1080p mkv file playback in sagetv not smooth

[james_k_p]

Hey Guys,
I've searched all over and I can't find an answer if it's there. So sorry if this is a common asked question.
I have several 1080p mkv movies that play great in the sagetv running on my pc. I don't have any additional clients besides a HD100. They play great on that too. For example, I have an 11gig "300" the movie and it plays smooth on the sagetv local pc and the hd100.

Now I have 2 movies in particular, ice age 2(8gigs) and robots(4.5gigs) and both have issues playing in sagetv with stuttering. They both play fine in mediaplayer classic though on the same pc. I have the latest sagetv that is not beta, 6.3.10.166. I'm never one to go to a beta unless I'm told here that I have no choice.

Are there some adjusts to make to get this working better?

Robots is pixelated all over the place on the hd100, and ice age 2 just plays audio and the video freezes or stays black. So I'm not really even worried about trying to troubleshoot that when they don't even play smooth on the local sagetv pc. First things First.

This is running on a AMD 6400+ Black Edition and on all the movies, the processing goes to about 40-50 percent, whether it's screwing up or playing smooth as mentioned above.

Of course I have had zero issues with 720p movies. Let me know what you think I can do to resolve this.

[jaminben]

I have exactly the same issue and have been in contact with support. They said it was due to the file not complying with HD standards and the films need to comply with level 4.1 memory usage/complexity. I have tried to convert or change the L5.1 to L4.1 but it didnt work for me, anyway heres a link which Sage support supplied me with which may help you http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=972503

However in saying all that I have various other films with a higher bitrate and encoded @ L5.1 which play fine so I'm hoping that in the near future Sage will release a new version which supports these file types.

[james_k_p]

Thanks for the info. I figured I wasn't the only one. I find it more and more that it seems to be animated/pixar movies. I tested a sample of a 1080p Cars last night and I could tell in that sample it was doing it too.

Thanks for the link. What do I need to do to test which files are 4.1 and which are 5.1?

[jaminben]

I used a programme called MediaInfo.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

[james_k_p]

Yep, I see now. I also have been reading and used avinaptic too to see. Hmm it's weird. I have "The Eye" which is 1080p and is High 5.1 and we watched the whole thing 2 weeks ago and it worked great.

But yet Cars and Ice Age 2 and Robots all with High 5.1 aren't smooth. Humrph! I'll keep reading this post to learn more about it.
If anyone else can add something, or a precedure to convert the 5.1 to 4.1 I'd appreciate it.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by james_k_p

If anyone else can add something, or a precedure to convert the 5.1 to 4.1 I'd appreciate it.

On that post their was a link to a tool which would automatically converts 720p films to L4.1 (I think it was on that link) 1080p I believe needs to be re-encoded
If you know how you could also send them a few sample files of the affected films which may help them resolve the issue. I tried making sample files but gave up.
I'm goning to wait awhile and see if Sage comes up with a solution, if they dont then I guess I'll just have to delete them

[james_k_p]

Hmm good idea. Should I open a request support ticket and let them know I have samples if they want me to upload them?

More and more I'm seeing all 1080p files out there are all 5.1 I recently blew my "animated" movie idea out of the water with a 1080p Superbad which is as bad as Robots is.

[Deacon Crusher]

I have this problem also and just noticed this thread.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...423#post287423

Hoping to get an answer soon, but will certainly do some testing tonight.

Thanks

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by james_k_p

Hmm good idea. Should I open a request support ticket and let them know I have samples if they want me to upload them?

I guess thats how you'll have to do it. What programme did you use to create your sample files?

[james_k_p]

Originally Posted by jaminben

I guess thats how you'll have to do it. What programme did you use to create your sample files?

I'm not creating it personally. But if I knew how, I'd let you know .

I did open a ticket and they responded friday. I will upload an example or 2 tonight for tech support. Hopefully they can fix it soon.

[voetsek]

ive noticed with my 1080p mkv files, there is stuttering so bad you cant watch it. i played in media center and its almost perfect, only scenes where a lot of stuff is going on slows it down. my computer is only a year old, so i wasnt sure if that was the problem, but im watching another mkv thats 720p and seems to have no issues.

[Deacon Crusher]

check out the last few pages of this thread.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=31692&page=4

Some of us have this working -- some of the time but there are significant issues/trade offs that have to be made.

