An Ordeal - Migrating from VMC to SageTV (Calling Ghostlobster)

[T^2]

I remote connected to VMC graphs during live TV and playback of record TV. One thing that I noted is that indeed EVR was used by VMC - no surprise. However, what was different from the graphs of files created by SageTV is that the EVR renderer showed (DX10) in the graph module. I also noted that the debug log file created by SageTV mentioned DirectX9 several times. There was no mention of DirectX10. So what's the significance of this?

Although CPU usage appeared to be normal during last nights testing with any combination of Cyberlink/Microsoft MPEG-2 decoder and VMR9/EVR, I was never able to get SageTV to play (or playback) clear QAM HD TV content without issues (jerkiness, occasional stutter etc.). I've set the merits for the decoders so that the right one gets used in graphedit graphs (when rendering files). I don't know what else to do but punt.

[Taddeusz]

Ok, I'll try to expound in detail about what I did for my EVR to work correctly on the latest betas and Vista x64:

The very first thing I do is ensure the filters I want are going to be chosen by default. Cyberlink MPEG and H.264 for video and AC3Filter for audio. I also made sure to go into the filter properties through DSF Manager for all the Cyberlink video filters and ensured that DXVA was enabled.

After setting up SageTV I closed it and changed the setting in the properties to always_use_dshow_player=true. I also make sure that there are no default video decode filters set in the properties. SageTV sets Arcsoft as the default for H.264 now. Then I reopen SageTV and go to the settings. For Vista you want 3D enabled but FSE disabled. That's the way mine is set up. Then I changed the video renderer to EVR, set Cyberlink as the MPEG2 decoder, DirectShow for MPEG4, Default WaveOut Device for audio renderer, AC3Filter for my audio decoder.

That's really it. EVR hardware acceleration works perfectly on my Radeon 3870 with the latest drivers. Also, I'm using the PDVD 8 Ultra decoders so they may differ in compatibility to the PDVD 7 ones.

For your perusal I've attached my properties file.

[Taddeusz]

To try and get smoother playback you may try going to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters

And changing NumBuffers to a hex value of 100 and BufferSize to a value of 20000. Some people get smoother playback that way. But it seems mine has been working fine on the latest beta with the default values.

[T^2]

What exactly does the setting 'always_use_dshow_player=true' tell SageTV to do?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by T^2

What exactly does the setting 'always_use_dshow_player=true' tell SageTV to do?

I believe it tells SageTV to always use DirectShow. Otherwise it will use the built-in mplayer for anything not MPEG4 (depending on how you have MPEG4 configured).

[T^2]

Any info on the DirectX10 question that I asked above?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by T^2

Any info on the DirectX10 question that I asked above?

No idea, I just know mine works.

You've probably said but what video card do you have?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by T^2

Any info on the DirectX10 question that I asked above?

When you create a graph, you can name the filters anything you want... It doesn't mean anything.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by babgvant

When you create a graph, you can name the filters anything you want... It doesn't mean anything.

I didn't name any filter. The filter just showed up that way in graphstudio when I remote connected to a VMC graph. This didn't happen when I was looking at stuff created my SageTV. I was just curious how and why it happened. Both graphedit and graphstudio did the same thing.

[Opus4]

I just realized that I had left this in the SageTV Software forum where it was originally posted. But, if you are using the v6.5 beta, then you should send your EVR feedback to SageTV. EVR is new to SageTV in v6.5, so maybe there are things that could be improved.

- Andy

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by T^2

I didn't name any filter. The filter just showed up that way in graphstudio when I remote connected to a VMC graph. This didn't happen when I was looking at stuff created my SageTV. I was just curious how and why it happened. Both graphedit and graphstudio did the same thing.

Sorry, I should have said "when the developer who writes the code to create a graph for playback" instead of "you".

Being a developer who has written an video playback application that used the EVR and just called it "EVR", the distinction b/w the two things got lost in translation.

