Need Assistance with HD Playback

[FidgetyRat]

I'm very new when it comes to HD playback and could really use some assistance.

I have a NVIDIA ION client machine that is capable of 1080p hardware decoding playback of HD content. I have the newest SageTV 7.0.12 beta installed.

Running Windows 7 32-bit enterprise.

The issues I seem to be having are with renderer settings in Sage. I'll list some scenarios below


1) .mkv SD content built from DVD rip. Will NOT play back when DirectShow is selected (timeline does not move, black screen). Only when SageTV player is used at which point it does playback.
2) .mkv HD content will play back smoothly when DirectShow is selected, but horribly choppy when SageTV Player is used. Clearly conflicts with #1 causing me to switch back and forth constantly.
3) .mkv HD Blu-Ray rip of Avatar - Will not play at all with the following error (-5, 0x80040200) which complains about audio rendering.

I've tried every combination sage offers for renderers, EVR, overlay, Direct Show, SageTV player, etc and I can't find any that let me watch my videos properly.

In the case of #2, the videos play back alright. A bit of studdering and its a 720p content, so clearly somethings not right between Sage7 and Windows 7's default codecs/renderers.

Any advise? Would attempting to install NVIDIA's PureVideo HD help? I know HD is probably a complex area, but I really want a solution that will playback all my videos with no constant switching of sagetv settings to get it done!


I have read a bit about the CoreAVC decoders, and they seem to be quite compatible with an ION system, so I may try to set this up later tonight.

[Fuzzy]

what format are the videos?

[stanger89]

What directshow filters do you have selected?

[FidgetyRat]

Remember, I'm pretty HD Dumb, so I'll try to answer as best as possible.

Fuzzy:
When I attempted to run the videos in VLC and got info on them, it indicated MPEG-4 video and AC3 for the tv episodes/some movies and DTS for avatar.

Every .mkv claimed MPEG-4 for the video, but each one either played, didn't play, or played with different sage settings.

I purchased a copy of CoreAVC since it was on sale and will give setting that up a chance later. I hear very good things about it on ION systems, may just be what I need.

These video formats/splitters/containers are just too damn complex.

Stanger:
I'll have to check when I get home. By this do you mean what is selected in sage? IF that's the case, I have the default windows 7 Microsoft "DVD-something-or-other" selected for .h264 playback. I haven't made any manual modifications to any .properties files, so any settings chosen were done so through sage's detailed setup.

If I select DirectShow in sage's setup, only some of the .mkvs play back, and if I select SageTV for that option instead, the others play, but are horribly choppy.

For more detail i'll have to wait till I get home to check the box configuration again.

[big poppa pump]

Hmmm...I think you can try disabling the Sage Internal splitter and installing Haali.
Also what audio decoder are you using for playback?

[FidgetyRat]

Haali is going to come along with the CoreAVC package im going to install later, so I'm hoping that it will cover more formats then the default windows stuff.

I'm set in Sage to use ac3filter for audio. Renderer is set to the rear output on my machine (audio renderers have about 10 options for each different combination of directsound/output on my system).

Oddly, specifying directsound = no sound.

[FidgetyRat]

Update!

Success!

Installing CoreAVC (which also installed the haali splitter) and then force-disabling sage's splitter through the registry, I am able to play back all but one of my videos without changing any settings and making use of full hardware decoding.

The only one I could not get working was a rip of 5th element, which was pulling alot of network traffic, studdered and froze every few seconds of video, etc. But I don't have a comparison machine to determine if this video is just bad or not. If I can figure out what internal codecs it's using i'll post back, but the fact that Avatar plays in full 1080p glory with 10% CPU on an Atom box is testament to the CoreAVC package.

Thanks to those who attempted to help earlier.

[big poppa pump]

Originally Posted by FidgetyRat

Update!

Success!

Installing CoreAVC (which also installed the haali splitter) and then force-disabling sage's splitter through the registry, I am able to play back all but one of my videos without changing any settings and making use of full hardware decoding.

