I think I have narrowed down my HD stutter to just NBC broadcasts

[m1abrams]

Ok so I use to think that all HD programming stuttered on my machine when in VRM9 mode. However after noticing that NBC shows were incorrectly reported by SageTV as 720p. I have noticed that only NBC HD shows stutter, and that all of them seem to stutter. I have fixed the 720p bug by applying the TSsplitter fix posted to one of my other threads. However the stutter continued.

My setup:
Athlon X2 3800+
Radeon 2600 Pro AGP (applied pretty much all the updates and patched including the reg hack)
1.5 GB memory
HD capture from HDHomerun 20071015 connected to Comcast cable.
num_buffers set to 80
Using Cyberlink decoders
VRM9 with FSE on.

So what should I do to further find a fix? What program can I use to analysis the video files to see if the problem is with the file (i suspect it is).

Could this issue be a bug with HDHomerun?

Also I use to be able to run in Overlay mode without stutter, however in an attempt to fix stutter I reinstalled the ATI drivers and since then Overlay no longer works for me. I get sound but no video regardless of the decoder used. Any ideas as to why Overlay does not work anymore?

[GTwannabe]

ATI cards don't play nice with FSE... try turning it off.

NBC-HD is broadcast as 1080i @ 30fps (over QAM, at least) instead of the correct 1080i @ 60fps. Try changing the deinterlacing/3:2 pulldown/Inverse Telecine settings in the Catalyst control panel. It's possible the card is deinterlacing the 30fps interlaced stream into 15fps progressive. Start FRAPS before running Sage to get a framerate counter.

Also, if you have Cool 'n Quiet enabled in XP, that can be a problem. The CPU will spastically switch clock speeds, instead of settling on an appropriate speed for the CPU load. I use SpeedswitchXP to manage clockspeed.

[m1abrams]

Thanks for the response.
I have CoolnQuiet disabled, I learned awhile back that it caused more problems than it solved.

I will try turning off FSE, however when I played with that off in the past I would get very bad tearing.

I will check the deinterlacing setting. However note that other stations that broadcast in 1080i also report 1080i@29.97fps and they play smoothly.

Transferring one of the problem videos to my workstation and will try videoredo on it to see if the problem is in the video or not.

[m1abrams]

Ok played around with the deinterlace settings in ATI Control Panel. It was set to Motion, changed it to Vector it that was slightly better. Then tried Adaptive and that seemed to give the best result.

Used my wife as a test subject and she agreed that on Adaptive the video looked best. I think I might still have a slight bit of stutter, but that could be in my head after watching the same seen over and over and over again. Will test a fresh show (Heroes) in a bit to see if I notice any stuttering.

P.S. Have not run FRAPS to see my fps, do not have it installed on the HTPC. Will do that tomorrow, ran out of time before the wife required the TV back.

[jwillsey]

Where i live, I used to get quite a bit of studder with my hd homerun as well.

My signal strength in the hd homerun utilities seemed good (2 bars from full strength)

I showed it to the cable guy and he said he could add an amp. (a whole lot better than the radio shack variety BTW)

This cleared it up.

stuttering is gone and I have full signal strength with the hd homerun utilitiy.

[sixdoubleo]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

Ok played around with the deinterlace settings in ATI Control Panel. It was set to Motion, changed it to Vector it that was slightly better. Then tried Adaptive and that seemed to give the best result.

Used my wife as a test subject and she agreed that on Adaptive the video looked best. I think I might still have a slight bit of stutter, but that could be in my head after watching the same seen over and over and over again. Will test a fresh show (Heroes) in a bit to see if I notice any stuttering.

P.S. Have not run FRAPS to see my fps, do not have it installed on the HTPC. Will do that tomorrow, ran out of time before the wife required the TV back.

Are you sure it's not a bad recording? (as in my case) I used VideoRedo to look at the videos. By opening and then re-saving the video, I found I could measure the number of input errors, which was directly proportionate to the amount of stutter I thought I had. Furthermore, by watching the stuttering sections frame by frame in VideoRedo I was able to determine that my problems were on the recording side.

Stutter with one channel, but not with another suggests variations in the source.

[m1abrams]

I ran it through Video Redo (have trial so only 15 minutes) and it did not show any errors. I then played the same video on the sage box and it had the same effect as the original.