1080p mkv file playback in sagetv not smooth

[riverace]

As stated above its not CPU power. I can play the same file without any stutttering at all on the same exact PC outside of sage using windows media player without any problems whatsoever. Now, the same file in Sage is almost unplayable.

Some files however do play in Sage (1080P MKV rips), albeit slightly choppy in high frame sequences. I have tried to find a pattern (size of file, bitrate, L4.1 vs. L5.1) but I havent nailed anything down yet.

My solution at the moment is to remote control the HTPC and play MKV 1080P rips outside of sage with Windows media player. It has honestly made me want to reload Vista and use Windows Media Center, my friend has the exact same box I have with zero problems using WMC.

BTW, I have an AMD 5000+ DC CPU, 2GB RAM, and 2 x 1TB Seagate Barracuda drives, using an Nvidia 96000 GT superclocked card.

[Taddeusz]

I assume we're probably talking about H.264 here. What decoder are you using?

[riverace]

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, yes my apologies h.264 and am using the Core AVC professional decoder, I set it in the properties as stated in other posts. Still having the same issues, sage almost unplayable Windows Media player on same PC outside of Sage no issues.

[Shield]

I can help hopefully. Tell me about your videocard, cpu, memory, OS, Sage version, etc.
Shawn

[james_k_p]

Well. I'm the original poster to this thread and I haven't even been back in a while.
When I originally posted about this issue, it was when I was on XP 32bit with CoreAVC Pro installed. I actually believe I had that installed way before I even bought Sagetv.

Anyways, those certain mkv movies files, mostly 1080p still stutter. BUT...

I recently bought another computer from a friend, this one an Intel Core Duo E6750. I installed Vista Ultimate 64bit, no other decoders at all. Matter of fact, I installed nothing to this fresh build but Sagetv after all the drivers. This is using the onboard video too. The xp32bit box with the amd chip has a good gaming card, a ATI x1900xtx.

I copied over the 2 movies that seem to give me the most trouble, a 1080p of Superbad, and 1080p of Ice Age 2. Both play smooth on this box with SageTV. Don't ask me why, but it does. Although I have my hd100 license on my xp box, I will keep it there and not mess with what is working for the most part perfectly.

The xp32bit box is an AMD 6400+ cpu. I don't know if sagetv runs better on vista 64 bit, or maybe better on Intel cpus, but I don't believe it's a decoder issue as I never installed any on the vista box. That's my 2 cents.

If I had an extra harddrive around, I'd be tempted to install Vista 64 on this AMD computer and see if I get the same results, but since it's football season starting and I'm capping all my Saints games and re-encoding them, I don't want to mess with my setup much now.

James

[riverace]

Ok here are more details. My PC is a pretty recent AMD dual core CPU AM2 chipset. I have 2 GB rams with Windows XP PRO, all service packs, etc. Everything is up to date, including sage. The box does nothing but serve as my HTPC, all local drives connected via USB2 inputs.

When I try playing an MKV h.264 encoded file through Sage (the vast majority of the time) it will slow down, it jitters, and goes to about 5 FPS. It does not happen on all of them, specially the 720P @5GB ones, but certainly all the 1080P 7GB > files. L4.1 or L5.1 does not seem to matter as I have the problem with either one. My current solution is to remote control my PC and launch Windows media player classic (from source forge) on the same PC with SageTV installed (I just exit the Sage program at this point). I guess I can thrown more horsepower at it and eventually get it to work better but thats silly. I am using the CoreAVC pro codec pack, btw, I have switched and tried the default sage decoder as well as FFDshow, etc. Still no dice...

I would love some help on this, my current work around that I've described above is 100% wife disapproved, and just kills the usability by her and the kids, not to mention I have to walk over remote control it (I have a clean install with no mouse and keyboard hooked up, haven't needed it) and they lose active control over what they are playing back...

[Taddeusz]

Unfortunately CoreAVC is not currently hardware accelerated. For playback on the same machine that's recording and to take advantage of your video card you're going to want to use a decoder that is capable of VMR9 H.264 hardware acceleration. The latest Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 decoder does it as well as the Arcsoft decoder that comes with the HDPVR. But you're not going to get video card offload using CoreAVC.

[riverace]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Unfortunately CoreAVC is not currently hardware accelerated. For playback on the same machine that's recording and to take advantage of your video card you're going to want to use a decoder that is capable of VMR9 H.264 hardware acceleration. The latest Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 decoder does it as well as the Arcsoft decoder that comes with the HDPVR. But you're not going to get video card offload using CoreAVC.

Ok, im not married to CoreAVC, what do you suggest, Ive tried the Nvidia decoder as well as ffdshow, etc and nothing makes things better...

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by riverace

Ok, im not married to CoreAVC, what do you suggest, Ive tried the Nvidia decoder as well as ffdshow, etc and nothing makes things better...

Well, the Nvidia decoder doesn't do H.264 and I don't think ffdshow has hardware acceleration. I've named two already: Cyberlink and Arcsoft. There's also Elecard. All those have hardware acceleration.

[Shield]

Originally Posted by riverace

Ok, im not married to CoreAVC, what do you suggest, Ive tried the Nvidia decoder as well as ffdshow, etc and nothing makes things better...

Well, have you tried changing the following in your sageclient.properties file?

always_use_dshow_player=true

the default is false.

[Hyrules]

I`ve tried that last trick and it didn't work on my box. Anybody has any idea how to fix this i'm having the same issue. Slow 1080 playback. But Windows media player play them fine.