Video Stutter with v6

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by Narflex

OK, here's another setting to try. Set this registry value to 0 (zero):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\SageTV\DirectX9\CopyVideoTextures

The value should already exist, so you shouldn't need to create it. I've got high hopes for this one so I'm looking forward to the feedback.

Okay, just using the Superbowl as a sample, this seems to have helped a great deal. Unfortunately I don't remember for certain whether it was CBS or Fox which caused the most stutter, but I think it was CBS. Also, because it was the Superbowl, and I wanted to minimize the chance of stutter, I canceled any other recordings at the same time.

But overall the results were very favorable. Once the recording got to be over two hours long (the point where I'd always have issues before) I probably only noticed five stutters total, rather than perhaps 5 a minute!

What I don't understand is why this change would matter, because I had the same issue with prior versions of Sage. I continue to believe my issue is more hard drive related, and that the solution would be Sage allowing recordings to consist of multiple files like it would with a Fat32 drive.

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by garyellis

So, any way to "dumb down" the resolution...In other words have a 1080i act like a 720p, so that I don't get the stutter?

Gary Ellis

I think if you just set your video card to output at 720p, you will accomplish this. Assuming you're outputting at 1080i, everything gets converted to 1080i, but if you set your output to 720, everything will be 720.

Ignoring stutter, it's probably best to set your output to whatever the native resolution of your display is. But with stutter, I'd probably pick displaying 720p on a 1080i display if it were bad enough. That's something I've considered trying, but I've looked for other solutions instead.

[clmolnar]

I tried the registry key edit that Narflex suggested to try and reduce the micro stutters that I get on 1080i programs from my HDHomeRun, and it seemed to work. However, one of my digital channels (FOX) was coming in with only audio and a black screen and ghosted UI. Every one of my analog channels coming from a Hauppauge PVR-500 were exhibiting the same problem. My other digital channels were fine. This is frustrating as it seemed to fix my problem on the 1080i content!

After changing the registry key back and restarting Sage I was able to view all my channels again.

Carl

P.S. Blade, you and I must have similar hardware, I remember having the same problems as you in the past.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

Unfortunately I don't remember for certain whether it was CBS or Fox which caused the most stutter, but I think it was CBS.

Almost certainly it was CBS. It is 1080i where Fox is 720p. Even my lowly 6200 has no problems with 720P when doing VMR9. It can't handle 1080i video though.

[blade]

Originally Posted by clmolnar

P.S. Blade, you and I must have similar hardware, I remember having the same problems as you in the past.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one. Seems like I usually have odd problems that don't effect anyone but me.

[clmolnar]

My problem is with CBS as well. I actually tested this during the Superbowl since it was so very noticeable during the game.

Is anyone from Sage still looking into this?

[PhillJones]

Those of you using FSE mode, how do you know what your CPU usage is?

I had my first serious stutter since fixing a lack of hardware acceleration issue. I was watching House (FOX, ergo 720p I guess) live. I paused it to do a chore that I'd forgotten, just after the credits about and then restarted.

I was skiping the ads to catch up and then half way through the third segment of the show, 35 mins in or so. It grinds to a halt. It does this thing where it plays for a second slow, then stops and then jumps etc, A stutter if you will. I'd seen it before as a result of CPU spikes from using the sage mpeg bundles decoder.

Anyway, I tried stopping and restarting plaback. I even exited fullscreen to check that it was using the right decoder. I also tried streaming a short segment to HDD using graphedit and played it in WMP, and it was smooth. After the show, I stopped playback and checked NBC, that worked smoothly, so I checked fox again and it worked fine.

This is something I've seen before, HD playback breaks in sage but will work fine in WMP so it's not the decoder, it's sage. In the past I've rebooted to fix it. Maybe just changing channels and changing back will suffice.

Sage has always done this for me, since version 2.

If these problems are setup issues, I sure wish somebody would post the correct way to set it up to work properly.

[cummings66]

It's not a setup issue, it's Sage. You can minimize the problem by doing various things with drivers and the registry mod which helps me, but the problem is still there and needs to be given serious attention.

It worked before and it should work now, I don't know what they did to break it but they need to work harder to get it fixed. At least make reports back here to say where they're at.

This is a released version and they were told before they released it this problem existed. They ignored the reports and now we have a mess where those who didn't beta test it now find they too have problems.

I'm guessing it's now a minority of people who can playback HD with no stutter. You see more and more of this type of report every day and it's simply not acceptable for a release version of a program to have this glaring bug.

