SageTV V3.0.14 Release Candidate 3

[Opus4]

No, that feature wasn't removed, but I believe it may only react when a new drive letter shows up. (Edit: Yes, that is the way it works, so if inserting the card doesn't result in a new drive letter showing up, the pop-up won't apear.)

Has anything changed with the way the card reader works?

- Andy

[flashbacck]

I've always just been plugging a flash drive into my USB port. I may have added the drive letter to the directories for the media library. I'll try removing that.

[Opus4]

BTW: you can use the pop-up menu in Media Center -> Browse Media Files to access the card too.

- Andy

[ldavis]

mkanet,

I did a full uninstall (including the registry and sage directory), restart, and install. I still have the audio problem on certain HD channels.

I also opened some of these files in Zoomplayer and took at look at the Cyberlink Demux filter. One thing I noticed is that for the same show/same channel/different files the video and audio PIDs are different. This appears to be the same for both channels that have the audio problem and those that do not so I so not know if it is significant but as I recall with other recordings not from Sage, the PID is the same for each channel regardless of the show. In fact, I has thought that there were only two common combinations. Also, on the channles that work the PIDs seem to change sequentially but on the channels with audio problems the change is random. Since I am having trouble sending a file to Narflex, I'll try to look at is this way. Narflex, if you want me to look at anything else just ask. I will also see if I can reduce the size of the file I am sending so that I can get it through.

[jblust]

Here's my experience with the Sage Beta and my A180 card so far:

3.0.11 and prior: Trying to record w/ A180 results in pegged CPU and unviewable recordings
3.0.13: CPU during recording is fixed and is <10%, but recordings are super-skippy
3.0.14: Recordings are improved, but not quite viewable. The issue is that the video goes pixelated and the sound skips about every 1-5 seconds, and it's worse on some channels than others. I know it's not a playback issue on my client because I can play my firewire recordings with no problems. We're almost there though... I may try to swap cards around to see if it's IRQ-related, but I haven't found the time yet.

[Goodspike]

Jblust--have you tried different AUDIO codecs?

[wazkaren]

Originally Posted by jblust

Here's my experience with the Sage Beta and my A180 card so far:

I found that if I use the Sage UI while it's recording it can cause skips in the recordings from my A180 or Fusion 5 lite. I noticed this one evening when I was watching a live recording on my SageClient while I was using the Sage UI on the Sage Server. When I opened the Sage UI and moved from one screen to another I would occassional hear skips in the audio on the Client. I put the Server to sleep and the skips stopped. The skips were repeatable in the same place so I know it was a recording problem, not a playback problem.

Greg

[mkanet]

Wazkaren, probably one of the most overlooked problems in HD recording has to do with performance issues on the storage subsystem used.

Most of the time, these problems aren't exposed until using software which is relatively sensetive to sustained throughput of a storage subsystem. These problems are caused by unusual hardware conflicts in DMA/IRQ (which aren't even shown in WinXP's event viewer unless something is REALLY wrong).

There isn't much left in SageTV to fix or tweak anymore in respect to performance that I know of.

[wazkaren]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Wazkaren, probably one of the most overlooked problems in HD recording has to do with performance issues on the storage subsystem used.

Most of the time, these problems aren't exposed until using software which is relatively sensetive to sustained throughput of a storage subsystem. These problems are caused by unusual hardware conflicts in DMA/IRQ (which aren't even shown in WinXP's event viewer unless something is REALLY wrong).

There isn't much left in SageTV to fix or tweak anymore in respect to performance that I know of.

But it seems interesting to me that the problem I described only occurs while recording digital. I've never seen this problem with any of my Hauppauges, even when recording on 3 hauppauges at the same time. But with one A180 recording alone I see the problem.

Greg

[mkanet]

Greg, yes I've noticed that too. It seems like HD transport streams are very sensetive to sustained data transfer rate. They stutter if the data rate dips down briefly while recording. My Hauppauge is set to 12mbit/sec CBR and doesnt have any issues like that.

[jblust]

I think I've found the cause of my A180 stutter. I ran across a post on AVSForum where someone was complaining that their SiI3112 SATA controller seemed to be causing similar stuttering for them with their A180 using MCE. I have a SiI3512 SATA controller, which is similar, and all of my Sage recording directories are on the SATA drives. I tried temporarily setting up a Sage recording directory on my PATA boot drive, and started some new recordings from the A180, and I got perfect recordings!

