Athlon64 3200+ too little for HDTV?

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Double check that you're actually using DXVA.

How would I do this? I have 3d acceleration enabled in DXdiag, nVidia decoder is set as default in DECheck and my video renderers are set to default. I run FSE, doesn't that imply DirectX? Do you meant the DXVA MPEG Mode as per Mode A, Mode B, Mode C, Mode D etc in detailed setup? The manual recomends leaving them at default. Is there another way to tell if DXVA is running?

I would think it would not be a exclusively a Sage thing, I get similar CPU usage from Windows media player. Will have to double check that though.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

How would I do this? I have 3d acceleration enabled in DXdiag, nVidia decoder is set as default in DECheck and my video renderers are set to default. I run FSE, doesn't that imply DirectX? Do you meant the DXVA MPEG Mode as per Mode A, Mode B, Mode C, Mode D etc in detailed setup? The manual recomends leaving them at default. Is there another way to tell if DXVA is running?

I mean make sure you're using hardware accelleration....

I would think it would not be a exclusively a Sage thing, I get similar CPU usage from Windows media player. Will have to double check that though.

When you're playing something in WMP, open the decoder properties and see what the decode mode is.

[Humanzee]

Ok, I think this is a SageTV related issue now. I think the GPU overclocking helped but when I overclocked the CPU I got some stability problems. So just for kicks I updated to Forceware beta 84.02 (I think). I don't think it made much difference over the release version of the forceware drivers, as I didn't make any benchmarks before.

Anyway, I thought I'd start task manager and track the cpu usage in Windows Media Player and then compare it to SageTV. I get about 20-30% cpu usage when playing back a Sage Recorded HDTV 1080i file in Windows Media Player using the nVidia Pure video decoder. That very same file played back in SageTV pegs the CPU to 100% and starts stuttering also using the nVidia decoder. Decoder mode says that it is using "DirectX VA mode A (idct) Video Mixing" for both scenario's.

Time for a reinstall? Time for a bug report? 4.1.9 was a sudo clean install for me, (deleted the sagetv folder from c:\program files)

[geogecko]

Ah, I found "your" thread on this!

So, have you gotten anywhere with your system?

I noticed this morning, that when I run a HD file that was recorded with SageTV, my CPU is only sitting at about 30% load. If this is a GPU loading issue, I was wondering if the 7600GT would fix that?

However, in your last post, you state you think it was a SageTV issue. Do you still think that is true?

[Humanzee]

I really don't know, its strange. Sometimes it will freak out and not want to play anything hdtv in sage. Then I'll reboot and it will play things fine. I tried running 720p for a while and it didn't seem to help. To be honest the wife and I have been house hunting and not watching much TV for a while so it hasn't bugged me. Then I saw that there was a new release version of the forceware drivers so I updated again. I can't say that they are any better regarding this issue, but then I remembered that I hadn't re-applied the overclocking stuff on the graphics card. (cool bits) When I tried, it freaked out my monitor and showed just a bunch of streaks on the screen. Moral of the story, don't set the checkbox for "keep these settings after reboot" until you have tested them.

I had to boot into safe mode and uninstall the graphics driver, then reboot and install them again, then reboot and apply the overclocking registry hack, then set the overclocking, and it went all screwy squigly again. So I reboot again, this time withouth the checkbox checked. It rebooted with normal clocking, I applied the over clock again, and this time it worked. Of course I havn't rebooted since, its been about a week and it still plays HDTV pretty flawlessly. This is all in overlay though, I think VMR9 is just to much for the 6600GT.

So to answer your question, I think its a crumby old PC issue with a dated video card and too much junk installed. I am planning on using a 7600GT with passive cooling for my next machine, probably in 3 months or so, maybe there will be something better for the money by then.

[geogecko]

Interesting. Well, I was kind of waiting to see when all this HDCP stuff settled out, but that could be another 6-12 months...who knows.

I may just go ahead and get the 7600GT. I think it would probably fix my problems, and pick up another Fusion5 to go with it!