They owe us a fix and soon.

[astribli]

Well here is a weird twist. Just for the fun of it, I put in an old Nvidia GeForce4 MX based AGP card with a whopping 32 MB ram. Guess what, video stutters as you would imagine because cpu is running 91-98%, but has been running for 2 days without any lock ups. Obviously the high cpu is because this card doesn't have any horsepower compared to currents cards.

Then did another test and put in the nVidia 6200 AGP card. CPU went down to around 50%, picture smooth, things work fine meaning no spinning icons, no 100% cpu pegged, then locking up. Then installed the latest nVidia drivers and wham, get intermitten lock ups, stuttering, etc.

But here is the kicker. I also had an ATI 9550 card. Removed all the nVidia drivers, put in the 9550. Same relative 50% CPU until I installed the ATI drivers then cpu went down just like with nVidia, but started getting stuttering, lock ups, etc.

What is strange is regardless of video card, I can play video (HD) just fine using Windows Media player, or any of the player software that comes with the video cards.

So what can't sage play these files without any hiccups, when using the latest drivers?

BTW, everything here is High Def (yes, even the old nForce4 card could be used-sort), using nVidia PureVideo, Sempron 3100+, 512MB ram, 300 GB SATA. Tried uninstalling PureVideo and it didn't make any difference using either nVidia 6200 or ATI 9550.

[cummings66]

When you say lockups do you mean your computer locks up and requires pushing the reset button again?

I have never have that issue since I dropped back a driver revision for my DTA150. My computer wasn't happy with the PVR150 and DTA150 both capturing stuff and once I dropped the DTA driver back a notch the lockups went away. Actually it was usually a blue screen, but sometimes a lockup.

[astribli]

I mean cpu utilization jumps to 100% (as if something is in a loop) and because of that, everything freezes. It is almost predictable. When I go to live TV (HD), if don't catch it by returning to the menu, or opening task manager, within a few seconds I can't regain control (lock up). Not a BSOD.

[mikesm]

BTW, it would be GREAT if the Sage folks in 6.1 would create a "use purevideo" check box that would automatically select the proper decoder filters and optimum system configurations for use of purevideo codecs. This will be even more important for use of purevideo's H.264 HD acceleration as that support needs to be built into the codec, and Nvidia doesn't supply one.

Purevideo is used by a large number of Sage users and having an option that selects the right optimizations would be helpful to a large numbers of users. This is currently one of the most frustrating parts of setting up sage and could be so much better.

Thanks,
Mike

[astribli]

I've seen some weird anomalies with Sage and PureVideo. You know how the Pure Video icon in the system tray only shows up when it is active as in SageTV watching live TV using the Pure Video decoder? Well one time I installed Nero as it has it's own decoder and thought I would try it. Strange thing is I selected it with Sage, but the Pure Video icon still showed up. That doesn't make any sense, and maybe that is where part of the problem is with high cpu, stuttering, and other stuff with version 6?

[astribli]

More interesting information that hopefully someone can use to troubleshoot.

The old nVidia based graphics card ran fine for 5 days. No stutters, no lock ups, not one single hitch. CPU was running at around 95% constant because the old graphics card doesn't have DXVA support so the CPU had to do all the work but nonetheless, it worked beautifully.

So, pulled out the old card and put in an nVidia 6200 AGP. Rebooted, Windoze detected new card, and installed nVidia's drivers version 84.21 (yes I know they are older). Voila, stuttering problem and overall click/button response slow. CPU now running around 30%.

Put in latest nVidia 93.71. No difference.

But here is something interesting. While watching a program, using nVidia PureVideo decoder:

1. Right click the PureVideo icon in the system tray
2. Select Decoder Properties
3. Watch the BitRate.

Typically runs somewhere between 10-20 Mbps. But using the newer card, newer drivers, which SUPPORT DXVA, every few seconds, bitrate drops to 0, then climbs back up to 10-20 (this is watching CBS in 1080i.

Any thoughts on why an old video card that doesn't support DXVA, even though it causes 95% cpu, runs perfectly, while newer card that does support DXVA is jerky?

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by astribli

Typically runs somewhere between 10-20 Mbps. But using the newer card, newer drivers, which SUPPORT DXVA, every few seconds, bitrate drops to 0, then climbs back up to 10-20 (this is watching CBS in 1080i.

I noticed this as well. A better way to monitor things is to install FRAPS and watch the framerate go from 60 down to 20 or so, and then back up.

