CPU power needed for LAN 1080i transcoding with postprocessing / 3D accelleration

[mkanet]

I just bought a Intel Core Duo 1.4GHz Laptop. To my disappointment, it doesn't look like I have enough CPU power comfortably use placeshifter with all the picture quality settings enable and transcoding HD video. What's the minimum CPU power needed for highest quality video on a laptop?

[gplasky]

Just like for transcoding on a server I would think you would want the high 2.+ Ghz to a 3.+ Ghz for any transcoding. And I thnk Placeshifter seems to work better with overlay than VMR9.

Gerry

[mkanet]

Gerry, they dont make a 3.0 Core Duo for laptops as far as I know. The fastest quad core processor is 2.4GHz. Any idea what CPU I need?

Originally Posted by gplasky

Just like for transcoding on a server I would think you would want the high 2.+ Ghz to a 3.+ Ghz for any transcoding. And I thnk Placeshifter seems to work better with overlay than VMR9.

Gerry

[gplasky]

I wouldn't look at anything less than a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Keep in mind a lot of your notebooks will actually use a, for example, Intel® Core 2 Duo T250 Centrino Processor. I would recommend a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 Processor.

There are also, for example, 2.2GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-64. I don't have any first hand experience with these but should be comparable.

(The 3 GHz comment was thrown in if you had access to an older, refurbished non-Core model.)

Gerry

[mkanet]

Thanks Gerry, you told me exactly what I needed to know. I'm going to return what I have for a 2.2 Inter Core 2 Duo. I appreciate your help!

-Michael

Originally Posted by gplasky

I wouldn't look at anything less than a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Keep in mind a lot of your notebooks will actually use a, for example, Intel® Core 2 Duo T250 Centrino Processor. I would recommend a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 Processor.

There are also, for example, 2.2GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-64. I don't have any first hand experience with these but should be comparable.

(The 3 GHz comment was thrown in if you had access to an older, refurbished non-Core model.)

Gerry

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Thanks Gerry, you told me exactly what I needed to know. I'm going to return what I have for a 2.2 Inter Core 2 Duo. I appreciate your help!

-Michael

No warranties expressed or implied.

Gerry

[mkanet]

I just checked... my CPU usage isn't maxed out on my 1.4GHz duo core. I tried this on my brother's Apple laptop core 2 duo 2.2GHz... booted to XP, and it was doing the same thing... menus take forever to do anything and skipping to a different part of the movie results in out of synch audio/video with occasional stutter/breakup in the video/audio.

Does anyone have any tips to make this work correctly? I doesnt sounds like throwing more CPU speed at it is going to fix the symptoms I'm seeing.

I dont have any problems streaming lower bitrate via Internet... just on my wireless 54GBps LAN .

PS: My sageTV server is a Quad Core 2.4 CPU running Vista Ultimate.

[mkanet]

Menus are very quick and responsive, video starts immediately... But... video/audio stutters/drops in and out and puts audio out of synch with video for LAN HD stuff via Wireless 802.11G

What am I doing wrong now? I dont think I've ever seen this work correctly ever on any of my computers or OS's via LAN HD stuff.

EDIT: I know this is going to sound like a silly question, but has ANYONE actually successfully used placeshifter with HD on a wireless LAN. It looks like its just simply broken. I am able to make it work sort of, but certainly what I would call a reliable and stable solution.

[stanger89]

This is on a LAN? There's probably no transcoding going on then, I'm betting your network is the problem. Can you run a cable and try it that way?

FWIW, the 1.4 is probably a little on the light side for playing HD.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by stanger89

This is on a LAN? There's probably no transcoding going on then, I'm betting your network is the problem. Can you run a cable and try it that way?

FWIW, the 1.4 is probably a little on the light side for playing HD.

x2 but I would say very light on the CPU end, of course this depends on what else is going on at the same time.

[mkanet]

It's 2.4GHz x2 on XP for the SageTV Plachshifter Client... not the server. Server is a Quadcore 2.4GHz on Vista.

It might be my wireless connection. I'll try it with wired ethernet.

It looks like it works for a little while, then one little hickup causes the audio to go out of synch with the video.. and it's not smart enough to fix itself.

[CollinR]

Have you tried setting the streaming manually in the connection manager? I would be suprised if you can do MPEG2 HD over wifi. You should have plenty of power to have the server transcode it to something more wifi friendly.

