stutter

[rabbitslayer]

I know that there are a million posts out there on HDTV stutter but, I haven't been able to make heads or tails of any of the results out there.

I am having trouble with my vbox 150 in that when I am viewing live or recorded HD the picture stutters.

How do i go about resolving this? Could it be a signal issue?

[Polypro]

Having just moved from an area where I got just 1 720p channel, to one where I get every OTA channel, I've been having a problem with 1080i channels. I'm running 5.0.4 with 3D Accel/VMR9/FSE. VGA is a 6600GT OC'd to 470/1.15 in 2D. Drivers/Decoders are 84.21/.185 (later versions didn't help/looked worse PQ wise). ATSC Tuner is a Fusion5 Gold PCI. *So far* I can't see how the 1080i "Judder" isn't Sage related (I've tried Java 1.4.11/12, and 1.5b5, no diff). If I watch with Dvico's software (3.2/3.41), everything is smooth. I can use Zulu Software, Zulu Dxva, or Zulu Software+VMR, and it is fine. If I watch with WMP with the NVIDIA decoder, everything is smooth. Same with MPC set to VMR9 Renderless. When I watch through Sage, I get the start-stop action. FOX 720p is fine. DirectX is Aug dist. I've tried all decoder settings in both Dxva and Software. I'm not 100% convinced, but I'm eagerly awaiting 5.1.

P

[rabbitslayer]

I was toying around with this tonight and I was checking a software that I just downloaded from the net. It is called watchhdtv

I am getting conflicting signal qualities from this program and the signal meter program that vbox puts out. Here are screen shots from both.

Now from the stutter I have been seeing it looks like the watchhdtv is more correct on what the channel signal actually is. Right?

I have this antenna in case you were wondering. This should be more than enough to pick up channels that are about 35 to 40 miles off right?

Do I need a signal amp?

[Goodspike]

One thing that's easy to try is to back off about 5 seconds from live.

[rabbitslayer]

Being sorta a noob to sage and a real noob to hdtv... what do you mean?

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by rabbitslayer

Being sorta a noob to sage and a real noob to hdtv... what do you mean?

Assuming you were referring to my post, just pause the playback five seconds so that you aren't viewing it live.

[Polypro]

That doesn't work in my case. I've pretty much tested every setting and build of Java, drivers and software with 5.0.4. Every other media player I've tried is "jerk" free...and they're *not* using FSE. Live or Pre-Recorded exhibits the same behavior.

P

[blade]

Originally Posted by Polypro

That doesn't work in my case. I've pretty much tested every setting and build of Java, drivers and software with 5.0.4. Every other media player I've tried is "jerk" free...and they're *not* using FSE. Live or Pre-Recorded exhibits the same behavior.

P

Are you sure they're not using FSE and are you certain they're all using VMR9? My understanding is that zoomplayer, theatretek, mce, MPC all use FSE (maybe called renderless). I assume many other apps do as well. I guess you've made sure it's turned off though.

I don't know if it's a Sage specific problem or not. I've read threads on other forums where people have the exact same problem you do. Where 1080i plays find with the divco software, MPC, etc... but not in MCE for example.

It's well known that the 6600GT has trouble with 1080i. Even SD upscaled to 1080i pushes mine pretty hard and I can't get smooth playback without FSE regardless of the player I use.

Have you tried different 3d settings in your drivers?

[blade]

Originally Posted by Polypro

VGA is a 6600GT OC'd to 470/1.15 in 2D.

Why are you overclocking 2d? If you're trying to boost performance when doing VMR9 you need to be overclocking 3d. If you want to verfiy this just install fraps. In my experience the Nvidia Decoder with film content should show 24 fps, Nvidia decoder with video 60 fps, Nvidia Post Processing or Sage decoder with video 30 fps. I believe the Sage decoder will also display film at 30fps instead of 24. I'm not sure about Nvidia Post Processing, but I would assume it would correctly do 24 fps. All of that is with SD content, FSE enabled, and Sage decoder set to smart. If you use automatic it will all be 60 fps.