[T^2]

Having it pop up that way in graphstudio begged the question as to whether SageTv was using DirectX9 or DirectX10. IOW was Sage up to date in it's handling of video. Were there feature in DVXA2.0, WDDM, EVR etc. that were not taken advantage of by SageTV etc.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Ok, I'll try to expound in detail about what I did for my EVR to work correctly on the latest betas and Vista x64:

The very first thing I do is ensure the filters I want are going to be chosen by default. Cyberlink MPEG and H.264 for video and AC3Filter for audio. I also made sure to go into the filter properties through DSF Manager for all the Cyberlink video filters and ensured that DXVA was enabled.

After setting up SageTV I closed it and changed the setting in the properties to always_use_dshow_player=true. I also make sure that there are no default video decode filters set in the properties. SageTV sets Arcsoft as the default for H.264 now. Then I reopen SageTV and go to the settings. For Vista you want 3D enabled but FSE disabled. That's the way mine is set up. Then I changed the video renderer to EVR, set Cyberlink as the MPEG2 decoder, DirectShow for MPEG4, Default WaveOut Device for audio renderer, AC3Filter for my audio decoder.

That's really it. EVR hardware acceleration works perfectly on my Radeon 3870 with the latest drivers. Also, I'm using the PDVD 8 Ultra decoders so they may differ in compatibility to the PDVD 7 ones.

For your perusal I've attached my properties file.

The always_use_dshow_player=true entry wasn't in my properties file (either one). I added it but it didn't make any difference.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

To try and get smoother playback you may try going to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters

And changing NumBuffers to a hex value of 100 and BufferSize to a value of 20000. Some people get smoother playback that way. But it seems mine has been working fine on the latest beta with the default values.

I tried this too. I did not help. I set NumBuffers to 100. BufferSize was already set to a high number 65536 so I left it.

Under MpegDec there's EnableDXVA. It was set to 0 and I tried setting it 1. That did nothing as well.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by T^2

I tried this too. I did not help. I set NumBuffers to 100. BufferSize was already set to a high number 65536 so I left it.

Under MpegDec there's EnableDXVA. It was set to 0 and I tried setting it 1. That did nothing as well.

That's actually the default value. Hex 10000 is equal to decimal 65536.

[T^2]

I caught that after I posted. I set it to 20000, but that made no difference either.

[popechild]

I can't remember after reading all the posts if you've tried this specific combination or not, but please try this for me and see what results you get. I had a bit of trouble getting good playback quality when I upgraded from XP to Vista (after 2 years of great PQ on Vista) and this is what finally got everything working better than it ever has before for me:

1) Make sure ffdshow is not being used (for audio or video). I've only ever had problems with it mucking things up. VMC may ignore it or deal with it properly, but if you're not fairly confident in the settings you use, it can get in the way pretty easily.

2) For mpeg-2 material, go into Sage settings and make sure it's set to use EVR (assuming you're on the latest beta) with HA.

3) Now in the video decoder setting, explictly tell it to use Vista's built-in MS Mpeg-2 decoder. This one option (combined with EVR and HA) made all the problems I was having with tearing and high CPU utilization go away. Since MS's decoder works with EVR and HA, your utilization should be very low with this combination. I know other people use Cyberlink or PowerDVD or others, but I get far and away the best PQ and the lowest CPU usage with this combination. Don't use "default" for now, because who knows whether or not there's something on your system mucking up what it chooses as default (merit settings for decoders only work so well in my experience). Just set it explicitly on MS decoder so you know that's what's being used for now.

4) Finally, make sure your audio decoder isn't mucking things up. For some reason, using an audio decoder that's not playing well with your system can cause all sorts of video problems - even if it seems like the audio playback itself is fine. I'm using the audio decoder from the NVidia PureVideo mpeg-2 decoder that I was using back with XP. It seemed to work better for me than any of the other options. Explicitly tell it which decoder to use within Sage if you need to to make sure you know which one's being used.

Post back with your results. Not just it worked or didn't, but if it's not working, explain what problems specifically you're seeing with this configuration.

Hope it helps. It solved all my PQ issues when I made the move to Vista. XP seemed to be a lot more forgiving with different settings and decoder choices than Vista is, especially when using EVR.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm using FSE also now, which I've never used before Vista. Can't say for sure if I made this change before or after I finally got good Vista PQ, but it's worth trying along with the other settings above.

