Two issues (video/EPG)

[Banacek]

Hey, I got to say that I love SageTV so far and these boards have been great in helping me get everything set up. I just have two issues left, and I can't seem to figure them out. Here is my configuration:

E5200 2.5 Wolfdale Pentium Dual Core
Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DSH2 w/ GeForce 9400
4GB Corsair ram
1TB Hitachi
HDHomerun on a wired network
Nvidia Purevideo decoder
SageTV set up using VMR9 and the Nvidia decoder

The first one is a video issue. There seems to be a screen flicker while watching TV (live or recorded), like a frame from the past that is out of place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxdrtAsQZ9E

You can see the flicker at 0:10. Sometimes this happens a lot, sometimes not too much. Now this does not happen when I use Windows Media Player through the HDHomeRun, and it does not happen when I watch other videos on the machine in SageTV (like Dixv). Any ideas?

The other issue is with the EPG. Zap2It doesn't seem to have the local HD channels in my local cable listing. It's like I need to pull both Cable and OTA listings. What's the best way to solve this? Thanks!

[Dizzydan]

Posted elsewhere here, the flicker you see is the Close Captioning data that comes in on the video signal. Broadcasters send it and it is typically either on the top or side margins and is meant to be out of viewing area. It is never meant to be displayed in the picture.

You can correct this by adjusting your horizontal viewing area aspect ratio for top/bottom flicker to 101 %. This will push the flicker out of view where it belongs. For side flickers, change the vertical ratio to 101%. That should take care of your flicker.

If you remember the good old days of VCRs there was a tracking dial one would adjust to get rid of annoying flickers. We've come a long way since then.

[HelenWeathers]

I got the "frame showing up that must have been stuck somewhere in video memory and waiting to jump out now and then" with my nVidia 9600 card. I resolved it eventually by finding the right driver (not necessarily the newest) combined with the right EVR/VMR9?/Overlay mode in SageTV settings. Good luck.

[rswoods]

Originally Posted by Dizzydan

Posted elsewhere here, the flicker you see is the Close Captioning data that comes in on the video signal....

That flicker he's seeing at the 10 second mark is not CC data. The CC data can sometimes be seen as a line of static across the top of the screen, and it can be 'tuned' out by adjusting the H aspect ratio. What he's seeing (at least in the video he posted) looks like a complete frame that's out of place, as he said.

Sorry, I cannot offer a solution, but his problem is not CC data.

[Banacek]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I got the "frame showing up that must have been stuck somewhere in video memory and waiting to jump out now and then" with my nVidia 9600 card. I resolved it eventually by finding the right driver (not necessarily the newest) combined with the right EVR/VMR9?/Overlay mode in SageTV settings. Good luck.

Oh no, drivers! I moved from MythTV because of driver issues Hmm, do you know the driver version you ended up using? Maybe I can start with that.

Originally Posted by Dizzydan

Posted elsewhere here, the flicker you see is the Close Captioning data that comes in on the video signal. Broadcasters send it and it is typically either on the top or side margins and is meant to be out of viewing area. It is never meant to be displayed in the picture.

You can correct this by adjusting your horizontal viewing area aspect ratio for top/bottom flicker to 101 %. This will push the flicker out of view where it belongs. For side flickers, change the vertical ratio to 101%. That should take care of your flicker.

If you remember the good old days of VCRs there was a tracking dial one would adjust to get rid of annoying flickers. We've come a long way since then.

Originally Posted by rswoods

That flicker he's seeing at the 10 second mark is not CC data. The CC data can sometimes be seen as a line of static across the top of the screen, and it can be 'tuned' out by adjusting the H aspect ratio. What he's seeing (at least in the video he posted) looks like a complete frame that's out of place, as he said.

Sorry, I cannot offer a solution, but his problem is not CC data.

Actually I am getting that flicker on the top on other channels, I was going to deal with that later. Now I have the solution so it's easy to fix. The flicker i'm talking about really does seem like a frame from the past buffer that seems to pop up whenever it wants to. I'm baffled by it. I'm going to try so other drivers, see if they make a difference.

[troycheek]

Issue one: I have the same problem when using the Nvidia Purevideo decoder, but my old frames were from half a second before and mostly noticeable in animated cartoons. My solution was to use pretty much any decoder other than the Nvidia Purevideo decoder. I think I settled on ffdshow.

Issue two: According to the FAQ:

Q: Some of my channels have no Program Guide data, but other channels do and their data is getting updated. Why do some channels have no data?

A: There are several possible reasons; some are listed below.


Guide data may not be available on a channel because of these or other reasons:

• The channel may be mapped to the wrong station. In Channel Setup, use the Remap -> Map Different Station to this Physical Channel option to map the correct station to the channel.
  
  
• The channel may be over-the-air (OTA) only. The guide data for OTA broadcast stations that are not also part of a cable or satellite lineup from Zap2it is not available to SageTV. Most OTA stations are also carried by cable or satellite companies as part of their local channel coverage, so the guide data for most OTA stations is thus available to SageTV. However, there are some stations that are OTA-only. Listings for such a channel will only be available if it is a digital station that includes EPG data within its broadcast.
  
  
• There could be a problem with the Zap2it data; see the next question.

Q: My Program Guide is listing incorrect info for some channels and/or shows. I am using the built-in data which comes from Zap2It. Is there some way to see about getting this fixed?

