NBSC Player / Recorder

Software related to NBTV.

Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Steve Anderson » Sun Oct 28, 2018 1:26 pm

Monochrome wrote:Interestingly, MMSSTV is quite old now and almost certainly written for 32 bit op-systems but it runs fine under Win7 64 bit so perhaps Win7 64 bit has backwards compatibility? Des.

I'm running Win 10 and it works fine with both 32 and 16 bit applications. The 16 bit stuff is obviously very old but there has been no further releases for those apps...none are directly related to NBTV...

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:30 pm

Hi Dom, Steve,

Steve A wrote:
[quote]I'm running Win 10 and it works fine with both 32 and 16 bit applications.[/quote]

Thanks for confirming that Steve, that explains why so many of the older bits of software work on the system.

Dom, I followed your advice and had a go at updating Directx but Microsoft are not very helpfull here and from the Microsoft website...

[quote]DirectX 11.0 is included in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. There is no stand-alone update package for this version. You can update DirectX by installing the service pack and update listed below.

DirectX 11.1 is available for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 RS SP1, with Platform Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (KB2670838).[/quote]

So the conclusion would be that so long as I have service pack one and Server 2008 (KB2670838) then I should be able to update Directx to 11.1 but when I check my laptop it informs me I allready have SP1 & Server 2008 (KB2670838) installed so that was a dead end.

But from "Lifewire" website...

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-downloa ... tx-2624489

[quote]Follow the easy steps below to update DirectX in any version of Windows. Installing DirectX will take less than 15 minutes.[/quote]

The instructions direct you back to the Microsoft website for a download ...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... aspx?id=35

I duly downloaded/scanned/installed/run the software and it spent quite some time checking and updating the Directx components after which I re-booted and then re-checked my installed version of directx in dxdiag but it informs me I still have version 11 of directx so I can only concude that possibly this is the highest version my system will currently support?

As requested, here are the screen shots of the output from Dxdiag.

Thanks for spending the time to look into this.

Des.
Attachments
Dxdiag_1.png
Dxdiag screen shot 1
Dxdiag_2.png
Dxdiag screen shot 2
Dxdiag_3.png
Dxdiag screen shot 3
Dxdiag_4.png
Dxdiag screen shot 4
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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby dominicbeesley » Sun Oct 28, 2018 10:23 pm

Thanks Des,

According to this https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hel ... of-directx you should be able to get 11.1 (not sure how much difference that makes) if you have SP1 installed.

Do you have Service Pack 1 installed?

I did a bit more reading on this last night and the next thing to try might be to try running it as Administrator - there may be some permission that is not being granted to the software. [right click on the icon and try "Run as administrator" - I can't remeber the exact rubric for Win 7 and I don't have access to my Win 7 machines]

To answer your earlier question, .Net Framework is not only libraries but also encompasses the compilers (for several languages) and a whole ecosystem of various components that makes developing software a lot easier. Windows is built from a multiplicity of often mutually contradictory components that have been thrown together by circumstances since the late 1970's. Programming them directly can be a challenge. The .Net libraries add a more coherent layer on top of these and take much of the unnecessary complexity away. It's a bit of a lump to download but once its installed it (generally) gives problem free operation. [I develop software for a living and use .Net a fair bit, I've never had problems with .Net itself]

I think the problems here is DirectX which is another layer of libraries that I used - I wish I hadn't. DirectX manages access to sound cards, graphics, 3D capabilites etc. Initially they made developing for sound card stuff seem easier....as for software support they've been awful and they don't really play that nicely with .Net.

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Sun Oct 28, 2018 11:57 pm

Hi Dom,

Thanks for clarifying .net framework, now I understand better what it does and I can see the sound reasoning behind it.

I had no idea Windows was made from so many different "bits" and thought it had been built from the ground up so .net makes a lot of sense under the circumstances.

[quote]Do you have Service Pack 1 installed? [/quote]

Yes I have service pack 1 installed and I had tried running while logged-on as administrator though I have not tried a right click on the icon and "Run as administrator" yet. Would that make any difference if I was allready logged in as administrator? I will try it anyway and let you know if it works.

Cheers for now,

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Mon Oct 29, 2018 3:18 am

Hi again Dom,

With reference to my last post here is a small update.

I have tried running nbsc logged-in as administrator and also by right clicking the icon/properties/run as administrator but the error is still the same.

73,s

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby dominicbeesley » Mon Oct 29, 2018 7:24 am

Hi Des,

Here's another version to try https://authorityfile.net/software/down ... erV1.3.msi

Please could you try this one and see what happens...

D
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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Tue Oct 30, 2018 2:47 am

Hi Dom,

Thanks for the alternative version of nbsc to try out which I have duly downloaded and will try and get it installed this Monday evening.

I have a busy week this week with a funeral and also I am back at the salt mine so it might be Tuesday or Wednesday evening before I have a chance to post the results :-(

With fingers firmly crossed :-)

73,s

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby dominicbeesley » Tue Oct 30, 2018 3:28 am

No problems Des and no hurry.

