Strange Hesitation problems with Sage Server

[srothwell]

I ham having a lot of, what I would call, video hesistations on the TV that the Sage server plays on.

The manifest themnselves as the video freezing for 2-3 seconds but the audio continuing then the video runs at fast speed unitl it catches up with the audio.

Last night it was SO bad, we left the room and watched the show on an MVP.

My server has 3 PVR-250 tuners, a dedicated internal 250GB SATA hard drive and a dedicated external 600GB Lacie Firewire drive. Now, last night it was recording three shows while were watching a fourth recorded show.

Normally I would assume that just too much was being asked of the hard drive (for some reason Sage insists on storing everything on the 600GB drive even though there's plenty of place on the other drive -- and yes I checked they are both active in the system as recordabel drives).

However, I said it got so bad that we just went and watched it on an MVP.... The MVP had no stuttering no nohthing. Just to provem my point, I also called up SageTV Client and watched a 5th show and it did not have any problems.

The hesistation and freeze/catchup only happen on the TV hooked to the server.

Is anyone else having these problems? I'm getting pretty sure it unlikely it's Sage and more likely Windows.

Any points in the right direction would be appreciated.

System:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Nvidia GEForce 3 board
ATI 8500 Video (DVI into the TV set running at 1776x1000)
Nvidia decoders (but changed back to intervideo thinking that was the cause -- it wasn't)

[gplasky]

Running SA or comskip? I noticed this the other night but SA had kicked in and for some reason was taking 60-80% of the CPU even though I had it set to use no more than 40%. So I set a blackout of prime time and stopped that issue. New version of SA is out and I'm testing that today. If that's not it I'm not sure what it could be.

I would think Sage would need to have less than 250 GB available on your 600 before it uses your 250. I'm pretty sure it will use the drive that has the most available.

Gerry

[srothwell]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Running SA or comskip? I noticed this the other night but SA had kicked in and for some reason was taking 60-80% of the CPU even though I had it set to use no more than 40%. So I set a blackout of prime time and stopped that issue. New version of SA is out and I'm testing that today. If that's not it I'm not sure what it could be.

I would think Sage would need to have less than 250 GB available on your 600 before it uses your 250. I'm pretty sure it will use the drive that has the most available.

Gerry

Nope. No SA or showshifer. Don't do automatic skipping or analysing.

It used to be fine then I put the 600GB lacie on it and this started. For the life of me I can't think it's the drive becuase I can be recording 3 shows and playing back 3 different shows on a client and 2 MVPs all at the same time all from the same lacie drive and the only one to have any problems is the server itself. The Cleint and the MVPs have no isses.

Stacy

[gplasky]

It sounds drive related but just may need some tweaking. Turn off the "Enable drive caching" if that is on for the drive. Under My computer-properties-system properties-advanced-performance-settings-performance options-advanced-make sure to select programs if it isn't already.

Check Event Viewer and see if any errors are being generated by or reference the firewaire port or drive. There were some hotfixes put out by MS for firewire issues after SP but don't know if they address this issue.

Gerry

[srothwell]

Originally Posted by gplasky

It sounds drive related but just may need some tweaking. Turn off the "Enable drive caching" if that is on for the drive. Under My computer-properties-system properties-advanced-performance-settings-performance options-advanced-make sure to select programs if it isn't already.

Check Event Viewer and see if any errors are being generated by or reference the firewaire port or drive. There were some hotfixes put out by MS for firewire issues after SP but don't know if they address this issue.

Gerry

That was it!!! When I got the drive a month ago I changed the drive settings from "Optimize for Quick Removal (No write caching)" to "Optimize for Performace (write caching)"

Last night I had 3 recodrings going with 4 playbacks throughout the house and the Server itself without one single hickup for stutter. My wife isn't bitching any more.

Thanks!

[mike1961]

I have a feeling that is the answer to my post here as well:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...8258post158258

Thanks,
Mike