Video crashes after a few seconds

[dishwater63]

I'm about to gouge my eyes out in a fit of rage. But first, the back story:

I set up my HTPC about a year ago. No problems, everything worked fine, but then I decided to upgrade my sound card (I didn't have one and the receiver I had took optical), and after some fuss with some drivers, I finally got it to work. Kinda. Everything would work, until I shut off my TV. When I turned it back on, I would get the terrible "Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer." However, that's not really all of the story, because if I shut the TV off, then turned it immediately back on, it would work. It would only give me the error if a day passed. It would have to be a good amount of time, say at least a few hours, before I could get the error.

Anyway, after much debate, I finally upgraded my sound system, which took multiple hdmi inputs (should have done this in the first place. Damn you hindsight). Everything was working fine, except I would still get the video playback issues. So then I thought, it must be the drivers. Those terrible, terrible drivers. The drivers that came with the sound card basically didn't work, or at least WMC didn't like them. After I installed RealTek drivers, everything worked. Kinda. So now that I don't need the sound card (I took it out), I started to cleanse the HTPC by deleting all the sound card drivers. After a reboot, I had no sound. It told me that the speakers weren't plugged in and that I couldn't enable sound over HDMI. OK, well let's start from scratch: Let's remove and reinstall the video drivers. And this, my friends, is where everything goes to hell. Just deleting the video drivers was a pain, but then when trying to re-install them I would get a number of errors. Basically, the drivers weren't installing. Back and forth, back and forth, I go trying to get the drivers to install. Eventually I do get the drivers to install and everything works fine, except for when I open WMC. The second I go to LiveTV, I get stuttered playback with no audio, it freezes, and then I get that stupid, awful error that's the bane of my existence. So, I dunno what to do. I hate drivers, FYI, and I don't get why it's such a pain to clear out drivers. I went through and deleted all the folders associated with the video card (AMD HD6670), even tried letting Windows do its thing and install the drivers itself, but every time I go to LiveTV, it conks out and dies. Then a little piece inside of my dies.

HELP

TL;DR - LiveTV no audio, then crashes after a few seconds. Used to work fine, now it doesn't. AMD HD6670

[mdavej]

I had a similar problem. Basically any AMD drivers newer than 8/13 have some kind of issue for me (audio, video, freezing, crashing, won't survive sleep/wake, etc.). So I had to uninstall, then manually clean my registry of every trace of AMD, then install those old drivers.

[dishwater63]

I had a similar problem. Basically any AMD drivers newer than 8/13 have some kind of issue for me (audio, video, freezing, crashing, won't survive sleep/wake, etc.). So I had to uninstall, then manually clean my registry of every trace of AMD, then install those old drivers.

That is TERRIBLE news. How did you go about cleaning out your registry? Searching for AMD or ATI and deleting every instance?

[mdavej]

Basically yes. I'm sure I didn't get everything, but I got enough for the older drivers to work. Seems like I found some more specific guidance on what was safe to delete in some other forum, I don't remember where, but you can probably find it by searching. Going back to older AMD drivers seems to be a pretty common thing. Just be sure to do a backup first in case you really mess something up.

One thing that definitely did not work was AMD's own driver cleaner utility. That completely hosed my system so that I had to go back to an earlier system backup I was lucky enough to find. It was a very painful process that took a couple of days for me. I've since learned never to update my AMD drivers.

No guarantees that older drivers are actually the fix for you. I'm just telling you what worked for me. Another thing that didn't work was simply uninstalling the new drivers and installing the old ones. That always failed for one reason or another. The dreaded registry cleaning was a must.

Oh, and I'm running Win 7 64-bit if that's relevant.

[dishwater63]

Well thanks for your response and all the info. I'll go back to some old drivers and see what happens. I'll scrub through the registry, but I will hate every minute of it.

This sucks, I love AMD/ATI/Radeon. Why doesn't anybody like them

[dmagerl]

Before you do anything drastic, check your audio settings in the Sound control panel, make sure its set to stereo instead of 5.1

[newfiend]

Before you do anything drastic, check your audio settings in the Sound control panel, make sure its set to stereo instead of 5.1

^ This..
If you open Control Panel > Sound make sure you have it set to 2.0 (Stereo)
If you have it set to 5.1 or 7.1 you can get that error in WMC.
There is some weird conflict in WMC/Windows, if you have it set to 5.1 in Windows and Windows Media Center that error will pop up.
What you want to do is try setting the Audio to Stereo in Windows (control panel > sounds)
and then open WMC > Tasks/Settings > General > Windows Media Center Setup > Set up your Speakers .. Go through the speaker setup and set it to 5.1 or 7.1 (depending on your speaker configuration).
This will get you surround sound in WMC and usually stops the "files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer." error from popping up.
newfiend~

