Can ANYONE at all get this to work: Vista+1080i+Mpeg2 decoder (Nvidia hardware acc.)?

[mkanet]

Thanks for explaining Jeff. I was worried that it might be an Nvidia bug. I'm hoping Nvidia has been notified of this problem instead of hoping they stumble on the problem sometime in the future; since I'm not sure if this happens in any other Windows applications. I will submit a bug report in hopes that the ball will get rolling; if it hasn't started already. I know they are pretty good about fixing bugs in 3D video games VERY quickly.

-Michael

Originally Posted by Narflex

I'm fairly sure you are wrong. Using an ATI card instead of an NVidia card resolves the issue and that has nothing to do with the SageTV Mpeg DeMux. Also; when you insert it into GraphEdit it's not getting configured properly like it would be when SageTV inserts it into the graph. (SageTV configures all the buffer settings appropriately)

When we reproduced this problem it wasn't even using the SageTV DeMux. VMR9 or Overlay were not yielding smooth playback under any configuration in GraphEdit (due to not using DXVA).

All data on this points to an NVidia driver issue. NVidia is still working on updating their drivers to be fully functional on Vista. They even tell you so here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_158.24.html

I'd highly recommend submitting bugs to NVidia on this issue. That will give them justification for putting resources on resolving the issue related to DXVA with Overlay/VMR9 playback on Vista.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Narflex

I'm fairly sure you are wrong. Using an ATI card instead of an NVidia card resolves the issue and that has nothing to do with the SageTV Mpeg DeMux. Also; when you insert it into GraphEdit it's not getting configured properly like it would be when SageTV inserts it into the graph. (SageTV configures all the buffer settings appropriately)

When we reproduced this problem it wasn't even using the SageTV DeMux. VMR9 or Overlay were not yielding smooth playback under any configuration in GraphEdit (due to not using DXVA).

All data on this points to an NVidia driver issue. NVidia is still working on updating their drivers to be fully functional on Vista. They even tell you so here:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_158.24.html

I'd highly recommend submitting bugs to NVidia on this issue. That will give them justification for putting resources on resolving the issue related to DXVA with Overlay/VMR9 playback on Vista.

Jeff, thanks VERY much for participating in this thread. We really need more help from you guys to make HD playback work well on our systems.

Can you explain to us in more detail why you think it's not a Sage issue? The reason I ask is that many Vista apps seem to do HD playback just fine with current Vista drivers and Nvidia hardware. Vista media center users report excellent results with even low end 8xxx nvidia hardware and multiple drivers. There have been some overscan issues, but not the tearing/jerkiness that sage users are experiencing.

Also, what codecs are we supposed to be using for HD playback? The builtin Sage one doesn't seem to work well. Is it supposed to be using hardware acceleration on nvidia hardware or just on ATI hardware? If there is another codec we are supposed to be using, please tell us.

Lastly, a brief scan of the forums will show that many many sage users are having a lot of issues with making HD playback work. I can not find any guidance from you guys on what hardware/software combinations you know work well. I think if you mentioned an officially recommended configuration, many of us would dump whatever and go to it. We just want to make things work.

At a minimum, it would be great for you guys to publish your test hardware/software combinations (card,driver,codec,config), so at least we know those combinations are tested by you to work well when you release new software.

Many of us customers have spent many many hours dorking around our configs to try and get HD playback to work well. We really need some help here from you guys. Any known working configs would save the customer base a TON of time. Not that we couldn't try something else, but this is very hard to get working right, and we are all flailing around a certain amount to try and get to a config that you guys probably have internally.

Please help.

thanks,
Mike

[mikesm]

Jeff or Dan, any comments here on what your test hardware/software configurations are that are known to work? How about specific hardware/software configs?

New threads show up almost every day about folks asking what hardware they should get that makes smooth HD playback work. A little help here would be great.

Thanks,
Mike

[Humanzee]

So what then? revert to XP for a couple of months and wait for nVidia?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Jeff or Dan, any comments here on what your test hardware/software configurations are that are known to work? How about specific hardware/software configs?

New threads show up almost every day about folks asking what hardware they should get that makes smooth HD playback work. A little help here would be great.

