Webcasting Software Crashes & repeating video with Win 7

We just got a new HP desktop with Windows 7 Home Premium so we can start webcasting from the Stake Center. When I go to configure the picture, it crashes and I have to reload/login again. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, I downloaded a short video into the system to test the ability to insert videos into the webcast and it worked fine except when the video ended, it immediately jumped back to the beginning and started playing again. I know I can use Windows Movie Maker and tag 10 seconds of black at the end of the video to give me time to switch to a camera feed but I was wondering if anybody had a work-around for repeating video?

Kent A. Russell
Muncie Indiana Stake

kentgwen wrote:We just got a new HP desktop with Windows 7 Home Premium so we can start webcasting from the Stake Center. When I go to configure the picture, it crashes and I have to reload/login again. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, I downloaded a short video into the system to test the ability to insert videos into the webcast and it worked fine except when the video ended, it immediately jumped back to the beginning and started playing again. I know I can use Windows Movie Maker and tag 10 seconds of black at the end of the video to give me time to switch to a camera feed but I was wondering if anybody had a work-around for repeating video?

Kent A. Russell
Muncie Indiana Stake

when you say you try to configure the picture, what are you doing? Are you trying to set up the capture card to work with the video or what? I know that I can't start a webcast without having a sound source, but not when I configure the picture. I'm wondering, now, if the Expression Encoder is having a difficult time recognizing your capture card. That is where I would check first because if it isn't recognize there or having problems there, then the webcast software won't work anyway because it runs on top of it.

With repeating video, are you using Windows media Player or another Player? if so check to see if the player is setup with repeating turned on.

When encoding a video the software loops on the video by default. Your best solution would be to add black at the end as you suggested.

When I click the settings tab at the top to establish the resolution (according to my bandwidth capacity), I click apply and then OK and the software crashes. OK, I'm at home now so I don't have the computer in front of me. Of course, this old warhorse Sony VIAO I'm on now has XP and I just tried it andi it worked just fine. I have wondered if actually reformatting the HD on the new computer back to XP would be appropriate since the computer is dedicated to webcasting only.

OK, don't anybody log into CDOL and contact my Stake President to tell him to put me in charge of the parking lot at stake conference. I really got burned with Vista and I'm a little gun shy about W7. I realize XP has its problems, but I KNOW what they are and can work with them. Anyway, I was wondering if anybody else had the software crash in this manner.

Thanks.

I have used the software (both V2 and V3) on Windows 7 Professional x64 and (knock on wood) everything has worked as designed.
I have also used the V2 and V3 software on XP (32 bit) without any issues.

Aaron Z

I've used version 3 beta on Windows 7 home X64 and it worked like a champ.

I just ran into the exact same problem kentgwen did on a computer I run at home for testing. (Others I've had no problem with.) The software loaded and ran perfect until I tried to change the resolution from the default "Med" to "High", then it instantly crashed when I pressed "OK". After several more attempts to find some sort of a workaround, I discovered you didn't even have to change anything in the settings. Just open the settings screen and press either "OK" or even "Cancel" and it would crash. This also happened after several reboots, uninstall/reinstall, with and without input devices attached, etc. At no time did it ever NOT do this. Here's the info from one of the error messages...

Meetinghouse Webcast has stopped working

View problem details...

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: lds.cm.meetinghousewebcast.ui
Problem Signature 02: 3.0.1.101
Problem Signature 03: 4de6a0c2
Problem Signature 04: Lds.CM.MeetinghouseWebcast.UI
Problem Signature 05: 3.0.1.101
Problem Signature 06: 4de6a0c2
Problem Signature 07: 1d1
Problem Signature 08: 0
Problem Signature 09: System.NullReferenceException
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Each time it crashed it also left three Error entries in the Applications Event log that I can post if someone wants the info. (One is quite long.)

