TV recordings play for awhile then freeze randomly

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
caliskier

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TV recordings play for awhile then freeze randomly

#1

Post by caliskier » Tue May 12, 2020 4:31 am

I have a windows 10 build tha runs fine except tv recordings will randomly freeze for a few minutes and then slowly come back the after a few minutes, then freeze again. Any idea what causes this? 4tb western Digital purple disk drive
Last edited by caliskier on Tue May 12, 2020 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

technodevotee

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#2

Post by technodevotee » Tue May 12, 2020 8:54 am

Please provide more information about your system - graphics card, processor, amount of memory, windows build number, version of WMC installer used (8.8.x, V13 etc)

does the problem occur when running WMC in a window as well as running in full screen?

caliskier

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#3

Post by caliskier » Tue May 12, 2020 2:08 pm

Thank you very much for responding

Some notes replayed the same file this morning not in full screen. Same issue happened randomly but at different times, so I assume its not the recording.

Better description of what is happening. Playing the video seams to start fine, but an a random point it just stops, sound goes out and its just a frozen picture. The counter at the bottom is still counting up seconds like it would if the video was running normally. After 1-2 min it starts to come back you can tell because the screen updates every couple seconds and the sound starts to cherp as it tires to come back. Then everything starts running in slow motion with good sound, then rushing video, then normal.

So full screen or not, same thing happens

Here is my build.

System:
Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit Version 1909
WMC Installer Used: WMC-V8.8.4 <that is what it says for the file name on the zip file in my downloads folder
MSI Motherboard - Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium Edition (MS7968)
Processor Intel Cor i5-6600K 3.5Ghz
Ram: 16.0 GB DDR
Onboard Graphics, no card
Drive the OS is on: 256GB Samsung 950 SCSI Solid State Disk Drive <<This is where the systems files including WMC are saved
DVR Storage is a 4TB Western Digital Purple Drive (Specialized for security camera recording)
There is another RAID drive set for data but that is not used for WMC recordings, its used for all my data
Power Supply: EVGA 750 BQ, 80+ Bronze 750W, Semi Modular
Temp is 36 for cpu and 40 for the system

CrystalDiskInfo says my drives are all good.

technodevotee

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#4

Post by technodevotee » Tue May 12, 2020 3:54 pm

The reason I asked about whether it does it in a window is that one of my PCs did more or less what you described when running full screen until an updated driver for the graphics appeared.

Anyhow, yours is clearly a different system to mine and it looks like you aren't running into issues with a lack of memory, available processing power or hard disk speed.

I assume that Windows is fully up to date and that you have checked for updated graphics drivers from the manufacturer?

You didn't mention what your connection to the graphics display is but I assume you are using HDMI so one question is; have you tried a different HDMI cable?

caliskier

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#5

Post by caliskier » Tue May 12, 2020 4:08 pm

Hard disk speed is 5400, I don’t think the HDMI cable is an issue because I can work with the computer other times without any issue, it’s really like the system is lagging and slowing down and getting hooked up somewhere.

Graphics drivers are updated, we don’t have any issues when we play YouTube or if we watch a streaming show through Netflix or some other program.

Live TV also works fine.

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#6

Post by technodevotee » Tue May 12, 2020 4:25 pm

There is a huge difference in the way that WMC talks to the graphics card vs other applications and I believe that explains why it sometimes works perfectly in a windows but not full screen. I don't know the details intimately but I know from personal experience that just because everything else works perfectly doesn't mean you can rule out hardware being the cause of issues in WMC.

There were major issues with earlier versions of Windows 10 where WMC would freeze up after a while and people had to mess about with the settings in the shortcuts. I'm talking about things like High DPI settings, compatibility and full screen optimisations but none of those seem necessary on 1909.

Is this a new install, an upgrade or what? Is it possible that there are some changes you made left over from a previous version that are no longer needed?

Another thing that can cause problems when using HDMI is having 'play sounds when navigating Windows Media Center' enabled.

caliskier

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#7

Post by caliskier » Tue May 12, 2020 4:33 pm

Thank you for the continued help. I did another test, of the video in media player, And I still get the choppiness every once in a while. Random, not at the same time if I play again, so I don’t thank it’s on the recording side.

This was an update, I had some hard disk problems and had to redo my system. So basically I refreshed windows after having issues like this, finding out that my hard disks were bad.

