Choppy playback - ONLY on recorded shows

[bond00]

I'm experiencing choppy video playback with SageTV Client which is loaded on the PC connected to my TV. The choppy playback is only on recorded shows, but when I play these recorded shows on the SageTV server, the same video works fine.

This happened all of sudden this morning. Before that it worked fine. This morning I was streaming a divx movie, when SageTV client locked up. I rebooted and then tried to watch a recorded HD show and the video is choppy. I tried live TV and it works great.

I've rebooted the server and client several times and the problem still exists. Any ideas on what might be causing this problem all of a sudden? Thanks!

[Fuzzy]

It is odd that there is a difference between recorded and live, as there is actually no difference as far as the client is concerned. What may be happening is your server's HD is being taxed by something else, so playing back something previously recorded is getting stuttered, but playing back something as it is recorded is smooth, because it is being read out of the server's cache.

[stuch]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

It is odd that there is a difference between recorded and live, as there is actually no difference as far as the client is concerned. What may be happening is your server's HD is being taxed by something else, so playing back something previously recorded is getting stuttered, but playing back something as it is recorded is smooth, because it is being read out of the server's cache.

Actually I am having the same problem. Recorded content will be pixelated when streamed to the Client.
In my case it seems that the problem occurs on larger files (longer recordings). If I am recording a 30 minute show, I will (typically) have no problems with the playback. I say typically, becuase there are always exceptions to the rule.

If I playback a recording that is 1 - 2 hours long. I may start off good, but about 45 mins to an hour in, it will start becoming all pixelated. At that point, even if I try to restart the show from the beginning it will be pixelated.

And the problem only occurs on the Client (MVP).

I did notice I can (sometimes) make the problem occur faster by using the FF or Skip Buttons.

It is incredibly frustrating, especially when you have invested time in a show, only to have it go south and become unwatchable. I have been scouring the forums, and configuration files for anything that might help. I Would love if you could just configure a streaming buffer on the MVP to hold more in memory (assuming it is a network issue that is)

I Have used MCE and XBMC in the past to stream to my Home Theatre, and both have done well. Infact the XBMC can still stream the content recorded by SageTV just fine, I just can't seem to get my Sage setup to stream it well.

I am positive it has to do with my setup.

I don't seem to have a problem on my server side. I do not see my system using a lot of CPU while this is going on. (will spike up to 40-50% for a second, but typically remains below 20%)

My Setup
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
512 MB Ram
Sage 6.3.2.156 Beta (saw the problem on Sage 6.2 as well)
Java 1.6.0_03
Mytheatre Network Encoder
Mytheatre 3.38
Twinhan 1020a DVB-S card

Any Ideas would be appreciated... In the mean time I do have an request in with SageTV support as well. So if I get an answer there I will report back.

Thanks

Ted

[Spartan]

I've seen this too. It most often happens when watching a recording then using the skip buttons to go over a commercial.

Usually, I can stop the playback, then start it up again and everything will be fine.