SageTV Client smooth playback HD300 alike.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

TBH, it all depends on configuration. So many variables with different decoders, drivers, video card capabilities that an hd300 could very well have a better picture than a full blown pc.

However, I have been very picky about what video card I got and what decoders I use and have gotten VERY good PQ from MPC-HC with the lav filters and madvr. I don't really think it could get any better. My card in that particular setup scores higher on the HQV test (subjective IIRC) than most standalone video processors, but that doesn't mean a standalone video processor coupled with an hdx00 couldn't end up with a better result.

This also brings in what display you are using and whether or not it is calibrated.

All in all, this is all VERY subjective and there are way too many variables.

The most talked about thing from the OP was tearing. That has a lot to do with the settings on the video card and the decoder being used. Video cards are just now coming with the hardware decoding capabilities that standalone decoders (like the sigma chip in the hd300) have had for years.

People pay ungodly sums these days for video cards to play games...some of these cards cost more than I spent assembling desktops.

I would think AMD or Nvidia would/could offer an HTPC specific card that was essentially, an HD300 on a PCIe card for a reasonable price. Wouldn't need the case or power supply that the HD300 has and if I knew it worked as good as an HD300, I could easily see spending $200 on it because I wouldn't need an expensive CPU if the card did the work that the HD300 does today. No splitters or codecs to load...all built into the HD300-esque PCIe video card.

Would need stable and workable drivers but surely the best video card companies on the planet could get that nailed down.

If you Google HTPC, one can easily see there's a market for video cards made for HTPC work that will likely never be used to play games.

Am I making this too simple?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gilded07

This is a very interesting thread / topic -

Is it not possible to get a SageTV client box with the latest processor, GPU (discrete or integrated), and ample RAM to get the same (or better) video performance as a $150 (original retail) HD300?

Granted, the HD300 has hardware based video acceleration but with the hundreds of video cards released in the past several years (and IGP like w/ AMD's Llano APUs and Intel HD3000), surely there is one with the same level of hardware-based video acceleration as what the HD300 has on it for a fraction of the price?

I'm not going to get into the "if it's possible or not", but you have to realize that these things work fundamentally differently. First things first, the HD300 (HDxxx in general) don't have video "acceleration", they use full hardware video decoding, meaning the device does everything. While the gap between hardware acceleration on PCs and full hardware decoding is closing there's still a gap.

But probably the bigger issue is the HDxxx uses a SOC with a dedicated output and output clock designs that are designed for video output. This means that they support things like syncing the audio and video, automatically switching to the source resolution/format of the video to avoid video processing for example.

In contrast on a PC, there's Windows/Mac/Linux in the loop which is the big issue. Speaking to Windows, one example is the audio and video clocks are completely disconnected, this causes some people to go to great extents to dial in exactly the 100% perfect frame rate for video to avoid dropped frames because Windows syncs video to the audio clock, but not by adjusting the video clock, it does it by dropping frames when the audio and video get too far out of sync.

Another part of the issue is video in Windows (and I assume Mac/Linux as well) are built around a desktop, and everything (video wise) is rendered to that desktop. Where as something like the HD300 will render video directly to the output, and overlay menus/OSD on top of the audio, on a PC video is rendered to the desktop, and in the process scaled/processed to fit that desktop resolution and timing, and then output.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by stanger89

...the HD300 (HDxxx in general) don't have video "acceleration", they use full hardware video decoding, meaning the device does everything. While the gap between hardware acceleration on PCs and full hardware decoding is closing there's still a gap.

Thanks for the clarification -

Originally Posted by stanger89

But probably the bigger issue is the HDxxx uses a SOC with a dedicated output and output clock designs that are designed for video output. This means that they support things like syncing the audio and video, automatically switching to the source resolution/format of the video to avoid video processing for example.

And this SOC with dedicated output and output clock designs couldn't be put onto a PCIe circuit board with HDMI out?

Originally Posted by stanger89

In contrast on a PC, there's Windows/Mac/Linux in the loop which is the big issue. Speaking to Windows, one example is the audio and video clocks are completely disconnected, this causes some people to go to great extents to dial in exactly the 100% perfect frame rate for video to avoid dropped frames because Windows syncs video to the audio clock, but not by adjusting the video clock, it does it by dropping frames when the audio and video get too far out of sync.

Interesting - do you know how the HD300 handles this disconnected clocks problem when dealing with SageTV on a Windows server?

