The definitive working HD playback configuration thread!

[jkoutrouba]

OS: XP Pro, SP2
Graphics hardware: XTX Geforce 7600GT 256MB
Driver used: 6.14.11.6218 (from XTX)
Codec used: Nvidia 1.02-150
CPU: P4 2.8
RAM: 1GB ECC
Motherboard Chipset: Intel 875P
Audio hardware: Mad Dog Entertainer (Envy24)
Audio driver: 5.12.1.3650
Sage configuration: overlay, FSE, 3D acceleration enabled
Sage Video Codec selection: Default (Nvidia)
Sage Audio Codec selection: Default (Nvidia)
Display resolution: 848X480 (InFocus 4805)
Display connection: DVI


Works fine in overlay. With VMR9, I get occasional micr-stutters, especially on smooth panning shots. With action or quick cuts, you can't notice. It's annoying enough to me that I stick with overlay for HD content, though. I was disappointed that a 7600GT could not handle reliable HD output. I am running a secondary monitor at 1280X1024, though. Maybe it can't handle both at the same time.

[jkoutrouba]

Turning on inverse telecine did nothing for me. Getting rid of the second monitor did nothing for me. Treating my projector as an HDTV or not did nothing for me. I can't get rid of the tiny stutters in VMR9 mode. I'm really annoyed. I may return the 7600GT and get a $50 9600 card. The one I had worked in overlay. There's no reason to "upgrade" if I have the same limitations. No doubt it's a much more powerful card, but who cares if it can't do what I want.

[bialio]

I had a 7600GS for a while and never got it to work reliably with HD in Sage. I ended up putting it in my wifes computer so that she could run Vista Aero with good results....

btl.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by bialio

I had a 7600GS for a while and never got it to work reliably with HD in Sage. I ended up putting it in my wifes computer so that she could run Vista Aero with good results....

btl.

The memory speed seems to play a role as well. I had a 7600GS with memory running at 250MHz which did not exactly cut it. I replaced it with a 7600GS with faster memory (400 MHz) and it works fine now.

Thomas

[morfinx]

OS: XP Pro SP2
Graphics hardware: HIS IceQ3 Radeon X1950 Pro
Driver used: Radeon Omega Drivers 3.8.360 (Catalyst 7.4)
Codec used: Cyberlink (PowerDVD Ultra)
CPU: Dual Core AMD Opteron 2.65Ghz
RAM: 2GB
Motherboard Chipset: nForce4 Ultra (ASUS A8N-E)
Audio hardware: Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Audio driver: 02.09.0016
Sage configuration: VMR 9, 3D Acceleration On, FSE Off
Sage Video Codec selection: Cyberlink
Sage Audio Codec selection: AC3 Filter
Display resolution: 1080p
Display connection: DVI (Westinghouse 37w1), HDMI (LG L246W)

[dcardellini]

Had instability (black screen when resuming from standby), stutter, tearing, etc. etc. System was unusable, and I was a joke with wife and kids. (ok maybe other reasons too).

Finally....stable, stutter free system!!!! SageServer w/RAID 5, 5 Clients, 2 MVP's

Network is gigabit and wireless 802.11g

Server:
Asus a8v deluxe (via k8t800pro) for 5 PCI slots, two firewire, gbit, and no chipset fan.
x2 3800+amd 939, w/ 1 gb RAM
(3) fusion 5 lite ATSC OTA tuners
(1) Firewire to Motorola 6412 STB (provider has nothing 5c'ed!!!)
Old Radeon 8500 video, onboard sound (server is headless normally),
3ware hardware RAID 5 card, 9500s-12 sata ports
5 WD 750gb sata drives in raid 5, one separate 300gb mb-IDE for OS
UPS
XP Pro, SP2 all updates up to Aug 2007
Fusion drivers 3.2web
Firewire to STB as detailed on these forums
Purevideo Decoder 1.02-223
Sage 6.2.10

Clients (2 identical)- gigbit network
Asus a8v deluxe
x1 3500+ amd 939, w/ 1 gb RAM
X-Fi Elite Pro analog output to Parasound power-amp 5ch directly
EVGA 6600GT agpto Sammy HLN617 61" DLP, and Mits 62725 62" DLP (both 720p)
(finally, completely stutter, judder, tearing free on SD and HD 720p, 1080i, ripped DVD's!!!!!!) DVI out from computer.
MCE2005, all updates to Aug 2007
Sage 6.2.10- VMR9 and all defaults, 3D, FSE
Forceware nVidia driver 81.98!!!
Creative current updates from web (august 2007); "Entertainment Mode"
Purevideo Decoder 1.02-223; "Smart" Prefer Overlay, (shows DirectX 9)
AC3Filter 1.45b (all outputs formats to "AS_IS")
Volume Tracker utility and registry mod for sound level profile

Haven't spent much time with other (3) clients...not included in success story: A8N-VM CSM 6150 mb w/X1 3200+ over gigbit, and two laptops over 802.11g. Believe it or not the older / slower laptop (intel 915gm) over wireless actually works best...but that is a separate topic). one wired MVP works great on all sources, transcoding of HD seemless. My music is WMA Lossless, so I can't get music on MVP. The Wireless MVP is real touch and go, and don't recommend it.

