HDHR stutter / slow-motion

[mangriotis]

I have been through a complete reinstall on Win XP, and am getting exactly the same behavior I had on Vista.

I can sometimes tune one channel via HDHR with no issues, sometimes it stutters severely (similar to Polypro's slow motion comments), both audio and video are stuttering. I have tried the properties change and registry tweak as mentioned in this thread

The previews play fine in VLC through HDHR setup program (on either tuner). However, both live TV and the recorded file stutter badly in Sage. One more note, if I play the stuttering recorded file back with VLC, it exhibits the dropped frames and stutter as it does in Sage.

My specs: Sage 6.10, HDHR 0914, WinXP Pro, Gigabyte 965 DS3 motherboard, Intel Core2Duo 4300 (running at 2.4GHz), Gigabyte GeForce 8500GT, PowerDVD 7 decoders.

I thought that switching platforms back to XP would cure my issues, but this has not been the case.

edit: I did notice two different BDA references in the ignore_encoders line in sage.properties... is that related?

[mangriotis]

Another data point: The HDHR worked great when using the HDHR manager, with the exception of timeline issues. I upgraded to BDA drivers in the hopes this would be fixed, but am now having these issues (which are far worse for the WAF).

I have been using Sage from it's original Beta days in '03, and have started getting the "why don't we just get Tivo?" comments because of this mess...

[Polypro]

FWIW, so far with 6.2.10, HDHR BDA 9/14, making sure all encode_digital_tv_as program stream= are set to true, optimize local client=true, and the NumBuffer reg tweak....I haven't seen the problem...yet

P

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by Polypro

FWIW, so far with 6.2.10, HDHR BDA 9/14, making sure all encode_digital_tv_as program stream= are set to true, optimize local client=true, and the NumBuffer reg tweak....I haven't seen the problem...yet

P

I've searched around, but can't find the NumBuffer reg tweak mentioned here...

[ToxMox]

The reg tweak is mentioned by Narflex in this post:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...1&postcount=15

[mangriotis]

Ok. I have started over again, with Vista (x86 Ultimate). I think I can finally reproduce the problem.

I get corrupted (stuttering, skipping, and artifacting) recordings when 2 HD streams (i.e. both HDHR tuners) are recording and I am watching one of them in Sage before the recording is finished. Last night's example, my wife was watching Ugly Betty (WLSDT), then at 7:30, the other HDHR tuner started recording 30 Rock (WMAQDT). At this point, playback of Ugly Betty started stuttering and skipping. I stopped watching, and waited until 8pm. I tried going back to both recordings and both have the problem.

At 8pm, only one stream was recording (The Office on WMAQDT) -- no issues. I watched this one nearly live.

The corruption is in the file, not just the playback - by this I mean, if I watch the recorded file in VLC, the stuttering still occurs.

This corruption does NOT occur if I don't try to watch one of the recorded files before it's done, meaning if I had let Ugly Betty and 30 Rock record, then come back to it after 8pm, both should have been ok.

I believe this is reproducible. Now the question is, how do I troubleshoot this??

For completeness sake: Sage 6.2.10, HDHR 1006beta1, Cyberlink decoder

[Crashless]

I wonder if your network is getting saturated. What is your network setup like?

IE:
Router->HDHR
|
SAGE

or HDHR->Sage->router ?

Gigabit or 100bt?

Are there any other functions your server is doing? Like file serving, other clients etc.?

[gplasky]

Since you started over again, make sure the drive was formatted in 64K and the DMA is set properly. You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps.

Direct memory access (DMA) is usually turned on by default for devices such as hard disks and CD or DVD drives that support DMA. However, you might need to turn on DMA manually if the device was improperly installed or if a system error occurred.


1. Open Device Manager by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Device Manager.* If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2. In the left pane, click the plus sign next to IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers to expand it.

3. For each icon that has the word Channel as part of its label, right-click the icon, and then click Properties.

4. Click the Advanced Settings tab, and then, under Device Properties, select or clear the Enable DMA check box.

5. Click OK.

Gerry

[sandor]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Since you started over again, make sure the drive was formatted in 64K and the DMA is set properly. You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps.

make sure you have 64k blocks - i just added an HDHR to my 2xA180's and was having similar stuttering issues when 2 stream were being recorded by the HDHR (the A180s were fine, but record to different drives). then i realized i had just done the default format for my new 500 GB drive (4k?) - reformatted it, and all the problems disappeared. Windows/NTFS just doesnt like recording on small blocks (as a data point, my NASLite server has 4 k blocks/ext3 file system and exhibits none of the problems NTFS seems to)

[mangriotis]

I will verify I am using 64k blocks, but I only reformatted the partition containing windows and Sage (I did a quick format and I think this partition is the default 4k block size)... not the recording drives. In fact, they still contain the recorded shows. I have a partition of the local server drive, a partition on the client and a second HDD on the client as recording directories.

