SageTV and Hauppauge HD PVR Setup?

[Ralphjb]

I might get flamed for this, but I can not find a simple how-too on installing the Hauppauge HD PVR with Sage. Maybe it is that easy (haven't tackled yet) but was hoping to do some reading prior to installing.

Is there such a document?

[Chriscic]

Just install the HD-PVR and included software, then install Sage. The HD-PVR will show up in the list of available tuners. Be sure to select "Component + SPDIF" if you're using an optical connection and the lastest HD-PVR beta 5.1 capable drivers.

[Ralphjb]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

Just install the HD-PVR and included software, then install Sage. The HD-PVR will show up in the list of available tuners. Be sure to select "Component + SPDIF" if you're using an optical connection and the lastest HD-PVR beta 5.1 capable drivers.

That easy. Ok. Want to set some time aside. I already have SageTV installed (long time user), but I assume once installed, the HD PVR will show up as a source option?

Thanks,
Ralph

[bhyman1]

Originally Posted by Ralphjb

That easy. Ok. Want to set some time aside. I already have SageTV installed (long time user), but I assume once installed, the HD PVR will show up as a source option?

Thanks,
Ralph

Yes, it will. Like any other capture device.

What are you system specs?

[Ralphjb]

It is a Intel dual core, 3.0ghz system with 2 gig of memory. The card is an Nvidea 8800GT, 512meg card.

Got it working! Thanks. Setup was a breeze.

Got an issue however, and hopefully someone here can provide advice.

Recording with the HD PVR is working great. Playback, however is an issue. When I playback in SageTV it is not smooth. Much juddering, stuttering, etc. When, however, I playback with PowerDVD (v7), playback is smooth and excellent. I also have the Sage HD Extender, and playback was fine on this.

I should futher explain that I have an R5000 modded Dish box and have recorded with this for years. I have noted that playback quality has varied. Some mpeg4 material plays back very smoothly within Sage. Others are juddery - not a lot, but some. When I playback with PowerDVD, no issues with the same material. Since Sage is using the PowerDVD codec, I am wondering why I experience these issues.

I have searched this board often for an answer, but never got it figured out. I have adjusted the Numbuffers - which made a big difference - but nothing has delivered perfectly smooth playback with all mpeg4 recorded material within Sage.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Ralph

[bastian74]

I have a follow up question, in the sage setup there are seperate choices for mpeg4 and mpeg2 decoders, which one is h.264?

I think some of the options were DirecShow / Sage

Which ever codec it's using right now is using hardware acceleration because watching my hd content back uses 1% cpu. However the playback is minorly inconsistent with the playback speed. It seems it occasionally slows down for a fraction of a second. I'd like to try other codecs but am not sure which option to change for h.264.

Under which scenarios does the codec merit matter to sage? if any.

[Ralphjb]

Originally Posted by bastian74

I have a follow up question, in the sage setup there are seperate choices for mpeg4 and mpeg2 decoders, which one is h.264?

I think some of the options were DirecShow / Sage

Which ever codec it's using right now is using hardware acceleration because watching my hd content back uses 1% cpu. However the playback is minorly inconsistent with the playback speed. It seems it occasionally slows down for a fraction of a second. I'd like to try other codecs but am not sure which option to change for h.264.

Under which scenarios does the codec merit matter to sage? if any.

I am hardly an expert in these matters. But you do want to select the Directshow - if you have PowerDVD as your mpeg4 decoder, that is the one which will be used. This does utilize the GPU and will not put much demand on your CPU.

[Clift]

The CyberLink H.264/AVC codec is not compatible with the Sage demultiplexer, which means you will nto be able to use it to decode H.264. You could download the beta demux but that has it's own issues. For the time being, the best way to decode the HD-PVR recordings or livetv is to use the included ArcSoft Video Decoder, which is packages as part of the ArcSoft Total Media Extreme (comes bundled in the HD-PVR install CD). The ArcSoft decoder can use DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA, hardware decode of H.264) but this has to be specified in the sage.properties file. There is a good reason why i advocate this as opposed to using "Directshow" under the video section of the advanced setup. If the CyberLink codec has a higher merit in yoru system, Sage will try to use it and fail. It seems that in version 6.4.8 if Sage detects the ArcSoft codec it automagically adds this in your config file, so that's a good thing. The stutter you are seeing is the ArcSoft codec interacting with the Sage demux. It's a real PITA. If you play a HD-PVR .ts files in ArcSoft Total Media Extreme or CyberLink PowerDVD 7 it will be smooth. The only way to get silky smooth playback of HD-PVR files (as far as I know) is to use the beta demux and CyberLink H.264 decoder or CoreAVC or similar or to use an HD100 sage extender.

