WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

The place for discussion about the 4-channel WinterHill DATV Receiver
m0lcr
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:37 pm

WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by m0lcr » Thu Jul 22, 2021 8:58 pm

Today I downloaded whpcviewer v3.20d as a new install on two win 8.1 machines and one win10 machine.
Both w8.1 machines fail to show any streams from W-hill nor batc rtmp://rtmp.batc.org.uk/live/XXXXX streams, W10 does however show just the BATC streams but nothing from W-hill at all.

All machines are on the same network but none allow for more than 4 screens.
Firewalls have all been updated to allow both VLC and whpcviewer and all machines are on the same "wired" network switch too. No wifi is used in this installation. Oddly trying to start whpcviewer.bat as administrator fails completely on both of the W8.1 machines?

My WinterHill software "tries" have included both Winter Hill Anyhub and Anywhere with the same results. The Media streams on Pi/Winter Hill software are all set to udp://9941 to 9944 as expected.
PICs are V3.2 and the Winter Hill software is the latest 202103140
In VLC on the PC inTools/Codec information/statistics it shows no activity at all.
On the Pi there is statistics info when there's an active stream and of course the Pi/WinterHill work fine in local.
I'm told a simple press of 8 or 9 etc whilst the DOS like command info window is selected should allow one to change the number of displayed screens but this fails to work on all of my machines.

The source code states "when the info windeo is selected, commands are:
//@ d display all windows
//@ h hide all windows
//@ s toggle half size display
//@ ENTER quit"

These commands d,h,s, and enter all work fine as does "v" & "cntl c" so does this mean that this version is restricted in some way or is there a hidden command or is it more subtle in that perhaps one needs to have previously used v3.1? or am I missing something else?.

TIA for any help
Vincent M0LCR

g0mjw
Posts: 2332
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:15 am

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by g0mjw » Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:28 am

It looks like you are using Brian's initial version linked from the Wiki that only displays 4 VLC windows. That's why 9 and 4 didn't do anything. I thought Brian had released a newer version. The latest beta version I have is 3.2m. Best ask Brian for it if you need more than 4 windows.

Fixing the non-appearance:

Firstly, I assume VLC works, it clearly does not in the 8.1 machines so it won't work with Winterhill. For W10 make sure the IP address is right. Rob's tuning program is the one to use. Try Wireshark perhaps to check network activity.

Read the Wiki regarding problems and firewalls https://wiki.batc.org.uk/WinterHill_Receiver_Project

Also towards the end of the manual https://wiki.batc.org.uk/images/d/d1/Wi ... a-Rev4.pdf

Mike

m0lcr
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:37 pm

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by m0lcr » Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:35 am

Many thanks for your expert reply.
I'll have a good read of the wiki and manual then ring Brian.
I should've thought of Wireshark in the first place, but I''ll get back on the case again tonight and have another go.

Vincent

m0lcr
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:37 pm

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by m0lcr » Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:04 pm

The combined expertise of both Mike and Brian have sorted the problem.
Used version 3v20k sorted a firewall issue, used Quicktune and Anyhub now it all works even with W8.1

Many thanks, your help is much appreciated.
Vincent M0LCR

Pa3fbx
Posts: 178
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:08 pm

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by Pa3fbx » Thu Jan 06, 2022 1:50 pm

Hi, My problems is solved in the mean time but notice on the forum could help others..
The program did open upto 9 VLC instances but never put them on the right spot organizing a full screen.
Also the command window is nit working at all...

It took a while but Brian discovered that using his program on a non English windows causing this problem.
Apparently the opened VLC window is named differently on various windows languages.
On a native English its "VLC media player" and on dutch windows its "VLC Media Player" (pay attention to the upper and lower case...)

He quickly wrote a work around for my use and now its the number 1 program i start after booting my PC.

The problem is also that i didn't understand what to expect so at first i discarded the program Almost uittil i saw it running somewhere on the stream..

So you could say, never be foold by the first impression.. Thanks Brian.

73es Benno PA3FBX

G4EWJ
Posts: 1359
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2010 10:11 am

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by G4EWJ » Thu Jan 06, 2022 6:56 pm

It needs more changes to be language independent.

Windows programming isn't my area, so maybe I'm doing it wrong. After starting the VLC windows, I need to look through all processes on the system to get the window handles of the VLC windows, so that I can manipulate them and put text into the title bar. I can't just look for VLC in the title bar, or compare the process ID to the one I got back when the VLC window was started, because there are non-visible VLC processes that would match.

Looking for VLC and "://" seems to work. I changed my system to French and everything started properly, even though the VLC title bar initially showed "Lecteur multimédia VLC".

The 16 window version of the viewer being tested (3v20p) has a function where it will receive transport streams from MiniTioune on ports 9981 onwards and redirect them to the usual display ports on 9941 onwards. The TS is monitored for a change of callsign and VLC is reset so that a change of codec doesn't confuse it.

I need to modify that so it will handle the output of LongMynd type systems where TS packets aren't aligned to the UDP data boundaries.

Thanks to Benno for testing the initial fix.

The only official release of whpcviewer is the initial 3v20d 4 window version, although there are several other versions with beta testers.

Brian

Pa3fbx
Posts: 178
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:08 pm

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by Pa3fbx » Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:32 am

Hi, Today i want to raise a new/old issue..
I run the Winterhill with succes on the stream and lots of user are using the results.

Every now and than VLC chrashes... and i need to manual restart or at least accept and continue..
Even worse, some stations keeps crashing my VLC.

I did several test with a certain station (whose name will not be disclosed) and i found that VLC is crashing on all streams coming from portsdown, Winterhill and even Minitiouner.
The strange things is VLC keeps crashing but not OBS running the same stream or any several other stream player i have found.

There is more or less only 1 station who keeps crashing my vlc instances and i even duplicated his settings and encoder type bit by bit and still i am not able to reproduce...

So the solution could be that station needs stopping his transitions but thats rather dramatic and a simpeler solution would be the use of other stream players in the Winterhill viewer...

Has anyone got similar experiences or even solutions?
To state the obvious: yes i am using the latest windows 10 and 11 and the latest VLC versions... Running VLC on different PC's and android tables all having the same problem...

Benno Pa3fbx

g0mjw
Posts: 2332
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:15 am

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by g0mjw » Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:10 am

Hi Benno

If one one station keeps crashing VLC then maybe it is their transport stream being corrupted or something in the Meta Data like a Unicode character like a ij ÿ or similar? Question is, if they record their TS and email it to you, eliminating the DATV section, does it still crash VLC?

Mike

G4EWJ
Posts: 1359
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2010 10:11 am

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by G4EWJ » Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:07 pm

VLC does crash occasionally on Windows, but I find that it's very rare. I use mostly W7Pro64 and VLC64 2.0.16.

Does the station in question repeatedly crash the VLC window after it restarts?

If you'd like to let me know the callsign, I'll keep a look out for them. Do they find that other people's receivers are crashing?

I've seen some stations with odd characters in the SERVICE_PROVIDER_NAME field (F5OEO 0303 etc) which WH does't mind, but it causes a Python program that I use to miss the SERVICE_NAME field (callsign). I have not yet found out why.

Brian

Pa3fbx
Posts: 178
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:08 pm

Re: WHpcviewer multiple screens & stream failure

Post by Pa3fbx » Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:34 pm

Did send you a email brian...

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