Help me get started (Older laptop as client)

[Arioch5]

I've recently ordered a PVR-350 card and after looking around I think Sage looks like the program for me. I also have a friend that is running it and very happy with it's stability.

I plan to have a server running that will control sage on my main TV, and an old dell laptop as a client upstairs in the bedroom. I don't have my TV-tuner in yet but I've got both sets of software up and running sharing a DVD that's ripped on the server as well as a few divx files to test with.

The server is a 2Ghz AMD with 1GB of ram and it's doing just fine (outputting video to my monitor for now).

The laptop however I'm going to need a little help on. It's a Dell Insperion 3800 with a 600mhz processor, Radeon M1 mobile, 192mb of ram I believe. I know I previously used it as a dvd/divx player and output the video just fine.

I had the client running both Divx and DVD files streamed over my network (wireless G) last night and I monitored the CPU usage. When playing Divx I ran between 86-100% usage with the occasional video studder when it would hit 100%. On the DVD I actually didn't experience any DVD studder though FF/RW was rather slow (I can deal with that). I've tried a multitude of different filter packs (Nimo, Klight, some all-in-one thing) and all I managed to do was break my DVD play back so the audio doesn't work anymore

I know a faster computer would solve all my problems but that isn't really an option right now (have to get the wife behind sage first). I'm lost in all this 'codec' stuff. I'm sure since my first install out the gate was 'almost' there once it's optimized it should work. So where do I start? Is there a 'codec' guide out there that I just haven't found? Does anyone have advice for the most 'efficient' filters (even if they aren't the smoothest). I'm only doing standard TV no HD stuff.

Here are my guesses so far:

Output video to TV only (turning off the Laptop display):
I think this did help though I didn't watch all of any recording there was a gut feeling that it was hanging less.

Update Video Drivers:
I tried omega drivers since it's an ATI card but I think the card is actually to old. It's the Radeon M1 but the Dell Drivers are all I've been using so far (it does have the ATI controls). Any suggestions here?

Change Codec:
I've tried Nimo, Klight, and some all in one thing. I didn't notice a difference except that my DVD won't play audio anymore. I think this will be the key ... but I know nothing about codec's.

Thanks for the help. I'm hoping to have DVD's and Divx up and running by next Monday when the PVR-350 comes in. I figure if that works adding TV and streaming TV should be a snap

Edit:If anyone has suggestions for reducing windows overhead that might help too. I don't have a virus scan on the client, and I'm trying to keep it to only the necessary files.

[blade]

Personally I wouldn't waste my money on a PVR-350. There are a lot of problems when using it's decoder and if you're just using it for an encoder then it offers no benefits over a PVR-150 or 500 and costs a lot more.

[Arioch5]

I've discovered that but this was actually a gift and I would rather just use it than ask the person to return it for something else.

I just want to get a basic system set up (if you call client + server basic) so my wife will get use to haveing the PVR functionallity. Then I can move up from there.

[Toddly]

You are going to love the ability to watch what you want when you want and the wife ought to like that as well. You get spoiled real fast.
I think that folks have had varied success trying to run a wireless setup. I have about the same powered laptop as you and I could not get the mpg files to play smoothly over our wireless network. I was not running Sage on the laptop but just the .mpgs. You may have better success. I could be the problem with your studder.
I use the Intervideo decoders that came with my DVD software so if you have that or something similar Sage should find it in Detailed Setup. I had less success with the Sage decoders. I have heard varied reports on the forums of the quality of the all in one codec packs. I tended to stay away from those.

Hope that your 350 works out becasuse I have read about some issues with that card.

[paulbeers]

I have used a 766 mhz celeron w/ an original Radeon All-in-wonder and recording off two Avermedia M150's and was still able to get flawless SDTV playback. Now, this was not a laptop but rather a SFF desktop so there are some differences. I would image that your P-600 *SHOULD* be able to be a decent client. Won't be very fast. What operating system are you running on the laptop? I am a little concerned if using windows xp and 192 mb of ram. I actually tried using only 192, and it would studder constantly, but when I bumped it upto 384, it ran flawlessly.

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by Toddly

I use the Intervideo decoders that came with my DVD software so if you have that or something similar Sage should find it in Detailed Setup. I had less success with the Sage decoders. I have heard varied reports on the forums of the quality of the all in one codec packs. I tended to stay away from those.

Yes this laptop does have winDVD on it so I do have the option of using Intervideo. I think they might be a little better than the SAGE ones from my limited testing so far but it's actually very close for me.

As for the All-in-one I went ahead and removed those. I downloaded FDDShow I think it's called and turned off post processing (this is for the Divx not mpeg-2). That actually reduced my CPU usage from 86-100% to 60-90% so I don't see 100% spikes anymore (though it can get close at times)

I think that folks have had varied success trying to run a wireless setup. I have about the same powered laptop as you and I could not get the mpg files to play smoothly over our wireless network. I was not running Sage on the laptop but just the .mpgs. You may have better success. I could be the problem with your studder.

I think this is where I'm finding problems now. I guess I just expected the 600Mhz to be a problem and didn't think about the wireless signal. I've got 3/5 bars of signal on my connection and I have seen it have to re-connect to the server before.

Now I am seeing it studder still even though the CPU is only around 85-90% when it happens. I'm going to try running it with a wire as well as right next to the router. I can't possibly get a wire up to the bedroom anytime soon so I want to test if wireless will work if it's got a VERY strong signal.

