Digital Audio Service errors on machines with Emuzed Maui TV tuner cards
We have identified a root cause and a fix for one of the sources of Digital Audio Service overlay errors that happen after installing Update Rollup 2 for Media Center 2005. There are some Dell Media Center systems that shipped with Emuzed Maui TV tuner cards and contained drivers that were still going through the Windows Hardware Quality Lab (WHQL) certification process. The manufacturer of these tuner cards, formerly known as Emuzed and now known as Lumanate, has released updated drivers for these tuner cards that have been certified by WHQL. The Media Center team here at Microsoft was contacted by a fellow employee with a system like this at home, and he reported to us that installing these updated drivers caused the Digital Audio Service overlay to stop appearing on his system.
If you are running Update Rollup 2 for Media Center 2005 and seeing Digital Audio Service overlays, you will first need to determine whether or not you have an Emuzed Maui TV tuner card in your computer by consulting your system specifications or by using the Media Center Diagnostics Kit. This class of tuner appears with the name "Angel" in the Windows Device Manager and the Media Center Diagnostics tool.
If you have one of these tuner cards, you will then need to determine the correct make and model and download the relevant updated driver package from the Lumanate Angel driver site and install them.
Please note - this is only one possible root cause. There are other cases that we are still investigating for folks who do not have this brand of TV tuner.
I hope this helps resolve some of these issues for folks seeing the Digital Audio Service overlay problem. I apologize for the hassles that this has caused and for the time that it took us to locate this fix.
<update date="12/3/2005"> Added clarification that the tuners that can cause this issue are named "Angel" in Device Manager </update>
Comments
- Anonymous
December 02, 2005
Thanks for following up Aaron. I installed the latest Angel driver during my troubleshooting and this is probably what "fixed" my system as I can now record and playback TV in Media Center. However, I cannot playback videos recorded between the time I installed UR2 and prior to applying this updated Angel driver. During my troubleshooting, my "test" was to play a recorded show that caused (and still causes) the Digital Audio Service message to appear, so I incorrectly assumed that my system still wasn't working.
Hope this makes sense. If not, let me know and I'll explain further.
BTW, would it help if I sent you a DVR-MS file that causes this message to appear? I assume you would see the same behavior if you played one of my files on your system. I assume it has something to do with the way the file was created while recording. If so, let me know.
Greg
greg_gibbs@REMOVETHISPREVENTSPAMyahoo.com - Anonymous
December 02, 2005
Hi Aaron,
I was already running with the latest Luminate drivers; they did not solve the problem. Interestingly though, all this made me install Rollup2 again this evening (as I had previously uninstalled it so that I could watch my shows). Many of my shows on hand played without a problem. Very old shows (from October) to very new shows (from today) played fine. I had upgraded the Luminate drivers around 11/25. However, I did find at least two programs, recorded on 11/25 - 11/26 that did cause the "Digital Audio Service" message to be displayed.
One more thing: I installed Rollup2, rebooted, then went back to Windows Update which had an optional update for Rollup2, which I installed (don't know the id number, sorry). But in Add/Remove Programs, there was only "Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center 2005" listed. No mention of an update to that. I swore I had seen another entry back when I had updated to the latest, so I went searching and found http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908250, "Update Rollup 908250". This was not available from Windows Update; I had to search for it myself. I have not yet installed this update, yet the "Digital Audio Service" message is displayed for a couple shows. I think this is the update that caused the "Digital Audio Service" message to be displayed for all shows that I had recorded. In short, I strongly believe the problem is made worse after installing this update (and why is it not available from Windows Update?), but have no proof, and anyway, the problem occurs even without this update.
Like Greg, I can send you one of the files that displays the message. It's about 2 GB long.
I've also sent you this message in a private e-mail.
Thanks,
David - Anonymous
December 03, 2005
Hi Aaron,
Upon further reflection, I believe I am experiencing the exact same problem as Greg Gibbs. We are both getting the "Digital Audio Service" message when playing recordings made by Media Center with Rollup2 and the OLD Emuzed drivers. Both Rollup2 AND the old encoder drivers are necessary to generate recordings that instigate this message.
Those who have said that upgrading to the new Emuzed drivers have solved the problem have probably only tried playing back recordings made with the new drivers. Of course, upgrading encoder drivers has no effect on recordings that have already been made. Could you therefore, when requesting more info of the problem, ask for details on which drivers were active during the recording?
Also, recordings made by Media Center prior to Rollup2 and the old Emuzed drivers play fine after Rollup2 is installed. However, there is still a root issue of Rollup2 not playing back recordings made with older drivers. To solve that, I repeat my offer of sending you a 2 GB clip that reproduces this issue, either by FTP, or by snail mail.
All these comments are regarding Rollup2 + Windows Update fix, but NOT "Update Rollup 908250".
That 908250 is another unknown. I am afraid to install it, because I believe it causes the "Digital Audio Service" message to occur with more clips, although I haven't played with it enough to say that for sure.
Thanks,
David - Anonymous
December 03, 2005
I found a "workaround" to play the files causing the Digital Audio Service error within Media Center. I use an app called DVREdit to remove the commercials. After editing the files, DVREdit creates a new file with only the video segments you want to keep (without the commercials). These "edited" files work fine in Media Center. You can find DVREdit at www.thegreenbutton.com. It takes a little getting used to, but it is pretty simple.