Also I don't know if you can specify keyframe interval in placeshifter connections but decreasing the interval can help in streaming even though the bandwidth goes up.

[paulbeers]

What about the graphics card? I assume its probably nothing more than GMA950 integrated graphics? If that's the case, that's pretty low end and doing any video streaming unless superlow end with a buffer is horrible on wifi...

[mkanet]

No. It's a Geforce 128MB high performance 3D accelerated display adapter capable of handling the latest games.

Originally Posted by paulbeers

What about the graphics card? I assume its probably nothing more than GMA950 integrated graphics? If that's the case, that's pretty low end and doing any video streaming unless superlow end with a buffer is horrible on wifi...

[glmason]

Did you ever get it to work? I'm very disappointed with my efforts thus far on my new Dell 1525.

Have you tried copying some of the mpg files to the laptop and see how they look in Windows Media Player? They don't have sound for me. I've messed around for days trying different codecs, etc but still can't get sound to work with them in WMP. I've also tried MPlayer and SMPlayer. I can get sound in MPlayer but don't like the interface and the quality seems, to me, lower than in WMP.

I really want Placeshifter to work so I can hook the laptop up to the bedroom TV and enjoy the shows recorded on the Family Room PC but everything is in HD from an HD antenna and the current wireless router limits me to 54 GB. I wonder if the new N routers would make a difference? My laptop supports it but it would mean purchasing a new routher and NIC for my server. I certainly won't do that until more success with Placeshifter and the Sage update. The latest Sage update keeps causing Sage to crash even when the server service is turned off.

Yes, I'm frustrated with this all. Why can't Sage play nice and work like we want?

[mkanet]

I'm guessing the problem might be the quality of my 802.11G connection; regardless of the 54Mbit speed (considering all the overhead and the quality of the signal being slightly unstable). I guess an 802.11N connection would work at full speed.

Originally Posted by glmason

Did you ever get it to work? I'm very disappointed with my efforts thus far on my new Dell 1525.

Have you tried copying some of the mpg files to the laptop and see how they look in Windows Media Player? They don't have sound for me. I've messed around for days trying different codecs, etc but still can't get sound to work with them in WMP. I've also tried MPlayer and SMPlayer. I can get sound in MPlayer but don't like the interface and the quality seems, to me, lower than in WMP.

I really want Placeshifter to work so I can hook the laptop up to the bedroom TV and enjoy the shows recorded on the Family Room PC but everything is in HD from an HD antenna and the current wireless router limits me to 54 GB. I wonder if the new N routers would make a difference? My laptop supports it but it would mean purchasing a new routher and NIC for my server. I certainly won't do that until more success with Placeshifter and the Sage update. The latest Sage update keeps causing Sage to crash even when the server service is turned off.

Yes, I'm frustrated with this all. Why can't Sage play nice and work like we want?

[Djc208]

Would HD even still be HD over placeshifter? I just don't think the bandwith is there. So the server will be transcoding it down to something that should fit the bandwidth available. So if the server isn't chocking on the transcoding then it's probably just the settings in placeshifter.
I had issues when I first set up my laptop but I've since used it in many different hotels and as long as the internet connection is decent so is the playback. I wouldn't always call the picture quality good but it's usually tollerable, and it's never the laptop that's having trouble.

Have you tried running a client instead of placeshifter? That would move the load off the server and onto the laptop. Might help troubleshoot where the problem is, should give you better quality HD playback too.

[mkanet]

No problems at all when going over Internet (transcoding HD). For me, the problem was when transcoding very little or turning off transcoding completely on a LAN; my 802.11G could barely handle it; regardless of the theoretical limit of 54mbit/sec minus overhead.

-Michael

Originally Posted by Djc208

Would HD even still be HD over placeshifter? I just don't think the bandwith is there. So the server will be transcoding it down to something that should fit the bandwidth available. So if the server isn't chocking on the transcoding then it's probably just the settings in placeshifter.
I had issues when I first set up my laptop but I've since used it in many different hotels and as long as the internet connection is decent so is the playback. I wouldn't always call the picture quality good but it's usually tollerable, and it's never the laptop that's having trouble.

Have you tried running a client instead of placeshifter? That would move the load off the server and onto the laptop. Might help troubleshoot where the problem is, should give you better quality HD playback too.