With SD upscaled to 1080i I get 54-57 fps with my 6600gt underclocked to 350mhz and 60 fps with it at the default 500mhz. The only HD stuff I have is downloaded clips so I don't have anything to really test HD with.

Edit:

I just did a quick test with FSE disabled on SD upscaled to 1080i. For film I get 21-23 fps which causes some stuttering and tearing. Video I get a blistering 10-11 fps.

I admit I don't really understand what it all means in techinical terms. About all I know is film is supposed to be 24 fps and video 30 or 60 depending on who you ask. Also if I playback a pal video I get 25 fps according to fraps. Either way it seems like a useful measure.

[Polypro]

I know MPC isn't in FSE, as I made that assumption with it's "Renderless" option a year or so ago, and was corrected. Good call on the 2D though...I got that one Bass Ackwards MPC is perfect though, why wouldn't Sage be? If it was the 6600, wouldn't MPC stumble as well? Waiting on a Passive 7600GT AGP or a cooler to throw on the Leadtek 7600GT AGP.

Thanks,

P

[blade]

I don't use MPC on my 6600GT machine, but I installed it a few minutes ago. I don't get any stutters, but the tearing is terrible. I have no idea what decoder it's using, but it's not the Nvidia which is my default. If you're using a different decoder it may be using a simplier deinterlacing method that requires less power.

If I set it to use the Nvidia by adding the decoder to the external filters the stuttering is even worse for me than with Sage. I also tried WMP and it stutters as well.

[rabbitslayer]

Have you guys looked at the different signal levels that I attached?

How do you guys reconcile that? Which is correct?

[blade]

Originally Posted by rabbitslayer

Have you guys looked at the different signal levels that I attached?

How do you guys reconcile that? Which is correct?

I don't know jack about signal strength and how it affects HD, but I do know it takes a lot of power to playback HD smoothly. Unless someone else can confirm that signal strength can cause stuttering in HD and that yours is low I'd probably look at the playback side of things.

Either way more system specs would probably help. Such as what cpu, video card and decoder are you using? Also are you using FSE, 3d acceleration, and what resolution?

[Polypro]

rabbit:

There's no way you'd even have audio, much less a picture, at 20%. I'd say the WatchHDTV app's signal checker is wrong. Sage and Dvico pretty much match up as far as strength goes, on my box. I'd say your cards app is correct.

P

[rabbitslayer]

I am actually running a sage tv server/client config...

on both machines I have an opteron 170

Server
900MB Ram
Geforce 6200
XP Pro
on board snd
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9

client
gig o ram
XFX Geforce 7800 GT
XP Pro
Xi-Fi snd card
Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI

Edit: I just did a quick check and nvidia just release some new drivers!
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_91.47.html

[rabbitslayer]

I am not sure if this has anything to do with it but if you have a client server setup with two nvidia cards... it looks like both need to be on the same driver set to solve this problem.
So far from what I have seen this seems to solve the problem.

Thanks guys!

[blade]

Originally Posted by rabbitslayer

I am not sure if this has anything to do with it but if you have a client server setup with two nvidia cards... it looks like both need to be on the same driver set to solve this problem.
So far from what I have seen this seems to solve the problem.

Thanks guys!

The driver on the server has nothing to do with the playback on the client.

[rabbitslayer]

Well over the weekend I played more with the HD and it looks like at small size it displays the hd just fine. Just when I go to full screen it has stuttering issues. Could this be the nvidia decoder?

[blade]

Sounds like your video card. It's much easier for the video card to draw a small window than a fullscreen image.

Are you using VMR9 or Overlay? If you're using VMR you'll most likely need to use FSE. Also if you're using VMR you might need to look at your 3d settings. I can get perfectly smooth playback with a 1080 clip with my 6600GT or it can be jerky depending on my 3d settings.

[rabbitslayer]

I think right now I have the nvidia decoder set to Overlay. I have problems with Zoom trying to resize and whatnot with VMR9... which is why i stuck with Overlay.

Also right now my resolution is 1366x768... does that make any difference?

What 3d setting should I have the 7800 set to?