Replay AV issues with Windows 7

[wadio]

Hi all,

This is my first thread on this forum. I love Replay AV -- been using it for several years -- but my switch to Windows 7 late last year has caused some challenges. (BTW, UAC is off.)

In addition to recording, I use Replay AV to stream my personal schedule of talk shows to a radio in the next room by connecting the computer output to a little FM transmitter.

When using Replay AV with Windows XP, I accomplished this by setting each show to record off the soundcard so I could hear the stream at the same time. It worked fine. Once in a great while something went wrong and I needed to reboot the computer.

After switching to Windows 7, things become more difficult. For some reason, I was no longer able to capture off the sound card. I tried an external USB sound card – no luck.

So my work-around was to set up two entries for each show – one to capture directly and one to stream. The streaming entries are set to “No recording” and “Convert to Nothing. This actually has its advantages since I don’t necessarily want to record everything but it’s more complicated and takes more time to set up. Until recently, this system worked pretty well.

Then a few weeks ago a bunch of talk stations switched to “streamtheworld” flash streaming. Since then, the shows that open up in a java browser window sometimes work but often you hear just a blip of audio every few seconds. A reboot fixes it.

As a workaround, I found a utility that automatically reboots the computer once a day. That seems to keep the problem from happening but, since Replay AV opens with Windows minimized to the system tray, the browser does not open automatically and I need to open Replay AV in order to have the show start streaming. That's only with the java streams -- anything that opens a media player window is OK. It seems there’s one hitch after another.

While using the version previous to 8.81, occasionally when I went looking for the Replay AV icon in the system tray it wasn’t there! So I installed 8.81 and that seemed to solve it, but it still happens on occasion. It happened on Tuesday, I think maybe because, due to the Applian server outage, my copy of Replay AV was in the process of trying to convert hundreds of files that it created because it was unable to successfully connect, but I’m not sure.

Today I’ve deleted all the excess files, checked all the URLs, and everything seems to be running smoothly. But what about tomorrow?

I’m wondering if I should stick with my current configuration or maybe dedicate a separate Windows XP machine to Replay AV. Has anyone else had similar experiences?

I apologize for such a long post but I’d appreciate any advice.

Thanks!

[Cheryl Wester]

I'm not sure if the server caused the issue for you or not. We have also had a lot of stations change the way they are streaming and we have been updating our Media Guide as fast as we can.

[stream-recorder.com]

After switching to Windows 7, things become more difficult. For some reason, I was no longer able to capture off the sound card. I tried an external USB sound card – no luck.
What exactly happens when you

click "Shows -> "Add show manually"
select the "Recording" tab
select "Capture by recording audio output"
click "Test methods"

?

[wadio]

What exactly happens when you

click "Shows -> "Add show manually"
select the "Recording" tab
select "Capture by recording audio output"
click "Test methods"

?

Thanks for asking. It's been awhile so I'll have to test this again and report back. I do recall the behavior was different with the USB sound card from the internal sound card.

Meanwhile, can anyone tell me if it's normal for Replay AV to not start streaming when minimized to the system tray? That's the main problem I'm having at the moment. In other words, if a scheduled stream begins while Replay AV is minimized to the systray, there's no sound. When I double-click the icon to open Replay AV, it opens, then the little browser window opens and the streaming starts. The inability to stream when minimized seems to be a new issue with the new java based streams stations are beginning to use.

The problem is, after an automatic reboot, Replay AV starts minimized. Without a reboot, streaming eventually stops (clogged buffers or something.) Is there a way to have Replay AV start with Windows ... but open on the desktop instead of minimized to the systray? That would solve this particular problem.

Thanks

[wadio]

4. click "Test methods" ?
I get the following message:

"No sound was detected on any available Audio Recording Method for this sound card: Microphone - USB audio CODEC*. Please update your sound card driver."

I do, however, hear the test sound while testing.

The USB device doesn't require a driver and the Replay AV Enhanced Sound Card Driver is no longer supported in this version (8.81) so I'm at a loss here.

Thanks

*or ": line in - High Definition Audio" for the internal sound card

[Cheryl Wester]

with Windows 7 it can be tricky as sound drivers are not using all the options. You do need to make sure that your line in is enabled in the sound panel of your computer. Also, when recording audio from the computer you would need to use the Replay aV Audio Driver. With a lot of systems using Vista or Windows 7 what you want to do is not possible.

[stream-recorder.com]

Sometimes it is possible to find drivers for your sound card that enable Wave-Out Mix in Windows 7. What kind of sound card do you have?

