Xvid/Divx Audio Problem

[nicktripp]

Hello all. I've just imported some Divx and Xvid files in my Sage library for the first time. I installed the free Divx play bundle. The picture looks quite amazing with these files, but there are lots of pops and crackles in the audio. I did noticed that my processor is at 100% during playback of these files, but that's the only thing I've been able to find so far that may be causing the issue.

Any ideas on what I could do to fix this, or at least determine for sure that the audio issues are being caused by the processor being maxed out?

Thanks.

[naln]

Originally Posted by nicktripp

Hello all. I've just imported some Divx and Xvid files in my Sage library for the first time.
Any ideas on what I could do to fix this, or at least determine for sure that the audio issues are being caused by the processor being maxed out

Check for this while playing file off the default DivX player- just to make sure Sage is not doing this.

I suspect that the original file would have these noises to begin with- maybe as an artifact of the encoding process (eg variable bitrate encoding etc). I'm no expert in that- but just throwing some ideas out there based on my experience with this stuff- maybe something helps!
I have DivX player use up 100% cpu cycles all the time (SD as well as HD encoding)- but generally don't notice any audio glitch due to it. I think the first thing to appear will be an audio-video async with some freeze frames etc if the file is too much to handle.

[nicktripp]

It happens using Divx player as well. It also happens on multiple files. (I've got about 100 different ones right now.) The CPU may or may not have anything to do with it. That was just my only guess.

[naln]

So- are these files something that played well earlier and now stopped playing properly? I think a good test would be to try and play a file known to work well-

[nicktripp]

It's not the files. The files play fine on other computers, just not on the PC I'm running SageTV on. This is the first time I've attempted to play Divx or Xvid files on it. If I play the same files on my other PC, or on either of my Macs, they work just fine.

[aperry]

Have you checked to see that you have the latest codecs for the stuff you've got installed. The fact that the DIVX files all play bad on that computer, not just in SageTV, seems to indicate you have a more encompassing problem. Also, try disabling various programs and playing the DIVX file again. It could be a program on there not playing well with others...

[steingra]

Is your hard drive operating in DMA transfer mode? I KNOW it slowed down my playing of DVD's on my system because the secondary IDE channel had dropped to a slower (non DMA mode) It was a bug in Windows XP.

I know this may not be related. But until I fixed the secondary IDE channel problem my DVDs sounded pretty choppy and video was choppy. And cpu usage was high 85 to 90% on a 2 Ghz AMD based system with lots of RAM.

Just figured I would mention it. Seemed like a small miracle to me, once I fixed it, and then the DVDs looked and sounded great.

Also, I downloaded and purchased PowerDVD, which seemed to have better quality than some of the other programs, and definately better support for DTS 5.1 based movies. Using PowerDVD I believe also solved some of my clicking and popping sounds in DVD movies.