[lobosrul]

I havent read thru this entire thread, so i may be repeating, but heres what worked for me:

1. Make sure purevideo is your default, if Windows Media Player is using it, its the default.
2. Set your video, and DVD decoders to DEFAULT (NOT nvidia).
3. Make sure sage is using it. To do so play a video with sage in a window, and look at the purevideo settings in the "tray".

The following made everything ALMOST ok for me, as far as HD went, but i still had a bit of stuttering. The last step is to enable FSE (full screen exclusive) mode. That did it for me. However you cant change from a window to full screen with FSE on, you have to stop video, then change to window/full screen, close sage, and re open it.

Hope that does it for you. It took me weeks going thru old threads to get everything working right in sage (incl STB firewire/ and mp4 playback).

[geogecko]

Interesting.

What difference does it make if you select "Default" in Sage, but have nvidia setup as the WMP default?

If you tell it to use nvidia, versus telling it to use default (which happens to be nvidia, if you set it up right), I don't see how this would be different.

Don't get me wrong, this will be the FIRST thing I do when I get home, I'm just trying to determine why this would make a difference.

[lobosrul]

What difference does it make if you select "Default" in Sage, but have nvidia setup as the WMP default?

Common sense would side with you, however theres some sort of bug when selecting nvidia in Sage. You can check simply by look at the purevideo setting, from the tray icon, while playing a video. You should have like a green bar with video bandwidth settings.

As far as computer power, i have a 3500+, and a 7800GT. Doesnt matter, in VMR9 i still got SLIGHT stuttering w/o purevideo, so slight im sure some people wouldnt even be bothered by it, but it bothred me.

Actualy if i set my monitor down to 1280x720 it looked fine. But i run a 1980x1200 desktop (dell 24" 16:10 monitor) so that was a pain.

And actually as an asside, i didnt mind overlay, except it had some image resizing "issues", on a 16:10 monitor.

[emok]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

The PureVideo decoder? I have De-interlace Control set to "Smart", De-interlace Mode set to "Best Available" and the decoder format says "DirectX VA mode A (idct) Video Mixing" At least on Recorded HD. I have a downloaded mpg video that shows decoder mode "YUY2 Video Mixing"

Just a stab, but I've heard that people have issues with "Smart" deinterlacing on PureVideo which results in a lot of stuttering (not sure about the pixellation/cpu usage). Have you tried setting this to automatic?

[lobosrul]

Yeah, emok is right there as well, definantly try automatic.

[camus]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

The PureVideo decoder? I have De-interlace Control set to "Smart", De-interlace Mode set to "Best Available" and the decoder format says "DirectX VA mode A (idct) Video Mixing" At least on Recorded HD. I have a downloaded mpg video that shows decoder mode "YUY2 Video Mixing"

While I haven't had problems with the De-interlace set to "Smart" for HD, I do have problems with that setting with SD, I have read other people have had problems with this setting and stuttering. Does it make any difference with it set to Automatic?

I have a Athlon 3000 (venice) and HD runs it at 20%-30%.

Edit: Emok, I missed your post. Whoops. So ditto.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

2. Set your video, and DVD decoders to DEFAULT (NOT nvidia).

Hmm, I suppose this could also be why I can't play avi's in sage anymore. I think I'm forcing the nvidia decoder. I'll try when I get home, maybe try vmr9 again too.

FWIW, I switched to Automatic de-interlace control a while back.

[stanger89]

AFAIK, the decoder settings only apply to MPEG files (or DVDs). Sage will use directshow for other types.

[geogecko]

That is fine for me, I'm having stuttering problems with HD files that Sage records.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by stanger89

AFAIK, the decoder settings only apply to MPEG files (or DVDs). Sage will use directshow for other types.

Ya, setting the mpeg2 decoder to default didn't help me play back avi's. I guess its easy to forget that its just the mpeg2 decoder, when you arn't looking at the screen where it plainly says "mpeg2"

Anyway, I did a few things. I dropped my screen resolution back to 720p. I set my mpeg2 decoder filter to default. I ensured that the nvidia decoder was perferred in DECCHECK. Audio Renderer is set to default directsound device and the mpeg2 audio decoder is set to AC3 filter. I Then tested with the different video renderers.

VMR9 with FSE: watchable, but it looked like it was only showing me about 20 frames per second. The CPU was pegged at 100% and any other processes in the background would disturb the video playback.

