Hi,

I've seen various other posts about Recorded TV taking a long time to load in Vista Media Center, but none have any conclusions.

My question is simple - is there a reason why Recorded TV takes so long to load?

If I browse various Recorded TV programmes, or even do an Info on them, when I go back to the Recorded TV list, it takes around 1 minute to display again!

I've even temporarily moved all but one of the files in this folder to a separate folder, but it still takes about 1 minute just to display the one remaining programme.

I've also completely defragged the hard drive, but it's still slow.

This is making VMC pretty much unusable for Recorded TV - has anyone found a solution to this yet? Is there some sort of Recorded TV 'cache' that I can clear?

Cheers

 eno

enoesque73

I've seen various other posts about Recorded TV taking a long time to load in Vista Media Center

Yes, I have experienced the same slow down -- the more DVR-MS files present in "Recorded TV", the slower it gets.

enoesque73

I've even temporarily moved all but one of the files in this folder to a separate folder

I move the files permanently to different folders.  These folders are specified as Media Center libraries (via the library-setup dialogue), but not as "Other TV locations" (in the TV setup dialogue).  With the files in folders defined as MC libraries, I can view them by going to the "Video" section in MC (I am using Vista).  Note: there are problems with the retention of the resume point for partially viewed files in the "Video" section.

enoesque73

but it still takes about 1 minute just to display the one remaining programme.

This is where we differ, as that does not happen to me.  With most of the DVR-MS files moved to other folders, the redisplay of the "Recorded TV" screen returns to normal.  Sorry, but I have no explanation as to why your experience is different.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 Thanks for your response CyberSimian.

I may just move the files permanently to other Media Center folders, but it still doesn't answer the question of why "Recorded TV" folder access has got much slower...

Thanks anyway

eno

enoesque73

why "Recorded TV" folder access has got much slower... eno

Did this behavior just started or has it been getting worse over time?

This is one of the symptoms of WMC trouble and I have found many causes and solutions so far, but only one fail proof.

If you can remember what has changed on your machine prior to WMC acting up (updates, software, drivers or codec install or uninstall, hardware changes...) it might help finding the cause.

 JC

 Hi JC, thanks for your response.

When I first started using VMC the Recorded TV page was very fast, even after a few dozen recordings.

Unfortunately, I can't think of what updates have been applied that means it's suddenly acting slowly!

That's why I asked if there was some sort of cache I could clear, because I really don't want to reinstall VMC.

Cheers

eno

 Well as you may have read on other thread, I have tried a lot of different things to fix the mysterious issues that cause MC to misbehave and the best was to start all over from factory very carefully.  Although there were unrelated unforeseen events that lead to that, such as, my main backup drive (500Gb worth of backups) freezing up on me when I really needed it.

Try moving the recorder storage location to a different drive or partition (non-system).

I have 3 optional updates pending install, that are related to the TV and graphics card that I know will cause trouble so I have not installed them yet.  (as much as I would like to know which one, I don't feel like messing around with it right now)

Do you have codec packs installed? All I have now is DivX from DivX Networks that was part of HP factory install and this plays the AVI video files (downloaded or converted MOV) I have just fine (there is still an issue with the screen saver, so I turned it off).

There are some issues that reinstalling .net framework 1.1 and it's service packs resolved.

None of your restore points will bring some relief? Do you have any back-up images?

 Hope some of this helps...

Hi jcinvan, thanks for your detailed response.

I'd really like to avoid re-installing from scratch, even though I'm pretty sure I've kept good installation instructions.

I tried to move the Recorded TV storage location to different locations, but it didn't speed up the "Recorded TV" page display.  However, very interestingly, even though I'm not watching my original E:\Recorded TV location any more (where I've got around 30 recordings) VMC still found these old recordings in the Recorded TV page!  I scanned through the registry and there's no instance of E:\Recorded TV there - the only "Recorded TV" strings in the registry relate to my new location :-/

I don't have many codecs installed - just ffdshow and haali media splitter.

I don't have .net 1.1 installed at all.

I've also watched Task Manager while Recorded TV is taking ages to load, but it's not doing anything special - the CPU barely gets used. 

Of more interest - the very first time I go into Recorded TV once I've rebooted, it displays instantly.  However, on every subsequent visit, it takes a long time.   It's as if it's taking ages and then something times out...   I don't have any mapped network drives though.

You should change the location in Media Center>Settings>TV>Recorder>Recorder Storage (sorry I should of wrote this earlier). Make sure the is a hidden folder called TempRec inside the Recorded TV folder.  Do you have files other than recorded shows in this folder? I also organize series in their own folders if they have more than 2-3 shows (don't know for sure if that makes a difference, but it doesn't hurt).