[james_k_p]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

check out the last few pages of this thread.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=31692&page=4

Some of us have this working -- some of the time but there are significant issues/trade offs that have to be made.

Thanks deacon, I read it and posted the following which hopefully someone here can answer too:

Hey Guys,

I have a question. After reviewing what you've been discussing I need to know when does SageTV decide to put this in:

videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7)

Does it put this because we all have Power DVD installed on our computers? Which I have. Obviously the best choice for me for playing 1080p mkv movies smoothly is using the Haali Media Splitter. All (well not all, but the majority) the mkvs I have that stutter in SageTV play great in VLC or Media Player Cassic using this.

How do I see a list of all decoders on my PC for h264? Furthermore, can this option be changed to use this decoder in SageTV?

I changed the type on this line to read:
videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=Haali Media Splitter
But I don't think it did anything as it still stutters in the same spots. I am thinking it's not reading this as I totally guessed what to write on this line.

Oh yeah to edit this also, I submitted a ticket to sage support, submitted the tech samples, he confirmed the received them and said their support is very busy "optimizing" and working on things now and it may be some time before they work on the samples. I also upgraded to 6.4.4 beta and no difference.

[james_k_p]

Hey Guys,

I found this after some googling. Pretty interesting.

I'm doing testing now with AVC Core codec.

http://brentevans.blogspot.com/2008/...that-work.html

[Homebuilder]

I had trouble with mkv files and I found an interesting...solution?

I just changed the file name to a .mpg and sage read it like ..I am guessing an mpg and it played fine.

I think it has something to do with audio, by switching the file name to mpg it doesnt play surround sound, but it sounds fine through my stereo speakers..

Again, I didnt actually convert the file, I just renamed the file type.. try it, maybe it will work for you.

[james_k_p]

The renaming doesn't make a difference to me.

I'm going to be getting a new PC with Intel Duo Core soon and will move everything to that and will see if it makes a difference. I currently run an AMD 6400+.

What's the best OS to have SageTV run on? Any reason to go for 2k3 server over XP? Does it offer better perf?

[rrambo]

Originally Posted by james_k_p

The renaming doesn't make a difference to me.

I'm going to be getting a new PC with Intel Duo Core soon and will move everything to that and will see if it makes a difference. I currently run an AMD 6400+.

What's the best OS to have SageTV run on? Any reason to go for 2k3 server over XP? Does it offer better perf?

Best OS?.. Linux, of course!!

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by rrambo

Best OS?.. Linux, of course!!

But no hardware video acceleration on Linux till recently. At least that's my understanding anyway. That 1080p has been quite a difficult thing to get to play smoothly due to this deficit.

[rrambo]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

But no hardware video acceleration on Linux till recently. At least that's my understanding anyway. That 1080p has been quite a difficult thing to get to play smoothly due to this deficit.

That is very true.. however if your cpu has enough a$$ you may still be able to play it.. I just built a new pc and installed sage after not using sage for over a year... I've got a test clip which is suppose to be the standard (as far as in the linux world) of 1080p testing material that I'm going to test tonight in sage.. I'm thinking it won't play but I'm going to try.. I've got a dual-core athlon 5200+.. probably won't be enough to handle it but I'll see how it goes..

In my case, I have over 600 movies, but they are all SD with the exception of 2 720p copies so I don't have any trouble playing anything... cpu usage hovers around 10% on my linux box..

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by rrambo

That is very true.. however if your cpu has enough a$$ you may still be able to play it.. I just built a new pc and installed sage after not using sage for over a year... I've got a test clip which is suppose to be the standard (as far as in the linux world) of 1080p testing material that I'm going to test tonight in sage.. I'm thinking it won't play but I'm going to try.. I've got a dual-core athlon 5200+.. probably won't be enough to handle it but I'll see how it goes..

In my case, I have over 600 movies, but they are all SD with the exception of 2 720p copies so I don't have any trouble playing anything... cpu usage hovers around 10% on my linux box..

My 1080p BD rips all play fine with hardware acceleration in SageTV. VLC is a different story though. It is playing using VMR9 but raw BD video is unplayable and will stutter on my transcoded video in higher detail scenes (like rain). This is on a C2D E6550 (2.33Ghz) CPU.