R5000MOD CPU Utilization/stuttering

[jmv]

I have 2 R5000MOD'd FIOS QIP2500-3 STB's. I also have 2 HDHomerun's for 6 tuners total on my SageTV server. I am using the latest SageTV multi version of the 5000HD 2.5f application.

I have a pretty beefy SageTV server box (Dual 5160 3.0GHz Xeon CPU's in a S5000XVN workstation MB; Storage is 3ware 9550SX with 14 spindles). When I am recording 1~6 streams, each stream consumes less that 3% CPU (each of the two 5000HD instances run 0.78% with instantaneous bursts to 2~3%). However, if I watch one of the 5000HD streams while it is recording, the CPU cycles for that instance will steadily climb over 5~15min, eventually get to 20~25% CPU utilization, and the playback will stutter. Immediatly after I shutdown the playback, CPU utilization drops to the original 0.78/2~3% burst levels. If I playback a fully recorded file, I don't have this problem. It doesn't matter if I am recording 6 tuners or 1 tuner, if I watch the 5000HD while it is recording, I have the issue. I do not have this issue on the HDHomerun streams, they can be watched w/o growing CPU cycles too much, and rarely stutter (v. the 5000HD which is repeatable and always results in stutter). I've also sent a help request to the Nextcom folks, but am interested if anyone else has this behavior...

thanks,

jmv

[GKusnick]

Are you recording to UNC paths? I seem to recall that some people have had CPU usage issues when recording R5000 programs to local drives via UNC paths. I don't recall what the solution was (if any); try searching the forums for R5000 CPU UNC.

[NEOSG]

I can confirm this issue. R5000 recordings to UNC paths produces hi cpu and stuttering if yo try to watch R5000 stream while it is recording.

Go with UNC for for the HDHR and stick to regular drive letter recording directories for R5000 tuners

[jmv]

Thank you for the quick replies. I am indeed using UNC paths for my recordings...However, I believe I set it up that way because SageMC wouldn't see the commercial skip files unless I set up the directories as UNC on both my client and server...does anyone know if there is a way to setup SageTV such that it both will work for commercial skip AND for R5000MOD?

[NEOSG]

Same problem here.

Setup shares on the server for those drives. On the clients, map the shares to the SAME drive letter that they are known as on the share.

Example:

On the server, my R5000's record to the D and E drives
I have those drives on the server shared as D and E also (share name is not relevant, but I like to keep it simple)
On my clients, I MAP the clients D drive to the D drive share from the server and the same for the E drive on the clients.

So, when a commercial skip file on the server is located on D:\ or E:\ it is referenced as the same path on the clients.

This should work for regular clients.

Not sure what can be done for MVP and HD Extender full functionality

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

I can confirm this issue. R5000 recordings to UNC paths produces hi cpu and stuttering if yo try to watch R5000 stream while it is recording.

Go with UNC for for the HDHR and stick to regular drive letter recording directories for R5000 tuners

Are you sure? I do this all the time with my cable based R5000-HD, which has a much higher data rate for writing than the h.264 dish version...

No issues with UNC for me.

[NEOSG]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Are you sure? I do this all the time with my cable based R5000-HD, which has a much higher data rate for writing than the h.264 dish version...

No issues with UNC for me.

Was still happening a build or 2 ago with r5000 software and dish boxes. haven;t bothered to try since.

I will probably revisit once h264 comskip is available and I have an HD Extender . Until then, I haven't much motivation to do more testing.

[jprine01]

I was using UNC with HDHR/Analog tuner, and when I added the R5000/VIP211 I had major issues with very high CPU usage and playback issues while recording. Got rid of the UNC after finding a post with the same problem and all was fixed.

And yeah my comskip files dont work now, that was the reason I used UNC paths. If anyone knows how to fix both problems let me know.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by jprine01

I was using UNC with HDHR/Analog tuner, and when I added the R5000/VIP211 I had major issues with very high CPU usage and playback issues while recording. Got rid of the UNC after finding a post with the same problem and all was fixed.

And yeah my comskip files dont work now, that was the reason I used UNC paths. If anyone knows how to fix both problems let me know.

I don't quite understand. You specified a UNC path for files that are locally stored?

thx
mike

[jprine01]

For the comskip files to work on a client correctly, at least the way i remember it... The path to the comskip files must be the same on both your sage client and your sage server.

Which is sometimes hard.. If my server records to the D, E, F, G, and H drives... Than I have to use drive mapping and map all those drive to all my client machines making sure the letter match.. and I dont have anything locally assigned to those drive letters.

Or with UNC paths, you set your recording directorys (locally on the server) to //sever/d //server/e //server/f & so on. Then when you play files on a client, the client uses the same //server/d and comkip files work, even with a local D drive on the client.

You might think refering to all local files though network paths would slow everything down, but it works perfectly except for with R5000 software.

[BobPhoenix]

Wild suggestion for you.

Setup DIRMON2 and a batch file that will move your recording from one directory to another but only when it is finished recording. Then use the forced_video_storage_path_prefix property to make the preference for the R5000 tuner be a local drive (make sure that the local drive has less free space than the UNC mapped video recording directories or you will get more than your R5000 tuner recordings on the local drive). Now just have dirmon2 and the batch file move the recording from your local drive to the UNC path drive.

Not sure this will work but you could try it with a test recording from your R5000 and if it works then the worst it would do to you is

1. Not allow you to watch something live from a client with comskip
2. Possibly high CPU when it tries to record from the R5000 to a UNC recording directory.
3. Have a bad/lost "Recorded Files" entry if Sage is doing a scan and sees the new entry just partially present. This could be prevented by putting a new extension like ".new" while copying the file and then rename/delete old after it is copied.

It would also be advisable to turn off the "Regularly rescan import directories" if you are copying files to an import directory for the same reason as #3 above.

[Slipshod]

Interestingly enough, I tried both UNC and direct drive letters with my new R5000, and neither made a difference while watching live TV. Both had very low CPU utilization, and the server is only a single-core P4 3.2GHz.

Weird.