PCM I do get sound through my sound card, but nothing from the daughterboard's analog jack.

I've double-checked my physical connections to the daughterboard and it's all good.

I can deal, but it'd be nice to have. It would also be interesting to see if there were fewer audio sync timing issues via the HiPix's own audio out.

[mkanet]

banzai99, can you see if you can get analog audio from the daughter card when you revert back to an older version?

[banzai99]

I'll give it a try (tho not 'til after Buffy!). My HiPix is new so I've only run it w/the 3.5 code.

Can I still find pre-3.5 packages?
-EDIT: I can still grab the 3.1 Beta 1 package off midwinter.com

Any recommended pre-3.5 releases to test against?

-/<eith

[mkanet]

The one on the CD will be good enough to test with.

[DAP]

Originally posted by jon_rhees
For those of you losing audio when a timer recording starts up, can you
1. Tell me if you lose audio when manually starting a recording (hitting the REC button)
2. Tell me you Audio Mode setting and which audio jack you're using on your PC?

Thanks!

-Jon

The sequence I saw:
Computer powers up from hibernation
Hipix starts & initializes. I get picture & sound from channel it was on when it was closed.
Hipix changes channel and goes silent.
Can't get sound back without closing & re-opening Hipix.

I'm using the SPDIF output from the Hipix, The soundcard is also outputting SPDIF, but the sound card refuses to output dolby digital (Reciever just says Dolby pro-logic). That is the reason I have to switch cables all the time DVDs do dolby digital & DTS through sound card, Hipix will only do dolby digital through its own output.

[mkanet]

I can say that this issue doesn't have to do with Hibernation (since I dont use Hibernation) or what kind of sound option you have set in the config (I use DirectSound). The rest sounds pretty accurate.

[JustMike]

Michael or Jon, any further thoughts on the recording playback glitches? Is the USB question Michael asked significant? I would have a very hard time operating my PC without my USB keyboard (I don't have a PS/2 mouse), but I could try.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by JustMike
Michael or Jon, any further thoughts on the recording playback glitches? Is the USB question Michael asked significant? I would have a very hard time operating my PC without my USB keyboard (I don't have a PS/2 mouse), but I could try.

JustMike, I'm not sure what to suggest, but first, if you believe this issue didn't exist prior to 3.5, then I suggest you try some simple regression tests:

1. Regress the HiPix app to 3.1 and try playback.
2. Regress the .dll to 3.1 and try playback.
3. No need to regress the driver to 3.1 since it hasn't changed.

Other that that, the only major thing playback does when you go from one file to another is 'open' the file. It may be possible that you've got a really fragmented drive and the OS is taking a lot of time opening the file.

-Jon

[drbenson]

I have a dumb question. I periodically record things from one of our local PBS feeds that are not HDTV, so are in 4:3 format. I recorded one the other night with commercial detection on the default (just didn't even think about the issue), and basically couldn't play it back. Playback (according to the OSD) is in AutoSkip mode.

The dumb question is how do you turn AutoSkip off? I think I've been through all of the Setup tabs and buttons, and I can't find a toggle anywhere. Absent a help file or manual, Help!

[thorr]

One way is to hit the edit button and delete all of the skip points.

[Mary H]

Originally posted by drbenson
I have a dumb question. I periodically record things from one of our local PBS feeds that are not HDTV, so are in 4:3 format. I recorded one the other night with commercial detection on the default (just didn't even think about the issue), and basically couldn't play it back. Playback (according to the OSD) is in AutoSkip mode.

The dumb question is how do you turn AutoSkip off? I think I've been through all of the Setup tabs and buttons, and I can't find a toggle anywhere. Absent a help file or manual, Help!

To get out of Autoskip mode... assuming you're in file playback mode, just click on the button at the far right. It's bright yellow when autoskip is on, gray when it's off.

There's also a hotkey which I don't remember right now. <Ctrl> A, maybe. Check in the Hotkeys section of Setup.

(Recording The Guardian right now... so I can't check.)

[JustMike]

Jon, I ran the disk defragmenter, and it seems to have done the trick! I'm surprised that the disk would ever be so fragmented given how big the files are, but anyway it does look as if the problem may be solved. I'll write again if it recurs.

By the way, I finally got to watch a show with the AutoSkip feature enabled. COOL!! :D

[dboyer]

I am having problems with the commercial skips. I cannot get the "Currently Detected Value" to read anything other than "0%"

I have "removed" the hardware, run Hipix Cleaner, removed .ini information, reset everyting I can think of. Upon re-install, the application still will not detect any AR value other than "0%" under the commercial detection.