Originally Posted by stanger89

Another part of the issue is video in Windows (and I assume Mac/Linux as well) are built around a desktop, and everything (video wise) is rendered to that desktop. Where as something like the HD300 will render video directly to the output, and overlay menus/OSD on top of the audio, on a PC video is rendered to the desktop, and in the process scaled/processed to fit that desktop resolution and timing, and then output.

I guess I'd assume if the "HTPC" card with HD300-like capabilities were correctly designed & marketed, it too would be optimized for television and not for a desktop PC.

You clearly know more about this video processing stuff - I appreciate the comments. I'm probably just hoping against hope for something that isn't likely to come along any time soon.

[Rob]

I certainly don't now if the PCIe card your speculating about could be made, but if it were and were not overly expensive, I'd get one for my client.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by Rob

I certainly don't now if the PCIe card your speculating about could be made, but if it were and were not overly expensive, I'd get one for my client.

Just one?

Its all hypothetical and 'what if' discussions now but replace the NIC with the PCIe bus and we're still just talking about circuit boards and silicon with an HDMI jack for video and audio. And perhaps a plug for an IR receiver.

If we were talking about something the size of an HD100 or even -200 I'd be skeptical but the fact that SageTV was able to get the size down to less than half the size of gaming video card makes one wonder...what if...

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gilded07

And this SOC with dedicated output and output clock designs couldn't be put onto a PCIe circuit board with HDMI out?

It could be, it's been done before:
http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/xcard/

But nobody cares. The market that does video seriously on a PC is miniscule, and the market that knows/cares about the difference is a miniscule portion of that miniscule market. When PCs became powerful enough to decode audio/video on their own, the market disappeared.

There is the Broadcom Crystal HD, but that passes the decoded video (and audio?) back to the PC for rendering so may not really solve the problem.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title...com_Crystal_HD

Interesting - do you know how the HD300 handles this disconnected clocks problem when dealing with SageTV on a Windows server?

It doesn't the HD300 does everything, the PC just passes the streams to the extender.

I guess I'd assume if the "HTPC" card with HD300-like capabilities were correctly designed & marketed, it too would be optimized for television and not for a desktop PC.

The biggest problem is, well what good would it do? I mean vs a streamer. If you have a dedicated output, like the Xcard, (or the MyHD MDP-130 is another example) you need people to write software for that, and basically nobody writes software for that except the people who built the card. So you can't just get a card with a dedicated output, plug it in, and use it in SageTV or Windows Media Center, or XBMC, etc.

The Crystal HD is somewhere in between, it works in more software, but it doesn't have it's own output, so like I said, I don't know/think it solves those issues.

You clearly know more about this video processing stuff - I appreciate the comments. I'm probably just hoping against hope for something that isn't likely to come along any time soon.

It really shouldn't be that hard, but there's just no market to fix the little issues that only bug the videophiles among us. If your video card, or decoder, or whatever can show youtube videos, or maybe the occasional Blu-ray on a tiny computer screen at all, that's good enough to satisfy 99.9999% of your customers. And well the other 0.0001% they can be ignored, or maybe more "nicely" can't justify the development needed to fix it, and heck, it may even require fundamental changes to how Windows handles video.

Which is why so many of us were so thrilled with the the HD200/HD300, and why some (many?) of us are hoping the Ceton Echo picks up where the HD300 left off.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Which is why so many of us were so thrilled with the the HD200/HD300, and why some (many?) of us are hoping the Ceton Echo picks up where the HD300 left off.

Please let us know Mr. beta tester.

I'm hoping for the playback abilities of the HD300 with a GUI and metatdata that competes with phoenix.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It could be, it's been done before:
http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/xcard/

The SD chipset used on that card was the grandfather of the EM6822 (HD100)

Which is why so many of us were so thrilled with the the HD200/HD300, and why some (many?) of us are hoping the Ceton Echo picks up where the HD300 left off.

I think Ceton couldn't get a perfect timing for this...just hope that //@@gle would not be interested to buy them as well...

[panteragstk]

Stanger beat me to it, but I actually still have an xcard. My hope with that little device was that the gap would be closed, but that is the only thing I've seen of it's kind come out. It was great back in the day, but that day has come and gone.

