Fresh Install.. Choppy Live Playback

[CB_2005]

I've just downloaded the current trail of SageTV. The only modification I made to the vanilla install is to apply the 16x9 STV.

My playback is terribly choppy and I noticed my CPU is around 80% - 90% constantly. Any ideas?

Here's some brief system specs:

Tuner: Hauppauge HVR-2250
Video Card : ATI 9250
CPU: Pentium 4 / 3.4Ghz
Memory: 4gig
OS: WinXP 32bit
PC -> TV cable: DVI to HDMI (46 HD LCD TV)
HD Setup: OS on a 750gig drive, 3 other separate HD's for Sage (all formatted for 64k clusters)

I've tried changing the video/audio mpeg2 decoders to Cyberlink's (PowerDVD 5.0) and my Audio renderer to my Soundblaster Audigy. But although it makes things somewhat smoother, it's still choppy overall.

VRM9 doesn't work for me. When I try to use it, sage throws up an error.

Could it be my video card? I read in another threat that someone recommended the ATI 4550 (Quiet and a better hardware decoder). Could that solve my issues?


Here's is the post I'm speaking of: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...14&postcount=8

Thanks in advance,
CB

[gplasky]

Get an ATI 4xxx series video card and upgrade your Cyberlink PowerDVD to version 7 or 8. Then you'll also be able to get most of your video hardware accelerated and drop your CPU down to the 7-15% utilization.

Gerry

[CB_2005]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Get an ATI 4xxx series video card and upgrade your Cyberlink PowerDVD to version 7 or 8. Then you'll also be able to get most of your video hardware accelerated and drop your CPU down to the 7-15% utilization.

Gerry

*drool*

It will be ordered today. thanks!

[CB_2005]

My 4550 arrived today and I have it installed. I'm using PowerDVD8 has my decoder, although it appears ATI installed their own decoder as well. Currently CPU utilization runs around 30% while watching TV.

I've notice that while watching HD stations, that the picture is still choppy at times. Sometimes the picture will free for a second, other times it will act like a skipping record (replaying the same 3 seconds'ish of video/audio a few times), etc. Any idea what could be causing this?

I'm using VRM9. I tried overlay, but sage threw up a video playback error so I went back to VRM9.

Also, should I be running my video card at 1920x1080? That's the current windows resolution, but I didn't know if it matter while Sage was up.

If anyone knows of any ATI specific settings I should turn on/off in the catalyst drivers, that would be helpful. I obviously want to run as efficiently as possible.

Thanks,
CB

[eopian]

Try increasing your mpegdemux buffer in the registry. You could also increase the time behind live settings in your sageclient.properties. These two settings have really helped my playback issues.

[ChaOConnor]

eopian, what are you adjusting them too? Thanks!

[eopian]

One by one I doubled them all (to make sure I wasn't breaking anything). I found exact instructions in another thread here on the forums. The mpegdumux buffer helped smooth all playback and the time behind live settings helped on recordings that were being recorded live.

Match your desktop resolution to your display.

[motobarsteward]

I've found that having the news ticker causes pauses and choppy video