I am running version 3.51, with 3.04 Hipix driver, P4 1.3 GHz, 512 MBRam, Win98SE w/updates for other current drivers. Suggestions?

[Bogney Baux]

I am able to reliably duplicate the no audio problem during a timer recording. It only happens on one station, all the others are good. I must be tuned to a different channel than the one scheduled to be recorded.

For instance, I tune to WCBS-DT. Then I schedule a recording on HBO (channel 64 on LI Cablevision). When the recording starts there is no audio.
If I had been tuned to channel 64 just before the timed recording started, then the audio would be fine.

However, if I am viewing HBO and a timer recording of WCBS starts, the audio is good.

[markdl]

I had the audio problem happen to me once last night out of 2 recordings: The first one, I had the hipix app running already tuned to the channel that it was set to record. Audio was just fine when the timer fired, and stayed good through the recording. Second timer was set for a different channel - timer fired, channel changed, and sound went away. Bogney beat me to the punch on this one, but I can confirm this is the way it happened for me last night as well.

Manually recording (pressing the record button) worked fine for me last night 12 out of 12 times.

[jon_rhees]

Thanks! That's good info!

-Jon

[bpearse]

Originally posted by Bogney Baux
I am able to reliably duplicate the no audio problem during a timer recording. It only happens on one station, all the others are good. I must be tuned to a different channel than the one scheduled to be recorded.

For instance, I tune to WCBS-DT. Then I schedule a recording on HBO (channel 64 on LI Cablevision). When the recording starts there is no audio.
If I had been tuned to channel 64 just before the timed recording started, then the audio would be fine.

However, if I am viewing HBO and a timer recording of WCBS starts, the audio is good.

I was having the exact same problem with KQED in the SF Bay Area. However, I have not been recording on that channel for quite a while, so had not noticed the issue since about 6 months ago.

I will retest tonight.

Bob

[Bogney Baux]

Originally posted by Bogney Baux
I am able to reliably duplicate the no audio problem during a timer recording. It only happens on one station, all the others are good. I must be tuned to a different channel than the one scheduled to be recorded.
This no audio problem is also causing a problem with transfers to DVHS. I attempted to record the show to DVHS but it was breaking up continuously on my JVC 30K. Only shows that were recorded with the inaudible audio during the record have this problem. I spent a couple of hours proving this with test recordings. Although Hipix can play these files OK (I did have a few glitches occasionally), there is something about the transport stream that DVHS tools or my JVC does not like.

[MichaelPham]

I don't know if this has been answered before on these forums, but is there a technical reason as to why the HiPix can't record standard NTSC broadcasts?

TIA

[R8der]

Originally posted by aaronwt
I have the same problem. I think It started when started to record with 3.51 or 3.5.
I just know that every program that I recorded the last few days has produced this stuttering. Prior to that I have never seen that problem.

I'm now the third person seeing this problem. I watched a show I recorded with 3.51 tonight and there was an audio/video glitch about once a minute. I noted the times and it wasn't exactly a minute, nor was it on the :59 second mark (anywhere from :48 to :58). Every once in awhile it would skip a minute....but it usually happened once a minute.

I then watched a show I recorded before upgrading, and it played fine.

Something associated with recording in the new software update is causing this glitch for some of us....because I've never seen it before, and old files seem to play just fine with the 3.51 software.

My HD's don't need defragmenting according to WinXP.

Chris

[MichaelZ]

I also noticed the stuttering last night on two shows I had recorded. It seems to loop on the same spot for up to a minute and then it may freeze (for a couple of sec.) and then go on, and sometimes it justs goes on without the freeze. It kind of looks-looks-looks like-like max-max head room :)

I went back over the same spot again and it had no stuttering. I never saw this behavior on the 3.1 version.

BTW, I am using 3.5.1

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by Bogney Baux
This no audio problem is also causing a problem with transfers to DVHS. I attempted to record the show to DVHS but it was breaking up continuously on my JVC 30K. Only shows that were recorded with the inaudible audio during the record have this problem. I spent a couple of hours proving this with test recordings. Although Hipix can play these files OK (I did have a few glitches occasionally), there is something about the transport stream that DVHS tools or my JVC does not like.

Good news and bad news: The bad news is that I cannot duplicate the audio problem, try as I might. This is really no surprise since that's typical in SW development. The good news is that at least a few of you *can* duplicate this and it appears it is a new bug recently introduced, so...