Stanger explained the difference better than I could, but if anyone wants to learn more about what makes a video card good for HTPC use then the following articles are the best I've found.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5969/z...gt-640-review-

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5773/i...pc-perspective

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/d...-gpus-shootout

[Taddeusz]

Wow, that brings back memories. Back in the day I used to have one of those DVD decoder cards. Fast CPU's made them obsolete but they did give really good playback quality.

I've been toying with the idea of building a client when I get some money. I have the client license, just not the hardware. Still running a single MVP that our daughter totally hates using because it's so slow and HDPVR recordings don't play correctly. Building a client for the living room would allow me to shift stuff around.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It really shouldn't be that hard, but there's just no market to fix the little issues that only bug the videophiles among us. If your video card, or decoder, or whatever can show youtube videos, or maybe the occasional Blu-ray on a tiny computer screen at all, that's good enough to satisfy 99.9999% of your customers. And well the other 0.0001% they can be ignored, or maybe more "nicely" can't justify the development needed to fix it, and heck, it may even require fundamental changes to how Windows handles video.

Just based on what I've read here and on other forums / reviews, that seems to be the issue - the economics of it. As passionate as us DIY DVRers are about this topic, the market just doesn't appear strong enough to support the effort required to replicate the HD300 (perhaps Kardatzke saw the writing on the wall way before we or I did). Also, we assume that $150 was a price that was profitable for SageTV LLC.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Which is why so many of us were so thrilled with the the HD200/HD300, and why some (many?) of us are hoping the Ceton Echo picks up where the HD300 left off.

I saw in another forum that you're beta testing for the Ceton Echo. Your comment here is interesting...you compare the Echo to the HD300 but I can't find anywhere on Ceton's website where they say the Echo will connect to any back end other than WMC and Ceton Q. Are you suggesting that the Echo might serve as a front end for SageTV?

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Stanger beat me to it, but I actually still have an xcard. My hope with that little device was that the gap would be closed, but that is the only thing I've seen of it's kind come out. It was great back in the day, but that day has come and gone.

Stanger explained the difference better than I could, but if anyone wants to learn more about what makes a video card good for HTPC use then the following articles are the best I've found.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5969/z...gt-640-review-

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5773/i...pc-perspective

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/d...-gpus-shootout

Thanks panteragstk - I had read one of those before and the othes were interesting. One question that reviews like these brings up is how many of those differences on the benchmarks are actually noticeable to me watching my TV? I know, the answer is 'depends'...depends on what format I'm watching; depends on the TV; depends on the ability of my eyes to discern small differences in (insert criteria); etc. But anand uses some very nth degree metrics that makes me wonder if they really impact one's viewing experience. I see signatures on this forum with SageTV clients with significantly less powerful GPUs that appear to be happy with their set up. Yet when you read pro reviews like these, they tend to make big deals out of issues that I rarely hear or read that users are really concerned about.

For example, does the 23hz vs 24hz refresh rate really keep users up at night? Is 4k really that big of a deal? Is deinterlacing performance something to make a buying decision on?

It seems, rather than looking for the perfect build-it-myself HD300 replacement, the software (splitters, renderers, codecs) make a far bigger impact on usability than the CPU / GPU combos...agree? disagree?

[panteragstk]

It's like this. Some of us are very picky when it comes to video quality. When you are watching a movie at 23.976fps on a capable display it needs to be smooth and not drop or repeat frames. Some people notice this and some don't. I worked in home theater sales and when you are around A/V equipment all day every day you start to notice all the things you read people talking about. It honestly gets very annoying when you see all of these things that are "wrong" with the picture. Example: I can't watch LCD displays. My eyes just don't like them. I see all the artifacts like screen door effect, horrible motion, and everything else LCD's are known for having. Not everyone sees that. Good for them. Some people see rainbow effect when watching DLP displays. I don't. Good for me.

The display is the first part. If it is of good quality and is set up properly you will have a much better picture than one that is just turned on out of the box, but it's picture is only as good as the source. That's where all the test you saw on the links I gave you come into play. If deinterlacing isn't done correctly it is very noticeable if you are watching on a large screen. If you take a low powered pc that isn't capable of decoding video properly and watch it on a 42" TV 15' away, you aren't really going to notice much of the poor decoding. Take that same pc and plug it into a calibrated projector on a 120" screen at 10' and suddenly EVERYTHING is noticeable. That's why these reviews go into so much detail about how high quality the video output is. 4k will be important some day, but that day is not anywhere close just yet, so I don't really worry about that.

