Is it time to upgrade again? Take a look at my system..please

[Fluffdaddy]

I'm getting really bad audio and video shuttering of late. My cpu use is in the 85-95% range and forget comskip..............and I love comskip

The shuttering on the audio is like an audio tape being played back at a to slow of a speed. Video is a small jerk every 10 seconds or so. I have video or audio problems, either or but never at the same time.

Hardware

CPU AMD XP 2800+
Vid card: AGP ATI 9700 pro
Ram:1GB DDR400 Memory
Five Tuners 3 PVR-250's and 2 Avermedia AverTVHD A180
windows xp pro
nVidia decoders
Sagest 5.2.0
Hitachi 65" RP CRT @ 1920 x 1080i,


Now I'm not sure but maybe my shuttering started when I replaced my 720P DLP with my new Hitachi outputting 1080i to it.
Going back to 720P is out of the question

Is my rig unpowered to run 4-5 tuners recording at once @ 1920 x 1080i with Comship doing it's thing in the background ?

Time for more Ram or faster CPU ?

what do you guys think

thanks

[paulbeers]

Is it always studdering? What if nothing is recording? Does it still studder?

The tuners shouldn't be taking that much from your resources. I am not sure how good the 9700 Pro's are at outputting 1080i though. I use a 754 pin Sempron 2600+ with a geforce 6600 in overlay with no problems. Of course this is just a client machine with those specs and no recording whatsoever.

Are you using FSE?

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Is it always studdering? What if nothing is recording? Does it still studder?


Are you using FSE?

1)If recording one,two or even three turners for SD content there is no studder. But if I try to add OTA HD recording this will bring it to its knees most times

2) Comskip running in the background is a killer no matter what.

3) My ATI card does not like FSE. Every now and then I get a Black screen and have to restart sage. So no I don't use FSE

It not an all the time thing. I can watch for hours with no proplem. But when it starts the only way to stop it, is to reboot sage software. Then the cpu % drops and everything is great.

The more I think about it the more I feel it was the jump to 1080i that my studdering problem started. Maybe I will drop down to 720P and test this out

[BobPhoenix]

Have you thought about turning your system into a recording only server and build a new client with better specs for HD playback? That would be my suggestion since your current system will work fine for a recording only server. You should be able to run ComSkip as well.

BobP.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Have you thought about turning your system into a recording only server and build a new client with better specs for HD playback? That would be my suggestion since your current system will work fine for a recording only server. You should be able to run ComSkip as well.

BobP.

You know that past though my mind last night as I was eating dinner. My client in the bedroom and my MVP playback studder free always.
hummm...... this may be the ticket to fix my problem
Thanks

[paulbeers]

What do you have your hard drive formatted to? 64kb sectors? What about DMA turned on? All of these would also help with CPU utilization. I personally would recommend switching to a client server setup. I would image your current system would be able to handle play back of HDTV especially in overlay. Also, if you have a 1080i HDTV, you do not want to use 720P. The best option is to always use whatever the native resolution is to get the best picture otherwise your tv will have to convert everything to its natural resolution and that can affect the quality.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Have you thought about turning your system into a recording only server and build a new client with better specs for HD playback? That would be my suggestion since your current system will work fine for a recording only server. You should be able to run ComSkip as well.

BobP.

I went with the recording only server game plan. Now everything is nirvana in the playback department.
thanks


More money more money more money

[insomniac]

the server/client setup is the way to go. You also get the benefit of almost "never fail" recordings. Because we all know that 90% of crashes are due to playback/codecs. Mine sits headless on the cool garage floor and serves "nirvana" all day long to my clients!

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

I went with the recording only server game plan. Now everything is nirvana in the playback department.
thanks


More money more money more money

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by insomniac

the server/client setup is the way to go. You also get the benefit of almost "never fail" recordings. Because we all know that 90% of crashes are due to playback/codecs. Mine sits headless on the cool garage floor and serves "nirvana" all day long to my clients!

Well after 3 days everything looking good. Now I got to read up on how to get comskip working on clients. I seen a few thread about it, and hoping it's not time consuming. I like to sit down and watch some trouble free tv right about now