Wired MVP Suttering Problem Fixed

[davephan]

My wired MVP unit has been working fine without problems, until recently.

My MVP unit would stutter frequently. I imaged the C drive back two weeks to a point in time when the MVP was working normally. The MVP stuttering continued. I upgraded SageTV to the latest version. The MVP stuttering continued.

I then discovered the solution. Some of the MVP ports were accidently misconfigured in my router. If some of the MVP ports are not opened up, the MVP will boot and playback, but will stutter frequently.

If you have a stuttering wired MVP, always check to make sure the ports in your router are still configured properly.

Here is a link to the MVP ports that should be opened.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...335#post105335


Dave

[wakebdr]

I'm having issues with stuttering and choppy playback but only on imported videos in my video library. Live TV and recorded shows play fine, but imported videos are unwatchable.

Anyone know anything I can do to fix this issue? Will increasing a buffer value help this? If so, where can I do that?

Thanks

[AngelofDeth]

What kind of files are in the imported folder? If they are non-mpegs, they need to be transcoded to the MVP, and this takes quite a bit of CPU power on the server.

[GbrNole]

Originally Posted by wakebdr

I'm having issues with stuttering and choppy playback but only on imported videos in my video library. Live TV and recorded shows play fine, but imported videos are unwatchable.

Anyone know anything I can do to fix this issue? Will increasing a buffer value help this? If so, where can I do that?

Thanks

what angelofdeth said and also if those imported videos are on another drive make sure that drive is operating properly. i had stutter with certain imported videos on the mvp and it turned out those videos were stored on a failing drive.

[wakebdr]

I've tried AVI, MPG2, and MPG4. They all stutter.

Also, all of my media is stored on the same drive.

What format does not require transcoding? That's what I want to encode them in so the server has to do as little work as possible.

[malbec]

Mpeg2 ... not sure if you have, but a call to Sage's tech support sounds like it might be more fruitful for you given all you have done/tried.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by wakebdr

I've tried AVI, MPG2, and MPG4. They all stutter.

Also, all of my media is stored on the same drive.

What format does not require transcoding? That's what I want to encode them in so the server has to do as little work as possible.

What kind of media drive are you using? Is your media hard drive formatted with 64k blocks? What is your process speed and memory?

My system never stutters when playing back mpeg2 files. It rarely stutters playing back AVI files with a MVP connected to 100 meg Eithernet. My processor might be a bit slow to transcode the AVI files totally stutter-free.

Dave

[wakebdr]

My pc is 600Mhz with 384MB RAM.

I know my computer is underpowered, and that's one reason why I haven't bothered Sage's tech support. I'm sure I'd get a canned response about minimum requirements. I plan on getting a new pc as soon as I can find a good deal on something I'm comfortable with.

To me, seeing that all media is coming from the same pc, hard drive, processor, etc, I would expect to see the same results on everything. But, I'm not. I'm only having problems with imported video.

[GbrNole]

it's not underpowered it's WOEFULLY underpowered for driving an MVP especially if you are trying to transcode media.

your regular recorded tv shows should still play back but even then you're right on the edge of both processor power and memory requirements just to parse that information to the MVP so i could still imagine some stutter even then.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by wakebdr

My pc is 600Mhz with 384MB RAM.

I know my computer is underpowered, and that's one reason why I haven't bothered Sage's tech support. I'm sure I'd get a canned response about minimum requirements. I plan on getting a new pc as soon as I can find a good deal on something I'm comfortable with.

To me, seeing that all media is coming from the same pc, hard drive, processor, etc, I would expect to see the same results on everything. But, I'm not. I'm only having problems with imported video.

Wow, thats really underpowered. I tried to run with 384 meg ram, and found that my computer was caching to disk 24 x 7 since the memory consumed was always about 500 megs. I increased the ram to 1 gig, and that made a huge difference in performance.

I do run a few other programs, and my normal memory consumption is between 500 - 600 megs. When I upgrade my system, I will increase the memory to at least 2 gigs.

My CPU, an AMD 2800 is barely enough processing power to transcode Xvid AVI files with my single MVP media extender. It works, but the CPU is close to 100% consumption continueously. Playing back Mpeg2 files with the Hauppauge PVR-350 or the MVP does not have high CPU consumption.

Check your memory consumption and find out if you are caching to the hard drive continueously. If you are caching to disk continueously, then you need to increase memory. But it sounds like your computer is too weak to be used as a PVR. If you replace your computer with a higher end system, you can always use your older computer as a stand alone system to convert mpeg2 to Xvid AVI's using Roxy99's scripts and programs. A 600 meg CPU is a bit weak for a transcoding system, since transcoding video is extremely CPU intensive, but it does work if you are patient.

Dave

[wakebdr]

Yes, it is very underpowered. I'm trying to get it set up as efficiently as possible so when I do get a better pc, it will smoke on it. I have a 2.8GHz with 1GB of RAM as my dektop and plan on using that when I find a replacement for it. I'm just dragging my feet.

But, I still don't understand why live/recorded tv plays fine and imported mpeg2 video stutters. From what I understand, there is no transcoding when playing mpeg2 to the MVP. What format is live/recorded tv in? Is there a larger buffer when watching tv than when watching imported videos? If so, can the imported video buffer be increased?

I know the bottom line is my pc is underpowered, but what I'm seeing just doesn't make sense to me.