MVP not transcoding HD v6.1

[garyellis]

I just upgraded to V6.1 and my HD recordings no longer transcode to the MVP..Before the sound seemed to be a litle off, but it tried to transcode. Now I press the "watch" button and nothing happens. Its just not playing the file to the MVP.

Gary Ellis

[flavius]

What about the hardware involved?

I have tested two of my three MVP's with the official 6.1 release (6.1.18). Both transcode fine with the upgraded server now, even at the same time.

[dmiraclejr]

My two MVPs also no longer transcode correctly with the new official release 6.1.8. The video and sound are being output very choppy just as they were before this past beta trial began (the beta added very nice HD transcoding on the MVP). My hardware is more than capable and it worked fine in beta 6.1.7.

It appears that it does work in 6.1.8 since flavius has 2 MVPs working with the official release. I'm out of town for Easter weekend and didn't have time to track this down on my server but will when I get back tomorrow.

Meanwhile today (again while out of town) my Placeshifter froze on me and remote desktop software (Ultra VNC) crapped out. I believe the whole server has been knocked off the internet for some reason which has not happened before in the six months since I built it. I guess I am just a ship adrift until I get home and can physically restart the server. Hopefully the SageTV service is still recording our shows or the Mrs. might forget its Easter and........ I don't want to even imagine!

I will probably take the easy way out when I get back home and put the 6.1.7 beta back on the server until this all gets worked out. Here is to hoping we all find flavius' secret to smooth transcoding with the official release.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by dmiraclejr

My two MVPs also no longer transcode correctly with the new official release 6.1.8. The video and sound are being output very choppy just as they were before this past beta trial began (the beta added very nice HD transcoding on the MVP). My hardware is more than capable and it worked fine in beta 6.1.7.

It appears that it does work in 6.1.8 since flavius has 2 MVPs working with the official release. I'm out of town for Easter weekend and didn't have time to track this down on my server but will when I get back tomorrow.

Meanwhile today (again while out of town) my Placeshifter froze on me and remote desktop software (Ultra VNC) crapped out. I believe the whole server has been knocked off the internet for some reason which has not happened before in the six months since I built it. I guess I am just a ship adrift until I get home and can physically restart the server. Hopefully the SageTV service is still recording our shows or the Mrs. might forget its Easter and........ I don't want to even imagine!

I will probably take the easy way out when I get back home and put the 6.1.7 beta back on the server until this all gets worked out. Here is to hoping we all find flavius' secret to smooth transcoding with the official release.

My two are working fine also. And playing HD beautifully. Make sure you have unplugged the AC power from the MVP after upgrading your server to the final release. If that doesn't do it also delete the "clients" directory and let it build it again when you start up the MVP.

Gerry

[garyellis]

My MVP's work fine now...I didn't realize that it does not play TS files anymore throught he MVP. When I played a new MPG HD file it worked fine to my MVP. And now I remember that v6.1 may not support TS files any more..(not sure, but that's what i thought I read.)

Gary Ellis

[malbec]

Would you guys be willing to clue me in on the specs of your server so I can assess what type of upgrading I need to do for this to work for me?

Currently using AMD XP 2100+ with three MVPs. I currently have to convert/transcode all HD/Digital SD content to playback/

[mattdcknsn]

I am having the same problem with this. I upgraded from 6.0 to 6.1 and before the audio/video was very choppy, unwatchable. Now with the new version I have great audio but no video at all. I uninstalled 6.0 installed 6.1 and copied back wiz.bin. Everything is working fine except the transcoding. I have extender quality to high, not sure what else to try next.

[flavius]

^ I have just tried my Rev 1.0 MVP, works just fine as well. I doubt it has anything to do with specific MVP versions.

Did you try what gplasky said? Unplug the MVP for some time, not just 30 sec. Are you trying to playback older files? Does it happen with 6.1 recordings as well? What's the file extension of those recordings that do not work for you?

Not that I know the Xeons well, but you should have the horses to do this, right?

