Old Sage user may be coming back

[pgman]

I've been away on a year-long trip with Windows VMC. I had so much trouble in the past trying to get SageTV to play HD programs smoothly, that I gave up and jumped ship. I've been basically happy with VMC for the last year, and I think I even figured out what was causing my stuttering playback - it was the video card (a GeForce 7600GT). Despite the fact that this was a highly recommended video board for HDTV playback - even here on the SageTV forums, it just didn't cut the mustard in my system. Even with Windows VMC, it stuttered some (not nearly as bad as with XP / SageTV, though).

Since I got an 8600GTS, it's been smooth-sailing with Windows Vista Home Premium. HOWEVER, I am starting to have some issues with my Vista system and digital rights management. Three times in the last two months, I've been un-able to watch programming that I was time-shifting or recording for later viewing. I am getting a "Restricted Content" error - basically my video and audio stop and all I can see on the screen is this windows error message telling me that the broadcaster has decided that they don't want me to watch this program on this computer.

At this point, I am considering coming back to SageTV and Windows XP, but I am wondering if this is going to keep me away from all the DRM crap (or is this a driver / decoder issue inherent to the video hardware I have?).

Can anyone shed any light on this - even point me to another thread so I can try to understand what is going on?

I am running what is now a rather old system, but it works and has been very reliable. Will this system still run SageTV?

The details are as follows:

Vista Home Premium with SP1 and VMC as my PVR
Pentium D processor running at 3.2GHz
800MHz FSB
Dual channel DDR2 memory (2GB of it).
AVermedia A180 (we only watch OTA television)
I have "AnyDVD" running so I can watch my DVDs at the same resolution as my HDTV.

[Brent]

You will have no problems with DRMd TV airings with SageTV regardless of what the broadcasters flag their shows.

[pgman]

You will have no problems with DRMd TV airings with SageTV regardless of what the broadcasters flag their shows.

Thanks for the response, Brent - this is what I figured. Would this apply regardless of which OS I use? If so, I might try to put SageTV on my existing Vista system first (before I go and buy another HDD and re-load XP. Also, do you know what (if any) services I need to stop to make sure that VMC is not trying to run in the background?

[Brent]

Yes, this is true regardless of which OS you put SageTV on.

For a great switching from VMC/MCE to SageTV guide (mentions which services to turn off) check out this thread

[pgman]

Well, I loaded it up this evening and it pretty much works. I have a couple more questions, though.

The playback isn't quite as smooth as it was with VMC, but I am (for now) attributing this to the fact that I haven't re-formmated my DVR drive with 64kb clusters. Could this be the difference between completely smooth playback and jaggy, digital-looking playback? I would not call it a stutter, but just a digital, jerky (almost imperceptible) motion. This seems to change the most when I change audio renderers, oddly enough. I am doing all this on my Vista OS, by the way - I decided not to go back to XP. Also, I am using VMR9 rendering and FSE enabled.

The picture quality is not quite what it was with VMC, and I am not sure I am using the correct video decoder. I settled on the "Default" one, figuring that would be the same one that VMC was using. It seems that this gives me the best quality picture, but I am still not sure it's quite as good as VMC's picture.

The program guide doesn't seem to be picking up on all my stations. I can tune them in just fine, but there is no data showing in the guide. This means that "House" is not going to record tomorrow evening (which would probably cause my wife to throw me out).

For now, I am going to let VMC do its thing because I haven't quite gone through the whole process of disabling VMC. I don't want to do that until I am very sure that I want to go back to Sage. I must say, however, that I already like some of SageTVs features and its positive, responsive interface. It is much more efficient that VMC in terms of how you navigate around the menus.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by pgman

Well, I loaded it up this evening and it pretty much works. I have a couple more questions, though.

The playback isn't quite as smooth as it was with VMC, but I am (for now) attributing this to the fact that I haven't re-formmated my DVR drive with 64kb clusters. Could this be the difference between completely smooth playback and jaggy, digital-looking playback? I would not call it a stutter, but just a digital, jerky (almost imperceptible) motion. This seems to change the most when I change audio renderers, oddly enough. I am doing all this on my Vista OS, by the way - I decided not to go back to XP. Also, I am using VMR9 rendering and FSE enabled.

The picture quality is not quite what it was with VMC, and I am not sure I am using the correct video decoder. I settled on the "Default" one, figuring that would be the same one that VMC was using. It seems that this gives me the best quality picture, but I am still not sure it's quite as good as VMC's picture.

The program guide doesn't seem to be picking up on all my stations. I can tune them in just fine, but there is no data showing in the guide. This means that "House" is not going to record tomorrow evening (which would probably cause my wife to throw me out).

For now, I am going to let VMC do its thing because I haven't quite gone through the whole process of disabling VMC. I don't want to do that until I am very sure that I want to go back to Sage. I must say, however, that I already like some of SageTVs features and its positive, responsive interface. It is much more efficient that VMC in terms of how you navigate around the menus.

There are many reasons why you could be getting jerky playback. It very well could be the fact that you are not using 64k clusters on the recording drive. Also what are you using for a vid card?

As for video decoders, some like the Sage stanard which is what the standard is, but others prefer the Nvidia or others. The video decoder can make a world of difference in quality and smoothness of video playback, so you may want to try others.