[bastian74]

Is there any way to see the graph sage is using?

[SWKerr]

Here is what I am using on my client PC that works perfectly. (AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ \ 2GB Ram \ Gforce 7300GT) This is not junk hardware but is not high end by any means. I run everything at 1280x720 resolution. (I have one TV with 1080i resolution but I cant really tell the differnce on my 42" plasma and under windows XP I cant really scale the fonts large enough to read anything very will at 1080.) So if you record or playback at 1080i this may not work for you. I would test at 720 to start with then upscale to 1080 after you get it to work and see if it makes a difference on your system.

Edit the "SageClient.properties" and\or "Sage.properties" file. Mine is in: "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV"
Search for: videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=
if you have an entry change it to "videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=ArcSoft Video Decoder"
You may need to insert a new line with the above entry.

Under the "Detailed Setup" Menu I have:
Video Renderer - VMR9
MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter - SageTV MPEG ... (Should not matter)
SageTV MPEG...DXVA(Hardware Acceleration) - Yes
MPEG4 Playback - DirectShow
....Defaults for everything else

With the above setup I get flawless playback using less than 6% CPU.

Notes:
I got minor skipping if I installed the entire ArcSoft Total Media Extreme package. (It would skip in the ArcSoft playback tool as well) If I installed only the the MediaConverter program and not all the other junk the problem goes away. (If I knew how to install just the codec I would)

Am still using the original HD-PVR driver.

I also tried the CoreAVC codec which I think looks marginally better during playback but I found I had trouble skipping forward or backward. (Wrong location, delay, freeze, etc.) This behavior does not happen with the ArcSoft codec.

My main server has the same setup and is marginally more powerful but also plays back flawlessly. I actually tried it on an old AMD Athlon XP 1.74 Shuttle with an AGP Geforce 6200 video card and it would actually play back smoothly but with some strange color variations.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has had the skip issue with the CoreAVC codec. I have not seen it in any other posts.

[Naylia]

Thanks for the summation, I get to do this on Friday

[Ralphjb]

Thanks Clift.

I just want to clarify something, are you saying you do get smooth playback with the Arcsoft codecs within SageTV, or you do not. Just wasn't sure from your post.

I would very much like to get another HD Media Extender and dedicate my HTPC strictly to recording and serving up files, etc. But, as I am sure you know, they are not in stock. That is my ultimate plan, though.

Thanks!
Ralph

SWKerr - had not seen your post when I replied to Clift. I will give this a try this evening. - Thanks!

[Ralphjb]

Again, thanks so much for the help.

I tried the Arcsoft solution, but it actually seemed worse than Powerdvd.

One question, SWKerr, you mention a "hardware accelleration" option in the SageTV setup. I do not see that in my menu options. Perhaps I am missing this.

I ask this, because while monitoring CPU usage under Arcsoft, usage remained below 10%. With Cyberlink, usage hit serious peeks of 70%+

My expectation was that the Powerdvd codec was also utilizing the GPU accelleration. Or perhaps none of this matters.

Thanks.

[bhyman1]

Try setting playback to Overlay instead of VMR9. This resolves all of my HD-PVR playback issues.

[SWKerr]

Ralphjb,

That option only seems to appear when you select the SageTV MPEG Video decoder. If you select any other option it is not there you will just get the directshow option next. I would try the Sage Decoder and the hardware option to see if that affects it but I don't think that setting would have any affect with h.264 files.

The Cyberlink is either a very bad decoder or not using any kind of hardware decoding that is available. I would not care if the thing ran at 90% if it did not skip when I watching TV but you may have background activities that make that problematic on occasion. I tried to watch something the other day while copying my movie connection to another drive on the same computer and it skipped all over the place until it was done. The actual files I was watching was coming across the network and the CPU was never above 10% but it still skipped. Dang things are finicky.

