How I stopped VMR9 stuttering (including 1080i) and solved all my sound issues.

[samgreco]

I think getting back to salsbst's point here is important. Regardless of which video card, if plays back correctly in Graphedit and not in Sage, then it's not the card or Windows.

I have not been able to use VMR9 yet. I have completely given up and use overlay which is working well. I just keep checking back here hoping someone has found the magic bullet.

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am curious as to whether this is a problem that has been ongoing, or did it begin with V6. I have seen quite a few threads titled "Stuttering in V6" etc. Because of this I have been hesitant to upgrade from V5. Right now I am getting what I consider to be excellent HD playback in sage using VMR9/FSE and I dont want to screw that up.

Perhaps it would be helpful if those getting good HD playback could detail their sage hardware/software configuration. This may help identify problem areas. My stuff is detailed in my sig. Also note that these machines are dedicated to sage and run no other software.

I can say that reception is something of an issue. I am very fortunate in that all the towers in my area are close together and fairly close (<20 miles) to my home. I still ended up needing two antennas (uhf and vhf), a combiner/amp and first rate cable to get it working. I would have given up if I could have gotten an R5000 D* box that would do mpeg4. I am not trying to say that this is only a reception issue. I am just trying to offer some info on how I got HD to work for me.

Jesse

[salsbst]

Originally Posted by Jesse

I am curious as to whether this is a problem that has been ongoing, or did it begin with V6...

For me, the problem started with v6.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by salsbst

For me, the problem started with v6.

Me too. Works great on machine with 7600GT on PC with 6600 (not GT) no go

B

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hi,

I am curious as to whether this is a problem that has been ongoing, or did it begin with V6. I have seen quite a few threads titled "Stuttering in V6" etc. Because of this I have been hesitant to upgrade from V5. Right now I am getting what I consider to be excellent HD playback in sage using VMR9/FSE and I dont want to screw that up.

Perhaps it would be helpful if those getting good HD playback could detail their sage hardware/software configuration. This may help identify problem areas. My stuff is detailed in my sig. Also note that these machines are dedicated to sage and run no other software.

I can say that reception is something of an issue. I am very fortunate in that all the towers in my area are close together and fairly close (<20 miles) to my home. I still ended up needing two antennas (uhf and vhf), a combiner/amp and first rate cable to get it working. I would have given up if I could have gotten an R5000 D* box that would do mpeg4. I am not trying to say that this is only a reception issue. I am just trying to offer some info on how I got HD to work for me.

Jesse

That's the big question. There was a bit of a to do about whether it's a V6 problem per se there's another protracted thread about it elsewhere where Narflex was posting asking for more info and proof that it was a v6 specific issue.

There's been no word, at least that I've seen, on the forums as to Sage's official position so I'm hoping that if it's a v6 problem, they will at least have it fixed by the official 6.1 release. That's a lot of IFs, this could all have been over nothing with just sage re-assigning merits for directshow filters when it was installed or something.

For what it's worth, both the sage demultiplexors produce stuttery playback for me but the nVIDIA one seems much better. Only a limited amount of material has a visible stutter and I use v5, which suggests that this has always been an issue, not just in v6.

Edit: Apologies for misquoting Opus4.

[Jesse]

Hi,

For me, the problem started with v6.

Me too. Works great on machine with 7600GT on PC with 6600 (not GT) no go

Didnt I read somewhere that V6 uses a different "player" than previous versions? I wonder if V6 just requires more powerful hardware than V5 (or other players, for that matter). I was running a 6600GT AGP in one of my clients with good success for quite a while. I only upgraded to the 7600GT because, you know, more is better.

Jesse

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by PhillJones

There was a bit of a to do about whether it's a V6 problem per se there's another protracted thread about it elsewhere where Narflex was posting asking for more info and proof that it was a v6 specific issue.

Not exactly -- in that other thread, someone else incorrectly claimed that the information was being requested as proof and that it wasn't being followed up upon; SageTV/Narflex has been making some suggestions and asking for debug logs & more information, etc., to try to get to the bottom of it & resolve it.

The official bug reporting & testing is done via bug reports and/or emails to betatest at sagetv dot com rather than in the forum. There is no problem at all with discussing possible issues & solutions in the forum, but to work with SageTV to resolve it, please contact SageTV directly.

- Andy

[salsbst]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Not exactly -- in that other thread, someone else incorrectly claimed that the information was being requested as proof and that it wasn't being followed up upon; SageTV/Narflex has been making some suggestions and asking for debug logs & more information, etc., to try to get to the bottom of it & resolve it.