[astribli]

Found some other interesting things.

1. Set Video to Default instead of Overlay or VMR9 within Sage and stutter is gone and bitrate is nice and steady, but cpu runs around 60-70% and picture quality isn't as crisp, looks washed out.

2. Put in old nVidia 84.21 version drivers and everything is smooth, NO stuttering, cpu low (20-30% with HD), and responsiveness of Sage buttons/clicks is speedy!

3. Also, this is a fresh install of Windoze XP and have only applied the windows updates up to and including SP2. I have NOT applied any other patches (Windows Media Player, DirectX,etc.) that may affect it. This runs on a dedicated box solely for HTPC to be used in my house LAN.

I believe the combination of # 2 and # 3 are the reason for success. Sage runs nice and smooth. Picture quality is amazing with no stuttering. Even the responsive of just clicking around changing menus on Sage seems to be way better. In other words - NOW IT WORKS !!!

Here are some screen shots of the various settings.

SageTV Video settings:


nVidia PureVideo settings: (using old 84.21 drivers)


Default Video Decoder


CPU & Memory usage while recording an HD show and playing a different HD show back at the same time.


Windoze Services running (note I have disabled a lot of the standard ones to conserver memory and resource usage, reduce potential for conflicts or errors, and speed things up slightly

• ECS nForce3-a Mother board
• Sempron 3100+ CPU
• 512 MB DDR400 ram
• nVidia 6200 AGP w/256 MB connected via Component to
• Hitachi 16:9 43" projection
• 300 GB SATA drive
• Pinnacle PCTV HD USB receiver (works absolutely fantastic for receiving ATSC which is what I care about most - hey, ATSC over the air is free). Besides, it only cost $99 at Best Buy. Using latest drivers (4.54) which are BDA making it compatible with most everything else and not to mention easy to install!
• Java 1.4 (the one that came with Sage)
• MCE Remote and IR receiver

So, the computer is responsive to everything where as before, using nVideo 93.71 drivers and latest Windows updates, it was slow, stutters, slow to respond to clicks, etc. Now using the older 84.21 versions and NOT any updates since SP2, everything works great !

Hopefully some of you can use this information.

[PhillJones]

which services are safe to disable.

I once went through an online guide as to which services could be disabled to increase performance. I think it was by a guy called blackviper. Anyway, bad things happened. I can't remember what exactly but I remember it being bad.

[mattdcknsn]

astribli, when I was using a geforce 6200 and a 6600 video card I could only use the older drivers from nvidia. Whenever I went up to 93 series drivers I would get SLI errors (on an AGP video card). Once I dropped back down to the 84 series of drivers everything ran smooth. This all changed when I bought a 7xxx series video card. Then the newer drivers made a big (positive) difference.

This happened on 2 different computers. My main PC I upgraded the video card and decided to upgrade the driver too. Bad idea. I reverted back to the 84 series and its been good.

[astribli]

Originally Posted by mattdcknsn

astribli, when I was using a geforce 6200 and a 6600 video card I could only use the older drivers from nvidia. Whenever I went up to 93 series drivers I would get SLI errors (on an AGP video card). Once I dropped back down to the 84 series of drivers everything ran smooth. This all changed when I bought a 7xxx series video card. Then the newer drivers made a big (positive) difference.

This happened on 2 different computers. My main PC I upgraded the video card and decided to upgrade the driver too. Bad idea. I reverted back to the 84 series and its been good.

The odd thing is this only happens with Sage. Other video software like the stuff that came with the Pinnacle HDTV USB Pro stick works great recording and watching HD. Strange combination isn't it?

What is an SLI error?

Thanks for the feedback. Wonder if a lot people that are having these issues with version 6.x of Sage are also using the 6xxx model nVidia boards? Strange thing is I tried an ATI 9550 and had the exact same problem. Personally, I think it is something to do with DirectX but who knows....

[astribli]

Originally Posted by PhillJones

which services are safe to disable.

I once went through an online guide as to which services could be disabled to increase performance. I think it was by a guy called blackviper. Anyway, bad things happened. I can't remember what exactly but I remember it being bad.

Well it depends on what you are using your computer for and what functions you need. I have found out over the years there are a ton of things the average user doesn't need and just listed what services I have running and still have the machine working great with Sage. With my configuration listed above, I am also usine PlaceShifter to stream and watch video, mp3's, and photos to my laptop all studder free. Keep in mind, that my HTPC is used for NOTHING else.