Originally Posted by paulbeers

What operating system are you running on the laptop? I am a little concerned if using windows xp and 192 mb of ram. I actually tried using only 192, and it would studder constantly, but when I bumped it up to 384, it ran flawlessly.

I was actually thinking about this myself. I am running Windows XP and the ram is showing around 200mb of constant use. I'm not seeing the Hard Drive light kick on however so I don't know that there is excessive paging going on. Is there any good way to test if a stick of ram would clear this up OTHER than installing a stick of ram? (which I don't happen to have )

Would another OS help that much? Does Sage like Win98? I think thats what came on the laptop long ago... if I can find the installation stuff again. Though I really don't want to have to reinstall from scratch (especially if I can't find the Dell drivers)

[paulbeers]

I don't know myself of anyway to test without installing more ram. When it comes to Sage, you want as little hard drive paging as possible, especially when talking about lap top hard drives. They are so slow to begin with. Unfortunately I have never tried Sage with anything but Windows XP, simply because in order to use my capture cards I had to use windows xp sp2. I would imagine that running windows 98SE would help your cause immensely.

Anyone ever tried Sage on Windows 98SE? How stable is it?

[Arioch5]

Yes if anyone has experience with Sage or specifically Sage Client on an older version of windows please do let us know.

I've seen one other issue that I forgot to mention. The DVD playback seems to be smoother with little or no skipping at all. However, if you ski chapters or do a scene select (rather than just hit 'play movie') it chugs for just a second and then starts the audio but the video stays frozen in place. I've let it run and the video never moves. Sometimes this will lock sage and sometimes I can hit the 'stop' button on my AIW Remote. Most of the time however it's a lock.

This hasn't happened EVERY time... but most of the time. I have had both the Sage and Intervideo decoders skip to the scene correctly before as I tried to duplicate the freeze but that was about 1/8 tries for each decoder. The other times it locked.

So does the second issues sound like network stuff also? (I'll check that tonight) I was kind of ruling out the decoders since both Sage and Intervideo decoder had the same issue.

[Skiier__Dude]

Hi,

I posted my configuration a couple of months back. I use a Dell laptop of almost the same vintage as yours as a client. It works flawlessly:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ht=dell+laptop

New to the forums here and I thought I would make a first post oulining how I got the Sage Client working on an old laptop connected to the TV in the kitchen.

Background: Laptop is an older Dell CPX J750. It has a Pentium III processor with a maximum CPU speed of 750Mhz. It supports Intel's Speedstep technology. It has 384Mb of RAM (max 512) and the ATI Rage Mobility video processor with S-Video out connected to an SDTV. 10/100 PCI NIC connected to my home network. Operating system: XP Professional SP2. FWIW: Server is an AMD Athalon 1200+ running XP Pro, a Hauppage PVR 150, with 384Mb of RAM.

Prior to investigating and making the changes below, video would not get piped out the built-in S-Video output. Then once it did, live TV would be very choppy, audio and video was out of sync at anything greater than "Fair" quality settings (.9Gbps/hr) -- oh and the CPU was pegged to pretty much 100%. The choppy video was only a problem on the laptop as my main home PC would run the video quite well (its only a Celeron 1000 (overclocked to 1152) with 512Mb RAM.

Here are the things I needed to do to get this guy working properly:

1. Install latest ATI drivers from here:
http://support.packardbell-europe.co...20600.asp?c=ap
-- I have found that unfortunately the latest Omega ATI drivers do not work properly. The Omega desktop is incompatible with the system board and the drivers will not load. These ATI drivers work very well for me. They allow you to output the video to the S-Video port (the standard Windows XP driver does not allow this feature unfortunately). Follow the instructions within the README file. Once installed, you can switch between the laptop screen and TV monitor using the ATI Desktop. I have created shortcut keys by pressing CTRL+ALT+T (for TV) and CTRL+ALT+L (for laptop).

-- also, optimized the laptop for "Best Performance" within XP.
Start>Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance -- click Optimize for Best Performance button and then restart system.

2. Install ffdshow from here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm
-- I have found that ffdshow significantly decreases CPU utilization. I have used the latest version 2005-12-21 as the support for MPEG-2 decoding has been fixed.

3. Configure ffdshow:
-- There is a good guide here:
http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_4
-- It's handy to active the OSD within ffdshow so that you can monitor CPU utilization on the fly. Currently I am playing around with ffdshow just with a basic setting. I am using the libavcodec (Codecs>MPEG2) and am currently not running any filters.

4. Configure SageTV Client Codec:
-- Setup > Detailed Settings > Video/Audio
-- I have set Video Renderer to Overlay
-- I have set MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter to ffdshow

5. Configure SageTV Recording Quality:
-- Setup > Detailed Settings > Multimedia
-- I have set Record Quality to Good -- Great is obviously -- better.

So that pretty much sums up the changes I have made.

The results: video and audio run smoothly now with no clipping or choppy frames. CPU utilization is now down to roughly 65-70% while a video is running with the quality set to Good.

(EDIT: Since making this initial post, I have also updated the system bios to the latest release. Why? The newer Bios settings allow more granular control over the Intel Speedstep settings. Basically, I have fully disabled Speedstep so that the processor is capable of working at 750Mhz all of the time (the older version of Speedstep locked it in a 600Mhz). I have also changed the MPEG2 Codec within ffdshow to use the lib2av codec and find that it further decreases CPU use.)

Video and Audio playback are perfectly acceptable. I was considering swapping this laptop out for an MVP but I have absolutely no problem with what I am getting using this laptop with the added bonus of being able to use it to surf the Internet in the kitchen.