studdering annoying this newbie

[nicklaz]

hi guys, i'm finally putting my sage system together but i've run into some stuttering problems. i get random stuttering no matter which decoder i use (sage, hauppauge, or nvidia). the stuttering is not that common when everything is set to defaults but it happens enough that it annoys me. is this commonplace for sagetv or do some people have systems that never stutter?

my system is a 2.1ghz athlon with an asus 6600 agp and two pvr250 cards. i tried the registry hack mentioned in the sticky and it lowered my cpu utilization to about 10-15% when watching tv in a window but did not get rid of the stuttering. is there a way to check this when sagetv is full screen?

does anyone have any recommendations?

[GTwannabe]

What cluster size are you using on your recording drives? If you aren't using 64k, you're going to have problems.

[nicklaz]

thanks for the quick reply. i'm not sure. how do i check that? i am recording to the same partition that windows is installed on. should i create a new partition for sage recordings only?

[Opus4]

One way to check cluster size is to open a command prompt window & run chkdsk on the drive in question. Among the things it lists is "N bytes in each allocation unit" towards the end.

And, yes, it would probably be best to either create another partition for recordings or add another drive... or both. Be sure to partition those with 64K clusters. You can repartition existing drives w/o losing data with something like PartitionMagic or one of Acronis' tools. (I'm leaning towards Acronis lately.)

- Andy

[nicklaz]

my drive is partitioned using 4k. i will create a new partition tomorrow and move my recordings to it. i plan on using gparted livecd to modify my partitions but i'm not sure if it can format 64k clusters. is there another free tool that can do that?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by nicklaz

i plan on using gparted livecd to modify my partitions but i'm not sure if it can format 64k clusters. is there another free tool that can do that?

Sure -- Windows should be able to. (Though maybe it depends on the version.) Essentially: once you reduce the size of the OS partition, leaving it with 4k clusters, you can use Windows XP's Disk Management tools to partition & format the newly freed-up space using 64K clusters.

- Andy

[nicklaz]

finally created the new partition. it ended up taking a lot longer than i planned cause had to reinstalled windows cause gparted screwed up my last install. things seemed to be playing smoothly after installing sage and putting the recordings on the new partition but then i installed the hauppauge decoder and enabled it and the stuttering returned.

should i go back to using the default decoders or is there something else i can try?

[Narflex]

Did you also do the reghack for the Hauppauge decoders? If that doesn't fix it, then just stick with the SageTV decoders and you should be fine.

[nicklaz]

yes, i did the reghack and now i've switched back to the default decoders and the stuttering is still there. i'm not surre what could be wrong cause this is a clean install of xp with no other applications.

[amac]

Nicklaz,

I'm not sure why no one is asking you, but are you using VMR9 / 3D acceleration instead of overlay? VMR9 has caused stutters for lots of people.

I always find it handy to know the configuration of other members. Maybe you should detail yours before we all jump to too many conclusions.

[nicklaz]

sorry about leaving that out. i am using overlay, i tried vmr9 with the last install but saw the same stuttering. all my other settings are still default. the stuttering does not happen all the time, but it is there. maybe once or twice every couple of minutes.

is this common? do you see any stuttering with your system?

[mightyt]

I have not posted in a few weeks because my family is now using my new SageTV Sever full time and I wanted to see what took place with real world usaage rather than just the setup / test environment I was working in for weeks prior.

So, one thing I have noticed myself is this stuttering problem ... It is occasional and not so bad I can't watch a show. I am specifically referring to Recorded Shows (Used more because of being spoiled with ComSkip), not LiveTV (Used Less) ...

The stuttering happens maybe 5 to 8 times in a 2 hour show. It's not a show stopper, but can be annoying if I am watching 4 or 5 hours of recordings in one sitting. BTW, I've also chedked and it does this even when nothing else is recording in background.

For the record, my Server has a 3GHz Intel P4 CPU, my OS, Music and Picture partitions are formatted with 4k clusters and my TV and Video partitions are formated with 64k clusters. I have of hundreds of gigs of storage remaining and 1gig of RAM. I have an ATI X800XT AIW Card (Not using tuner since I noticed a lot of stutterinjg in test), (4) Tuners, thus (2) Hauppauge PVR 250's and (1) PVR 500. I bought and use the Nvidia Decoders. Oh, I am using SageTV Version 4.1.3.1.