[T^2]

If FFDShow was showing up in the SageTV graph, I should be be able to see an indication of it in at least a few ways:

1) Should see the FFDShow show up the the taskbar.
2) If OSD is selected in FFDShow, I should see it on the screen when running SageTV
3) FFDshow should show up in the SageTV debug log file

Am I correct with those 3 assumptions?

I have to use AC3 for this tuner (M780 used from clear QAM) to get sound. I've wondered if the audio side of the house might be an issue.

I also setup FFDShow to be placed in the stream for Divx/Xvid files so that FFW/RWD controls will work in VMC. MPC Video Decoder is actually doing the decoding, but FFDShow is being used to provide the controls. All codecs in FFDShow have been deselected. Still I wonder if this is playing a part in this problem....

I don't know when I might get to more experimenting... Vacation is sneaking up on me. Heading to Florida for some fishing. I need to put the keyboard down and do some preparing for the trip. I wonder if I will miss the little HTPC? We've been spending so much time together lately. I might feel like a dog owner that leaves the dog at the kennel when taking trips.

[T^2]

Originally Posted by popechild

I can't remember after reading all the posts if you've tried this specific combination or not, but please try this for me and see what results you get. I had a bit of trouble getting good playback quality when I upgraded from XP to Vista (after 2 years of great PQ on Vista) and this is what finally got everything working better than it ever has before for me:

1) Make sure ffdshow is not being used (for audio or video). I've only ever had problems with it mucking things up. VMC may ignore it or deal with it properly, but if you're not fairly confident in the settings you use, it can get in the way pretty easily.

2) For mpeg-2 material, go into Sage settings and make sure it's set to use EVR (assuming you're on the latest beta) with HA.

3) Now in the video decoder setting, explictly tell it to use Vista's built-in MS Mpeg-2 decoder. This one option (combined with EVR and HA) made all the problems I was having with tearing and high CPU utilization go away. Since MS's decoder works with EVR and HA, your utilization should be very low with this combination. I know other people use Cyberlink or PowerDVD or others, but I get far and away the best PQ and the lowest CPU usage with this combination. Don't use "default" for now, because who knows whether or not there's something on your system mucking up what it chooses as default (merit settings for decoders only work so well in my experience). Just set it explicitly on MS decoder so you know that's what's being used for now.

4) Finally, make sure your audio decoder isn't mucking things up. For some reason, using an audio decoder that's not playing well with your system can cause all sorts of video problems - even if it seems like the audio playback itself is fine. I'm using the audio decoder from the NVidia PureVideo mpeg-2 decoder that I was using back with XP. It seemed to work better for me than any of the other options. Explicitly tell it which decoder to use within Sage if you need to to make sure you know which one's being used.

Post back with your results. Not just it worked or didn't, but if it's not working, explain what problems specifically you're seeing with this configuration.

Hope it helps. It solved all my PQ issues when I made the move to Vista. XP seemed to be a lot more forgiving with different settings and decoder choices than Vista is, especially when using EVR.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm using FSE also now, which I've never used before Vista. Can't say for sure if I made this change before or after I finally got good Vista PQ, but it's worth trying along with the other settings above.

I didn't realize that I wasn't graphstudio x64. I downloaded that and started playing around. I can playback recorded Sagetv live tv video with graphstudio x64 and it plays perfectly. However, I get no sound with Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder. There are no AC3 filters available to choose from in graphstudio x64. I can select FFDShow and use it for AC3, which give me sound and video plays back perfectly. Is it possible that I have a AC3/Vista x64 issue?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by T^2

I didn't realize that I wasn't graphstudio x64. I downloaded that and started playing around. I can playback recorded Sagetv live tv video with graphstudio x64 and it plays perfectly. However, I get no sound with Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder. There are no AC3 filters available to choose from in graphstudio x64. I can select FFDShow and use it for AC3, which give me sound and video plays back perfectly. Is it possible that I have a AC3/Vista x64 issue?

Not likely. I'm running my SageTV client just fine on Vista x64. What kind of video card do you have and are you using the latest driver?