[curtis]

I've been dealing with this for the past week as I have hooked up my new NUC (intel haswell/ 5000 graphics) pc to a new Pioneer receiver (to a Vizio tv) via HDMI for the first time and have been losing my mind trying to figure out what the issue is. What is suggested by Newfiend is correct and will work but it makes it so nothing else you play besides TV will go across in 5.1. So MKV files lauched via Media Browser or My Movies and the like will be stereo only. The other option I've found is uncheck the option to allow apps to use Exclusive mode (last tab in the HDMI audio options). The challenge here is that you don't get bitstream, everything is PCM which isn't ideal if you would like the receiver to handle all decoding duties. I've not figured out how to make it all work like we'd expect.

*edit - should mention that the NUC was running win 8.1 and that I reproduced the same issue with a 3 year old Dell laptop running Win 7 & a ATI/AMD card and driver set. In both cases I was able to get it to usually work if I went to a recorded file and double clicked it (which launched media center to play) vs. trying to start it from within the media center interface. So it is an issue with Windows and some faulty/impatient/whatever code when it comes to its TV playback & audio via HDMI.

[webminster]

Do you have any codec pack installed, like Shark007? I have Windows set to stereo, exclusive mode, and WMC set to 5.1. And Shark007 configured for bitstreaming. And I can get multichannel sent to the AVR or soundbar, not just stereo.

[newfiend]

I use LAV Filters have windows set to stereo and WMC set to 5.1 and I configured LAV to bitstream all the multi channel audio just fine using Media Browser 3 via HDMI including Dolby Digital, DTS, DTS-HD etc.. Without issue.

[newfiend]

@Curtis if you would like help with this and setting up LAV Filters let me know I may be able to help you get multi channel audio working. A good place to start would be here : http://www.thehtpc.net/htpc-tips-and-tw ... subtitles/
newfiend~

[dishwater63]

Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute. For real, guys? I can just set it to stereo? Going to go try this RIGHT NOW!

Will post results soon...

[dishwater63]

I've been dealing with this for the past week as I have hooked up my new NUC (intel haswell/ 5000 graphics) PC to a new Pioneer receiver (to a Vizio tv) via HDMI for the first time and have been losing my mind trying to figure out what the issue is. What is suggested by Newfiend is correct and will work but it makes it so nothing else you play besides TV will go across in 5.1. So MKV files lauched via Media Browser or My Movies and the like will be stereo only. The other option I've found is uncheck the option to allow apps to use Exclusive mode (last tab in the HDMI audio options). The challenge here is that you don't get bitstream, everything is PCM which isn't ideal if you would like the receiver to handle all decoding duties. I've not figured out how to make it all work like we'd expect.

*edit - should mention that the NUC was running win 8.1 and that I reproduced the same issue with a 3 year old Dell laptop running Win 7 & a ATI/AMD card and driver set. In both cases I was able to get it to usually work if I went to a recorded file and double clicked it (which launched media center to play) vs. trying to start it from within the media center interface. So it is an issue with Windows and some faulty/impatient/whatever code when it comes to its TV playback & audio via HDMI.

Not sure if this will help, but I use WMC strictly for TV. All other options, such as watch my movies and TV shows on my harddrive, I watch through XMBC. There's an add-in that will make an option to open directly to XMBC within the WMC menu. XMBC has it's own setup files where you can set it to 5.1 or whatever your stereo configuration is. Of course, you have to setup XMBC to your liking, but it's great. I highly recommend it.

[newfiend]

I've been dealing with this for the past week as I have hooked up my new NUC (intel haswell/ 5000 graphics) PC to a new Pioneer receiver (to a Vizio tv) via HDMI for the first time and have been losing my mind trying to figure out what the issue is. What is suggested by Newfiend is correct and will work but it makes it so nothing else you play besides TV will go across in 5.1. So MKV files lauched via Media Browser or My Movies and the like will be stereo only. The other option I've found is uncheck the option to allow apps to use Exclusive mode (last tab in the HDMI audio options). The challenge here is that you don't get bitstream, everything is PCM which isn't ideal if you would like the receiver to handle all decoding duties. I've not figured out how to make it all work like we'd expect.

*edit - should mention that the NUC was running win 8.1 and that I reproduced the same issue with a 3 year old Dell laptop running Win 7 & a ATI/AMD card and driver set. In both cases I was able to get it to usually work if I went to a recorded file and double clicked it (which launched media center to play) vs. trying to start it from within the media center interface. So it is an issue with Windows and some faulty/impatient/whatever code when it comes to its TV playback & audio via HDMI.