Unfortunately, I can't tell Sage to always use a particular (PATA) drive for recordings from the A180 tuner, so I may have to juggle hardware somehow so that I'm not recording to the SATA drives. It's nice to know that my stutter wasn't Sage's fault though

[flashbacck]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No, that feature wasn't removed, but I believe it may only react when a new drive letter shows up. (Edit: Yes, that is the way it works, so if inserting the card doesn't result in a new drive letter showing up, the pop-up won't apear.)

Has anything changed with the way the card reader works?

- Andy

I think I figured it out. I've been using SageMC and I don't think this feature works in the STV for whatever reason. I'll make a note in the SageMC thread...

[dooferlad]

This morning half way through watching a program Sage (3 RC3) the sound started stuttering. It would appear that if it is recording it is causing lots of interrupts becaues Windows sound (in other apps as well) stutters. Happens in both Service and standalone modes. If I disable the service (so nothing is recording) and just have the UI open everything is fine. I tried restarting the service and rebooting the machine but nothing seems to help. I didn't change drivers or anything like that. Anyone else seen this behaviour? Got a fix?

[dfitz43]

jblust,

not to shoot down your theory or anything, but I have three SATA HD's across two SiI 3112 PCI SATA controllers for my media storage in my Sage server. Using an A180, I can stream HD across a wired 100 Mb/s network to my Sage client with virtually no stuttering. (When I say virtually, I mean like 1 very brief glitch every 15-20 min or so; however, this is what I've always gotten even with MyHD on a local machine, and it really doesn't bother me.) It does sound like in your case moving to the PATA drive helped for whatever reason, though.

Like someone else reported earlier in this thread, 3.0.14 RC3 resolved basically all of my HD issues. All of my sub-channels are correctly mapped now (3 on most networks, 5 on PBS) and the EPG reflects this. Thanks Sage!! I think I may be ready to introduce the system to my wife.

[cummings66]

This is interesting. I too had audio stutter with MyHD, but it's the card and not the hardware because if I rewind the stutter is not there which means the stream was recorded correctly, plus Sage never ever stutters for me when playing back transport streams.

I don't use SATA and have been considering a large SATA drive for recordings, so I wonder if I should just wait a bit.

[Goodspike]

I use a SATA drive without issue. I think the report was for a particular Sata interface, and probably for that interface with a particular driver.

[rickgillyon]

I have stutters/dropouts every five minutes or so on recordings, no reason that I can work out; maybe it's due to SATA2 issues (capture drive is a SATA2 500GB on recent Nvidia SATA2 controller).

Rick

[scm]

I am also having stutter problems, but a little different from the ones being described here. I can watch between 5 to ten minutes of a HD recording without problem, and then constant stuttering begins. It is too bad to even understand what is being said. I can typically fast forward/rewind a little and temporarily correct it to get another 5 to 10 minutes. Then, it will reach a point where the only fix is to remote desktop onto the server, stop the Sage Service, restart it, and then the process begins again from the beginning. Odd thing is that I can watch "live tv" (I know nothing in Sage is truly live), and I don't have a problem. I have tried disabling my SD tuner cards to see if I was getting an IRQ problem, and I've tried making sure nothing else was being recorded that was triggering the problem. Nothing helps.

I am recording to IDE drives, no raid configuration.

[dooferlad]

Originally Posted by dooferlad

This morning half way through watching a program Sage (3 RC3) the sound started stuttering. It would appear that if it is recording it is causing lots of interrupts becaues Windows sound (in other apps as well) stutters. Happens in both Service and standalone modes. If I disable the service (so nothing is recording) and just have the UI open everything is fine. I tried restarting the service and rebooting the machine but nothing seems to help. I didn't change drivers or anything like that. Anyone else seen this behaviour? Got a fix?

Oops - the aerial cable had been kicked out of socket so when the PVR350 started to record static it had a bit of a fit!

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by Opus4

BTW: you can use the pop-up menu in Media Center -> Browse Media Files to access the card too.

- Andy

This brings up another point. with RC3 this feature now wont read files from cds properly and it worked fine with RC2. now when you tell it to play a file it gives

Error: Error (-2): Files selected for playback are no longer on disk.

It will copy files from the drive however.

Edit: Just noticed something too. It only does it when you have the service enabled. Dont have to tell me, Im logging a bug report ASAP.