HD Transcoding Choppy on MVP and Conversions

[dmiraclejr]

I received my new MVPs from Newegg this weekend and have noticed that the shows recorded with the SD tuner playback fine on the MVP but those recorded with OTA HD tuners play back very choppy (audio is fine however). This same problem also occurs with HD video that has been converted to other formats via the V6 conversion routines and played back on the server or clients.

I believe that it has to do with the SageTVTranscoder.exe settings. I realize I could record everything in both SD and HD as a workaround but what a pain and a waste. By reading the forum it appears that most other MVP users can play back transcoded on the fly, HD material fine.

My E6300 C2D/1GB server-client hits about 50-60% when transcoding the choppy HD for the MVP to play, so I think I should have enough horsepower to get the job done.

Anyone know of some tweaks/settings to get the HD video to play back smooth on the MVP (and for video conversions in V6)?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[ybrew]

would love an answer to this too.

Just moved to HD. Can't watch it because the playback through the MVP is too choppy. My CPU (AMD XP2000) pegs at 100% with SageTranscoder.exe when watching HD material.

Anything to help would be GREAT.

[AngelofDeth]

An Athlon XP 2000 is not nearly powerful enough to transcode HD to an MVP.

[ybrew]

I was afraid of that.

I guess I need to seriously consider a PC upgrade in the near future.

[bcjenkins]

If you can be patient for the HD Extender, you may not need to replace the CPU

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

If you can be patient for the HD Extender, you may not need to replace the CPU

oops, yeah. Of course you're right.
I can be patient. I've waited this long.

[garyellis]

stated on this forum that the HD extender is due out in 2Q 07...

Gary Ellis

[ybrew]

I'm going to continue to record in HD & SD, at least until I get cable installed.
Recorded Prison break in both. The SD Recording was pure snow. Brand new PVR500 so that's not the issue. The HD recording was fine. I was able to watch it back on my laptop without any hiccups. The motion wasn't as 'fluid' as it should be, but there was no stuttering at all. Laptop is a dell latitude D820 (Dual core Celeron, onboard video).

[dmiraclejr]

I really appreciate all the sympathy everyone but......

Does anyone have a solution to the stuttering problems of a more than capable server when playing transcoded HD material on a Hauppauge MediaMVP? I also think a MVP solution would fix my stuttering HD video conversions and Placeshifter in SageTV V6.

Again, any solutions?

Thanks.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by garyellis

stated on this forum that the HD extender is due out in 2Q 07...

Gary Ellis

If Hauppauge stays true to their reputation, it will be out by 2010 at the earliest with bugs worked out by 2015

[fidget]

Originally Posted by joe123

If Hauppauge stays true to their reputation, it will be out by 2010 at the earliest with bugs worked out by 2015

From what I have seen, I don't think this is a Hauppauge device.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by joe123

If Hauppauge stays true to their reputation, it will be out by 2010 at the earliest with bugs worked out by 2015

It's not from Hauppauge.

Gerry

[mattdcknsn]

I've been having the same problem with HD to MVP. Not good at all. My server should be more than adequate. My connection is through a powerline, very good strength. SD and boot times are fast and great. Whenever I try and play an HD file it gets choppy, every 3 seconds it stutters. I have not tried to transcode an HD file, I'll give that a shot tommorow.

I dont know what else to try to get this to work. Any ideas?

[Diginerd]

a faster server.. sorry for the bad news..

I have a dual 2.4GHz xeon which presents as 4 cpus. It has the same issues with judder to the mvp playing hd, exactly as you describe.

I swapped out the server to being an athlon 64 3500 oc'd a little and now hd on the fly transcoding works great. with the likes of your and my xeons they're buikt for capaity, not single threaded performance..

[BBCritical]

Originally Posted by Diginerd

I swapped out the server to being an athlon 64 3500 oc'd a little and now hd on the fly transcoding works great. with the likes of your and my xeons they're buikt for capaity, not single threaded performance..

So if I have an Athlon64 3700+ 2.4Ghz CPU w/ 2.6 Gig RAM it should be able to handle steaming the HD to my MVPs?

[dmiraclejr]

But should not a C2D E6300 with 1GB DDR2 800 memory be good enough? I specifically spent the extra money on my server build over a single threaded AMD Athlon processor because I new I would be using at least two MVPs and transcoding HD to SD.

I sent my logs to support the day before yesterday and I am waiting for their reply. I'll post back when I know something. I wish the HD extender was out now and I could just go ahead a buy two assuming it could output SD until I upgrade the secondary TVs in the house to HD sets. Oh well, cant wait that long.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by AngelofDeth

An Athlon XP 2000 is not nearly powerful enough to transcode HD to an MVP.

I don't have HD yet, but am starting to think about upgrading. I have a 60 inch standard projection TV and the 60 inch HD screens are still pretty expensive now...

Would a system based on one of the new dual-core CPU's have enough horsepower for HD? If so, which dual-core CPU would be enough power? Or, would a system with two dual-core CPU's be needed?

Dave

[ybrew]

So how do I prevent an MVP from attempting to play HD? I'm recording HD content and using my laptop as a client (works pretty well actually) connected to my projector.

HD to the client laptop is good. I want other clients/MVPs to not even attempt to watch HD (attempting to do so nearly locks up my server).

what's the easiest way to make HD unavailable to all but my laptop client?

[zoso]

Originally Posted by dmiraclejr

But should not a C2D E6300 with 1GB DDR2 800 memory be good enough? I specifically spent the extra money on my server build over a single threaded AMD Athlon processor because I new I would be using at least two MVPs and transcoding HD to SD.

I sent my logs to support the day before yesterday and I am waiting for their reply. I'll post back when I know something. I wish the HD extender was out now and I could just go ahead a buy two assuming it could output SD until I upgrade the secondary TVs in the house to HD sets. Oh well, cant wait that long.

I have a qx6700 in my server, and the core(s) doing the transcode(s) regulary goes over 80% when handling HD. I never see a stutter though. Don't know if you are comfortable with overclocking, but the C2D chips are seeing large margins easily and you may just be a few 100 MHz away (if the problem isn't something else.)

[zoso]

Originally Posted by davephan

I don't have HD yet, but am starting to think about upgrading. I have a 60 inch standard projection TV and the 60 inch HD screens are still pretty expensive now...

Would a system based on one of the new dual-core CPU's have enough horsepower for HD? If so, which dual-core CPU would be enough power? Or, would a system with two dual-core CPU's be needed?

Dave

The sage transcode is only single thread. This means that unless you are running other transcodes (or other cpu intensive activities) at the same time, it is not going to matter how many cores you have.