I will also verify DMA is enabled for all recording drives.

My setup is:

SAGE Server -- 100BT switch -- HDHR
_______________ |
___________Gigabit switch
_______________ |
___________100BT switch
_______________ |
___________Sage Client (with additional recording drives)

I tried connecting the HDHR directly to the server, but was able to reproduce the issue.... now you got me thinking about where the files are being captured though. Maybe I am saturating the network by recording to drives on the client machine. Is there a way to measure network traffic??

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

My setup is:

SAGE Server -- 100BT switch -- HDHR
_______________ |
___________Gigabit switch
_______________ |
___________100BT switch
_______________ |
___________Sage Client (with additional recording drives)

I tried connecting the HDHR directly to the server, but was able to reproduce the issue.... now you got me thinking about where the files are being captured though. Maybe I am saturating the network by recording to drives on the client machine. Is there a way to measure network traffic??

I'm not sure how to measure it in your case due to the complicated topology, but I guarantee that you've saturated your 100bt switches due to having your drives on your client. Here's the dataflow in a situation where you're watching live TV on your Sage server:

HDHR->Server->Client (to be recorded)->Server (to be watched)

ONE stream of HD is about 20mbps, so in the above situation you're doubling back and forth 3 times, making 60mbps of traffic, adding a second stream of recording puts you right at 100mbps across those 100bt switches.

Can you simplify your setup to just use the gigabit router? I bet that solves your problem. (assuming your server has a gigabit NIC)

All that said...I don't think your 4k block situation is helping either...I would try to remedy whichever is easier first and see if you still have the problem.

[phelme]

Gigabit, gigabit, gigabit. toss the 100 Mbps switches.

100 Mbps routers start saturating at around 33 Mbps and the average HD streams can easily top 12 Mbps. I had all sorts of problems with multiple HD streams until I upgraded the backbone to gigabit switches. I thought it was the disk at first too and still do write incoming HD streams to independent disks because well, it can't hurt. But it was the 100 Mbps switches killing me.

your clients don't necessarily need gigabit connections, but all your networked sources (HDHR, WinTV etc.) and the path to your Sage server should be straight gigabit Ethernet.

another thing based on your diagram. unless you're actually using the router to route packets *within* the house (most people don't need that), I'd move it to only connect to your internet provider connection point (DSL, cable modem, etc.) and a switch, with *nothing* else connected to it. Packets on the same subnet (i.e. 192.168.1.x ) will find their way around the switches just fine and don't need the router at all. The router is to handle all the traffic that can't find it's way around the local subnet, i.e. destined for the Internet. this way you can keep your 10/100 router, but just not route higher speed traffic through it.

oh I noticed one more thing, if you're using those Sage clients as networked drives too, you should make sure they are gigabit capable, connected to a gigabit switch as well. I thought about doing this too, but you should know then that you'll be sending a stream first from the HDHR to the SageTV server and then out again to the networked drive on your client. Even more saturation on your network.

cheers.

[mangriotis]

Ok - Thanks for the help. I think we're on the right track.

I've run some experiments. When recording to the local server drive, no issues while recording 2 HD streams and watching one of them live (on the server). If I record to the networked drive on the client (which has a 100bt NIC), I get stutter (dropouts) when recording 2 HD streams and watching one.

I have temporarily removed both 100BT switches and connected HDHR, Server and Client directly to the Gig switch. (Those other switches are merely to provide hubs for more connections, one in the attic for all bedrooms, and one behind main tv (HDHR, HTPC, Xbox, etc.)). This does not help the stutter in the second situation I mention above. I am thinking I am saturating the 100BT NIC in the client computer... does that make sense?

Crashless - Should I be formatting my drive containing Windows and Sage Server programs using 64k blocks as well?? I thought this was only for the media... I have verified that all recording directory drives are 64k block size.

