SageTV freezes up my computer (sorta) -- HELP

[djseto]

I tried doing a complete Windows re-install (format and all) to fix this problem, but it didnt help. So here's whats happening:

Whenever I am playing video back, my computer pretty much is unresponsive to any other things I try to do (multitasking). For example: If I have SageTV non-full screen and start to play back a video, if I move my mouse across my desktop, it skip and goes very slow. If I click anything, sometimes it responds to the clicks, sometimes it doesnt. As soon as I pause playback, everything becomes responsive and back to "normal" again.

While this PC is primarily going to be used strictly for SageTV, I dont like the fact that I can't even check email while playing back a video. I did re-use the same Sage.properties and Wiz.bin file that I backed up BEFORE I did the reinstall BUT I had no choice because when I reinstalled and went through the Video Source Setup, as soon as I selected my Happauge HVR-1600 card and it tuned in the TV Tuner, everything hung. I could never get my tuners set up because the set up automatically tries to record when you select TV tuner and locked me out of being able to continue my install. Only, after replacing the two backup files was I able to get my setup to even work. Also, if I open a task manager and look at CPU and resource usage before I play a video and when I play a video, nothing really changes. I am barely using CPU and the system is mostly idle. Also, in order to get PureVideo to work, I HAD to run the "regsvr32 /u" command on the SageTV codecs. Selecting default in the MPEG2 setup didnt help and neither did changing the Merits of the NVidia codecs via the directions in this thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23853

Here are my system specs:

- ASUS M2NPV-VM Motherboard w/ NVidia GeForce 6150 integrated video
- AMD Athalon 64 x2 4200 (2.2Ghz)
- Windows XP SP2 (32bit)
- 1 GB DDR2-800 (256MB is dedicated to video)
- (2) 500 GB SATA Drives
- NVidia PureVideo

Since the problem is ONLY during playback, I suspect its video card related, but I never had this issue with MythTV (granted Linux is a completely differnent OS). What sparked me to finally do this reinstall though was after I installed iTunes, as soon as I started MP3 playback, I completely lost control to do anything...non-responsive mouse and keyboard. I really like SageTV and dont want to go back to MythTV or some other DVR software, but this is driving me nuts. If it werent for iTunes music playback, I'd suspect video card, but now I'm just plain lost and frustrated.PLEASE HELP!

[Jeraden]

You might also check what you have listed for audio decoder and try switching it around. I had extreme frustrations trying to get sage to work well when I picked AC3Filter as my audio decoder. It didn't even dawn on me that my audio decoder was what was causing all the issues. As soon as I changed to the sage audio decoder, everything was responsive again.

Not saying this is your problem, but maybe something to look at.

[djseto]

ill try that. it dawned on me last night that this might be audio related and not video related. ill mess around with it

[djseto]

Interesting. So I've narrowed my problem down to my onboard sound. If I uninstall the SoundMAX drivers and let Windows install its generic driver, I can playback audio with no performance problems, BUT my SPDIF output wont work. I downloaded and installed the latest drivers from ASUS and as soon as I installed them, my machine stops responding as soon as I press play in Windows Media Player, BUT my SPDIF works. Any thoughts on what to do next?

[djseto]

The situation got a bit more interesting. If I disable the SPDIF output in my SoundMAX audio preferences, the problem goes away. For whatever reason, using the SPDIF locks my system. I never thought I would miss Linux and my MythTV so much.....help...anyone...bueller?

[djseto]

Yeh..so I solved this problem. Get this:

I damn near pulled my hair out trying to solve this. What was weird is that the Hauppauge remote still worked when my WIRELESS Logitech mouse and keyboard stopped responding when the SPDIF was enabled. I pulled out the WIRED mouse and low and behold, the mouse still worked when the SPDIF was on. So, I plugged the wireless mouse and keyboard back in, sat down on my couch, used the remote to start music playback and BOOM, no mouse/keyboard. For Sh%ts and giggles, I got closer to my PC and it the mouse/keyboard started to work, but I literally had to be like 1 foot away when my couch is closer to 8 feet away. At this point, I knew that the SPDIF was somehow generating some type of interference that my RF Wireless keyboard/mouse did not like. I reached behind my PC and unplugged the digital COAX cable and my range got longer. I then decided to use Digital Optical cable in lieu the Digital Coax cable. Since my keyboard/mouse are RF, I knew using the optical cable would eliminate any RF interference. I still can't believe this was the problem...I wasted so much time on this.

This NEVER happened under Linux in the 6 months i was running MythTV, so I dont know what it is about the Windows that brought this to light.

[yacht_boy]

Thanks so much for this post! I just had a very similar issue--my sound cut out, so I checked the SPDIF connection on both ends by pulling it out and then reinserting it and then I couldn't use my wireless mouse all of a sudden. This was driving me crazy until I read this post. After I'd tried everything else (adjusting audio filters, rebooting the machine, etc.), I recycled the power on my Onkyo receiver and instantly the mouse started working again.

Oh, and of course it turned out that someone else in the house had muted the sound on the computer in a particularly obscure fashion, so all of this was really just a learning exercise!