*******************************************

Struggled for a long time suspecting:

a) 6600 gt agp underpowered (but used on mce with same sources for 1.5 yrs successfully)

b) Sagetv had buggy software (main suspect for all problems )

c) Using multiple Fusion OTA tuners in a computer were problematic (read this on several forums)

d) Via chipsets had problems (read this on various forums)

e) IDE and or hardware RAID bottlenecks (tried recording to both w/64k blocks)

f) Somehow my OTA antenna (33 miles from broadcast) and amplifier had diminished output. Program dropouts "looked" like bad signal. It worked well on MCE for a year though!!!

In the end, there were THREE problems that, when fixed, gave me perfection.

1) To stabilize my black screen, spinning icon resume-from-standby problem the fix was sageclient.properties "disable_fse_on_focus_lost=false" change.

In working thru this problem, I discovered a fix for the major stuttering problem:

2) The biggest one. Occassionally I could play back 720p and 1080i content without stutter, sometimes 720p, often neither. Picture was sharp and looked like frames were missing. If you are reading this thread, you likely know how I felt....maddening!

As I tried to fix my resume-from-standby problem, had an interesting discovery: I had smooth playback from all sources on a fresh boot. The minute I went to standby and resumed, most my problems with stuttering occurred. I was using latest Forceware driver as of August of this year (2007).

On a hunch, I downloaded an nVidia utility to monitor the core gpu clock speed. On a fresh boot, it was at 300 mhz. The minute I started to play a video, it steps up to 500 mhz....and smooth playback. It seems to stay at 500 mhz indefinitely after that.

Now if you go to standby and resume, the gpu clock stays at 300 mhz and NEVER steps back up to 500 mhz. I even made a fresh boot and forced the gpu to 300 mhz witht he nVidia utility, and sure enough....same exact missing-frame stuttering symptoms. However, I was not able to "force" it back to 500 after a resume from standby.

I then loaded up an old Forceware driver that was on my system (81.98), and sure enough, it behaves properly and will always step up to 500 mhz after a resume. THIS IS A BUG IN THE NVIDIA DRIVER. 81.98 works, and I have no desire to step forward to find the point that nVidia blew it. It works great now on 81.98.

3) I got a bit lucky on my third problem.....occassional tearing when trying to run multiple Fusion OTA tuner cards. Everything above was done with only one tuner card. After carefully adding a tuner at a time, I started having problems, and definitely tracked it down to my last PCI slot (furthest from graphic agp slot). This took lots of time to track down. I have stopped using the last PCI slot.

The big hint for me was that 3ware recommended that I place their hardware RAID card in the PCI slot closest to the AGP slot, as supposedly performance drops off as you move down the line. Is this an Asus mb problem? Is it a via chipset problem? Don't know, don't care. Maybe why so few cards available with five PCI slots though. I can live with three OTA cards only. (fourth PCI slot is 3ware raid card).

For the past two weeks, we have been recording tons of progams (mostly hd), and there are three nights a week when all three OTA cards AND the Firewire are recording simultaneously, and we are watching a recorded show at the same time. No problems, no stuttering, no missed shows.

Have lots of music ripped, lots of dvd's, lots of archived shows (now going to convert lots of dvr-ms stuff).

*****************************************
Here are only two gripes:

1) Play a CD that is inserted into computer. Wow....how can we not have that today? I have gotten rid of tons of components in my systems. Today, a computer, a tv, and a power amp. Period. Why do I need to add back a CD player when I have one in my computer?

2) This Win.bin thing. Already lost tons of data on recorded programs due to corruption. Yeah...I am now backing up.....but come on guys......there has got to be a better way (xml, or even openoffice.org's database). Must be Sage's attempt to create a compelling reason to stick with their software over the long haul.....but yeach! A page stolen from the Gates book.

************************

But kudos to Sage for making a great product. I apologize to them for ever (quietly) believing that all problems were sourced by them (luckily, I did not rant on forums!!!)

For those discouraged.....stick with it...it is worth it. I, too, had begun to suspect that those who claimed "no problems" were really not exercising their system and/or were not looking closely. WRONG.

......now...will the "no 5c on firewire" hold out with my cable provider? That will be a dark day.