Bogney,

Since it sounds like you can reliably duplicate this bug, would you be willing to do a bit of regression testing? I will walk you through it, etc. This is assuming a few things:
1. You can easily duplicate this.
2. You have a bit of time.
3. You believe this issue was revcently introduced--were you seeing this on previous versions, and if not, what was the most recent ver you *didn't* see it on?
4. You can PM me with an email addr of where to send you some code.

-Jon

[Bogney Baux]

Originally posted by jon_rhees

1. You can easily duplicate this.
2. You have a bit of time.
3. You believe this issue was revcently introduced--were you seeing this on previous versions, and if not, what was the most recent ver you *didn't* see it on?
4. You can PM me with an email addr of where to send you some code.


1. Yes, it can be easily duplicated
2. I have time
3. The problem first showed up on recordings made with version 3.5
4 I will PM you my email address.

[bpearse]

Originally posted by jon_rhees
Good news and bad news: The bad news is that I cannot duplicate the audio problem, try as I might. This is really no surprise since that's typical in SW development. The good news is that at least a few of you *can* duplicate this and it appears it is a new bug recently introduced, so...

-Jon

Jon, just to confirm, I was getting this back in 2.X versions of HiPix, but had not seen it since. But that is only because I have not been recording on KQED, the only channel which caused the issue. Specifically, it was caused when:

1. The HiPix was set to another channel for watching, but then was automatically switched to KQED for a timed event, AND
2. When it switched to KQED, KQED was not yet in 1080i mode (i.e. they were still broadcasting 480i material), AND
3. KQED then switched to 1080i

The sound would be there right up until KQED switched to 1080i. At that point, sound would be lost. However, when you replay the file created, the sound was there in the file. It was only an annoyance, and only occurred on one channel under very unique circumstances, so I never pushed on it as a bug.

Bob

[Domat]

I can't get audio on a live show. Watching CSI as my first HDTV show and no sound. SOund is fine with NTSC but nothing on ATSC. I am new so maybe a setting I don't know about.

[mkanet]

Domat, what audio setting do you have your HiPix set at? How do you have you have your sound hooked up? Are you using a sound card?

[Domat]

Originally posted by mkanet
Domat, what audio setting do you have your HiPix set at? How do you have you have your sound hooked up? Are you using a sound card?

I hooked up that other card that came with the hipix and have headphones connected to the audi out.

okay just changed sound to PCM and it is now working. I guess I should go through the menus more carefully before I ask anymore RTFM questions.

[mkanet]

FYI: We have two new talented HiPix developer join the AVS Team for extra development horsepower :) Lot's of cool things ahead.

[erdc]

mkanet can you please see my post about the ERROR 6 problem that I have posted on the other thread?

Thanks!!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178498&pagenumber=6

[mkanet]

ERDC, we're one step ahead of you. Jon is aware of that :) Plus, we didn't forget about the Seattle audio problem either.

[rf22]

This is my first real problem with the HiPix card. I have two cards with each setup in its own machine. I have one setup in my office and another in my living room. I had Push, Nevada scheduled to record in my office and I had CSI scheduled in my living room. I got home around 9:30 turned on the TV and CSI was not recording. I then went to check on my Push recording and same thing the HiPix had not fired up on neither machine. I've been using this setup for awhile now and this is a first.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this related to my upgrade to 3.5? I am using the new HiPix DTV-200.exe that was posted earlier in the thread.

Now that I think about it, I remember about a week ago I checked my Record List and found one of my shows to be a day off and I just manually changed it back. I just checked the record list and everything seems to be in order. For some reason the HiPix just did not start up on either machine. This must be a coincidence or user error on my part.

I'm running Win2k Pro


Thanks in advanced for any advice,
Rick

[mkanet]

Rick, I have both scheduled tonight on two separate machines. I'll report back. Although, I feel pretty comfortable that they will record just fine. It's a good idea to remove the below registry key and everything in it and reinstall version 3.5, add 3.51, and reschedule your titanTV recordings. That should do it.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\HiPix DTV-200]

[erdc]

Thanks mkanet!

I can sleep in peace now knowing my prays have been heard. That and am damn glad I learned about the Ghost disk backup software from this forum:)

[rf22]

mkanet,

Thanks for the quick reply, I will try it out. I haven't been using TitanTV to schedule my recordings. I manually set up my Record List. Maybe this is the problem but I suspect not.

Thanks again,
Rick

[mkanet]

Rick, are you using the 3.51 executable? There was a scheduler related fix in that.

[R8der]

Well, not sure if my error problem was missed or not....this glitch every minute is most distressing. I downgraded to 3.1 and got nothing but Hipix filter graph errors, so I then downgraded to 3.0 via the Telemann website.