The official bug reporting & testing is done via bug reports and/or emails to betatest at sagetv dot com rather than in the forum. There is no problem at all with discussing possible issues & solutions in the forum, but to work with SageTV to resolve it, please contact SageTV directly.

- Andy

I have no problem with the notion that official communication of clearly identifiable bugs be through the SageTV betatest venue. I do, however, wish that SageTV architects/developers would help us in our discussions on the forum. Direction is needed from those who know the code, and asking each user to individually interact with SageTV in a private channel is, IMO, a recipe for inefficiency. We're customers, not testers. Treat us with respect, please.

In this thread, and others, we're throwing out ideas to try to solve a problem, and it would behoove SageTV to participate in the discussion to help frame it and narrow down our efforts.

There was a time when that type of interaction happened on the forums. But at this point, it seems that SageTV LLC is retreating into a mode of operation whereby problems can only be discussed offline. In the short term, that may help to hide or obscure the problems, but in the long run, it's no benefit to the greater goal of improving the software that is for sale.

I'm standing on a precipice of a decision to spend $2000 or so to solve my stupid stuttering problem by buying new hardware (a new laptop). I don't want to do that. I have no confidence that the problem would be solved that way. I don't understand the problem, because I have no insight into why it occurs. I don't feel that SageTV is cooperating in solving the problem.

Bottom line: this stuttering problem is a serious one. SageTV appears to be hiding from it by refusing to participate in the discussion of it. If it were an isolated problem, then discussing it offline in a private channel might be ok. But that's not the state of affairs.

The value of SageTV, for me, was that problems (and ideas) were formerly addressed openly. It was a great community, giving me confidence that the development of the product was in line with my wants and needs. Now it seems that things have changed. SageTV had a real corner on the market, but is killing itself by being neither Microsoft (the big gun) nor MythTV (a community project).

Let's go back to having a commercially owned product that is developed and supported in a community environment.

[davin]

Just my 2 cents...

I have a athlon64 3200+ and a PCI-E 7600GT. Graphedit with the default filters (sage splitter, purevideo video decoder, ac3filter, vmr9 renderer) renders 720p material OK and I get a little bit of microstutter on 1080i (letterman intro). Sage set to all default gives me a lot of stutter even on 720p.

I am currently using overlay (all sage video/audio set to default instead of renderer, which is set to overlay) in Sage and I get smooth playback on all material.

FSE crashes sage for me. This is after a relatively fresh install. So I'm wondering if the newfangled virtual IRQ stuff in XP is screwing things up. In the old days you could tweak things and arrange cards so that the video card doesn't share a physical IRQ, but I'm not sure if that's possible anymore.

[sanne]

I also had a weird problem today where SAGE added a bunch of channels to my available channel list for no apparent reason. Of course all channels they added were QAM encrypted so I couldn't view them. This was annoying.

[cummings66]

Originally Posted by salsbst

Bottom line: this stuttering problem is a serious one. SageTV appears to be hiding from it by refusing to participate in the discussion of it. If it were an isolated problem, then discussing it offline in a private channel might be ok. But that's not the state of affairs.

I would say that the perception is there that the above is true, my personal feeling is that public posting and guiding of the threads on how to solve the issue is important to not only getting it solved but also perception of the progress in this effort. I will say I believe they acknowledged the problem exists and that it's not my machine that it happens on, I also know they have yet to discover the cause. I know they're working on it, but I do wish they'd participate here and help guide things.

As I said in my previous postings I had it running in Ver 5 with no stutters, then it started in Ver. 6. I sent logs from Ver 6 in, I also did revert to Ver 5 and to my surprise I had stutter there as well.

I do not know why, the machine is not exactly the same as it was then (software wise) and I was not able to create stutter free playback in Ver. 5 as I remember it. I know the decoders are important and it's possible the issue is there, it could be other things as well.

This much I do know, last night on the .4 release I had stutter free playback on my HD playbacks, it seemed to be better than any other release I've been using.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Not exactly -- in that other thread, someone else incorrectly claimed that the information was being requested as proof and that it wasn't being followed up upon; SageTV/Narflex has been making some suggestions and asking for debug logs & more information, etc., to try to get to the bottom of it & resolve it.

The official bug reporting & testing is done via bug reports and/or emails to betatest at sagetv dot com rather than in the forum. There is no problem at all with discussing possible issues & solutions in the forum, but to work with SageTV to resolve it, please contact SageTV directly.

- Andy

Okay Andy, take it easy.

The last link you gave there is what I was refering to. Narflex wanted an example of a reproducible case of of stutter being worse in v6 than v5. That's asking for proof. I mean proof in the scientific sense of the word rather than the judicial sense, you don't have to defend yourself or sage.

