Suddenly no video on copy protected recordings

Post Reply
icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

Suddenly no video on copy protected recordings

#1

Post by icepick » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:31 am

I've been chugging along without major annoyance on my pcie infinitv4 card / win 7 htpc for some time now.

The rovi shenanigans aside its been decent, thinking about modding to use schedules direct... enough background.

Suddenly starting on the 19th my HBO(HD) recordings have started playing back as sound only with a black screen.

It's bizzare. Recordings of HBO(HD) that were made before 12/19/16 play back normally. Non copy protected content recorded on HBO(HD) today plays back normally. BUT! If I record content with copy protection or tune in to watch live content that is copy protected I get sound only with a black screen. Overlay menus show up fine. Strangely enough the screen grab thumbnail is showing a frame from the recorded content when looking at my recorded tv library. This means the recording is complete but is there some kind of HDCP handshake not happening? The picture is there, but it doesn't display. WTF!?!? I'm flabergasted.

Pairing is good, I've attached a screenshot of the ceton diagnostic webpage.
I'm gonna make a disk image and then try some updates and what not to see what happens.
Any help out there?
Attachments
black screen diagnostic.PNG

adam1991

Posts: 2893
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2011 2:31 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#2

Post by adam1991 » Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:42 am

Are you playing these back directly from your HTPC to the TV, or are you playing these back from an extender?

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#3

Post by icepick » Thu Dec 22, 2016 4:20 am

direct from htpc

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#4

Post by icepick » Thu Dec 22, 2016 4:20 am

i'm beat but ill work on this again tomorrow, thx

stuartm

Posts: 721
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 8:05 pm
Location: Longmont, CO

HTPC Specs: Show details

#5

Post by stuartm » Thu Dec 22, 2016 5:04 am

Sounds like you are using an Intel GPU and your HBO has transitioned to h.264. You can check if HBO is now h.264 using the 411-info debug screens.
If this is the case then you are hitting the known Intel h.264 bug with protected content.

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#6

Post by icepick » Thu Dec 22, 2016 1:04 pm

I am using an i3-3225 with HD 4000. Is intel working on a fix for this? If not is there hope for a fix in the future? I really don't want to add more heat and power consumption with a discrete gpu.

Thanks

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#7

Post by icepick » Thu Dec 22, 2016 1:15 pm

Would a driver update help? I'm fond of the 9.17.10.2843 driver but could live with something new i guess.

On a side note my infintv4 wont update using the diagnostic tool. Is there a way to download the firmware and hardware updates and manually install? Should I open a ticket with Ceton?

Thx again.
Attachments
ceton update.PNG

cuafpr

Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:11 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#8

Post by cuafpr » Thu Dec 22, 2016 4:24 pm

interesting i ran into the same thing using a 360 as a media extender... came here to research and saw your post. I'd dont seem to have this issue on the TV that is direct connect to the HTPC, though i have noticed brief flashes of "protected connect" but its less than a second....

also of note this only happens with a new 24inch TV, if i hook up to a 24in monitor it works, i do run this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1 when it was connected to the monitor to elimnat some issues with HDCP stuff. trying it now with the TV initial hook am i'm getting a picture. If this is yet another bug to deal with, a whole house system from cable company is looking better and better. Getting tired of working finding work arounds for media center and HTPCs :(

stuartm

Posts: 721
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 8:05 pm
Location: Longmont, CO

HTPC Specs: Show details

#9

Post by stuartm » Thu Dec 22, 2016 6:47 pm

icepick wrote:I am using an i3-3225 with HD 4000. Is intel working on a fix for this? If not is there hope for a fix in the future? I really don't want to add more heat and power consumption with a discrete gpu.

Thanks
No, they are not AFICT. This bug is several years old and they do not seem to care much about it. It has been reported that if you run Windows 8 or maybe it was 8.1
that there were versions of the intel drivers that would work. But I am uncertain which Intel GPUs were supposed to work in that situation.

Personally, I long ago added lower end Nvidia cards to my HTPCs to forestall this problem. There are decent cards with low power consumption
that are silent since they are passively cooled. You should double check that you are indeed getting h.264 now to be sure this is your problem.
If you are a Comcast Customer than it likely is. They have been rolling out a switch to MPEG4 in all their systems over the last year or so.

stuartm

Posts: 721
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 8:05 pm
Location: Longmont, CO

HTPC Specs: Show details

#10

Post by stuartm » Thu Dec 22, 2016 6:54 pm

cuafpr wrote:interesting i ran into the same thing using a 360 as a media extender... came here to research and saw your post. I'd dont seem to have this issue on the TV that is direct connect to the HTPC, though i have noticed brief flashes of "protected connect" but its less than a second....

also of note this only happens with a new 24inch TV, if i hook up to a 24in monitor it works, i do run this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1 when it was connected to the monitor to elimnat some issues with HDCP stuff. trying it now with the TV initial hook am i'm getting a picture. If this is yet another bug to deal with, a whole house system from cable company is looking better and better. Getting tired of working finding work arounds for media center and HTPCs :(
See this thread:
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =96&t=9635

For exhaustive discussion of WMC and protected H.264 content on extenders.

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#11

Post by icepick » Sat Dec 24, 2016 4:22 am

So the debug is reporting codec as "unspecified" on the recordings with black screen. Other channels appear to be mpeg-2. I've been thinking of going 4k, so maybe its time for a discrete GPU... I'd rather fix this issue though, but it seems as if no one has.... Oddly I did get a glimpse of HBO when I quickly tuned the channel right after loading WMC. I couldn't replicate this yet though.

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#12

Post by icepick » Sat Dec 24, 2016 4:47 am

read something about haali media splitter on an old avs thread, is that something that could possibly work?

genaldar

Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 26, 2016 12:01 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#13

Post by genaldar » Mon Dec 26, 2016 12:14 pm

I came here for this exact issue, but for me it started happening last month. Since it was right before I went on vacation I washed my hands of it temporarily.

SD copy protected shows work without issue, but HD ones have no picture. I'm on Comcast and since I don't pay their HD fee I figured it might have something to do with that, even though I've never had an issue before and all the non copy protected content is fine. But since I had to replace my Ceton I was also worried it had something to do with that (my PCIE 4 tuner loses cp authorization any time the computer restarts or shuts down so I picked up a used USB 4 and had a bear of a time getting it set up).

Guess I'll be ordering a silent card from Newegg.

icepick

Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:23 pm
Location:

HTPC Specs: Show details

#14

Post by icepick » Mon Dec 26, 2016 5:50 pm

Check out my thread in HTPC Components
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =7&t=10547

Post Reply