The only one I could not get working was a rip of 5th element, which was pulling alot of network traffic, studdered and froze every few seconds of video, etc. But I don't have a comparison machine to determine if this video is just bad or not. If I can figure out what internal codecs it's using i'll post back, but the fact that Avatar plays in full 1080p glory with 10% CPU on an Atom box is testament to the CoreAVC package.

Thanks to those who attempted to help earlier.

Install mediainfo and check the properties of the one file that you could not play. Check to see if it is encoded correctly and complies with the standard DXVA profile.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by FidgetyRat

Fuzzy:
When I attempted to run the videos in VLC and got info on them, it indicated MPEG-4 video and AC3 for the tv episodes/some movies and DTS for avatar.
...These video formats/splitters/containers are just too damn complex.

To be fair, the only legitimate sources of such content are either plain-jane MPEG-2 ripped from an owned DVD, or H.264 video ripped from an owned BluRay... Just pointing out that if it is in some other format, either you are the one who created/encoded it, and should be well aware of what's in there, and what it takes to play it, or it was obtained from an unknown source who may have encoded it in one of MANY different methods out there available. The point being, that it is NOT all that complicated for legitimate usages.

[TwistedMelon]

I guess you've never used a video encoder where you just select a profile and it does the rest. Like Handbrake.

[stanger89]

That's not the issue Fuzzy was trying to get at. The point is professionally encoded content comes in basically three flavors:
MPEG-2
H.264
VC-1
For all of which, Blu-ray is essentially the highest profile content available.

To get anything other than that, either you encoded it yourself (with something like handbrake ) and thus know/have control over the profile/codec, or it came from some other, usually "illegitimate" source.

Essentially, if you're content is from a professionally encoded source, or you did it yourself (assuming you read up on how you should do it) playback should not be a big issue and shouldn't need much futzing with codecs and such.

As for handbrake, I'm not a big fan because it's too limited as far as processing goes, I much prefer something AVI Synth based

[White94Cobra]

I think I may be in a similar situation. I re-encoded all of my DVD collection (about 200 movies) to h.264 MKV's with AC3 audio using DVD Fab's DVD to mobile feature. These played back fine on my extenders and on my v6 server. I recently did a fresh Win7 32bit install and installed Sage 7.12 BETA. Everything was reconfigured from scratch - the only thing I brought over from my old server was the wiz.bin file. Since then have not been able to get any of my MKV's to play on the server using DirectShow (black screen - no video or audio, but the time bar does move). If I install the Haali splitter they play back fine in WMP, but it's a no-go in Sage.

I tried installing ffdshow - no video/audio, Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 - no video/audio. Again, they would play back fine outside of Sage, but not from within Sage. Note that they do play if I select Sage's internal player.

I seem to remember reading something about the the Win7 Microsoft decoders working great for h.264 content - but without the Haali splitter installed I get a playback exception on the MKV's. Based on the tread owner's experience, I'd like to try CoreAVC, but am afraid that after installing ffdshow, Haali and PowerDVD I have polluted the delicate balance of the filters/merits. Will simply uninstalling them be sufficient or should I look at a total system reinstall?

Thanks!

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by White94Cobra

If I install the Haali splitter they play back fine in WMP, but it's a no-go in Sage.

Sage will still use its internal splitter even if Haali is installed. This post has info on how to have Sage use Haali as well as a caveat or two.

[White94Cobra]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Sage will still use its internal splitter even if Haali is installed. This post has info on how to have Sage use Haali as well as a caveat or two.

Thanks... I saw that post and one other one, and unregistered the splitter per this post (versus doing the registry entry). Perhaps I should have just used the registry method.

Update:
Duh! Without the registry change Sage was trying to use an unregistered filter. Make the registry change, reinstalled FFDSHOW and everything looks like it is playing back OK. Without FFDSHOW I could play back the MKV's, but they looked like crap and were very jumpy.

[White94Cobra]

Got almost everything working with CoreAVC. Now if I could just get my Sage transcoded videos with AAC audio to play back audio things will be great!

[Spectrum]

Glad you got it mostly working