I hope the animosity on the forums doesn't get to the point where sage feels they have to close the forums. If it weren't for the forums, I for one wouldn't have a working sage system and would have given up long ago.

If it's any incentive, if you fix this issue, I'll buy the upgrade.

Now if we can move on. What is the status of this issue. Have the developers isolated a problem or are they unable to reproduce it and think we're all on crack? Have the splitter and/or multiplexor changed from v5 to v6?

[PhillJones]

I'm considering testing this to see if it's a v6 issue, at least for me.

Here's the plan,
I've never done a drive image before but was thinking about downloading a freeware or trialware drive image programme and backing up my C drive so that I can get back exactly what I started with. A good recommendation for this would be appreciated.

Then I want to collect whatever logs the sageTV people would need and then install v6. With my heart in my mouth and a shaky hand, I'd then see if matters were worse or better, take log files if they're worse and then if it's a v6 specific issue, we'll at least know where we stand. Maybe I can see if the install changes the filter merits and swaps in the sage splitter or demultiplexor for the nVIDIA one, which is my personal hypothesis.

My wife will be out of town at some point in the coming weeks, I'll do it then, if I do do it. The WAF would go way down if I indulged in this type of shenanigans with her around.

[cummings66]

Here's how to do it. Play back a HD program that does not stutter, capture those logs and save it.

Now install Ver 6 and play back the same HD program and see what it does, if it stutters capture that log.

Now email both those logs to Sage and you've helped them a lot.

Make sure that first you image the working V5 system of yours, enable debugging on Ver 5 and then play back the HD program.

The issue is right now as I understand it, they have no logs from a working Ver 5 system that stutters on a Ver 6 install. I'll be honest and upfront as I was in that thread where I ate some humble pie, mine stuttered when I reverted to Ver 5 and from what I read between the lines so too has the others who've done what I did.

Doing it your way at this point in time is the only possible way to help.

[Jesse]

Hi,

Here's how to do it. Play back a HD program that does not stutter, capture those logs and save it.

Now install Ver 6 and play back the same HD program and see what it does, if it stutters capture that log.

Now email both those logs to Sage and you've helped them a lot.

Make sure that first you image the working V5 system of yours, enable debugging on Ver 5 and then play back the HD program.

The issue is right now as I understand it, they have no logs from a working Ver 5 system that stutters on a Ver 6 install.

I could do that. My V5 install plays back HD just fine.

If I backup the entire sagetv folder on all three of my machines and make no other software or driver changes could I just reinstall V5 and swap my old folders in if V6 does not work? Sounds to me like folks have tried this and had problems. I am not interested in having a a flawed V6 install without being able to roll back to a working V5 install.

Jesse

[PhillJones]

I was thinking of using this

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/DriveImageXML.html

I have a smal OS partition on one of my disks and plenty of spare space to put an image.

I'm not sure how these programmes like to make or restore images of the partitions on which they reside though.

[Jesse]

Hi,

I have a copy of True Image but I am hoping it wont be necessary to go that far. Anyone have any thoughts on why a backup of the entire V5 sage folder might not be enough?

Jesse

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hi,

I have a copy of True Image but I am hoping it wont be necessary to go that far. Anyone have any thoughts on why a backup of the entire V5 sage folder might not be enough?

Jesse

In case it makes changes to the registry and/or the directshow filters.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Jesse

I have a copy of True Image but I am hoping it wont be necessary to go that far. Anyone have any thoughts on why a backup of the entire V5 sage folder might not be enough?

If there is some sort of registry or system setting change that doesn't get reverted if you reinstall v5, then doing a complete system image before trying v6.1 would help test for such a thing. And, for testing purposes, don't change anything else -- video card drivers, decoders, etc.

- Andy

[bbig119]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hi,

I have a copy of True Image but I am hoping it wont be necessary to go that far. Anyone have any thoughts on why a backup of the entire V5 sage folder might not be enough?

Jesse

It may be possible to uninstall Sage v6, install v5 and copy your saved working folder over. What I do for my system is to periodically(and before any changes to Sage are made) backup my Sage folder into a rar. I also have trueimage doing daily backups which as pointed out is certainly worth your effort as it is a sure way to ensure that you can retrieve stutter-free playback in ver5, if reverting back to v5 gives you stuttering.

I can't could the number of times that having a recent image has saved my ass. I've gotten better at not hosing my system, but early on I would just restore the drive if I had a hitch-- painless and relatively fast. Good practice on something that takes so much time to get configured correctly.