System info...
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64, SP1, fully patched
MB: MSI P55-GD85
CPU: Intel Quad-core i5 760
RAM: 16GB DDR3

In my case, I traced it down to a Winnov video capture PCI card driver that I had tried to use. The card and driver worked fine for other apps, but somehow caused the Meetinghouse Webcast software to crash every time the Options screen was closed. Uninstalling the PCI card and driver, then uninstalling/reinstalling the Meetinghouse Webcast software resulted in the same error in the same place. I tried many things to shake the error, but finally gave up.

The Winnov card is now in the capable hands of those who wrote the webcast software, so they can hopefully find the cause of the error and do their magic. I don't expect the card to be added to the compatibility list, but I would like to get it off the "hostile" list.

I too have the same problem with the webcast software crashing. If I open the settings and just click "ok" or "apply" without making changes it crashes. The webcast runs with the default settings but looks horrible, very bad interlace on the video. I just built this system specifically for our stakes webcasts and it is more than a little discouraging to have the webcast software constantly crashing. Vital systems spec below. Any help would be appreciated.

Core i5-2500K 3.30 GHz Quad Core
4 GB DDR3 1333
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Aver Media AVerTV HD DVR capture card PCIe x1

What finally solved it for me was to simply reinstall the Roxio USB capture device and the problem went away. Amazing. I fought that thing tooth and nail and it was actually solved by our High Councilman over this technology, who didn't realize the PC was experiencing any problems.

I took the Roxio device home and installed it and the driver on my test PC there (which was experiencing the same software crashing problem) and sure enough, it fixed it there too.

Hopefully the development team can take this knowledge and create a fix for future versions, so if a card is not compatible, it will simply flag it as such.

I share the same type of experience with the Webcast version 3.
In addition there is a drop in video resolution from version 2 to version 3 of about 30%. In testing with a USB and PCI video interface and a Sony EVI-D70 camera, the S-video signal clearly degrades when using version 3. This is done with the same computer, plenty of bandwidth and a round trip through the video server. The CPU load is about 75% under version 3 and 85% under version 2 hinting to me that some bits are being thrown away. GSC tells me that version 2 is no longer supported but will run OK on the system.

quintonrhq wrote:I share the same type of experience with the Webcast version 3.
In addition there is a drop in video resolution from version 2 to version 3 of about 30%. In testing with a USB and PCI video interface and a Sony EVI-D70 camera, the S-video signal clearly degrades when using version 3. This is done with the same computer, plenty of bandwidth and a round trip through the video server. The CPU load is about 75% under version 3 and 85% under version 2 hinting to me that some bits are being thrown away. GSC tells me that version 2 is no longer supported but will run OK on the system.

What resolution were you running in 2? What resolution are you running now?

Aaron Z

The nominal resolution is 640x480.
The video card is a Video Advantage PCI which has done a few webcasts for us. Everything is S-video oriented. The frustration with version 3 is the inability to change parameters with this card as well as the USB interface so the default mode is it.
I don't know how many actual lines are coming through but I placed a resolution test card in front of the camera and version 3 gave me 10 lines (nominal) resolution and version 2 gave me 14 lines with the same setup.
Webcast would not let me install both versions at the same time so version 3 was uninstalled.

At the risk of further personal embarrassment, I can shed some light as to what I think is going on.

First, the Video Advantage PCI video card is unknown to the webcast version 3 software and defaults to the standard configuration which is 320x240. Webcast version 2 can work with this card.

Second, the webcast version 3 setup has a network speed option table. The calculated bandwidth recommendations are calculated as twice the sum of the constant bit rates for the audio and video from the profiles folder. These are interesting to examine. If you are using a DSL connection with a 1.5Mbps rating then it is logical to avoid settings above that threshold such as the high4x3 profile at 1.7Mbps. Selecting the medium or low 4x3 profile however will constrain the display to a 320x240 image. Using the high 4x3 profile does produce a 640x480 image.

The version 2 high profile at 640x480 claims a need for only 450Kbps.

After calibrating my resolution chart, it is clear that I was seeing a 320x240 image. The system does truly deliver a 640x480 image when correctly fed.

As an aside, the USB interfaces seem to need more CPU cycles to capture video images than a PCI card which may account for greater frustration in getting them to work.