As far as the program guide. You may want to try other show lineups. In my setup, for some reason if I use the "digital OTA" line up for my digital channels, Zap2it gives me all "No Data", but if I use "Locals OTA" then all of my channels are found with all guide data. See if there is another line up that works. Unfortunately this isn't a Sage issue, but a problem with their provider. Otherwise if there are no other options for channel lineups, send a bug request to Sage and they will go bug Zap2it.

[pgman]

Thanks again for the info. I am using the nVidia 8600GTS right now, with an analog computer monitor connected to output 2 (as an extended desktop) and my HDTV connected to output 1 (primary) via the analog component out. I want to switch to DVI for the television, but I am going to get the software thing figured out first.

I haven't messed with the resolution and 3D settings on my video driver yet (which is the latest driver for Vista) and, as I recall, the driver settings for 3D performance and monitor setup (dual monitor peformance mode versus single monitor peformance mode, etc.) had a very significant impact on playback quality (when I used Sage the last time). I am going to pick up a new HDD and get that right, too. I don't want to lose the programs I have saved (there aren't that many) and I didn't want to reformat my DVR drive until I knew that Sage would work properly on my system. At some point, I am going to want to try and import my VMC programs over to Sage, but that's another project. Can anyone tell me how to make sure I format the DVR drive with 64kb clusters in Vista? Is it the same process as in XP?

I will try the trick you said about the guide, Paul. I appreciate that. I am using "digital broadcast" right now, but I will try the "Local" one this evening. What is nice about Sage is that I get all the sub-channels again, AND Sage found about 19 more stations than VMC ever did (though some of those are Spanish-speaking).

[ghostlobster]

For decoders in Vista, my recommendtion would be to start out with the MS audio and video decoders. There's a section in the Conversion guide on how to enable them in Sage.
I don't know how it'll work with the nVidia card, but with my ATI, the AVIVO decoders are excellent as far as picture quality goes. They are a little unstable within Sage at times, so I've reverted to the MS decoders. For .mpg they are rock solid and stutter free.

[pgman]

I have been reading here about the MS decoder - sounds like that is maybe the best one???

I am probably going to enable th MS decoder, but I found some settings last night that seem to work really well. There is one decoder (the Sage one) that will let me enable the DXVA acceleration (perhaps it is enabled by default with the others, like nVidia??). If I use that decoder and then tell the de-interlacing to do "double refresh rate", the playback turns silky smooth and the picture quality increases to a point where I'd say it was real close (if not right on par) to what it was with VMC. This is all with the Sage renderer, by the way, and I still havent re-formatted my DVR drive to 64kb clusters (that will happen this weekend).

I wish I understood more about how this worked. I am learning, to be sure, but it is not as fun when you're just trying things - knowing a little about what you're changing makes it a whole lot less intimidating.

My EPG issue seems to have remedied itself (mostly). I changed the lineup to "Local Broadcast" and things got worse (I lost most of the program information) but, when I switched back to "Digital Broadcast" and rescanned, most of the channels suddenly had data. There are still a few that don't, but those are mostly sub-channels and little independents that I don't watch anyway. In fact, I might just delete them from the grid.

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think I am ready to completely disable Windows VMC at this point. Sage seems to be working pretty well this time around - I guess I should have tried a new video board a long time ago.

At this time, I'd like to ask one more question. I've been away (from Sage) for over a year and my last key code was for a much earlier 6 version. Does anyone know if this code will still unlock Sage, or did a miss a paid update sometime in the last year?

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by pgman

At this time, I'd like to ask one more question. I've been away (from Sage) for over a year and my last key code was for a much earlier 6 version. Does anyone know if this code will still unlock Sage, or did a miss a paid update sometime in the last year?

See http://store.sagetv.com/Merchant2/me...tegory_Code=SS

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by pgman

I've been away (from Sage) for over a year and my last key code was for a much earlier 6 version. Does anyone know if this code will still unlock Sage, or did a miss a paid update sometime in the last year?

See the license note at the bottom of the downloads page.

Since you said you already have a v6 license, you don't need to purchase a license upgrade... unless you meant to say "much earlier than 6 version".

- Andy

[pgman]

Okay, I did some more work on this over the weekend, and I think it is mostly working now. The PQ issues seem to be related to the de-interlacing and rendering settings. Currently, I am using the "Default" renderer and the SageTV decoder. DVR drive is re-formatted (64KB clusters) and playback is pretty much acceptable, with only occasional glitches that I think are related to television signal levels (I am in a fringe area with a mediocre antenna).

I did have to update the video driver to the most current (from the nVidia website) to get smooth playback, though. Also, Java updated itself and I am not sure if that is a good thing.

When I am watching a 1080i source (NBC / CBS) with high action, my CPU usage is around 28-33% and a little more than half my RAM is in use (I have 2GB installed). My next question is, is this normal? Also, since I think I am going to stay with SageTV from this point on, what type of system should I build for the next hardware upgrade (this system is four years old and pretty much at a dead-end in terms of upgrades)?

Finally, I have had a couple of instances where I've been watching a show and doing basically nothing else, and my screen suddenly turns white. The program audio continues un-interrupted and the only way to get any video back is to start the task manager (ctrl/alt/del) and either crash SageTV or just minimize it and then maximize it again. This glitch also happens sometimes when I try to minimize SageTV when it is playing (exiting FS mode). Any suggestions as to what this might be?