[mkerdman]

Originally Posted by dcardellini

Server:
Asus a8v deluxe (via k8t800pro) for 5 PCI slots, two firewire, gbit, and no chipset fan.
x2 3800+amd 939, w/ 1 gb RAM
(3) fusion 5 lite ATSC OTA tuners
(1) Firewire to Motorola 6412 STB (provider has nothing 5c'ed!!!)
Old Radeon 8500 video, onboard sound (server is headless normally),
3ware hardware RAID 5 card, 9500s-12 sata ports
5 WD 750gb sata drives in raid 5, one separate 300gb mb-IDE for OS
UPS
XP Pro, SP2 all updates up to Aug 2007
Fusion drivers 3.2web
Firewire to STB as detailed on these forums
Purevideo Decoder 1.02-223
Sage 6.2.10

Clients (2 identical)- gigbit network
Asus a8v deluxe
x1 3500+ amd 939, w/ 1 gb RAM
X-Fi Elite Pro analog output to Parasound power-amp 5ch directly
EVGA 6600GT agpto Sammy HLN617 61" DLP, and Mits 62725 62" DLP (both 720p)
(finally, completely stutter, judder, tearing free on SD and HD 720p, 1080i, ripped DVD's!!!!!!) DVI out from computer.
MCE2005, all updates to Aug 2007
Sage 6.2.10- VMR9 and all defaults, 3D, FSE
Forceware nVidia driver 81.98!!!
Creative current updates from web (august 2007); "Entertainment Mode"
Purevideo Decoder 1.02-223; "Smart" Prefer Overlay, (shows DirectX 9)
AC3Filter 1.45b (all outputs formats to "AS_IS")
Volume Tracker utility and registry mod for sound level profile

Are you able to tune, pause, and Time Shift Live HDTV from the clients error-free?

[dcardellini]

Originally Posted by mkerdman

Are you able to tune, pause, and Time Shift Live HDTV from the clients error-free?

Yes. It has been working flawlessly for live, and time shifted. I am less than delighted with skipping forward and backward in chunks instead of true fast forward and rewind like I had in MCE, but it is a small price to pay to have a true client-server model that actually works.

[bialio]

Does anyone run their PC at 1080i resolution? If so does it work well for you?

I find myself in a situation where I have to run my PC at 1080i in order to work around a problem with the HDMI 4 in 1 out switch that I have. The switch only accepts up to 1080i, and unfortunately it introduces tearing on most 720p inputs.

So I switched my client to 1080i - and now my HD playback is suffering. It becomes jerky - it's not interlacing issues I'm seeing, just stuttering and non-smooth playback.

So I switched from VMR9 to Overlay and that fixed the problem. My client is running Vista 32 with AERO enabled. In the past having AERO on and VMR9 is the combination I needed in order to ensure smooth playback.

One theory I have is that 1080i and the 3D acceleration of VMR9 don't play well together.

Anyone have any ideas what the deal might be here? I like the transparency effects that VMR9 provides , however smooth stutter free HD is more important.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by bialio

Does anyone run their PC at 1080i resolution? If so does it work well for you?

I find myself in a situation where I have to run my PC at 1080i in order to work around a problem with the HDMI 4 in 1 out switch that I have. The switch only accepts up to 1080i, and unfortunately it introduces tearing on most 720p inputs.

So I switched my client to 1080i - and now my HD playback is suffering. It becomes jerky - it's not interlacing issues I'm seeing, just stuttering and non-smooth playback.

So I switched from VMR9 to Overlay and that fixed the problem. My client is running Vista 32 with AERO enabled. In the past having AERO on and VMR9 is the combination I needed in order to ensure smooth playback.

One theory I have is that 1080i and the 3D acceleration of VMR9 don't play well together.

Anyone have any ideas what the deal might be here? I like the transparency effects that VMR9 provides , however smooth stutter free HD is more important.

I think hardware acceleration in the nvidia driver shuts off if you go to overlay mode. Does the image also seem softer,etc?

thx
mike

[bialio]

I don't notice any softness in the image resolution. I think I might have noticed a little bit of a softening of the color - doesn't seem quite as saturated. But I'm not sure about that, might have just been me trying to find a difference when there wasn't one.

I'll check the CPU stats and see if I'm still getting HW Acceleration. I'd be suprised if I wasn't though - I've never gotten good results on SW decoding.

btl.

[bialio]

So with Overlay I'm definately still getting HW Acceleration - CPU for HD channels was sitting at about 5%.

I think I've landed on a workable setup - VMR9 - 1080i - FSE on. I'm not wild about the Full Screen Exclusive part, but it's definately working. The part that doesn't quite work is switching to another app (powerDVD) and then switching back to Sage - once you come back you are no longer in FSE, and at that point my HD playback gets wonky.

So FSE doesn't survive a focus loss.

btl.