HDPVR H.264...Is it really this difficult?

[texneus]

I'm a recent convert to Sage and I am having a great deal of difficulty getting HDPVR streams to play in Sage. What I see is stuttering video, much like that described in this thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45679

Only of course I'm dealing with HDPVR H.264 video, not MPEG2. Yet the behavior is much the same. Specifically, the video appears momentarily jittery for a second or two, either one big jump or more usually 3-4 small skips, maybe one in 10 times the video will become blocky during the skip. Whats more, when I go back over the spots that skip, the skips usually are reproduceable. Yet, when played in Windows Media Player or TMT they are fine!

What I have tried:
Set my STB to output 720p. No change.
Use analog OR optical audio. Doesn't matter.
Set the video card to output 1080p/1080i/720p. No difference.
Tried EVR/VMR9/Overlay renders. EVR is all that will remotely work. VMR9 is full of tearing. Overlay just gives me garbled video.
Tried reclock. Still stutters.
Every imaginable combination of the above. No love.

Tried different decoders. This is the only thing that has any any effect. What I find is ANY HA decoder that I try (Microsoft DTV-DVD, Arcsoft) has this problem. While any software decoder does not (ffdshow, DivX, and even Arcsoft if I turn off DXVA). Here again this only applies to SageTV, as HA works fine in e.g. Windows Media Player!

I'm at my wits end. The only thing I haven't tried is an NVidia video card...but surely this will work with ATi? Is it really this hard? What else can I try?

System specs: Windows 7 x86, Sage 6.6.2 w/all patches & Native Recording Patch, HDPVR ("E1" hardware version)+latest drivers, Verizon FIOS w/Motorolla QIP6200-2 as source w/Firewire channel change, ATi HD4670+Catalyst 10.1, Gigabyte GA-G41M-E2SL + Pentium Dual Core E5300 (2.6 GHz), 2GB ram.

[jerryt]

Your playback problem would appear to be a filter which breaks HA is hijacking the playback graph. So first step determine what filters are in use.

If you select FFDshow as your audio, and then play a HDPVR recording. The FFDshow icon in the system tray should list all codec filters in use. The other alternate method of determining filters used, is to enable debug logging and read through the entire log for how it is building the graph. (Try using "Find" function of notepad to locate a key word like "Microsoft")

Try Microftsoft DTV-DVD audio and video filters together. FFDshow filters nevered "played nice", for me. The least amount of filters installed on your OS, equals the least amount of playback troubles.

[sportera]

Originally Posted by jerryt

The least amount of filters installed on your OS, equals the least amount of playback troubles.

I agree but how do you "un-install" filters?

[Fuzzy]

Search for DirectShow Filter Manager. Fairly simple program for cleaning house.

[texneus]

All, thanks and makes sense...I will try this and report back shortly. I should mention this is a fresh install of windows 7, I am "rolling back" the filter installs by restoring from an image backup of a basic SageTV install. The only "foreign" filters I have are AC3 filter and the Native Recording patch, along with whatever Sage itself drags in (which is quite a bit actually). I suppose it is possible that one of these are interfering.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by sportera

I agree but how do you "un-install" filters?

Make an image of OS before installing filters.

Try to use the uninstall programs provided with the filters.

Often the filters make registry changes or add directx updates, etc, which break playback. so having a backup image is the simpliest way back.

[jerryt]

Again try Microftsoft DTV-DVD audio and video filters together. Make sure you have the ATI lastest drivers (Not the ones Windows installed). Don't use AC3Filter, it causes me problems on sage and Win 7.

Make sure to are selecting the actual filter names you want used in "Detailed setup", don't select "Default".

It is common for me to have to intall ATI drivers manually in order to get HA working. ATI's installer is 50/50 on correctly installing the drivers. Check that the driver version number is actually updating in the device manager.

[texneus]

OK, restored my image with no added filters (other than MS Native Recording Patch and AC3 Filter), installed ffdshow, accepted all defaults. I setup ffdshow to allow SPDIF passthrough of DD & DTS. Just a general note, I had no idea ffdshow was such a powerful audio filter. This might replace AC3 filter. But for the question at hand:

I started Sage, set the Audio Decoder to ffdshow. Tuned to live TV. Skips and stutters still present. The ffdshow tray icon shows the following filters in use (*'d filters are greyed out, presumably there are no setup options for these?)