I don't believe there will be a recommended set of hardware because with a wide open PC platform, there are other configuration issues that can make it work OK on one system & not another. If the hardware worked for a setup at SageTV, but not for others, people would wonder why it was being recommended. Plus, it makes SageTV appear to be saying that one type of hardware is best, causing some people to think their hardware won't work well at all.

- Andy

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't believe there will be a recommended set of hardware because with a wide open PC platform, there are other configuration issues that can make it work OK on one system & not another. If the hardware worked for a setup at SageTV, but not for others, people would wonder why it was being recommended. Plus, it makes SageTV appear to be saying that one type of hardware is best, causing some people to think their hardware won't work well at all.

- Andy

I think those are all good reasons why a disclaimer should be put around the recommendations, but to give people absolutely no guidance when there is a huge amount of confusion on getting proper HD playback to work is a far worse situation.

Surely you aren't saying there isn't a lot of confusion and frustration in the customer base on this topic? If not, then how about a little help here. Jeff said the nvidia drivers have issues and the ATI cards work, so I'm trying to figure out what exactly that means, and how someone who is putting together a system is supposed to decide what to buy.

The hardware specs listed on the website provide no help here.

If you don't like my approach of asking you to help the customer base deal with the problems, what approach would you recommend to deal with all this confusion and wasted time?

Thanks,
mike

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mikesm

If you don't like my approach of asking you to help the customer base deal with the problems, what approach would you recommend to deal with all this confusion and wasted time?

I don't know... all I know is that there isn't a recommended hardware setup. And, I don't even use HD or Vista, so I have no personal experience to base HD or Vista comments on.

Since this is a user-to-user forum, you could see if SageTV's tech support has any more info to offer about getting various cards to work better, or if they need someone to run any tests. I just wouldn't post questions on the forum that are directed towards SageTV and expect that you will get a reply, because the people at SageTV don't monitor the forum. I'm the only one who does that -- as an admin, not as tech support, so I try to offer comments only on things I might know something about.

- Andy

[mikesm]

Fair enough. Maybe we need a thread where people can share their working configs? I'll start one shortly... Maybe folks having troubles can all send email to sage support and see what they say about configs and post in that thread too.

Thanks,
mike

[mkanet]

Normally, I wouldnt make such a bug fuss if I couldnt get this to work on a home built Frankenstein PC. But...

I just spent >$3500 on a brand new (and very popular) HP Pavilion Media Center PC which comes with Vista and and a good Nvidia card. All the parts on this system were WHQL certified with respective drivers and tested to work with Vista MCE without any issues right out of the box. Its very frustrating to see a machine this popular and well built not work with sageTV ...correctly.

-Michael

Originally Posted by mikesm

Fair enough. Maybe we need a thread where people can share their working configs? I'll start one shortly... Maybe folks having troubles can all send email to sage support and see what they say about configs and post in that thread too.

Thanks,
mike

[mkanet]

Im gong to bump this thread up just to be a thorn in sageTV's side to fix this problem.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Im gong to bump this thread up just to be a thorn in sageTV's side to fix this problem.

Maybe the right thing to do is punt on Vista and move to XP... Can you play HD-DVD and such under XP?

Thanks,
mike

[mkanet]

Hi Mike, I can't do that. I use my Vista machine a lot more than just sageTV. All rare and unusual hardware/software work great under Vista except for SageTV; including my R5000 drivers and software. SageTV is the only software I have that doesnt work right under Vista. I use PowerDVD to play HD-DVD and Blue-Ray ...and now my R5000 movies via Vista's EVR. Bottom line is SageTV needs to start supporting Microsoft current OS better. The excuse of Vista being new with buggy device drivers can only be used for so long.

But thanks for the suggestion anyway.

Originally Posted by mikesm

Maybe the right thing to do is punt on Vista and move to XP... Can you play HD-DVD and such under XP?

Thanks,
mike

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Hi Mike, I can't do that. I use my Vista machine a lot more than just sageTV. All rare and unusual hardware/software work great under Vista except for SageTV; including my R5000 drivers and software. SageTV is the only software I have that doesnt work right under Vista. I use PowerDVD to play HD-DVD and Blue-Ray ...and now my R5000 movies via Vista's EVR. Bottom line is SageTV needs to start supporting Microsoft current OS better. The excuse of Vista being new with buggy device drivers can only be used for so long.

