System re-build. Advice needed please.

[pgman]

I have been running SageTV (starting with V4) for a little more than a year. Most of this time, I was using it for OTA SD because I did not have a high-def TV. Last November I bought a new television and I wanted to upgrade my media center to do OTA HD. So, I added an AVermedia A180 tuner (to my exisitng Happauge PVR-500MCE. I then realized that my ATI X600 pro video adapter lacked the horsepower to do HD video (at least I think that is why I couldn't fix the terrible color-banding and the in-ability to use VMR9 rendering) So, I then bought a new nVidia 7600GT-based video adapter and the PQ went WAY up (it was incredible). Since then, however, the playback has been jerky on HD channels. This is not so bad on the 720P channels (ABC and FOX) but it is pretty noticable on NBC and CBS (which I understand are 1080i). It is very bad on live sports like football and basketball - especially where fast panning happens alot. This problem is mostly when watching HDTV using SageTV and not so much when watching DVDs (using Sage or TheaterTek). This seems to be the worst when I am using 5.1 audio decoding (AC3 or the nVidia one). When I use 2-channel decoding, the jerky playback seems to go away completely on some of the channels and it gets much better on the others. This adds more creedence to my suspicion that there is a bottleneck on the motherboard somewhere. I don't know if it is the PCI buss or one of the parts of the chipset. My specs are listed below.

Basically, I have tried everything I know to do - new drivers, older drivers, I even re-loaded my OS just in case. Nothing helps. I am to the point that I really believe I have a hardware issue and so that is why I am posting here.

I want to know what motherboard I should use when I re-build. I am going to have to use the same CPU (and all the other hardware) for budgetary reasons, but I am hedging my bets that the problem is on the main board. I want smooth video playback - no stuttering or skipping. I recently spoke to a system builder who uses Intel motherboards exclusively for his HTPC machines and he tells me that is what I need. He also mentioned that the chipset I have on my current system (945P) is not good for video.

If anyone has suggestions about brand and model, please feel free to chime in. I want to get this right and forget about it for a while.

Current system:

MSI 945P-Neo2 motherboard (Intel 945 chipset)
800MHz FSB
2GB Dual-channel DDR2 Kingston memory @ 667 MHz
Intel Pentium 4 (LGA775) CPU @ 3.0GHz with Hyper-Threading (Prescott core)
MSI / nVidia 7600GT video adaptor (HDCP compliant) with VIVO and Dual DVI output
Creative Labs Audigy2 ZS audio board
2 - Hitachi Deskstar SATA 150 80GB HDD (one for OS, the other formatted with 64KB clusters for Sage TV recording)
1 - AVerMedia A-180 ATSC tuner (I may add a second during the re-build)
1 - Happauge PVR-500MCE NTSC tuner (I may remove this during the re-build)
1 - Sony DVD-RW Dual-layer DVD drive (MASTER on the PATA controller)
1 - Yamaha CD-RW CD-R drive (SLAVE on the PATA controller)
Windows XP Professional with SP2 and all current updates
SageTV V6.0.19 (latest release)

The only other software on the system is WinAmp , Theatertek, and some DVD burning software from Cyberlink.

As I stated earlier, I need to know THE motherboard to use for HTPC. I don't want "good' ones or ones that "will work". I am just trying to get this thing right and stop messing around with it. It was fun at first, but it is getting old.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[paulbeers]

What codec are you using to display HD? Sage? Cyberlink? Nvidia Purevideo? Also what are you trying to output it at? 720P? 1080i? 1080P? Unless there is something seriously wrong your motherboard, that should be more than adequate to display even 1080P.

[Jesse]

Hi,

Just for giggles, set your audio renderer to "default direct sound" and see if that helps. I have seen numerous posts relating to this throughout the boards here for a good while. No promises but it will not cost you anything to try.

HTH

Jesse

[Ken C]

I will also be interested in what the community has to say. It's time my HTPC was rebuilt with HD in mind. Also looking at an Intel board / processor, maybe an E6600 Core 2 Duo. No idea which chipset to use, way too many choices, so definitely need help there.

Ken C

[GbrNole]

if you go to the software forum an look at the stutter thread you will see that a poster pointed out that the A180 can't be used with SATA drives because a bug in the card causes stutter.

a later response pointed out that this is fixed if the drive is run as a raid array.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...t=22282&page=5

[pgman]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

What codec are you using to display HD? Sage? Cyberlink? Nvidia Purevideo? Also what are you trying to output it at? 720P? 1080i? 1080P? Unless there is something seriously wrong your motherboard, that should be more than adequate to display even 1080P.

I have tried them all and I prefer the look of Purevideo which, forunately, seems to work the best.

Like you, I thought that my hardware would be sufficient to do this - it doesn't choke on any other operation, but the video is just not smooth enough. Even when watching DVDs there is sometimes a very slight choppiness when panning.

I had been following that thread on video stutter and I lost interest because it seems to be going in circles. I did not see that post about the AVermedia card bug and the raid fix for it. I bought that card because the folks at SageTV offer it as a "compatible" ATSC solution. It sure would have been nice for them to mention that

Since I was planning to buy a larger hard drive for DVR functions anyway, perhaps I can try the RAID configuration on my DVR drive before I buy another motherboard.