Uninstall ffdshow (this is a codec pack) and haali and see if that helps, you don't need that for recorded TV anyway.   The only codec I have installed is DivX from DivX Networks.

 I have 138 recorded shows in my Recorded TV Folder (J:/Recorded TV) and it loads in about 5-10 sec. 

 If none of that works restoring to an earlier point may be the last resort (this is what I did when I had your symptoms)

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, it's been a few months since this happened to me and there was quite a few different issues.

I tried changing the location as you described, but in the registry there were still instances of the old location.

I also tried using TweakMC t change the location, and finally I did a replace in the registry to make sure the old location wasn't referenced.

As you said, I did check that there was a TempRec folder in the new location, which there was.

I don't have any other files other than dvr-ms files in the Recorded TV folder.

I wanted to keep ffdshow and haali because I've got a whole load of other videos (in completely different folders) that need those apps.

Think I will have to try a restore point...

Thanks for your help.

eno

enoesque73

I wanted to keep ffdshow and haali because I've got a whole load of other videos (in completely different folders) that need those apps.

Think I will have to try a restore point...

Thanks for your help.

eno

I also have other video files (AVI) that I play without ffdshow.  You can reinstall it after testing if it's causing the issue or not...

Think I've tried everything now that I can, and spent too much time doing it.  None of my restore points worked and my backups didn't go back far enough.

I've kept fairly good install instructions (wasn't a factory-built - it's home-built) so I'll just need to re-install from scratch and make sure I take more backups.

Only thing now is - if I'm re-installing from scratch, I wonder if I'd be better off with Win7 Media Center!

Thanks for all your help

eno

Sorry to hear that, MC is really hard to fix ounce corrupted for some reason, one been that we can't reinstall it as we would Media Player...

Before you reinstall make sure you backup your settings and schedule using  MCE Backup 2.0  and remember to backup your Firefox bookmarks and saved passwords (let me know if you don't know how).  Also Easy Tranfer to save your personal settings.

I hear good things about Win 7, but have not personally tried it yet, if you have the budget and feel adventurous, I'd say go for it!  Run the Upgrade Advisor to see if your PC is ready for Windows 7.

 Btw:  Got a new 2 Tb yesterday and set it as recorder storage and I did notice that MC remembered the old folder as you said...

Hi

This PC is a dedicated MC, so I don't have any personal files or favourites on it.

jcinvan

I did notice that MC remembered the old folder as you said...

Hmmm, this seems to be the crux of the problem - how to get MC to forget any previously used Recorded TV folders.  I think if I could do this, I wouldn't need a complete re-install!

Thanks

eno

When you "moved" the recorded TV folder did you do it like this:

Within Media Center Settings> TV> Recorder> Recorder Storage> Record on drive: [choose a drive, Max limit, quality]> Save

Media Center creates a Recorded TV folder on the chosen drive.

To removed the folder did you do it like this:

Settings> TV> Recorder> more TV locations> Stop watching a folder> [untick the one to stop watching]> Next> Finish

That had speed it up for me before when I had that problem, but like I said now I have hundreds of shows and movies and it loads in seconds, although thumbnails (little images) show up a little slower 20-30 sec. depending on the amount of files. (I just tried it with 233 shows)

Oversight of me not to make sure you knew this before, my apologies if you didn't.

enoesque73

Hmmm, this seems to be the crux of the problem - how to get MC to forget any previously used Recorded TV folders.  I think if I could do this, I wouldn't need a complete re-install!

If the suggestion from jcinvan does not work, and you are prepared to re-install Windows, then why not try editing the registry, which is where this information is stored.  Open up a command window, type REGEDIT and press the RETURN key.

Once in REGEDIT, use the FIND facility to locate all occurrences of the folders that you want to stop watching.  Then make the necessary changes.  Sorry this is a bit vague, but I don't have access to my VMC system at the moment.

For the MC libraries, there are items called "TrackedFolders".  These are suffixed with numbers from 0 upwards, and there is also a count field.  If you want to edit these, delete the ones you don't want, renumber those remaining (so that the numbers are contiguous), and then update the count item to show the number of tracked folders (if the folders are numbered 0 to n, the count item should have a value of n+1). 

For recorded TV, from memory there is a single item whose name escapes me, but this item contains the multiple folders for "Recorded TV" and "Other TV locations".  Right click the item name and select the correct edit option to make the change.  You need to select the edit option that presents the multiple folders as separate items in a vertical list (one folder per line).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK