transcoding stuttering issues on MVP & HD extenders

[mrrrl]

I have a Core2Duo 2.13 overclocked to 2.44, server used to record HD from a HDHR and also several SD video sources. I have a MVP extender and also a HD extender. My problem is with stuttering on both the SD and HD extender when ever the MVP plays a recorded HD show and Sage has to run the transcoder.exe, I am guessing that it has to transcode the HD to SD so the MVP can play it? I notice the CPU goes between 25 and 60% usage.

So how fast a dual core CPU do I need to be able to transcode down to SD for the MVP with having all the stuttering issues while this is happening. Or if I get another HD extender and stop using the MVP, would that solve all the trancoding issues?

TIA

[mrrrl]

I am having problems with stuttering when SageTV transcodes HD shows to SD so they can be played on a MVP. It also causes stuttering on my HD extender. See my sign for my hardware specs. Do I need more horsepower or would another HD extender to replace the MVP be a better choice?

TIA

[stanger89]

Another extender would probably be a better choice.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by mrrrl

I am having problems with stuttering when SageTV transcodes HD shows to SD so they can be played on a MVP. It also causes stuttering on my HD extender. See my sign for my hardware specs. Do I need more horsepower or would another HD extender to replace the MVP be a better choice?

TIA

First off, my e4300 overclocked to 2.4 transcodes HD to SD for my MVP's flawlessly. I regularly watch HD thru my MVP in my bedroom with no problems. You also say you are having studdering on your HD extender? Is this while your MVP is playing HD or at seperate times? Could it be a network issue instead? 25-60% CPU usage sounds to me like you have plenty of headroom (although last I checked the sagetranscoder was only single threaded)....

What about signal strength to your HDHomerun? Can you see the studdering in VLC on the server?.....I don't believe your issue is with your server....but something else isn't working right.

[mrrrl]

This happens when the server is transcoding for the MVP, if I pause the MVP the stuttering goes away on the HD extender. I have a gigabyte network so I don't believe its a networking issues. There is no stuttering when playing video with VLC.
If all I am watching is the MVP and the HD extender is off, then the videos are fine. It's when both are on watching separate videos and the server is transcoding for the MVP.
At first I did not overclock, but by overclocking it has reduced the stuttering. I don't know how much further I can O/C the cpu to get rid of the stuttering.

[poluxproject]

Some Network drivers try to help you but are not very smart in the process; What you are describing leads me to beliebe that your nic hardware is trying to offload the tcpip stack to the hardware, instead of being handled by the OS. Most of the time TCPIP offloading is a great feaure in uniform networks, but since you have a mixed network It may kill your network instead, Your server is most likely connected at Gig speed but the hdHomerun HDestender and MVP are connected at 100 Mb. the hd homerun can do Full duplex, the HD extender will do Full duplex and the MVP half duplex IIRC.
when using tcpip offloading the hardware is in charge of handshakes and retransmissions and sometimes depending on the driver it will set itself to the first device conected and try to negotiate the same settings with al subsequent devices, in short a lot of retransmitions, try disabling this feature on your Server NIC hardware (Advanced features on the Intel chipset driver) not sure where it will be located on your particular configuration.
I hope that you can get it going.
Best
Polux

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mrrrl

This happens when the server is transcoding for the MVP, if I pause the MVP the stuttering goes away on the HD extender. I have a gigabyte network so I don't believe its a networking issues. There is no stuttering when playing video with VLC.
If all I am watching is the MVP and the HD extender is off, then the videos are fine. It's when both are on watching separate videos and the server is transcoding for the MVP.
At first I did not overclock, but by overclocking it has reduced the stuttering. I don't know how much further I can O/C the cpu to get rid of the stuttering.

Are you using 64k clusters? Sounds like you might have an HDD bandwidth problem.

[Taddeusz]

I would have to agree with Stanger. I've had a similar issue on my server where HD playback on either my client or HD100 would get choppy when there was a lot of activity on the server (i.e. recording 3 or 4 programs at the same time (2 SD 2 HD) while ShowAnalyzer is processing another video). For me turning off intelligent recording did the trick. That way there isn't so much disk activity going on at any one time unless it's a busy night for the favorites.

[rethdog]

Since upgrading to V6.3 my system seems to work a lot more smoothly, thank you Sage.

Anyway to my point - HD programming sent to a SD MVP, Sage seems to need so much processing power to do this my Athlon 2800 stutters, even overclocking it doesn't seem to help much.

I'm saying this without knowing / understanding the mathematics to do this, but my very old Athon 1333 mhz (thunderbird) could software encode* in real time a mpeg2 stream from a SD capture card, pretty easily. Okay, now basically double the processing power, and now Sage can't resize the HD to SD, and then encode on fly, this just does not seem right. In fact the DTV channels that are SD and not HD, still play a little jumpy. DVD's loaded onto the server play no problem, so I know it's not a network problem.