As far as server specs that do work: at first I was looking at something AMD, since I have built several nice AMD boxes, but the Allendale core was simply too tempting. You should be able to overclock any e4300 to at least 2.7Ghz in an Asus P5B-E board (there are other boards of course), some go much higher. This particular board comes with software for overclocking and monitor tools, just in case you get too gready. . At stock speed (1.8Ghz) playback was a little choppy despite the cpu not maxing, at 2.7 I can have two MVP's at the same time (two threads).

Not sure if HT procs will help here, so, you may need one of those costly quadcores to do three at the same time.

As far as digital SD playback over the MVP is concerned, my old AMD Sempron 3000+ was just fine.

[gtakacs]

I have an MVP and it does not play back HD (or any digital OTA stream for that matter) correctly.

Grey's Anatomy's sound is smooth and fine but the video is choppy. Everything else is the other way around. The video is smooth but the audio stutters.

I'm running 6.1.8 on the server. Server is a Core 2 duo 1.8Ghz running at 2.4 with 2GB RAM and a gigabit backbone in my house.

I have also checked and the transcode process only takes up about 18-19% CPU load, so I know I'm definetely not pegging the CPU.

As it stands right now transcoded video from digital OTA source is unwatchable.

[mattdcknsn]

OK, I unplugged my MVP for about 30 minutes, deleted the sage clients directory and then rebooted the server. After another 30 minutes of "unable to locate GUI server" the MVP booted up with Sage. After this the HD playback is the same as 6.0, unable to play HD smoothly. I now get video though, just choppy and unwatchable. I guess my procs just aren't good enough to transcode.

[Thomas Wischgol]

I also tried to reset everything, removed the client property files and rebooted the MVP to no avail. Interestingly enough, though, I was able to play all types of HD shows just fine with 6.1.6. This was, however, the only version where it worked. Right now with 6.1.8 I get smooth video but the audio is completely chopped which makes it unwatchable.

Thomas

[jlabrue]

Originally Posted by Thomas Wischgol

I also tried to reset everything, removed the client property files and rebooted the MVP to no avail. Interestingly enough, though, I was able to play all types of HD shows just fine with 6.1.6. This was, however, the only version where it worked. Right now with 6.1.8 I get smooth video but the audio is completely chopped which makes it unwatchable.

Thomas

I would second this comment on 6.1.6. I was able to play almost all HD files on my MVP and I could transcode flawlessly but with the release version 6.1.8 I am back to not being able to play them or transcode them. I know of at least one other person having the exact same problem and we both are going to file a bug report and roll back to 6.1.6 until it is fixed. Didn't realize how much I was using transcoding until I didn't have it.

[flavius]

6.1.6 was the beta where a new crossplatform codebase was introduced for processing of transport streams which broke transcoding of SD streams for a lot of us. I submitted a bug report, others did the same, I assume: Not long after that we got a hotfix.

[dmiraclejr]

Originally Posted by jlabrue

I would second this comment on 6.1.6. I was able to play almost all HD files on my MVP and I could transcode flawlessly but with the release version 6.1.8 I am back to not being able to play them or transcode them. I know of at least one other person having the exact same problem and we both are going to file a bug report and roll back to 6.1.6 until it is fixed. Didn't realize how much I was using transcoding until I didn't have it.

I will third it! After getting back from the Easter weekend I found a crashed server with no SageTV service recording our shows. Baaad WAF. I am almost certain it was a hardware problem (cpu had to be reseated for the second time in 3 months) and only coincidentally I had just upgraded to 6.1.8. However after putting the image backup taken moments before the upgrade (6.1.6) back on the server all is right with the transcoding world. I did try to put 6.1.8 back on again and test but with the same result (even deleted the client folder). I again put the 6.1.6 image back on where it will stay for awhile. My main motivation to go to 6.1.8 is the rumored MVP response improvements and just the feeling of being on an "offical" release and not a "beta". I'll take the beta for now and the higher WAF that goes with it.

I'll definitely be watching for a fix so if any of you other .6ers out there find a fix be sure and shout it from the rooftop!!

[valnar]

I assume 6.1.9 fixes this problem?

Robert

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by valnar

I assume 6.1.9 fixes this problem?

Yes, it does (at least for me)

Thomas