Audio Renderer (It doesn't say which one I'm using, but currently it's set to Realtek Digital Output)
Enhanced Video Renderer
*Line 21 Decoder 2
ffdshow Audio Decoder
*Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
SageTV MpegDeMux
*File Source (Async.)

The SageTV MpegDeMux does strike me as a bit odd. I thought the point of the native recording patch was to enable Microsoft's splitter (presumably whatever it would use in Windows Media Player). Enabling the decoder is easy, but it didn't work for H.264 without the patch.

Just enabled and selected the MS Audio Decoder. The behaviour is exactly the same.

[texneus]

Originally Posted by jerryt

It is common for me to have to intall ATI drivers manually in order to get HA working. ATI's installer is 50/50 on correctly installing the drivers. Check that the driver version number is actually updating in the device manager.

Jerry, I have Catalyst 10.1 installed (not brave enough to install 10.2 with all the changes they made, but perhaps I should try). Device Manager shows the driver version to be 8.690.0.0 with a date of 12/11/2009. Just to be clear, HA is working, just apparently not completely when inside Sage.

[Skirge01]

If you have a restore point without ANY filters installed, especially ffdshow, revert back to that. Once you're there, check out this guide. After completing that setup, try setting the following in SageTV, under detailed setup->video/audio: EVR, Microsoft DTV-DVD, SageTV Player, Microsoft DTV-DVD, Disabled, Default, AC3filter.

Ensure that there are no ffdshow icons showing in the system tray when you start playing back a video. No codec icons should be there except for AC3filter. If there are any others, uninstall those.

If you're still having trouble at this point, grab GraphEdit and post what your graph looks like.

[Fuzzy]

The native patch isn't to use the MS splitters and such, it is an update to the sagetv filters to add native support for a number of new formats, and some tweaks to allow the MS decoder to connect to it.

[texneus]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

If you have a restore point without ANY filters installed, especially ffdshow, revert back to that.

I have an image with no other filters EXCEPT AC3 filter (a "stripped down" version of which seems to get installed by SageTV anyway) and the native decoder patch that I am working from. FFDshow is definitely not the issue, but I will proceed with the rest of those directions. Thank you!

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by texneus

OK, restored my image with no added filters (other than MS Native Recording Patch and AC3 Filter), installed ffdshow, accepted all defaults. I setup ffdshow to allow SPDIF passthrough of DD & DTS. Just a general note, I had no idea ffdshow was such a powerful audio filter. This might replace AC3 filter. But for the question at hand:

I started Sage, set the Audio Decoder to ffdshow. Tuned to live TV. Skips and stutters still present. The ffdshow tray icon shows the following filters in use (*'d filters are greyed out, presumably there are no setup options for these?)

Audio Renderer (It doesn't say which one I'm using, but currently it's set to Realtek Digital Output)
Enhanced Video Renderer
*Line 21 Decoder 2
ffdshow Audio Decoder
*Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
SageTV MpegDeMux
*File Source (Async.)

The SageTV MpegDeMux does strike me as a bit odd. I thought the point of the native recording patch was to enable Microsoft's splitter (presumably whatever it would use in Windows Media Player). Enabling the decoder is easy, but it didn't work for H.264 without the patch.

Just enabled and selected the MS Audio Decoder. The behaviour is exactly the same.

I would say that graph building is fine. Work on later drivers or a different video card.

[texneus]

Silly question: Here is an inventory of hardware/drivers & software installed on my SageTV PC. While I work through Skirge & Jerryt's suggestions, is there any reason to think any of these would interfere with H.264 playback inside SageTV under windows 7? Note: with the exception of Catalyst 10.1, all of these are the latest versions available as of a week or so ago.

OS: Windows 7 x86. Fresh install on a new motherboard. There should not be any "stubs" left by uninstalled programs or obsolete drivers. Since this is a SageTV dedicated PC, I've disabled all system sounds, Aero (and all desktop special effects), uninstalled WMC & all included games. I left UAC on but installed sage outside of the Program Files directory (specifically it is in C:\SageTV). All updates from Windows Update are installed.

Motherboard Stuff: Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L + Pentium Dual Core E5300 (not overclocked in any way) with latest drivers for everything: Intel G41 chipset (Intel INF 9.1.1.1025), Realtek RTL8111CD NIC (Realtek 7.012), Realtek ALC888B HD Audio (Realtek 2.42). The connection to my TV and Receiver are though SPDIF, so "Realtek Digital Output" is set to the default output device.