Having said all that, now you can see why some people worry about what their pc is outputting and some just want to watch tv and don't really care if the picture is absolutely perfect. They probably wouldn't notice (care) if it was anyway.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I saw in another forum that you're beta testing for the Ceton Echo.

Well, technically I'm on the list to do it, the Echo's haven't shipped yet, the beta is supposed to start in September.

Your comment here is interesting...you compare the Echo to the HD300 but I can't find anywhere on Ceton's website where they say the Echo will connect to any back end other than WMC and Ceton Q. Are you suggesting that the Echo might serve as a front end for SageTV?

No I'm "hoping" that Windows Media Center + Echo will be able to replace SageTV + HDx00s. Personally I don't have any crazy/advanced needs as far as DVR functionality goes so there aren't any showstoppers (for me) to use WMC as my DVR. What has been a showstopper for me, WRT WMC is that the WMC extenders have horrible media support, so you have to choose if you want good media support, which means using a PC, or if you want whole-house DVR, which means using extenders. To match SageTV+HDx00 with WMC, you need a WMC PC and a WMC Extender at each TV.

The Echo should (based on the hints Ceton has dropped) bring WMC+Echo up to be a viable replacement for SageTV+HDx00.

Originally Posted by gilded07

I know, the answer is 'depends'...depends on what format I'm watching; depends on the TV; depends on the ability of my eyes to discern small differences in (insert criteria); etc.

It really does though. Most people don't care, or even know about basic calibration of their TVs or that the TV they buy at the big box store is set nowhere close to industry standards or producing optimal picture quality.

Even fewer people know about things like calibrating gamma, not to mention gamut.

And of course as you say content matters. Most content, that "most" people watch, specifically big Hollywood movies and TV shows are produced "well" and have very few issues (thinking specifically deinterlacing) that the video processor needs to deal with.

But then there's those of us with "more diverse" content tastes that gets us into content that can be very difficult to handle well.

But anand uses some very nth degree metrics that makes me wonder if they really impact one's viewing experience. I see signatures on this forum with SageTV clients with significantly less powerful GPUs that appear to be happy with their set up. Yet when you read pro reviews like these, they tend to make big deals out of issues that I rarely hear or read that users are really concerned about.

Frankly if you don't know/care/notice, do your best to leave it that way, it will save you a lot of frustration and possibly a lot of money too. Once you start noticing little things, and start chasing video "perfection" I'm not really sure there's an end to that path, and that path can be quite frustrating (and expensive).

For example, does the 23hz vs 24hz refresh rate really keep users up at night?

Some yes. But let me say this, it really shouldn't matter. The degree to which this has become an issue is purely due to/because of the PC. PCs don't work like CE devices, which have "flexible" clocks. CE devices can bend/adjust ("sync") to the clocks of other devices, so everything just goes through them just fine. While PCs have fixed clocks that are ignorant of each other, such that if they aren't set/aligned (manually ) perfectly, you can get dropped or repeated frames, or other issues.

Is 4k really that big of a deal?

If you have a big screen (you sit within say, three picture heights) then yes it sort of is. If you're "typical" with a 50"-ish TV 10 feet away, then probably not.

Is deinterlacing performance something to make a buying decision on?

Depends on what you watch. If all you watch is big Hollywood movies, then it probably won't really matter, especially if it's on Blu-ray (no interlaced movies on Blu-ray). But if you've got a lot of indie/foreign DVDs, then maybe it is.

It seems, rather than looking for the perfect build-it-myself HD300 replacement, the software (splitters, renderers, codecs) make a far bigger impact on usability than the CPU / GPU combos...agree? disagree?

Depends on what you have doing the work. If you're going full software decoding/rendering, then the GPU doesn't matter at all, but you'll probably need a beefy CPU.

If you're going to do a "normal" setup, where you use GPU decoding (DXVA) then the GPU makes some difference, to the extent you get one with "up to date" video processing, but beyond that it doesn't make much difference.

Then there's the somewhat new option of using GPU processing but via 3rd party filters (LAV/madVR), then the GPU matters more because you must make sure you have sufficient horsepower bandwidth to run the filters/settings you want on the content you want. For example the Intel graphics have hard time with madVR and some content (like 720p on a 1080p display).

