Although I have not seen any postings in this NG for several months, I
do feel that this would be the most appropriate place to post this
newsthread to.

 The 14th of September is a date which turned my life upside down (I
know, I really _should_ get out more, please forgive the hyperbole;-).

 I'm speaking (almost) metaphorically(sp?), but, nevertheless, my normal
routine of the past three years was well and truly turned upside down on
that fateful Monday evening.

 The DTVR software I was using on both my desktop and laptop PCs
suddenly starting bombing out with an error message box within 5 to 85
seconds of tuning to a TV broadcast on that Monday evening. Although the
software relates to the PCI tuner card on the desktop, it wasn't
supplied with the USB2 tuning stick I was using with the laptop.

 What I was witnessing was a sudden failure on two different PCs with
two different adapters happening within minutes of each other. Since the
OS is win2kSP4 in both cases and I have automatic updates totally
disabled (no irritating security centre advisor popup nag box to worry
about), I knew this wasn't down to some mysterious MS update breaking
things.

 I did consider the possibility of a network worm infection
simultaneously hitting both boxes within a matter of hours or minutes
but quickly disproved that eventuality. This left me with the
inescapable conclusion that some sort of change to the DVB datastream
had broken something, despite the fact that neither the Toppy or a cheap
Asda STB had suffered in any discernable way.

 Here, by way of a background, is a brief history of my PC based PVR
activities over the past 7 years.

 I first started using my desktop PC as PVR almost 5 years ago when I
bought an Artec T1 USB2 compatable tuner box. Prior to that I'd been
using analogue tuners which claimed hardware assisted compression for
the recording function such claims turning out to be merely marketing
hyperbole hence no recordings, merely TV viewing during my "Analogue
Phase".

 The software supplied with that first DVB-T tuner seemed a little
klunky, and, provided you didn't waste time relying on the "schedule a
recording from the 7 day epg list" which randomly selected anything
other than what you'd clicked on and simply manually entered the channel
and date/time info instead, worked reasonably well.

 About a year later, I then got myself a Jetway "AVTune" card
(seemingly, a rebadged Kworld Expert DVB-T adapter). This came with the
equally klunky DTVR software which totally ignored the broadcast EPG,
offering only a web based EPG so it was "Business As Usual" re manually
programming the scheduler.

 I'd gone for a PCI tuning card to get away from (I suspected) USB
flakiness with the Artec USB2 compatable box (in reality USB 1.1 which,
as we all should know is only USB2 compatable because the USB2 host
ports are USB 1.x compatable, (Well, duh! Yet another chance for those
marketing turds to mislead without fear of legal retribution)).

 The PCI card did indeed reduce the glitching events but, rather to my
surprise, when I setup the T1 adapter on a SFF Mini-Q box to resolve
scheduling conflicts, this too behaved equally as well. I guess the VIA
chipset version of USB in my desktop is the real issue. The MoBo in the
Jetway Mini-Q system is an Nvidia board.

 About another 12 months on, after acquiring a cheap Acer laptop, I
bought a Peak Hardware USB2 DVB-T tuning stick. This worked ok with the
laptop but the supplied application software was so crappilly sluggish
and awkward to use that I experimented with the apps supplied with my
first two adapters, discovering that the DTVR app would actually work
with just one quirk, this being no sound on 'punch-in' recordings
although recordings initiated by the scheduling app were perfectly fine.

 Since the laptop/tuning stick setup was primarily to resolve recording
scheduling conflicts, this little quirk was not a problem. The Mini-Q
box was retired and the T1 tuner packed away for safe keeping (little
did I realise that the events of September the 14th were going to bring
both out of retirement!).

 Now, as crap as the supplied software was with my first two adapters,
there was even worse software to come in the shape of Hypermedia and its
ilk. Even the much vaunted GBPVR rather leaves me cold (and a little
confused). I'm glad to report that I am now able to resume normal
service with my trustworthy (if a little klunky) DTVR app.


 From uk.tech.digital-tv newsthread entitled "Storeton main relay", a
thread I initiated on account the Winter Hill transmitter had been
upgraded only the week before and I suspected that the problem was the
result of follow up work on its main relay, Storeton.

 It's actually my last posting (almost verbatum) which discusses the
true nature of the problem and its resolution (as far as win2k users are
concerned - only a very few winXP users are likely to have suffered).

 My thanks to Steve and 'mianpe' in helping me to get back to normal service.

==================================================================
The message 

from Steve - Bluush  contains these words:

> Think I finally got to the bottom of this.

> Found some info on the hauppage (SIC) website regarding problems with
> their software having problems when running XP Serv Pack 2.

> There was a link to microsoft's website giving a Hotfix to download
> and install.