I can think of a couple of solutions to this. 1. Put all drives into the server computer (which has a gig NIC and is will remain connected directly to gig switch). 2. Put a gig NIC in the client machine.

Further question: Can I specify to have HDHR tuners only record to server drive? Can I make recording directories tuner-specific? I thought I read about this somewhere...

[phelme]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

Further question: Can I specify to have HDHR tuners only record to server drive? Can I make recording directories tuner-specific? I thought I read about this somewhere...

in your Sage.properties file on your server, look for mmc/encoders/[encoder id]/forced_video_storage_path_prefix= in your encoder listings. here you can specify which drive will be used for that encoder.

check this post: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...7&postcount=10

pete

[mangriotis]

Thanks phelme.

I did have a Gig NIC and installed that in the client machine... but it had no effect. The network looked like this:

Server (Gig NIC) - Gig Switch - HDHR
__________________|
_______________Client (Gig NIC)

I finally decided to move the second hard drive from the client machine to the server. I remapped the recording directories. Now most of the recording space (85%) is physically in the server. I have not been able to reproduce the stuttering. This seems to be the permanent solution.

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

I have not been able to reproduce the stuttering. This seems to be the permanent solution.

Glad to hear it!

On the earlier question, you only need your media drives at 64k blocks, your system and program drives can stay at the default to avoid wasting space with all the tiny system files that windows has.

[mangriotis]

Ok... now that we helped me fix that, the only other issue from my HDHR is the freeze after skipping (what I have been calling a timeline issue).

On almost every recording, when I skip (either forward or back, for any length of time) the video will play for a couple seconds then freeze (the audio will continue for a few additional seconds then stop as well). Playback resumes normally when I skip again. This is somewhat repeatable.

I have kind of hijacked this thread as a discussion point for this behavior... anyone else seeing this??

[Crashless]

Sounds kinda odd, I don't see this behavior on my systems.

Does this happen on your client and server? Live vs recorded TV? Have you tried the Microsoft decoders?

I decided to go with the MS decoders based on a thread somewhere around here talking about Vista and HW accelleration. Seems to work really well for me and the quality is indistinguishable from a direct HDTV feed to my TV - actually, it's a little better due to the Noise Reduction on SD sources.

[thatdude90210]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

On almost every recording, when I skip (either forward or back, for any length of time) the video will play for a couple seconds then freeze (the audio will continue for a few additional seconds then stop as well). Playback resumes normally when I skip again. This is somewhat repeatable.

I'm having a similar issue. My recording for the show "Chuck" the last 2 weeks have been ruined by skipping/freezing (tried it on monday, and the rerun on sat) And I think the final file size is smaller than it's supposed to be. Normally a 1 hr show is about 6-7GB, but it came out to about 4GB. And doesn't play correctly in any other player.

But the weird part is that the following show, "Heroes" came out perfectly, even though in the middle of that show, another recording "Samantha Who?" started. Both of those came out perfectly.

Next, I'm going to try and schedule a show right before "Chuck" and see if that helps. (so that it isn't the first show being recorded after being idle)

Btw, I'm using the BDA driver. Tried it with August driver, the 9/14 driver and the latest Oct beta 2. All has similar issues. One thing that is common was the upgrade to Sage to the latest 6.2.10. I didn't have this issue before that.

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

Anyone else seeing this issue with HDHR recordings? All SD material (whether from my PVR-150 or through S-video from my cable box) does not show the same behavior...

This seems to be my last major issue (only major because comskip requires me to actually skip back a few seconds during every HDHR recording to keep it playing... requiring manual intervention and causing loss of WAF).

Wow. Lots going on. Glad to see you're making progress.

Sounds like a codec or a codec settings issue.

I've got both the PVR-500 and an HDHR but run SageTV Client software on my PC for viewing. My AMD 3700 client won't handle VMR9 playback so I've been using OVERLAY with the Intervideo Decoder. I've had no problems with SD or HD playback (unless an antivirus update hogs the CPU).

What happens if you set it to OVERLAY and choose a decoder other than the SageTV MPEG Video Decoder?

I also spent some time playing with the Advanced Settings on the Display Properties, but because I'm running an ATI chip on the motherboard with shared memory it only allowed me to vary the Quality <---> Performance. I'd really need a dedicated video card if I wanted to move away from using Overlay mode.

(Note: I'm posting in this thread to try to keep everything together in one thread)