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by stanger89

No I'm "hoping" that Windows Media Center + Echo will be able to replace SageTV + HDx00s. Personally I don't have any crazy/advanced needs as far as DVR functionality goes so there aren't any showstoppers (for me) to use WMC as my DVR. What has been a showstopper for me, WRT WMC is that the WMC extenders have horrible media support, so you have to choose if you want good media support, which means using a PC, or if you want whole-house DVR, which means using extenders. To match SageTV+HDx00 with WMC, you need a WMC PC and a WMC Extender at each TV.

The Echo should (based on the hints Ceton has dropped) bring WMC+Echo up to be a viable replacement for SageTV+HDx00.

For a period of time after SageTV announced their purchase by Google, WMC was on my radar as a possible replacement for SageTV. But given what we've come know recently about MS's interest in WMC, I've completely dropped WMC from my radar.

In fact, open source options look even better now so as to avoid the pain and heartache of getting left out in the cold again due to a buyout.

Originally Posted by stanger89

...PCs don't work like CE devices, which have "flexible" clocks. CE devices can bend/adjust ("sync") to the clocks of other devices, so everything just goes through them just fine. While PCs have fixed clocks that are ignorant of each other, such that if they aren't set/aligned (manually ) perfectly, you can get dropped or repeated frames, or other issues.

You mentioned the PC audio / video clock synching problem earlier in the thread and this is probably the most interesting *revelation* for me. If this is the case (and I don't doubt you) then its impossible to get a video card, integrated or discreet, to replicate what a dedicated front end media streamer like an HDx00 or Echo can do?

Is there a perfect (use that word loosely) discreet video card (430?) or CPU/iGPU (i3 / Llano) that is generally recommended for HTPC? There are a thousand opinions out there on this - I'm interested in yours or Panteragstk's.

Originally Posted by stanger89

...If you're "typical" with a 50"-ish TV 10 feet away, then probably not.

This is me...the guy in front of the 50+ inch LCD watching from 12-15' away

Originally Posted by stanger89

Depends on what you have doing the work. If you're going full software decoding/rendering, then the GPU doesn't matter at all, but you'll probably need a beefy CPU.

If you're going to do a "normal" setup, where you use GPU decoding (DXVA) then the GPU makes some difference, to the extent you get one with "up to date" video processing, but beyond that it doesn't make much difference.

Then there's the somewhat new option of using GPU processing but via 3rd party filters (LAV/madVR), then the GPU matters more because you must make sure you have sufficient horsepower bandwidth to run the filters/settings you want on the content you want. For example the Intel graphics have hard time with madVR and some content (like 720p on a 1080p display).

Stanger89 - ever consider doing a Video Processing 101 sticky? I have a list of acronyms with what they stand for on a piece of paper here beside me that I have to refer to (or look up again on Wikipedia) to remember what they do! A dummies' or beginners' guide to this stuff like hardware vs software processing and the apps that you need and how to configure them in a SageTV environment would be a godsend.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gilded07

For a period of time after SageTV announced their purchase by Google, WMC was on my radar as a possible replacement for SageTV. But given what we've come know recently about MS's interest in WMC, I've completely dropped WMC from my radar.

In fact, open source options look even better now so as to avoid the pain and heartache of getting left out in the cold again due to a buyout.

Well it "should" be around as long as Windows 7 is still supported, which is a good probably 7 years still, easily more if Window 8 bombs.

I'd "love" to use XBMC or something but frankly the open source options suck. Myth is not bad but it's way to hard/complicated IMO. XBMC will likely never get TV support since it's user base (just my gut feeling here) really doesn't care about TV or even, to put it politely, "where" their content comes from.

You mentioned the PC audio / video clock synching problem earlier in the thread and this is probably the most interesting *revelation* for me. If this is the case (and I don't doubt you)...

If you're interested, go read up on Reclock:

Originally Posted by Reclock

The purpose of ReClock is to definitely get rid of jerky playback of AVI and MPEG material on a PC (or a HTPC driving a TV, a flat panel, or a video-projector). It's a DirectShow filter which is loaded in place of the default directsound audio renderer.
It provides a new reference clock that is locked to the video card hardware clock, in order to ensure that frames are played at the exact speed of what is expected by the video card vertical sync.
It also provides a frame rate adaptator for media files that do not match a multiple of the video card refresh rate (ex: playback of 23,976fps IVTC NTSC on a PAL TV).
The combination of the two will give you the true experience of smooth playback with your PC.
Finally it is an audio renderer with hardware or software rate adaptation in real-time, multi-channel audio, audio timestretching (pal speedup compensation) and dynamic range compression capabilities.