> I did this and the Peak Hypermedia Software is now running perfectly,
> it used to fail in a big way within 10-90 sec's.

> The problem is seeminly down to:

> "This problem occurs if a table section in the Program Specific
> Information (PSI) table that is embedded in the digital TV signal
> stream exceeds 255 bytes. In this scenario, the Psisdecd.dll
> DirectShow component does not process the PSI table correctly."

> Anyhow it certainly seems to do the biz, let me know if it works for
> you John.

> Regards

> Steve

> Link for the hotfix is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896626

 Ok Steve, many thanks for the info. The file in question is part of the
directx 9.0c installation package (but an earlier version -
6.05.01.0900). The problem for me is that I'm running the pre-broken
version of winXP, win2kSP4 (or, if you prefer, I'm not running the idiot
son of win2k, you know, the one that recieved a lobotomy on explorer's
"open each folder in its own window" where the ability to intelligently
size the window of a virgin folder was removed).

 However, a google search on win2k and psisdecd.dll took me to a gbpvr
forum thread referring to the KB article wherein the OP (Actually a chap 
posting under the monicker of 'mianpe' ;ed.) had the bright
idea of:-

QUOTE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I just tried that... it won't install. However, if the update only
contains those 2 files listed in the kb article, maybe I can just try
the old regsvr32 trick on them. Guess I'll try and get a copy and try it
out tonight.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENDQUOTE

 And:-

QUOTE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so I found a copy of psisdecd.dll on the net (version 
6.05.2600.2180).

Searching on my c:, I found the dll in 2 locations:
c:\winnt\system32\
c:\winnt\RegisteredPackages\{AA936DF4-2B08-4B1F-B071-72192E287704}\

I went ahead and stopped all apps then did:
1. regsvr32 /u c:\winnt\system32\psisdecd.dll
2. copied the new version over the old one.
3. regsvr32 c:\winnt\system32\psisdecd.dll
4. copied the new version over the old one in the 2nd location.

After rebooting, gbpvr no longer crashes!!!

LiveTV (HD) is very smooth with 5-10% cpu usage using overlay manager,
but a little jerky with vmr9 (even though cpu doesn't go over about
15%).

I recorded a show, and playback was unwatchable inside gbpvr. I tried
vlc .8.6b, and playback of the .mpg file was perfect.

I don't understand why LiveTV would work good, but not file playback?

Oh well, at least I'm to a point where I can start mixing and matching
different codecs to try and get good performance.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------
ENDQUOTE

 This all seems encouraging. The KB you quoted only applies to WinXP SP2
(presumably, it's redundent for SP3). Unfortunately, I can't search for
that file on my recently SP3 updated test box on account I've got GBPVR
recording the Autumn watch shows (I managed to get GBPVR to work with
that dual tuner card, but only seeing it as a single tuner) and I don't
want to risk spoiling the recording.

 However, a customer's laptop with SP3, curiously only shows an even
later version of psisdecd.dll in cab files but not anywhere else such as
the System32 folder. This seems rather odd that the file is present in
several update packs from MS but seemingly remains uninstalled. I'll
have a better idea when I can check my bog standard SP3 setup in a
minute or so...

 After editing the recording to finish at 22:30, instead of the 23:30
I'd origionally set in my haste to catch the show (which _was_ scheduled
- damn this GBPVR, although it seems an improvement over the crapware
you get with the tuner cards, it seems to be badly broken in so many
other ways, it's just not real!), I was able to find the latest version
of that file in the system32 folder, plus the version mentioned in that
KB article in the SP2 cab.

 It seems I don't need to download it from off the internet and I've got
an even later version to try (but I suspect that may be a version too
far for my win2k boxes). If this does the trick, I aught to be able to
revert back to DTVR and resume normal service.

 Even though DTVR is rather clunky to use, it's a damn sight better than
_all_ of the alternatives I've tried (inluding the fabulous GBPVR!), so
I'll be quite grateful to be back to my (merely) annoyingly clunky TV
recording software and a decent measure of reliability (fingers
crossed!).

 I'd say that the problem didn't arise in the UK until a change was made
to the broadcast stream on the 13th of September. Prior to that, the
psisdecd.dll worked just fine with its ticking timebomb of an untested
bug just waiting for the day of that change. Hopefully, replacing the
old version with the winXPSP2 (or even the SP3) version will fix the
win2k problem.

 I'll let you know what happens ASAP.
==================================================================

 The final outcome is that, by using the latest SP3 version of that
rogue psisdecd.dll file (it wasn't an "upgrade too far") I now have
normal service with my DTVR application. BTW, my reference to the 13th
was on account it was the last day I'd managed to get complete
recordings.

HTH & HAND

-- 
Regards, John.

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