[wadio]

What kind of sound card do you have?
Hi stream-recorder,

The internal card is the onboard audio on a Gigabyte MOBO. I've tried a couple of different external USB cards.

Actually I find that capture works fine for recording so, as long as I set up separate shows for recording and streaming, I don't really need to record from the sound card. So let me summarize my specific questions about streaming. I guess my initial post was kind of rambling. :)

Besides recording shows, I use Replay AV as a sort of "automatic tuner" to schedule and stream my favorite shows. This worked perfectly under Windows XP, sometimes running for weeks without a reboot. Now under Windows 7 I have these problems:

1. After less than 24 hours of streaming, all I hear is blips of audio about 1-sec apart. A reboot fixes this until the next time. Any ideas about what might be causing that?

2. Stations using streamtheworld.com (which is apparently Java based) will not begin to stream if Replay AV is minimized, as is the case after a reboot. As soon as Replay AV is open on the desktop, the browser window opens and streaming begins. Is there a way to have Replay start with Windows but not minimized to the system tray?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

BTW, I wonder if Applian ever considered developing an application just for streaming. Something like, "Radio Scheduler" -- lets you program your own virtual radio station 24/7 from thousands of available shows! If simple and easy to set up it could be very useful.

Thanks

[wadio]

It turns out this is not a Windows 7 issue. I dug out an old XP machine, installed 8.81b and encountered the exact same problem:


1. After less than 24 hours of streaming, all I hear is blips of audio about 1-sec apart. A reboot fixes this until the next time.

The problem occurred after switching from a scheduled 5-hour recording to another scheduled recording. When the problem occurred, this time instead of rebooting I:

1 - Closed the Replay player (which Windows said was not responding) and re-opened it -- the 1-second blips continued.
2 - Closed Replay AV, went to the station's website and opened their stream -- it played fine.
3 - Opened Replay AV and encountered the same problem
4 - Went to the station's site with Replay AV open -- this time the stream wouldn't play, just 1-sec blips.
5 - Closed Replay AV and hit the "Listen" button on the station's site again -- now it played fine.

So this sure seems like a Replay AV bug, perhaps related to Java streams, which this one is. When a couple of stations on my schedule switched to "streamtheworld.com," that's when this issue developed.

[wadio]

I guess the lack of response to this thread means that people are mostly using the "Capture by Downloading Stream" method of recording, which works fine in the latest version. But I'm pretty sure there's a problem with the other method. FWIW, here's what I've found.

Replay Player in V8.81 stops working when scheduled to play a series of streams. After awhile it plays only "blips" of audio. I've tested it on a Windows 7 and Windows XP system and found the exact same behavior.

Then I installed v7.04 on the XP machine and suddenly Replay Player worked perfectly!

Figuring that Replay Player in 8.81 is the culprit, I changed the setting in the Windows 7 installation to "Tune by Opening Browser" instead of "Tune with Replay Tuner" and it solved the problem. (Of course, it's necessary to disable tabs in the browser in order to prevent the previous stream from continuing to play at the same time as the next scheduled stream.)

So, for me, the problem is solved. I hope this post will save others from having to discover this by trial and error. I also hope Applian will investigate and correct whatever's going on with Replay Player in v8.

Regards,
wadio

[Nospampls]

Wadio, I too have had the "blips" problem. It's driven me nuts for months, and I've communicated with Cheryl quite a few times over this.

Question for you -- do you happen to be running Outlook at the same time as recording? If so, have you ever tried closing Outlook and finding that the audio returns to normal (but not always)?

[thetalk]

I've always preferred the capture method for several reasons. I don't like a radio show starting up automatically, usually in the middle of a loud shouting commercial, and surprising me. Plus I've found weird problems that come with recording that way, such as gettting other comptuer sounds interfering with your recording. I've found that recording from the soundcard will sometimes shut down the window, and sometimes not, so any subsequent shows are ruined. And if there is silence, it will open another player, so you'll have a show actually interfere with itself. I know you usually want this retuning set to do this so it will reattempt at the start, but I guess it's a balancing act. Also, I usually do not listen to the shows as they're playing. I like to skip through commercials, and even time compress them so I can listen to more and faster. Guess it takes a while to hammer out the bugs, but good to see we can usually get R AV to do what we need it to do!

[Cheryl Wester]

Thanks for the input. Sometimes it is difficult to troubleshoot when we are not able to duplicate your issue. Regarding your blip that you have-I also use Windows 7 and have that when not using AV and always found a reboot handled it.