Now the problem is, the audio clock (on the audio card or processor, not actually sure where off hand) and the video clock are separate, and nothing can make them match*

The problem is since the hardware audio clock can't be changed, reclock either has to resample (which means decoding audio on the PC) or drop/repeat bitstream frames to maintain sync. Neither of which is desireable, and further, not everything can use reclock.

*It would seem you can do this manually, which is I think what you see in those 24Hz "bug" threads like the ones on AVS, essentially people trying to sync the audio and video clocks manually.

...then its impossible to get a video card, integrated or discreet, to replicate what a dedicated front end media streamer like an HDx00 or Echo can do?

It's possible, I linked one earlier (in this thread or another, the Sigma Xcard, Hollywood+, MyHD MDP-130, Hauppage PVR350) the problem is you then need custom software to support creating a UI/OSD on that dedicated video output card. So you're basically stuck with the same issues as with a separate box, you can't just use any "normal" (ie DirectShow) software you want, you're "locked in" to the software provided by the hardware maker.

This is me...the guy in front of the 50+ inch LCD watching from 12-15' away

I probably just wouldn't worry about it, especially if you're not noticing anything.

Stanger89 - ever consider doing a Video Processing 101 sticky? I have a list of acronyms with what they stand for on a piece of paper here beside me that I have to refer to (or look up again on Wikipedia) to remember what they do! A dummies' or beginners' guide to this stuff like hardware vs software processing and the apps that you need and how to configure them in a SageTV environment would be a godsend.

I kinda wish I'd never needed to figure any of this out

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Well it "should" be around as long as Windows 7 is still supported, which is a good probably 7 years still, easily more if Window 8 bombs.

I'd "love" to use XBMC or something but frankly the open source options suck. Myth is not bad but it's way to hard/complicated IMO. XBMC will likely never get TV support since it's user base (just my gut feeling here) really doesn't care about TV or even, to put it politely, "where" their content comes from.

I read where WMC users are frustrated because MS has stopped development and support and they are, more and more, having to use 3rd party support. I don't remember the details but the comment(s) caught my attention.

Media Portal looks interesting. Does TV. Doesn't have extenders but does have server/client software. Also looks like an Android app is in development that might make Google TV front ends an option for an MP server at some point in the future.

If they ever get it off the ground Ubuntu TV looks promising too.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I read where WMC users are frustrated because MS has stopped development and support and they are, more and more, having to use 3rd party support. I don't remember the details but the comment(s) caught my attention.

There weren't any (significant at least) changes/improvements/fixes to Windows Media Center in Windows 8, and it's now an add on and not included by default. That's where most of the buzz comes from I think.

Whether they actually stopped development or not, only MS knows that.

If nothing improves on the PC front, I may just switch back to Satellite and dump the whole PC DVR thing in about 2 years when my current promo agreement runs out. Heck, by then there may be nothing on "TV" I have an interest in watching, at least nothing I can't get online (F1 is about the only thing left).

[jlmdxtv]

OP,

When it comes to smooth FF/high-speed client playback, I've used WinDVD version 4, 5 and 7 over the years. WinDVD got me though the entire Olympics in 2008 and 2012 - there was no way I could actually watch it all quickly in SageTV Client without feeling like I've missed portions.

WinDVD's smooth high-speed play has worked amazingly well for years even on lowly client systems with lesser-cost video cards. WinDVD 7 was the last good version (IMO: before Corel purchased them and ruined it).

By my experience, there's much more than a powerful video card to smooth high-speed playback. The playback software needs to be finely tuned. Nothing else I've tried matched it.

WinDVD also lets you playback at faster rates with clear audio; VLC (and probably others) also does this now.

BTW: I use SageTY Client for most of my viewing. I don't have the need to speed though everything I record.

john

(Warning: WinDVD's high-speed playback seems to only work well on Intel-based PCs / MPG files.)

[wayner]

Originally Posted by stanger89

And of course as you say content matters. Most content, that "most" people watch, specifically big Hollywood movies and TV shows are produced "well" and have very few issues (thinking specifically deinterlacing) that the video processor needs to deal with.

What about live sports - isn't that more challenging since everything has to be encoded in real time without any post-processing?