Media Center live TV issues

[ysn5000]

Hey everyone, I feel as if this topic has been covered but I can't find exactly the problem I'm having, most topics seem to cover vista.

Here's my problem. When trying to watch live TV with media center it is very choppy, maybe a frame every 5-10 seconds and there is no sound. DVDs and MP3s play fine though. Also the guide and the top box seem to be working fine as well.

This is a new issue, I've had this computer for 3 years now and TV's worked fine on it before, I haven't changed anything in regard to hardware. In the spring my TV worked fine as well then I went home for the summer and didn't use the TV tuner at all. Over the summer I reformatted my computer and I believe that I have all the correct drivers installed, I know I have the same drivers for the TV tuner card as I have been using previously. Till recently I had newer video drivers installed on my computer but have rolled back to the ones that were installed when I received my computer, this did not resolve the issue.

Here's some technical information:
Computer : Dell XPS 400
OS : Windows XP 2005 Media Center Edition SP3
TV Tuner : Emuzed TVT3 Dual TV Tuner
Video : nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX 512 MB
Audio : Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi

I currently have drivers for my audio, video, and tv tuner that were installed on the computer originally.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm stumped at this point and not sure what to try next.

The important bit of info you left out is what DVD decoder you are using.
You said you reinstalled MCE, what decoder did you install?

If you think that may be the issue, go to the nVidia web and download the 30
day trial of the Pure Platinum decoder, remove any other ones, and install
the nVidia one.

If you are not sure what decoder is being used, download and run this:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

You should be using the latest available drivers.

Are these the tuner card drivers you have installed from Dell?

http://support.dell.com/support/down...&osl=en&os=WW1

And are the these the drivers you have installed for your 7900 card?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_190.62_whql.html

You should also have the latest drivers from the Dell website for your sound
card.

Well, that is a bit odd, if you didn't have a MCE decoder, you shouldn't
have been able to watch TV recordings or a DVD in MC at all.

After you installed the nVidia decoder, did you rerun the decoder tool and
set the nVidia one as Preferred?

Did you also insure that you had the latest drivers from Dell for you
computers audio chip?

[ysn5000]

I checked my decoder and it showed that I didn't have a MCE or WMP compatible one. I installed the trial of nvidia purevideo and the update patch. This still did not resolve the issue, the feed is still very choppy and no audio comes through.

I then proceeded to install the suggested TVT3 drivers and the latest video drivers. After each installation I tested the video and in each case it remains just as choppy without audio.

Do you guys have any more suggestions? Any and all advice is appreciated.

I had Nero dvd and video decoders installed on my computer the decoder tool said that neither were compatible with WMP or MCE. After installing the nVidia decoder I set is as the preferred one.

Yea I have the latest audio drivers installed.

I removed every thing Nero related from my computer, the decoder utility no longer shows the Nero decoders and the nVidia one is set as the preferred one but the TV signal is still choppy and soundless. Is there anything else I can try or at this point should I just consider wiping all of my computers video/audio utilities and reinstalling MC?

I don't personally have any recordings but I've downloaded a few races recorded in MC and they play fine in MC with audio and do not skip.

I haven't checked my disk for errors or defragmented it, I will do that and let you know what happens but I don't really think that's the issue.

The only video I found in all the setup wizards was the one about configuring the monitor I think, again it ran fine with audio and did not skip.

The signal coming into my computer is a coaxial cable directly into the back of the computer, I've tried it with just a regular tv and there the signal comes in fine with the audio and video playing without any disruption.

One thing I have noticed is that when I pause the live feed for a few moments and then play it again it will play smoothly for a little bit but still wont have any audio then it'll start missing frames again.

I tried setting a recording to see what would happen, MC failed to start the recording, it made several attempts that ended up showing that they were 0 minutes long, however a little bit of information was recorded. What was recorded ended up being choppy and without audio.

I'm pretty sure I have enough space, 100 GB allocated to MC.

Should I uninstall my drivers then and look for MCE specific ones? Would the Dell website be a good location to find those or would it be better to get them from the manufacturer.

After unistalling the drivers for the tv tuner I have not been able to get my hardware manager to update them again. I have ran the set up a few times but in the hardware manager I still see "multimedia video controller" with a yellow question mark next to it. Before, after installing the tv tuner drivers a device called something along the lines Angel MPEG controller would appear now I don't have that anymore.

All the drivers I am using right now are from the dell website and should be MCE compatible, they are also all about 3 years old.

I would have to ask around but I don't know anyone off the top of my head that has a tv tuner card so I'm not sure how to check otherwise if it's a hardware issue or not.

Trying another tuner solved the issue, however it raises several other issues.
I guess the problem came about because of the signal switch from analog to digital. The tv tuner I had only supported NTSC(analog) signal and the new one I tried supports ATSC(digital) format.

The issue I'm having now is figuring out if there is a way to just use an ATSC tuner with MC, right now whenever I try to configure the TV in MC it says that at least one of my tuners has to support NTSC. I tried looking on the microsoft site and found an update for rollup 1 that had something to do with hi def tv but I couldn't get the update to install on my computer the log kept coming up with some error. Any ideas?

Certain releases of the Nero decoder when installed eliminate any
possibility of another decoder ever working properly in MC again.
If all is not working correctly since you installed the Nvidia decoder and
set it to the preferred one search with Google or Bing for ways to totally
remove and replace the damage done by installing Nero.

I would go to the Nero site and look for a complete uninstaller or a
set of instructions for a complete manual uninstallation.

I *think* I recall that Nero used to require some fancy footwork for a
successful uninstall, similar to what Symantec security software
requires, but I haven't used it for years, so maybe I'm trying to send
you on a wild goose chase.

Just to go over a couple of basics:

Can you play old recording?

You've check the hard drive for error and defragmented? (although that would
have nothing to do with the sound issue)

When you ran through the setup Wizards, did the signal/sample videos look
okay?

How are you receiving the signal (direct coax cable, OTA, using a set top
box)?

The fact that old recordings play, would seem to indicate a recording, not
playback problem.

Are you certain that the tuner and video card have current (and
MCE-specific) drivers installed? Many video cards had different drivers for
the MCE version of XP.

Is there plenty of available hard drive space for MC on the drive. Note:
this is not the same as the available space on the drive, there is a setting
in MC to allocate space to MC, it does not automatically use all the drive
space.

With 100G allocated to MC, that wouldn't be an issue.

In theory, Dell should have the exact drivers that came with the system when
new, and if it worked then, it should work again. However, since the system
was new, there have been numerous updates to Windows that might required
updated drivers. Sometimes with the big PC makers, they get OEM boards that
have drivers made specifically for them, but when available, I always
preferred getting drivers from the manufacturer.

I know you said you tried reinstalling the drivers at one point, were those
ones from Dell for your system?

You may have issues with the video drivers, but the fact that you aren't
getting audio, seems to indicated the main problem is with the tuner. You
don't know anyone with a tuner (board/USB) that you could borrow to see if
that is the problem?

You didn't indicate in your post, but I'll assume you are using the XP
version of MC?

If so, one of the requirements to use a digital tuner, was to have an analog
tuner installed first, so you would need to leave the analog tuner in and
add the digital as a second tuner.