The cynical size of me says it's because sage have no interest in developing the SD MVP anymore, much more interest in the HD product line. But I'm sure me like many people, SD works great for the kids / spare rooms that have handy down CRT or even little LCD screens, they give a really good picture when fed a DVD stream, therfore DTV picture should be pretty damn good as well. Going to HD on these smaller screens really is more marketing hype, as even on 50" plasma 480p DTV comes through pretty well, yes 720p is sharper, but the change from analog to DTV is a bigger improvement.

Since HD comes with it's own license, and Sage give no credit for the old MVP license, could Sage not revisit the pricing structure of these license that now have finite life?

any comments anyone?

*= It was cheap Hauppage that had no hardware encoder.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by rethdog

Since HD comes with it's own license, and Sage give no credit for the old MVP license, could Sage not revisit the pricing structure of these license that now have finite life?

What are you talking about? The HD100 uses the very same license that's used for the Placeshifter and MVP.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

What are you talking about? The HD100 uses the very same license that's used for the Placeshifter and MVP.

While this may be true, you can't buy a HD Extender WITHOUT a license, and I think what he's asking for is a HD Extender without the cost of the license, for people who are replacing their MVP's?

I'd like this myself, as I could replace my aging MVP's with HD boxes for a bit less, and not have licenses installed that I'll never use..

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

While this may be true, you can't buy a HD Extender WITHOUT a license, and I think what he's asking for is a HD Extender without the cost of the license, for people who are replacing their MVP's?

I'd like this myself, as I could replace my aging MVP's with HD boxes for a bit less, and not have licenses installed that I'll never use..

That I can see but according to Frey the extender/Placeshifter license is being included free of charge. Which leads me to believe that they would price HD100 the same whether or not it came with a license. So it's just simpler to offer the single SKU with the license. So you end up having an extra license that you can still use in whatever MVP/Placeshifter capacity you desire. Is that really such a terrible thing?

[SpiffyRex]

I am having problems with stuttering when SageTV transcodes HD shows to SD so they can be played on a MVP. It also causes stuttering on my HD extender. See my sign for my hardware specs. Do I need more horsepower or would another HD extender to replace the MVP be a better choice?

It seems you have enough CPU power but you are running with 1GB of RAM... Do you notice a lot of paging when running both extenders? If you have XP, run the task manager, go to the performance panel and check the PF history. It should be one long straight line whether you are running one or both extenders.

How about your storage configuration. Is your OS, paging file, recording filesystem in the same drive? Are they all in the same filesystem? You have 1TB of storage but how have you logically configure it? Stanger89 asked before if your recording filesystem is using 64k clusters. This is a biggie, sorry to ask again but are you?

Have you been able to check your network bandwidth? The best way is to put a PC where each of your extenders are and measure the network throughput. If this is not possible, try the following test if you are running XP in your Sage server:
Open the task manager and select networking
Play some (mpeg2) HD material in the MVP and note the network utilization.
Do the same only for the HD extender.
Play the same videos you used before with both MVP and HD extender at the same time.
How do these numbers compare? The last measurement should be more or less the sum of the previous two, assuming nothing else is using your network bandwidth.

Finally, try to see live HD in your HD extender while playing some recorded SD show in your MVP. Do you see any stuttering in this test?

Increasing CPU speed can sometimes help but it doesn't necessarily mean it has fix the problem.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by SpiffyRex

It seems you have enough CPU power but you are running with 1GB of RAM... Do you notice a lot of paging when running both extenders? If you have XP, run the task manager, go to the performance panel and check the PF history. It should be one long straight line whether you are running one or both extenders.

How about your storage configuration. Is your OS, paging file, recording filesystem in the same drive? Are they all in the same filesystem? You have 1TB of storage but how have you logically configure it? Stanger89 asked before if your recording filesystem is using 64k clusters. This is a biggie, sorry to ask again but are you?

Have you been able to check your network bandwidth? The best way is to put a PC where each of your extenders are and measure the network throughput. If this is not possible, try the following test if you are running XP in your Sage server:
Open the task manager and select networking
Play some (mpeg2) HD material in the MVP and note the network utilization.
Do the same only for the HD extender.
Play the same videos you used before with both MVP and HD extender at the same time.
How do these numbers compare? The last measurement should be more or less the sum of the previous two, assuming nothing else is using your network bandwidth.

Finally, try to see live HD in your HD extender while playing some recorded SD show in your MVP. Do you see any stuttering in this test?

Increasing CPU speed can sometimes help but it doesn't necessarily mean it has fix the problem.

This is all great information. You know what would really be great if someone who knows what performance monitoring variables in XP we can setup to monitor all of these things and put it to a log file. Maybe give fault tolerances to what could be causing these problems.