I wonder if other editing software like WinDVD Creator would have the same results?
Hope this helps!
Greg - Anonymous
December 04, 2005
Greg, perhaps the edit program synthesizes the missing frames when it creates the file without commercials! BTW, VideoReDo is getting some good publicity in the microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter newsgroup.
Aaron and I have been conversing through e-mail; the summary is, I think you hit the problem square on:
---
Recordings made with: MCE2005 without Rollup 2 + old Emuzed drivers
Playback correctly on: MCE2005 w/ Rollup 2
---
BUT:
---
Recordings made with: MCE2005 w/ Rollup 2 + old Emuzed drivers
DO NOT playback correctly on: MCE2005 w/ Rollup 2
---
Something happened in Rollup2 to prevent MCE from making good recordings using the old Emuzed drives. I'm sending Aaron a bad recording so they can analyze.
At any rate, at least we can watch shows recorded after updating the drivers.
Cheers,
David - Anonymous
December 07, 2005
Hi Aaron,
I am experiencing the same issue discussed here but I checked my system and found that I have a TV tuner card named "Emuzed EvcapMaui Device" and not Angel. My system is a HP 854n Media Center PC. I have Update Rollup 2 + the Update Rollup 908250 on my system.
I guess Angel might not be the only card to have this problem? I have checked HP's site and have not found any updates for the TV tuner card.
Do you know of any others that are having the same issues?
Thanks in advance,
Rupak Ganguly - Anonymous
December 07, 2005
Hi,
I searched the Emuzed site and found this page http://www.lumanate.com/maui.htm that lists the latest drivers for the Maui I family TV tuner cards. I will try and install these and post the results. Fingers crossed...
Thanks,
Rupak Ganguly - Anonymous
December 16, 2005
I have an HP 864n with the Emuzed Evcap Maui card. Everything worked fine until I updated to Rollup 2 and then no live tv or guide and lots of errors. It has been over a month and no fix that I have seen from HP, MS or Emuzed(Lumanate)
What's the deal? It's a good thing I don't rely on this system for anything important. Please post any other fixes or updates seen. Thanks. - Anonymous
December 16, 2005
Hi Eric - I am not sure from your comment whether or not you tried to install the updated drivers on the Lumanate site (http://www.lumanate.com/angel.htm). If you haven't checked there for updated drivers, can you please try that and see if it helps here? - Anonymous
December 17, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
December 19, 2005
Hi Eric - can you please zip and send me the log files listed at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/10/16/481689.aspx so I can try to take a look and see if I can figure anything out from them about why your system is getting these errors? - Anonymous
December 28, 2005
Wow, thanks so much for this information! I just spent over 6 hours on the phone (on and off) with the Dell support department. While waiting for them to call back the next day - I decided to Google the error message. I was able to solve the problem myself in a few minutes with your information.
Thanks again! - Anonymous
January 01, 2006
Was on the phone with Dell with this problem today. They wanted me to pay then $100 to help me with this because they said it was NOT a hardware problem.
Shame on them!
15 seconds on Google and I found your post.
Thanks! - Anonymous
January 17, 2006
Hi,
I have the same problem as Eric. Just bought my dell comp, MC was workin fine (TV etc.) but now this stupid "Media Center Receiver Service" error keeps comin up, and when i stop it via control panel->admin tools->services... it doesnt seem to want to let the Live TV work, saying that there is no hardware for the tuner!!!! madness... if som1 could help... awesome.
Matt - Anonymous
January 21, 2006
Hi Matt and Eric - can you please try to use the steps listed at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/12/27/507654.aspx to resolve the Media Center Receiver service error? Hopefully this will help, and I apologize for the hassles here. - Anonymous
February 06, 2006
We have found another possible root cause of Digital Audio Service overlays in Update Rollup 2 for Windows... - Anonymous
April 05, 2006
Thought I'd share what I know in exchange for what I've learned here. I hadn't realized that there was a problem with my Dell 8400 MCPC until today, when I ran into the "Digital Audio Service" overlay when I called up a recorded TV program to watch on my PC.
Thanks to Google and you people, I won't bother pulling my hair out over this. I've installed the latest drivers for my Emuzed (Angel)PCI Dual tuner card and I'll probably be going to find a copy of DVREdit soon.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to watch the programs on my (Linksys WMCE54AG) Media Center Extender that I now know I cannot watch directly from my Dell. I thought the Linksys was buggy, but I'll be happy I have that (and I won't be installing any Linksys firmware updates) until I get through the 60+ hours of Recorded TV that I've recorded since I did the Update Rollup2 to my PC.
Thanks for the knowledge. - Anonymous
April 24, 2006
A couple of months ago, I posted an item about Digital Audio Service errors that can be caused with Update... - Anonymous
May 28, 2006
Dell now seems to be AHEAD of the Lumanate web site with driver versions. The version available on Dell's site for the Angel2 is 1.1.2.37 from Feb-2006, but the latest on the Lumanate web site is 1.0.3.06 from Nov-2005. - Anonymous
May 28, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
July 30, 2006
PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/articles/487537.aspx - Anonymous
November 04, 2006
This article serves as a central location for all links to troubleshooting documentation that has been