h.264 decoder under Windows 7

[shewhorn]

Some background info on what I've tried here:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42687

Here's the short version. I'm running Windows 7 RC, and Sage 6.5.18 RC, on a motherboard that has an NVIDIA 9400 chipset. I'm trying to get Sage to playback h.264 streams utilizing the hardware acceleration from the video card.

I have verified that TME 2, TME 3 and Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 can playback an h.264 stream using hardware acceleration on the GPU and the playback is fantastic!

When using the TME 2 Arcsoft h.264 decoders under Sage (via modifying the sage.properties file) while the processor utilization is lower (20% to 30%) it's still double that of TME and PowerDVD 9 (which are running at 10% to 15% on my machine) and the playback is very poor (about 3 to 4 frames per second).

Given that everything I'm using is pretty much in Beta I can't say I'm too disappointed but I just wanted to start this discussion here (as opposed to continuing this in hardware as I'm relatively convinced at this point that the hardware works, it's now a software issue) in case anyone else is also trying to get smooth h.264 going under the beta (fwiw I had no luck with the current release either).

If anyone has any information or news that would be fantastic, otherwise I imagine it will be a matter of time before the Windows 7 support trickles in (hopefully not too long though).

To the Sage developers, if you'd like me to try anything out I'd be more than happy to give it a whirl.

Cheers, Joe

[Fuzzy]

I thought MS was putting H.264 support into 7 from the start, or maybe that is software only?

[mayamaniac]

I'm running Windows 7 RC and Sage 6.5.18 RC with an 8800GTS using the Arcsoft decoder that came with the HD-PVR. On my quad-core machine, it uses about 20% of the CPU and picture quality is flawless.

[shewhorn]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I thought MS was putting H.264 support into 7 from the start, or maybe that is software only?

Either way I'd try them but they definitely don't show up in Sage. If anyone knows how to add them I'll check them out.

Cheers, Joe

[shewhorn]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I'm running Windows 7 RC and Sage 6.5.18 RC with an 8800GTS using the Arcsoft decoder that came with the HD-PVR. On my quad-core machine, it uses about 20% of the CPU and picture quality is flawless.

Did you have to do any tweaking to get it to work or was it pretty much good to go right out of the box? Although your card is significantly more powerful than the 9400, I do know (based on the playback from TME 2 and PowerDVD) that the 9400 is more than up to the task. It just seems to fall down when running in Sage.

Cheers, Joe

[jm9843]

Fyi, there was a thread discussing this a while ago: Windows 7 Decoders

I don't think that support has been added in either of the most recent beta releases.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by shewhorn

Did you have to do any tweaking to get it to work or was it pretty much good to go right out of the box? Although your card is significantly more powerful than the 9400, I do know (based on the playback from TME 2 and PowerDVD) that the 9400 is more than up to the task. It just seems to fall down when running in Sage.

Cheers, Joe

It worked without anything special. The 9400 should be more than sufficient to handle playback as you said it works with TME and PowerDVD. If you install arcsoft decoder with SageTV shutdown, SageTV should detect the arcsoft decoder when you run it. I didn't have to edit the proprties file. Post your SageTV's video/audio settings in the Detailed Setup screen.

[shewhorn]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

It worked without anything special. The 9400 should be more than sufficient to handle playback as you said it works with TME and PowerDVD. If you install arcsoft decoder with SageTV shutdown, SageTV should detect the arcsoft decoder when you run it. I didn't have to edit the proprties file. Post your SageTV's video/audio settings in the Detailed Setup screen.

Let me ask you this... how did you install the Arcsoft software (perhaps there's a subtle difference between what you did and what I did that might be critical)? I uninstalled everything (CoreAVC, ffdshow, Cyberlink, etc.) including the Arcsoft software with Sage shut down, and restarted. I then reinstalled the Arcsoft software by going into the TME folder on the HD-PVR install disk and running the setup file. After setup ran I restarted. Windows 7 of course complained about a driver incompatibility. I launched TME which in turn prompted the update. I quit TME, installed the update and restarted. After restarting I launched Sage but still, the Arcsoft codecs are absolutely nowhere to be found. The only options I have for h.264 decoders are default (which yields a playback error) and DIVX (which was the only piece of software that I did not remove).

Anyhow my Video/Audio settings are as follows:

Video Renderer - EVR
MPEG2 Video Decoder - Default
MPEG4 Playback - DirectShow
H.264 - DIVX (if it's set to default it throws an exception on playback... I also tried this in the sage.properties file...

videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=ArcSoft Video Decoder

... it used to playback before with really choppy video but now it just throws an exception... the DIVX decoder (which is software based) is the only one that works)

Dscaler - disabled
Audio renderer - Speakers (2 channel)
MPEG2 Audio Decoder - SageTV

Also in the Advanced menu FSE mode and hardware acceleration are enabled.

Cheers, Joe

[mayamaniac]

Like I said, it's standard installation procedure, nothing special. I guess since its Windows 7 or even Vista, do you have UAC off? I think mine is off when I installed it since I hate UAC.

[shewhorn]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Like I said, it's standard installation procedure, nothing special.

Did you use the setup.exe file from within the TME folder on the install disk directly (which is what I did) or did you install it from the installer provided by Hauppauge which autoruns when you insert the disk? It's possible that when installed via the Hauppauge installer that there are some command line arguments being passed being passed to the TME installer which might change how the TME installer behaves OR... it might be possible that Hauppauge could be adding in some paths so that their own application can find the Arcsoft codecs. Those paths might be something that SageTV needs as well.

I guess since its Windows 7 or even Vista, do you have UAC off? I think mine is off when I installed it since I hate UAC.

I did not install with UAC disabled. I'll give that a try. I don't expect a different result but I've certainly seen stranger things so it's worth a try.

Cheers, Joe