This version works, but in playing the file I recorded with 3.51, the glitch at each minute repeats itself. The odd part is that it repeats at a different part of the file.....not the same spot as before. It's definitely related to the 3.51 recording process. Any chance I can send somebody a one minute file and have them look at it? Jon? Anybody else still having this "every one minute glitch" problem?

Chris

[mkanet]

Chris, when you get the filtergraph error, that means you dont have the driver installed.

Can you see if you have the one minute glitch error when reverting back to 3.1? Make sure you have the latest driver installed for that.

[vfrjim]

What exactly did the 3.51 .exe fix? I am using the 3.5 without any problems(that I am aware of)

Jim

[R8der]

Originally posted by mkanet
Chris, when you get the filtergraph error, that means you dont have the driver installed.

Can you see if you have the one minute glitch error when reverting back to 3.1? Make sure you have the latest driver installed for that.

Well, right now it's all set up to record CSI at 9:00. If I have the time later tonight I'll try updating to 3.1, but I kinda feel that won't matter since the error reproduced itself with 3.0. It seems like the actual file has an error induced by 3.51, so I don't think any other version will remove this error.

Remember....all other files work fine. The only error filled file is the one I recorded with 3.51. All other files have worked flawlessly, regardless of which version I was using.

Chris

[rf22]

mkanet,

I am using the 3.51 executable. I just took that exe file and over wrote the previous one. Is that all I was supposed to do or was there more?

I will delete the registry key and do a clean install after work tomorrow and see if it works for my scheduled recording of Robbery Homicide Division.

Thanks for all the help,
Rick

[mkanet]

Originally posted by vfrjim
What exactly did the 3.51 .exe fix? I am using the 3.5 without any problems(that I am aware of)

Jim

Jim, please update to version 3.51. See the release notes on at the bottom of the first post on this thread.

Rick, yes, you just replace the .exe file to update from 3.5 to 3.51.

[rf22]

A moment of clarity,

I think I know why I might be having problems. I was so excited when the 3.5 release came out that all I did was download the file and installed it. I didn't do anything else. I should have uninstalled everything and ran the cleaner before proceeding with the 3.5 install.

Just another user error here :D

Thanks again,
Rick

[mkanet]

So, is everyone's reproducable problems solved? If not, you need to get in touch with Jon and help him to reproduce the problem as well so he can fix any remaining issues.

Thanks!

[Mary H]

Originally posted by mkanet
So, is everyone's reproducable problems solved? If not, you need to get in touch with Jon and help him to reproduce the problem as well so he can fix any remaining issues.

Thanks!

My spontaneous reboots when trying to play a just-recorded scheduled program are still happening. I don't know if it's reproducable, but it sure is consistent. I wasn't able to work with Jon last evening -- life got in the way. <G>

However, I haven't heard of anyone else having this problem... have you guys? If I'm the only one, I'm thinking it might very well be something in my setup, so I'm seriously considering reformatting the C:\ drive and reinstalling the system and all software. Then if it still happens, we'll deal with it on a clean system.

[mkanet]

Mary H, have you already tried reverting back to version 3.1 to see if you still can reproduce the spontaneous reboots? It sounds like something specific to your PC. If reverting back to 3.1 still causes the reboots, maybe you can try to think of any other changes you made to your PC around the time it started doing the reboots (hardware, software, drivers, etc).

[Mary H]

Originally posted by mkanet
Mary H, have you already tried reverting back to version 3.1 to see if you still can reproduce the spontaneous reboots? It sounds like something specific to your PC. If reverting back to 3.1 still causes the reboots, maybe you can try to think of any other changes you made to your PC around the time it started doing the reboots (hardware, software, drivers, etc).

No, I haven't tried that.. but I will, before I reinstall everything. I'll keep you posted.

[Mary H]

OK... reporting back: I rolled HiPix back to 3.1, then set up four 5 min scheduled recordings on all four local digital channels. It recorded the first 3 fine, then I got a "Runtime error -- overflow" message on the fourth one. When they had completed, I went in and was able to bring up each recording in turn and play them without any spontaneous reboots or errors. The audio on the CBS recording was stuttering, but that's probably unrelated.

Note that none of these stations are broadcasting true HD at this time of day.

[markdl]

Originally posted by mkanet
So, is everyone's reproducable problems solved? If not, you need to get in touch with Jon and help him to reproduce the problem as well so he can fix any remaining issues.

Thanks!

I'm waiting to hear back from Jon about helping test out the lose audio when timer recording fires and channel switches problem. I PM'd him, but I haven't heard back from him.

[mkanet]

Let's say Jon fixed the audio bug. Are there any other known issues other than the system-specific problem Mary is having?