Video: HIS HD4670 w/ATi Catalyst 10.1 drivers (Custom install with ATi's HDMI driver not installed), plus Realtek HDMI Audio Driver 2.42. This card has been used with this combination of ATi & Realtek drivers since the day I bought it ~2 years ago for a Vista MC install.

VFD: VL System LIS MCE using USB driver dated 11-15-2009.

Running Software: Gigabyte EasyTune6 B10.0130.1 (note: It is installed but is not running -- but does it leave a process in the background?), Virtual Clone Drive 5.4.4.0 (emulating 2 drives as I: and J, Java 6r18, LCD Smartie, SageTV Launcher 1.0.0.6, Firewire Channel Proxy, GetStaus 1.3, SageTV Web Interface 2.26 build 47,

AV: THERE IS NO A/V Software installed at this time other than MBAM 1.44. System passes a full scan under the latest database. I also ran AVIRA from a Win7PE Rescue boot CD (google if you're curious) and system is clean.

EDIT: Also my HD is a WD 1.5TB "green" with three NTFS paritions: 30GB for Win7, A small (8GB) partition for the swap file (using 64kB clusters), and the rest is for Sage Recordings (again, 64kB clusters). For some reason this formatted as an extended partition rather than a primary. I don't recall explicitly doing this, but it is what it is!

[jerryt]

I have done at least 5 installs of Win 7 x86 and x64 with sage and native recording patch.

Never disabled WMC, some with UAC, but most without, Always in the default install directory,

Don't forget motherboard drivers? Don't rely on automatic driver install.

Turn speaker output on, some graphs can not play without the audio graph completing correctly. SDPIF only has given me your same problem with sage playback.

I have the HDMI drivers installed, but then disabled in device manager.

My bet is if you enable speakers, your video will play fine.

[texneus]

Jerry, I mistyped and will edit my post appropriately. None of the audio outputs or inputs was disabled in the audio control panel (apperently one of many things I tried in the past). I did disable the multi streaming though and no effect.

[texneus]

OK, update. I followed the information linked by Skirge to the letter, which for all intents and purposes the only useful thing it seems to do for Sage is to install the MPC - HC decoders. No change.

I took the next step in Jerry's suggestion which would be to use the speaker outputs, not SPDIF. This is not an acceptable solution for my needs, but regardless I tried it and it made no difference.

I DO greatly appreciate everyone's suggestions , but I'm really starting to think this just isn't in the cards. Bottom line: Nothing I have been able to do gets HA H.264 video to play back smoothly within SageTV. Outside of Sage the same files play fine, even with the same decoders that have been discussed here. My conclusion is something (probably the Sage splitter) is either not being set by Sage correctly, or doesn't like the ATi 4670 (pretty much this was the conclusion of the other thread I linked in the original post). It's my impression the Native Recording patch is very beta right now, so who knows...

Also unfortunately, the E5300 seems to be on the bleeding edge of being able to do it with software. Possibly because of this, de-interlacing in particular is problematic (it appears to fall back to bob or weave no matter which decoder I try), although the video itself plays smoothly.

I'm still open to other suggestions, but I'm down to installing an NVidia GT240 based video card and see what happens.

[Fuzzy]

Just out of curiosity, since you said you rolled back to an install that still have the native patches in, have you tried NOT using the native patches? It doesn't sound like they really add anything for you setup, other than the ability to use the Microsoft decoders. If you've got other H.264 decoders available, you shouldn't need the beta stuff.

[lobosrul]

Make sure in the SageTV setup menu under Detailed Setup->Video/Audio you have "MPEG4 Playback" set to Directshow and on the next line "H.264 Video Decoder Filter" set to something reasonable. I highly recommend CoreAVC, its worth the few bucks. On a related note its still necessary, I think, to manually change the config file line alway_use_dshow_player=false to alway_use_dshow_player=true in sageclient.properties. This can be found in C:\Users\"Your Name"\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV

Next up, download and run Win7DSFilterTweaker (google it) . Set your default h.264 (and other codecs you might use) to whatever you like.

BTW I could not get h.264 playback to work in Sage with the MS decoders.

[jerryt]

What version of windows 7 are running?