Did you remove all the TME stuff except for the converter. Mine skips like crazy with that stuff installed. I have no idea why just does. Most people don't seem to have this issue but mine happens on the sever and the clients with TME installed. I think you can get a trail copy of CoreAVC to try. The noce thing about it is you know it is working because it has a little Icon in the system tray when it is being used. If Sage was not using the ArcSoft decoder I am not sure how you would know.

A guy I was following last week struggled with it for quite some time and fixed his problem by uninstalling a reinstalling. Always something to consider.

[opusinteractive]

I've saw it mentioned in this thread a couple times that the CyberLink h.264/AVC decoder won't work - or doesn't work with SageTV. I have a Vista server with two HD-PVR's and the beta drivers that enable AC3 over SPDIF. I'm decoding h.264 with CyberLink h.264/AVC Video Decoder (PDVD8) on my XP client. I'm using the first release of beta SagetvDemux posted in the beta forum and it's using DXVA hardware acceleration through VMR9 with 2-4% CPU utilization.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by Ralphjb

Again, thanks so much for the help.

I tried the Arcsoft solution, but it actually seemed worse than Powerdvd.

One question, SWKerr, you mention a "hardware accelleration" option in the SageTV setup. I do not see that in my menu options. Perhaps I am missing this.

I ask this, because while monitoring CPU usage under Arcsoft, usage remained below 10%. With Cyberlink, usage hit serious peeks of 70%+

My expectation was that the Powerdvd codec was also utilizing the GPU accelleration. Or perhaps none of this matters.

Thanks.

You need to go into the PowerDVD settings menu under video and select hardware assist (either ATi AVIVO or NVIDIA PureVideo, depending on which card you have). After that, try to play an HD PVR file within PowerDVD to see what your CPU utilization is. If it's still high then the hardware acceleration isn't working. This can be fixed in a number of ways: with PowerDVD 7 downloading an update would sometimes work. PowerDVD8 seems to have this issue under control. Downloading the latest drivers for your video card will usually do the trick.

[Ralphjb]

Originally Posted by Clift

You need to go into the PowerDVD settings menu under video and select hardware assist (either ATi AVIVO or NVIDIA PureVideo, depending on which card you have). After that, try to play an HD PVR file within PowerDVD to see what your CPU utilization is. If it's still high then the hardware acceleration isn't working. This can be fixed in a number of ways: with PowerDVD 7 downloading an update would sometimes work. PowerDVD8 seems to have this issue under control. Downloading the latest drivers for your video card will usually do the trick.

Once again, thanks to all for the assistance. I finally gave up last night. I upgraded Cyberlink to 8.0. That actually improved playback of previously recorded h.264. Playback is not 100% smooth, but in material that was problematic, the improvement is 90%+. This material was all recorded with the R5000 modded Dish box.

However, with live material using the HD PVR, video would begin playing for about 2 seconds, then stop and freeze. Audio continued just fine. Tried a number of things (switched back and forth to arcsoft codec) reboot, uninstalled PowerDVD 7, etc. Nothing seemed to solve the problem. Wisely, I went to bed.

With these additional suggestions (including the beta demuxer) I will tackle again this evening.

As Clift has suggested, my ultimate goal is to get the HD extender. Just wish it was available now! Then I would skip all this agony!
Ralph

[Ralphjb]

I was going to say one other thing. Thus far, I have been pleased with the quality of video recorded with the HD PVR. It seems every bit as good as the R5000 stuff. I have to make clear, my experience is extremely limited. But this is my early experience. Just want to get it working on my HTPC with SageTV.

[Ralphjb]

Just an update. Last evening I went threw several machinations. Ultimately, I have TMT installed and PowerDVD uninstalled. I get choppy playback of live recordings - kind of where I started. I recorded something to try playback when I get home this evening.

I downloaded the beta demuxer (both versions) but once installed, I could not playback h.264 video. Tried this with both PowerDVD 8 and TMT.

Tomorrow morning I will have more time to tinker with. Hopefully I can get this working.

Ralph