Not sure if this will help, but I use WMC strictly for TV. All other options, such as watch my movies and TV shows on my harddrive, I watch through XMBC. There's an add-in that will make an option to open directly to XMBC within the WMC menu. XMBC has it's own setup files where you can set it to 5.1 or whatever your stereo configuration is. Of course, you have to setup XMBC to your liking, but it's great. I highly recommend it.

While XBMC is great, have you tried Media Browser 3? This also integrates a launcher within WMC (Media Browser Classic) and you can launch movies/TV Shows/Music/Games from it. It takes a bit of configuring as well but not as much as XBMC I believe. Plus it now can transcode video to mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets, Roku or a Web Browser plus much more. I can stream my .mkv files to my phone or tablet and it works quite well. It is still a work in progress, but it's coming along nicely. They are also adding Live TV support. Check it out. http://www.mediabrowser3.com/
newfiend

[dishwater63]

YOU GUYS ARE GENIUSES

My world is currently rocked because it worked! Like, exactly how you said! Set to stereo, set to 5.1 inside WMC, and MAGIC! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


thankyouthankyouthankyou

[Crash2009]

Don't ya just love a happy ending.

[newfiend]

YOU GUYS ARE GENIUSES

My world is currently rocked because it worked! Like, exactly how you said! Set to stereo, set to 5.1 inside WMC, and MAGIC! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


thankyouthankyouthankyou

Glad our little trick helped out. oh and yes we were for real

[curtis]

Not sure if this will help, but I use WMC strictly for TV. All other options, such as watch my movies and TV shows on my harddrive, I watch through XMBC. There's an add-in that will make an option to open directly to XMBC within the WMC menu. XMBC has it's own setup files where you can set it to 5.1 or whatever your stereo configuration is. Of course, you have to setup XMBC to your liking, but it's great. I highly recommend it.

While XBMC is great, have you tried Media Browser 3? This also integrates a launcher within WMC (Media Browser Classic) and you can launch movies/TV Shows/Music/Games from it. It takes a bit of configuring as well but not as much as XBMC I believe. Plus it now can transcode video to mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets, Roku or a Web Browser plus much more. I can stream my .mkv files to my phone or tablet and it works quite well. It is still a work in progress, but it's coming along nicely. They are also adding Live TV support. Check it out. http://www.mediabrowser3.com/
newfiend

XMBC can bypass the stereo setup to bitstream audio (though it can't send audio that the HDMI audio doesn't claim it can see that the receiver supports like DTS MA) but the issue is that it is a separate app than Media Center so it hurts the family ease-of-use requirement. Media Browser Theater can bypass the speaker settings in windows for some types but falls back on some filter settings for certain audio which then use windows settings. Media Browser Classic interface works fine in Media Center but, like My Movies, it uses the Windows audio settings so if you set it to 2 channel you will get your DD 5.1 for tv but you get 2 channel for all your movies. The best way at the moment, if you want stay in Media Center and don't have DTS MA or TrueHD requirements, seems to be to set windows config to 5.1 and unselect Exclusive Mode in the properties. Then everything, including TV is output as PCM at 5.1.

[newfiend]

I use LAV Filters and media browser 3 classic in WMC. I have multiple .mkv files with DTS and DTS-HD audio tracks. They all play just fine on my AVR. I can tell they are bit streaming correctly as the display on my AVR displays DTS or DTS-HD etc. Have you tried using LAV before? I would have a look at the link I posted above to the htpc.net, I followed that configuration to a T and I don't have a problem bit streaming any audio format to my AVR. What container are your movies in?

[curtis]

I use LAV Filters and media browser 3 classic in WMC. I have multiple .mkv files with DTS and DTS-HD audio tracks. They all play just fine on my AVR. I can tell they are bit streaming correctly as the display on my AVR displays DTS or DTS-HD etc. Have you tried using LAV before? I would have a look at the link I posted above to the HTPC.net, I followed that configuration to a T and I don't have a problem bit streaming any audio format to my AVR. What container are your movies in?

Thanks for the reply. I've used Media Browser (since v1) along with My Movies and have tried ever setting in LAV. My issue seems to be the that it doesn't seem to force bitstream formats that aren't reported as being supported in HDMI Audio Properties. For some reason my Intel NUC (haswell 5000 video card) only reports the Pioneer SC-1223 as saying it supports DTS, DD, and DD EX (which it supports everything that exists at the moment). I've not found a software way of getting that to change or of forcing it through.
Let me know if you aren't seeing DTS MA/Dolby TrueHD as supported but are still getting streams. Thanks!