But thanks for the suggestion anyway.

If the did a good job of supporting EVR, they could ship a compatible codec that had full HD acceleration support, like MSFT's, Cyberlink's, Intervideo's, Nvidia's, etc...

This would also be a first step in support additional HD format's beyond MPEG2.

Sage needs to deal with it or they should stop saying Sage supports Vista. At least clarify which hardware and codecs work well with what hardware.

Thanks,
Mike

[mikesm]

PS I've ordered an ATI HD 2400 low profile card for my cheapo dell X2 system that came with Vista. I'm going to try the cyberlink decoders with it and see if it works well for MPEG2 HD playback. If so, I'll put a Vista entry in the sucessful settings thread.

If not, then I'll probably scrap Vista off the system and reinstall XP.

PS Some folks have reported shutting the Aero interface off helps with GPU performance during HD decoding on Vista. Michael, you might try that and see if it helps any.

Thanks,
mike

[White94Cobra]

I did a fresh install of Vista last month, along with a fresh install of SageTV (only copied my wiz.bin) and the latest drivers for all of my hardware. After fighting with crashes every other day for three weeks, and putting up with the constant spinning icon, I finally reinstalled XP and Sage. It hasn't crashed since and I rarely see the spinning icon. WAF is slowly coming back up.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by White94Cobra

I did a fresh install of Vista last month, along with a fresh install of SageTV (only copied my wiz.bin) and the latest drivers for all of my hardware. After fighting with crashes every other day for three weeks, and putting up with the constant spinning icon, I finally reinstalled XP and Sage. It hasn't crashed since and I rarely see the spinning icon. WAF is slowly coming back up.

Managing WAF is a big deal. I always debug hardware in my workshop and only when running well put it into production. You need 1 extra set of client hardware, but it's always worth it...

Also, if you were having all these troubles with Vista, did you email Sage and report the problems? Did they give you any answers? I sure would love to know their test configurations for Vista - what's turned on, and what's turned off, as well as hardware and codecs, though it sounds like you were having SD issues as well.

Thanks
Mike

[thetedinator]

Core2duo, 8600GT, Windows Vista

When I DS Manager, I don't see any of the Nvidia SW. I see my Cyberlink codecs, SageTV, etc but not nvidia.

Vista said everything was up to date but I installed the Nvidia 163.69 WHQL package anyway.

I still don't see the Nvidia SW.

Anyone have any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,

Ted

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by thetedinator

Core2duo, 8600GT, Windows Vista

When I DS Manager, I don't see any of the Nvidia SW. I see my Cyberlink codecs, SageTV, etc but not nvidia.

Vista said everything was up to date but I installed the Nvidia 163.69 WHQL package anyway.

I still don't see the Nvidia SW.

Anyone have any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,

Ted

Sounds like you're confusing the nVidia video card drivers with the nVidia decoder software. Latest nVidia decoder version is 4020.236.0.0.

My nVidia video card drivers are 163.76 and would NOT show up in DS Manager.

Gerry

[DVRHope]

I just ran across this thread. I've been working for days trying to get my HDTV PC system running - at all, and then running well. I haven't succeeded.

I have Vista Premium Home, the Hauppauge HVR-1600 card, the Nvidia 8500 card, and a Pentium Core 2 Duo E2140 (1.6GHz). I'm using SageTV software.

I've read lots and tried many different settings and drivers as recommended on these boards. I'm still left with jerky motion and lost frames - completely unacceptable performance.

This thread suggests the problem is an inherent incompatibility in the hardware, firmware and operating system. That's just great.

Any new solutions to this problem?

Thanks,

Les

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by mikesm

PS I've ordered an ATI HD 2400 low profile card for my cheapo dell X2 system that came with Vista. I'm going to try the cyberlink decoders with it and see if it works well for MPEG2 HD playback. If so, I'll put a Vista entry in the sucessful settings thread.

If not, then I'll probably scrap Vista off the system and reinstall XP.

PS Some folks have reported shutting the Aero interface off helps with GPU performance during HD decoding on Vista. Michael, you might try that and see if it helps any.

Thanks,
mike

You want the Aero desktop ON and FSE mode OFF for smooth video playback in Sage.