[kirkh]

I need some help. I was finally able to upgrade this week to 3.51 and make some recordings. Everything worked fine until I turned on the commercial detection. I set up for auto and looked that the current detection % at the bottom and it was 512% and will not change no matter what I do. I left it on when I did a scheduled recording and the recording keep going until it used up all of my hard disk. If I turn off commercial detection I again have no problems.
I am running Xp and I updated the drivers and the .exe to the latest version. I could not find anyone else with my problem in this post. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Kirk

[mkanet]

Kirk, make sure you run "hipixCleaner.exe" BEFORE upgrading. Also, remove the C:\Program Files\HiPix DTV-200" directory and all it's contents. THEN, run the 3.5 installer, install the driver, and update the EXE with the 3.51 version. That should do it.

[Mary H]

Originally posted by mkanet
Let's say Jon fixed the audio bug. Are there any other known issues other than the system-specific problem Mary is having?

As I wrote, that problem went away when I went back to 3.5.

Do you want me to try 3.5.1 again?

[mkanet]

Mary, let's see what Jon has to say about it.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by Mary H
As I wrote, that problem went away when I went back to 3.5.

Do you want me to try 3.5.1 again?

Mary,

did the problem go away when you went back to 3.5 or 3.1?

-Jon

[kirkh]

Michael

Thanks for the quick response. That is what I though I would end up doing this weekend but I wanted to check. I will post with a update after I try that.

Kirk

[Mary H]

Originally posted by jon_rhees
Mary,

did the problem go away when you went back to 3.5 or 3.1?

-Jon

3.5

[Bogney Baux]

I have twice had a minor issue with permanently deleting commercials with the 'Apply to ts files' feature.

It has worked perfectly with all the one hour shows I have tried but with very long programs I have trouble. On a 3.5 hour program, the first part has perfect edits. Towards the end, the in and out of commercial times get offset by about 5 seconds. I will see 5 seconds of the commercial and it returns to the program 5 seconds late.

Other than that, it is perfect for me now that Jon has fixed the no audio and the DVHS transfer problems.

[jon_rhees]

Originally posted by Mary H
3.5

Really? So, simply changing the .exe between the 3.5 .exe and the 3.51 .exe creates this problem?

Can you try this and report back?

-Jon

[markdl]

One more thing that I just noticed this afternoon. I have a list of 10 or 11 timers that I set up manually to record on a weekly basis. They all sucessfully recorded this week. I pulled up the list today, and saw that all of the days that they are supposed to record on have changed in the listing. For example, The Agency is supposed to record on Saturday nights, but the list now had it recording on Mondays. I had a recording of The Agency that it recorded on *Sunday* night. I also had the correct recording of The Agency from Saturday night. CSI:Miami was saying it was recording on Tuesdays...and on down the list. It seems that after the weekly timer recorded, the day it is set to record on gets bumped up by one on the timer list. Is this one of the problems that Jon fixed in 3.51? I now have an audiofix version that he sent me today, and I'll check to see if the same thing happens to the timers that I have set to fire tonight.

[mkanet]

Mark, it sounds like you didn't update your EXE to version 3.51

[Mary H]

Originally posted by jon_rhees
Really? So, simply changing the .exe between the 3.5 .exe and the 3.51 .exe creates this problem? Can you try this and report back? -Jon

Well, this is confusing. I did a lot of cleanup and maintenance on my HTPC this afternoon, so I wanted to make sure to give equal time with the current setup. I went back and forth between 3.5 and 3.5.1. Here are the results:

3.5 worked fine, no problems
3.5.1 recorded OK, rebooted when I tried to play the recording.
3.5 worked fine, no problems.
3.5.1 worked fine, no problems.

Results? Inconclusive. Since I'm not getting consistent behavior now, I guess we have to conclude the problem's in my computer. If it turns up again I'll go ahead and reformat and reinstall everything.

Thanks for your help, and the great software! I'm a programmer myself, so I understand very well how hard it is to pin down the source of problems.

[Cliff Watson]

Michael,

The new 3.51 version is looking good. I just rechecked the scope settings to confirm they have not changed with this version (and to play with my new DSO scope).

Will you ever be able to make changes in the driver code to allow HiPix to decode audio when stations are using non-standard audio PIDs?

[mkanet]

Hi Cliff thanks.

We're definiately looking into the audio PID issue...

[Cliff Watson]

Michael,

HiPix version 3.51 is not looking so good any more! One minute and 30 seconds into my first scheduled recording it trashed my boot drive. I can’t even boot the HTPC. Now what?