NEW Silverstone LC03 Case

[JasonJoel]

Those HD clips are cool. All of them (even the 1080) played great on my Athlon 64 3000+ laptop.

Neat.

Jason Bottjen

Originally posted by kny3twalker
that all adds up to 100%

do not account for the system idle process when adding up the current CPU usage

hehe

30% from SageTV guess you are running VMR9, right?

go download some WMV HD clips from www.wmvhd.com

the 1080p ones should put that CPU usage up there

I could not get them to run smoothly at 1080p (just a slide show)
720p for the most part was fine with the exception of Dawn of the Dead which was more MBPS than the others

[ukmgranger]

I downloaded both the 1080p and the 780p files. They both play fine on my system!

[Lucas]

My comment regarding the CPU usage was based on my own experience where with a P4 2.8e with HT enabled, I see CPU utilisation hovering around or below 10%. This with or without VMR9.

ukmgranger quotes 40% for normal SageTV without ffdshow which to me sounds alot even with HT disabled.

Could you please post you the setting in your video setup and I will try to replicate this kind of utilisation on my system.

I remember that when I was initially setting up SageTV and experimented with some settings, CPU util jumped to 17-20%.

I now use the Sonic Decoder with the Overlay renderer enabled.
DXVA and Deinterlacing are also enabled.

[ukmgranger]

I am using the NVDVD decoder with VMR9. I can't match the quality of this decoder with any other, so no matter what I 'aint changing it.

Within the Sage settings I have both the DXVA & Deinterlacing set to 'default'.

I am recording at max quality to a firewire drive.

I have also done the reg edit for the PVR250's here: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...=&threadid=284

Do you think that I should have Hyperthreading on? I got the impression that it was best to turn it off on an HTPC system.

[insomniac]

All i can say is that I have your exact same configuration and agree that it is the best quality thus far. I do have hyperthreading enabled without issue.

as always tho..your mileage may vary...

I.

Originally posted by ukmgranger
I am using the NVDVD decoder with VMR9. I can't match the quality of this decoder with any other, so no matter what I 'aint changing it.

Within the Sage settings I have both the DXVA & Deinterlacing set to 'default'.

I am recording at max quality to a firewire drive.

I have also done the reg edit for the PVR250's here: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...=&threadid=284

Do you think that I should have Hyperthreading on? I got the impression that it was best to turn it off on an HTPC system.

[ukmgranger]

Do you have to do anything special with hyperthreading turned on? I kinda remember someone once saying something about getting Sage to use only one CPU or something?!?!?

[insomniac]

I didnt do anything special besides use it

Originally posted by ukmgranger
Do you have to do anything special with hyperthreading turned on? I kinda remember someone once saying something about getting Sage to use only one CPU or something?!?!?

[ukmgranger]

Are you having problems with the NVDVD decoder insomniac?

I get a kind of stuttering of the picture when rewinding to random points. To resolve it I have to skip back and forth until the playback looks normal again. This also happens in the transition between TV programs.

I have just enabled Hyperthreading to give it a whirl. I also just bumped up the clock speed of my CPU to 3.3Ghz. Sage is now running at about 12%

[insomniac]

I would recommend that you do not overclock your cpu, for it is not necessary unless it is just getting hammered (90% or so). You might also cause adverse side effects with your video card (its bus usually follows the clock speed of the cpu).

I noticed that i did get soem random hangups with nvdvd on my server, not near as many on my client. Luckily, its not necessary to troubleshoot my server, becasue I do all my viewing on my client (obviously). If you cannot handle the nvdvd issues, you might want to try this decoder. IMO, its second best


http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...t=free+decoder

didnt work well in VMR for me, but then again..none seem to...Try overlay for a good quality comparison

I.

[Lucas]

I agree with Insomniac, overclocking is highly not recommended for HTPC use.
However, you may find that now that your have enabled Hyperthreading, you CPU util will drop.

Hyperthreading technology is similar to dual CPU systems. The processor appears like two processors to Win XP and other OSes that support it.

But lets not forget the start of this thread and the temperature issue. If CPU util goes down then CPU temperature will most likely drop by 3-4 degrees.

I just turned on VMR9 on my system. I get the same behaviour that you get, but my CPU util stays the same ie around 10%.

Have you tried changing DXVA modes to A, B C or D?
That might make a difference.

The whole idea for using VMR9, ie Video Card assisted hardware accelaration, is to offload some processing from the CPU to the Video Card processor.

I suspect that the way you are set-up, this may not be happening.

Have you enabled 3D accelaration in the Advanced Setup of Sage TV?

[ukmgranger]

I have installed the descaler decoder but I can't seem to see it in Sage. Do I have to do something else to get it to work?

[Lucas]

This thread talks about Dscaler and what needs to be added in sage.properties for it to appear.

DScaler 5

[mwhite]

It appears the instructions for adding the DScaler entry in the other thread is incorrect for the latest version of DScaler 5.

I tried it out and could not get it to work, so I used radlight filter manager to get the correct name of the filter.

The correct entry in the properties file should be:

videoframe/additional_video_filters=DScaler Mpeg2 Video Decoder,Video In,Video Out

instead of:

videoframe/additional_video_filters=Mpeg2 Video Decoder,Video In,Video Out


Remember, make sure sage is totally closed (not sleeping) and if you are using notepad to edit the file, be sure word wrap is turned off.

HTH,

-mark

[insomniac]

let me know your results on the new version. I like this decoders PQ.

[mwhite]

I'm trying DScaler on my office pc, and my first impression is that it not quite as good as I had hoped for.

I've been using the Cyberlink decoders, but considering getting the Sonic decoder pack (which I'm using on the server), but I wanted to give DScaler a spin first.

Overall, the PQ is not bad, but the stock ticker on the bottom of CNBC has so much movement distortion that it's hardly readable. The Cyberlink decoders renders it much better. It's readable but slightly fuzzy. Still not as good as the Sonic decoders. I don't have the nvDVD decoders so I can't compare those.

I also had an aspect ratio problem where the picture seemed zoomed in about 30%. Only closing Sage Client and reopening it fixed it.

Also, when switching to live tv, the screen would remain black sometimes and I would have to close the file and try again.

DScaler show alot of promise, but I don't think they are quite ready for prime time. Yet.

YMMV,

-mark

[remmy925]

FYI ukmgranger. I have tried the NVDVD codec and loved the quality...but alas..I too get the sputtering. Happens especially when I FF or RW with my remote. I had to stop using the codec because of it. It also becomes a little unstable if you fastforward repeatedly....but I only have a 2Ghz....so that might add into my problem.

[ukmgranger]

I have somehow managed to cure the stuttering with the NVDVD decoder. I am still trying to find out how! I think it has something to do with installing NVIDIA Forceware

[kny3twalker]

my only issue with Dscaler is that it does not support DXVA
so that means you need to use ffdshow or something similiar to get good deinterlacing

I have not installed the latest version but the first alpha was very buggy with VMR9 and the overlay quality was much better with most of my other decoders

yet I think it is better than intervideo non css and maybe elecard though

[ukmgranger]

mwhite - In Radlight, under what heading do the video/audio filters appear?

[mwhite]

Yes, it can be confusing with all the entries that show up in Radlight.

You should find the entry under "DirectShow Filters".

-mark