I doubt that this will solve anything but might hopefully log the problem for deeper investigation.

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:05 pm

Hi again Dom,

The following account might be a bit hard to follow but here goes anyway...

After all the additional work you had kindly gone to in creating another version of nbsc in order to help track down the problems it seemed only fair that I put some additional effort into getting it running here.

I know many people have installed the .net framework and had few if any problems but to be honest that has not been my experience in the past though I may have just have been unlucky? Working on the theory that perhaps the fault is with the .net installation process I decided to look into this further.

I collected together all my Windows based laptops (dont ask) of which only 4 have Win 7 installed. Of those, two of them are physicaly identical and had been purchased at the same time and from the same dealership so I knew the history and use of those machines. The parameters of the two machines are the same as those I quoted in an earlier posting.

Both machines have Win7 but the one I had been using to test nbsc had a fairly recent re-installation of the OEM Win7 supplied on its internal h/disk. The second identical machine I am now testing has Win7 still running from the factory installation done many years ago and has had many installations and removals of software and files. Oddly enough this second machine with a history of intense use and no maintenance has remained very stable and upon installation of your most recent version of nbsc software it worked!

So now I can look forward to reading the extensive write-up from your webpages on the operation and use of nbsc :-)
http://authorityfile.co.uk/NBSC/articles/software.aspx

Its still something of a mystery as to the issues I am seeing but at least I have one machine now able to run the software :-) As an aside, I also attempted to install nbsc on a third machine. The third machine is my "Sunday best" laptop (Acer Aspire) which has had little use and a recent re-installation of the OEM Win7 operating system. In common with the other problem laptops it appears to run other software reliant on the .net framework but not nbsc. The one thing both problematic laptops have in common is the re-installation of the OEM Win7 operating system.

So, we have some distinct progress and (hopefully) some avenues of exploration. I have one more laptop with Win7 installed and just like the one successfully running nbsc it has an original and unmaintained Win7 installation so it will be interesting to see what happens when I put nbsc on that one :-) I will let you know what happens.

One last thing, I attempted to install nbsc on a newer, higher spec laptop running Win8.1 but it informed me that "the installation package was not valid" or something to that effect. Would you expect that to happen for Win8.1 ?

I suspect this posting will raise more questions than answers but its nice to be able to report positive progress and I look forward to running the simulation and feeding the output into a modulator for future magnetic recording experiments.

73,s

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby dominicbeesley » Mon Nov 05, 2018 10:10 pm

Thanks for trying all these options Des,

Please, on one of the machines where it _didn't_ work could you open up Windows Explorer (not internet Explorer) and enter %LOCALAPPDATA% in the address bar at the top that should take you to a directory that should contain, amongst a lot of other stuff, a file named "log.txt" if that file exists it might contain clues as to the problem, please could you open it up and see what it contains and post it up here.

I'm still convinced that these aren't .Net problems but a DirectX problems. To that end I spent a few hours last night removing the dependency on .Net from the application. I'm about 1/3 the way through and by the end of this week I hope to have a version which doesn't use Direct X at all. At the same time I'll try and move it back to using a lower version of .Net so people with Win7 don't have to install .Net 4.6. I've got it working more or less for the player but I need to sort out the recording side. I'll post back here when its ready.

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Wed Nov 07, 2018 4:03 am

Hi again Dom,

Dom wrote:
I hope to have a version which doesn't use Direct X at all.


Sounds good and in the meantime I will copy the %LOCALAPPDATA% results you requested and post them here.

Thankyou for your continued support for this great piece of NBTV software.

73,s

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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Fri Nov 09, 2018 9:50 pm

Hi Dom,

As requested I opened-up %LOCALAPPDATA% folder in Windows Explorer on both of the Win-7 laptops which currently fail to run nbsc. The file log.txt was absent from both machines. In both cases I looged-on as administrator and also selected “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” just to be sure I was seeing everything in that folder/directory.

Just out of curiosity I had a look for the log.txt file in the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder on the 3rd Win-7 laptop which currently runs nbsc successfully but the entire folder was absent from that machine alltogether.

73,s

Des.
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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby dominicbeesley » Fri Nov 09, 2018 10:10 pm

Odd! You would need to be logged in as the same user that ran the software did you run the software whilst logged in as administrator? The local app data folder is different for different users. It would need to be the latest software package too.
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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby Monochrome » Sat Nov 10, 2018 2:16 am

Hi again Dom,

Yes, I was logged in as administrator for both installation and checking for the existance of the log.txt files.

Dom wrote:
It would need to be the latest software package too.


I will check that again that it was the latest version installed.

Regards,

Des.
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Re: NBSC Player / Recorder

Postby dominicbeesley » Sat Nov 10, 2018 2:38 am

You also need to be logged in as the same user as when you got the error to check for the log.txt file i.e. %APPDATA% will point at c:\users\administrator not c:\users\des

Good luck

I'll try and get some time this Sunday to finish the new DirectX-less version. It's more or less working but the recording is a bit jumpy on ScrapeNBSC...

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