SageTV Client on Micro PC & Video Playback Issues

[briankeys]

Some recent drive failures due to age and a new 60" LCD monitor inspired a fresh round of SageTV tinkering.

After increasing the default recording quality to DVD so SD playback was watchable on the new 60" TV, I discovered that my SageTV client running on a ZBOX Nano AD10 micro PC was now having pauses in video playback again. I also had issues with some (not all) .mkv 1080P files playing on the same client.

Ultimately, I uninstalled all every codec I could including DIVX, CoreAVC, FFDSHOW along with some others and I only reinstalled CoreAVC which in turn installed the Halli Media Splitter. I figured the cleanup had to improve the issues above but no improvement.

After maybe a week of trying everything I could think off with seemingly zero success, I finally remembered a key step I had done in correcting the issue a few years back but had forgotten (I really need to start taking notes)...

.... Uninstall Halli Splitter and replace it with LAV Splitter. Immediate effect was that all my .mkv and .mp4 content now played flawlessly and surprisingly, it seems to have cured my video pauses also. Better still, that annoying circling cursor that hung around at the beginning and ending of playback, plus sometimes while skipping over comskip has now also completely disappeared. Playback of shows is instant as are all skipping and fast forwarding events.

If your .mkv, .mp4 and .flv etc. files won't play in Windows Media Player on the client computer, then look at what codecs you are using first as that is likely the culprit.

If the files do play in WMP but not in SageTV, then first change the following registry setting to '0' if you are using SageTV version 7.

HKLM\Software\Frey Technologies\Common\DirectShow\EnableSageTVStreamDemux=0

If your OS is 64 bit, then the registry setting should be as follows;

HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Frey Technologies\Common\DirectShow\EnableSageTVStreamDemux=0

I believe the change takes effect after restarting SageTV. For me it fixed a lot of playback issues with .mkv and .mp4 files but not all.

The big 'Whoohoo' change for me was to uninstall Halli splitter and install LAV splitter in it's place (now called LAV Filters). Once you unzip the LAV download, you'll see some .bat batch files in the folder to install the audio codec, the video codec and the splitter. I only installed the splitter for now.

I also believe you absolutely must must must uninstall Halli first as it is pretty aggressive about being dominant over any other splitters in the system. That can be a good thing on a system that is misbehaving but in this case, I'm told it will block the LAV splitter from running and that has been my experience also.

I'm far from an expert on the inner workings of codecs and spitters but I've experimented with a ton of them over the years I've had SageTV. Some years back, the LAV splitter was the big ticket fix for some playback issues I was having and once again, having finally remembered what I did back then, it has saved me again.

My ZBOX Nano AD10 is playing all my SD content and HD (.mkv, .mp4, .wmv & .avi) flawlessly with no pauses, or crashes and it doesn't feel like it's even struggling anymore.

Just wanted to share in return for all the help I've had from these forums over the years, thank you.