A: You can let SageTV know about EPG problems so that they can ask Zap2It to correct it.

Email them at info@sagetv.com. Along with the details of what is wrong, include:

Your Service Provider (i.e. Comcast, DirecTV, etc)
Your Specific Lineup (Chicago-Digital, Chicago-Digital Rebuild, etc)
Your Zip Code

I've reported a couple of EPG problems of my own and am waiting to see what happens.

[Banacek]

Ok, I'll try ffdshow before I start messing with drivers. I saw that in the FAQs, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't a fix before I bug them to fix the guide data. Thanks!

[Banacek]

Originally Posted by troycheek

Issue one: I have the same problem when using the Nvidia Purevideo decoder, but my old frames were from half a second before and mostly noticeable in animated cartoons. My solution was to use pretty much any decoder other than the Nvidia Purevideo decoder. I think I settled on ffdshow.

That was it! Switched to ffdshow and everything is looking great with no flicker. Thanks!

[sflamm]

I'm having the same flicker problem.

1. How can the flicker be removed without switching to FFDShow drivers?

It only seems to happen on certain channels... as far as I can tell. So I dont see how it is a codec problem.

2. Is it possible to turn off the closed-captioning data? If not, can you give me some detailed instruction on how to adjust the video settings?

[phelme]

wow. that's freaky. it's like a subliminal cut.

For what it's worth, I'm using ArcSoft decoders and haven't seen this.

[Banacek]

Originally Posted by sflamm

I'm having the same flicker problem.

1. How can the flicker be removed without switching to FFDShow drivers?

Is there a reason to not use the FFDShow drivers? Just curious.

[troycheek]

Originally Posted by Banacek

That was it! Switched to ffdshow and everything is looking great with no flicker. Thanks!

Good to hear it. I've been using ffdshow as a decoder for ages, usually with a bit of post processing and some deinterlacing, with generally good results. It does tend to bog down on my system when watching HD content. I usually switch back to PureVideo for that, or convert the HD to a SD xvid or the like. (Pause for the sound of thousands of video purists screaming in denial.)

Originally Posted by sflamm

How can the flicker be removed without switching to FFDShow drivers? It only seems to happen on certain channels... as far as I can tell. So I dont see how it is a codec problem.

Any other options availabe in Setup - Detailed Setup - Video/Audio - MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter that you can try? I know it makes no sense, but the nVidia PureVideo decoder is the only one that causes me this problem, and then only for certain shows. (Fairly Oddparents, anyone?) I don't know how to fix it short of trying a different decoder, unless you want to start downloading random video card drivers from Nvidia like HelenWeathers suggests.

Edit: I tried the latest nVidia driver for my 8600GT (182.50) and got BSOD/reboot with PureVideo every time I'd try to play video with SageTV, only half the time when using ffdshow. Reverted back to the last one I had on hand (178.24) and decided to stop experimenting for a while.

[phelme]

if I'm not mistaken the nVidia PureVideo decoder is getting long in the tooth and hasn't been updated in years. I stopped using it a while ago when I found the ArcSoft decoders (that came with my HD-PVR) worked better.

ffdshow doesn't use the GPU for acceleration (at least for all cases, I think they are finally getting around to addressing this in development) so your CPU is what's being taxed. but for MPEG2 this isn't a big deal, it's the H.264 stuff that takes a heavy toll.

[HelenWeathers]

Well, I didn't even have nVidia PureVideo decoders on my system so I knew that wasn't my issue. My problems went away with the nVidia 182.06_geforce_winvista_32bit_english_whql driver, SageTV 6.5.11 and EVR. EVR didn't work very well for me with the 9600GT card and earlier SageTV releases.

[sflamm]

I don't either just my pdvd7 and acfilter installed.

Is that the latest nvidia driver from the website? Or an earlier version? I have an 8600gt and I'm running on xp pro sp3

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by sflamm

Is that the latest nvidia driver from the website? Or an earlier version? I have an 8600gt and I'm running on xp pro sp3

The driver is recent, came out about 6-8 weeks ago I think. It was close to the release of SageTV 6.5.11 beta, whenever that was. 182.50 for XP & Vista is the latest driver out for my card but I haven't tried it.

EDIT: With XP I had the best luck with Overlay in SageTV. EVR in XP gained me nothing. At least on HD content.

[Banacek]

Originally Posted by phelme

if I'm not mistaken the nVidia PureVideo decoder is getting long in the tooth and hasn't been updated in years. I stopped using it a while ago when I found the ArcSoft decoders (that came with my HD-PVR) worked better.

ffdshow doesn't use the GPU for acceleration (at least for all cases, I think they are finally getting around to addressing this in development) so your CPU is what's being taxed. but for MPEG2 this isn't a big deal, it's the H.264 stuff that takes a heavy toll.

Well, then I want to avoid using them since I'm missing out on the benefits of my video card. I guess that the ArcSoft decoders are my only choice left?

Is there a decoder/format matrix somewhere? If not it would be great to have one. It's very confusing at times

[Banacek]

So I assigned the HD channels to the regular channel call letters, so now they appear in the program guide where the local channel would be. I'm still missing about 10 channels. Does anyone know how SageTV stores it's EPG data? It's pretty easy to write a python app to consume the XML data needed to populate those channels.