VMR9 w/out FSE: many many dropped frames, lots of bad stuttering.

Overlay: Fluid, ~30% cpu, at least on everything that I tested with. So I guess I am staying with these settings for a while.

The last time I tried 720p, there didn't seem to be any stuttering improvement over 1080p. I couldn't understand that at the time, but now it seems to be better. I may not have tried overlay then.

Ok, so now that I am using overlay, should I change the nvidia decoder "enhanced nview support" settings to prefer overlay? or is that for something different.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Ok, so now that I am using overlay, should I change the nvidia decoder "enhanced nview support" settings to prefer overlay? or is that for something different.

From what I understand from the nVidia documentation, this is only for dual-monitor use.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

From what I understand from the nVidia documentation, this is only for dual-monitor use.

OK, Ill trust you on that, I wouldn't want to read the manual or anything.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Overlay: Fluid, ~30% cpu, at least on everything that I tested with. So I guess I am staying with these settings for a while.

Spoke too soon, I still have been having problems with hdtv until I figured something out. This evening we were trying to watch Letterman over dinner and it was particularly awful. (the stuttering that is) The wife said, is that in the recording? I said "hmm lets find out", so I switched to a windowed view and the stuttering went away. I said "looks like we need a better computer." She said something that I won't repeat. Anyway, I was suddenly inspired to try again at figureing this problem out.

I read a story online about the upcomeing HD purevideo technology and how it requres a faster graphics core frequency vs. a fast 3d rendering capability, All this time I have been overclocking my 6600 GT I have been focusing on the 3D performance overclock. So I thought I'd go in there and tinker with the core frequency manually and see if I could manage some improvement. I have always run the "Detect optimal frequencies" feature and not pushed the limits but I figured it was worth it vs buying new hardware.

With cool bits, there are two different "settings" to overclock, 3D and 2D. You can adjust both the core frequency and the memory frequency for both. I upped the 3D core freqency from 553 which the software had detected as optimal to 570ghz ran the test and it passed. I had never even clicked on the 2D settings before, but what I found was that the core frequency for 2D was only 300Mghz. Vs. the core in 3D running at 570mghz. So I said what the hell and jacked it up to 570 just like the 3D settings. I ran the test and it failed, but it did stick at 500mghz. So I applied the settings and loaded sage again.

At 720p in overlay everything is golden. I watched about 3 hours of HD recordings and they have never looked better. Now, I can't guarantee that I won't end up cooking my 6600gt but things look good for now. Here's crossing my fingers. I tried VMR9 just for grins but it locked up sage tight. Oh well. I havn't tried this all at 1080P yet but it certainly works at 720p. I guess maybe much of the conflicting reports about the success of the 6600GT cards could boil down to differences in the default core speeds of different cards from different vendors.

To close out this thread topic an amd 64 3200+ single core is enough to do HDTV with a 6600GT if you overclock your graphics card and run overlay. Well, at least for me. Your mileage may vary.

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I havent read thru this entire thread, so i may be repeating, but heres what worked for me:

1. Make sure purevideo is your default, if Windows Media Player is using it, its the default.
2. Set your video, and DVD decoders to DEFAULT (NOT nvidia).
3. Make sure sage is using it. To do so play a video with sage in a window, and look at the purevideo settings in the "tray".

The following made everything ALMOST ok for me, as far as HD went, but i still had a bit of stuttering. The last step is to enable FSE (full screen exclusive) mode. That did it for me. However you cant change from a window to full screen with FSE on, you have to stop video, then change to window/full screen, close sage, and re open it.

Hope that does it for you. It took me weeks going thru old threads to get everything working right in sage (incl STB firewire/ and mp4 playback).

I tried these settings, and still get stuttering.

I recently installed another FusionHDTV 5 Lite in my system, and now the stuttering seems to be slightly different.

Now, instead of just video stuttering, I have both video and audio stuttering at the same time.

Is this a different symptom? I get NO stuttering at all when recording from my PVR-500. CPU usage when playing HD content back is less than 30%.

Could inserting a 3.5dB loss (splitter) have that great of an effect if I had 100% channel reception on the channel in question?