The hard disk were malfunctioning, but they’ve been replaced. And I am seeing seeing the same issues that I was before. I know my hard drives were bad because I could not move files around on them, and Crystal desk told me that they were bad. I don’t have the issue of moving files around anymore with the new desk

Note: Edited, I was speaking through my iPad and my words messed up, made some fixes

caliskier

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#8

Post by caliskier » Tue May 12, 2020 6:45 pm

Also... this exact system was set up as a windows 7 machine and it worked perfectly on windows 7. In January I switched to windows 10 I recall it working ok until about February and the issues started happening with the drive which I replaced. The drive was causing freeze issues with windows in general. Windows 10 refreshed, Drive replaced, WMC reinstalled, But, still seeing the same problem.

Since the refresh I have also installed windows media theamer, mct tools, espn3wmc, NetflixMCE, recordtvhd

technodevotee

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#9

Post by technodevotee » Tue May 12, 2020 9:45 pm

what happens if you copy one of your recorded tv files to the SSD and play it with WMC and or WMP?

caliskier

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#10

Post by caliskier » Tue May 12, 2020 11:18 pm

technodevotee wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 9:45 pm what happens if you copy one of your recorded tv files to the SSD and play it with WMC and or WMP?
Thank you for sticking with me... that’s a really good thought, and in attempting to run that test, the file took forever to copy over to my C Drive. It would move along quickly then stop to zero for about two or three minutes, then quickly and stop to zero for a couple minutes. Took about 10 minutes to copy the file over, it should’ve taken about 30 seconds. Running fine on the C Drive

technodevotee

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#11

Post by technodevotee » Wed May 13, 2020 5:03 am

Seems like you have a duff drive or cable there then doesn't it?

caliskier

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#12

Post by caliskier » Wed May 13, 2020 12:19 pm

technodevotee wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:03 am Seems like you have a duff drive or cable there then doesn't it?
Got to be one of these:
Cable,
SATA port
Hooked up wrong
Power cable
Bad drive

caliskier

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#13

Post by caliskier » Wed May 13, 2020 3:37 pm

technodevotee wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 5:03 am Seems like you have a duff drive or cable there then doesn't it?
After testing it with a different cable this morning it seems to be working fine, two shows ran through with no issue.

Thank you thank you for all your help.

I’m sure a lot of people say this, but this is a great site and it’s really good to see people out there keeping windows media center alive. If more people knew how cool this tool was and that you could make it work with windows 10 with a little bit of effort, maybe Microsoft would bring it back.

I’m kiddng myself, I don’t think they ever will because I think they probably were dealing with copyright issues, That’s what Leo Laporte said when he was asked about windows media center. They aren’t like apple and see themselves as a business software company first, entertainment second. Where Apple, Who is willing to work out any copyright issues with the record companies with iTunes and got away with it, sees themselves as an entertainment first organization.

Didn’t mean to get on a soapbox love the site love this tool. Thanks everyone who has been helping me with several questions

technodevotee

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#14

Post by technodevotee » Wed May 13, 2020 4:09 pm

Glad you seem to have sorted it.

Space

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#15

Post by Space » Wed May 13, 2020 7:13 pm

Yeah, it has been fairly well documented that dealing with Cable Labs to get DRM recording working with cable TV is a very daunting and expensive process. Not many have succeeded (in fact only Microsoft and TiVo seem to have any product at all, other than the cable companies themselves).

SiliconDust is still trying, but they've been trying for a very long time.

caliskier

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#16

Post by caliskier » Thu May 14, 2020 1:06 am

This was the SATA cable From the board to the drive that was bad

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#17

Post by Space » Thu May 14, 2020 1:36 am

Yes, I was referencing your "copyright issues" statement. DVRs are completely legal, the only "copyright issues" with recording is handling DRM on those programs/channels that have it. Being able to record and store these programs is of major concern to Cable Labs (who are essentially just a bunch of major cable companies), so they really make it difficult to do it (even though they are required by law to allow it).

caliskier

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#18

Post by caliskier » Thu May 14, 2020 11:20 am

Interesting, maybe Microsoft did not want to deal with that. Leo Laporte said that Microsoft said that most users opened WMC, closed it, and never opened it again.

technodevotee

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#19

Post by technodevotee » Thu May 14, 2020 2:55 pm

I may be wrong but I think there were a lot of reasons MS killed off WMC apart from not wanting to pay the licensing fee for the DRM technology. I think they thought the future was streaming media and wanted a slice of the action through an offering similar to Netflix or one of the other big companies.

Like you say though, they always claimed that WMC wasn't very popular and couldn't see a way of justifying keeping it going.

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#20

Post by adam1991 » Thu May 14, 2020 5:08 pm

well, they probably felt how Apple did when they killed the optical drive: open a store and provide sales and rentals and subscriptions, instead of letting users bring their own.

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