I have "not" done any Hauppage Reg Hack though. Not sure if it applies to my 250/500 cards or where the hack even is ... Can someone post the link to it?

Any other thoughts??

Thanks, T.

[nicklaz]

here is the reghack but i think it only applies if you're using the hauppauge decoders.

Just change these registry settings to 1 while SageTV is asleep or you're not watching video in SageRecorder, or they both are shutdown:

HKLM\Software\Intervideo\Custom\Hauppauge\VideoDec\Dxva
HKLM\Software\Intervideo\Custom\Hauppauge\VideoDec\Hwmc


i have not recorded anything yet so i'm not sure if the stuttering exists there. i've been watching live and this is where is see the problem.

also, i'm not sure if this has anything to do with it but my desktop resolution is 1920x1080. could this cause the problem?

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by nicklaz

here is the reghack but i think it only applies if you're using the hauppauge decoders.

Just change these registry settings to 1 while SageTV is asleep or you're not watching video in SageRecorder, or they both are shutdown:

HKLM\Software\Intervideo\Custom\Hauppauge\VideoDec\Dxva
HKLM\Software\Intervideo\Custom\Hauppauge\VideoDec\Hwmc


i have not recorded anything yet so i'm not sure if the stuttering exists there. i've been watching live and this is where is see the problem.

also, i'm not sure if this has anything to do with it but my desktop resolution is 1920x1080. could this cause the problem?

Thanks ... You mentioned SageRecorder ... I am using SageTV ... Does this hack apply to both? Also, good question ... I wonder if there is a preferred resolution??

T.

[amac]

Originally Posted by nicklaz

sorry about leaving that out. i am using overlay, i tried vmr9 with the last install but saw the same stuttering. all my other settings are still default. the stuttering does not happen all the time, but it is there. maybe once or twice every couple of minutes.

is this common? do you see any stuttering with your system?

2-3 weeks ago I reported a bug where I experienced playback stuttering exactly every 5 minutes. I don't know if you've checked the interval of your stutter to see if it is applicable to your problem.

For the past 2 weeks I've been working with Sage support to discover the source of the problem. Late Friday night they found an inefficiency in one of their loops, modified it, and I no longer experience the stutter. I'm assuming they will be adding this fix to their next beta release but I'm waiting for confirmation from Sage (because I don't know if what they changed was a fix or whether they temporarily disabled something).

[Kimper]

Is Sage the only thing that stutters? Play back some of the sage recordings in different programs and see if they are smooth? If you have Zoomplayer you can try out different filters and compare..? Just a thought.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by amac

Late Friday night they found an inefficiency in one of their loops, modified it, and I no longer experience the stutter. I'm assuming they will be adding this fix to their next beta release but I'm waiting for confirmation from Sage (because I don't know if what they changed was a fix or whether they temporarily disabled something).

Anyone that knows, please let us know if this will be fixed in .13 release?

Several of us are having the same suttering problem.

[amac]

Originally Posted by joe123

Anyone that knows, please let us know if this will be fixed in .13 release?

Several of us are having the same suttering problem.

I received confirmation from Sage that a fix will be in the next beta for the stutttering that occurs every 5 minutes.

I'm not saying that is what nicklaz is experiencing. Hopefully he will elaborate more on his problem in this thread.

[nicklaz]

thanks for the heads up amoc. unfortunately i don't think we're talking about the same issue. mine is more random and is happening while viewing live tv. i recorded a movie last night to see if the stuttering also occurs in playback of recorded material. i'll report back if i get a chance to watch it tonight.

thought i might also say that i'm using winxp with sp2. not sure if this might affect playback but i know that sp2 can cause headaches in some situations.
do most people have sp2 installed with xp?

kimper, i did not notice an stuttering when playing the free 1080p videos that microsoft has posted. this was using media player though as i do not have zoomplayer.

[nicklaz]

i played last nights in media player and sage and it only stuttered in one place in both applications. i also watched a little live tv tonight but it got too frustrating. it always stutters when going from a menu to watching tv and sometime when changing channels. other than that, there is also random stuttering while watching tv. are there many other people that watch live tv through sage or do they just use it for watching recordings?