Still no fix for stuttering HD playback on SageTV recordings?

[rosemary]

Okay, I've finally gotten really fed up with an issue and started checking here. I find two other threads with no solutions:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30077
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hlight=stutter

My problem is exactly the same. All my imported videos on SageTV play back just fine. These include some very huge/high bitrate videos that take plenty of horsepower. My computer is new and beefy and can take it. Never have a hitch. I can also watch live TV in SageTV without a problem, including HD broadcasts.

The problem comes when playing back OTA HD broadcasts that I've recorded using SageTV. And it ONLY happens if I play them back in SageTV. I'm recording best quality to mpgs. I play them back and sometimes they are find. But I'm finding more and more commonly, they start stuttering at some point. And it's not always the same point. You can watch the same file multiple times and it will be a different point each time. But usually not until it's at least a half hour in. It starts stuttering a little at first, but gets progressively worse until it basically just stops in place for several seconds. The weird thing is that you can pause, wait a minute, then come back and it will often start playing and go without a problem for several minutes.

This is NOT a problem with background processes or anything like that. I've ruled that out. Also, I can take the exact same mpg that SageTV recorded and play it back in Media Player or SMPlayer and it never skips a beat. Only SageTV seems unable to replay it's own recordings properly on my system. I've tried every single setting I can find for decoders and such in SageTV and none have made a difference. Please don't suggest the 64k thing, either, as if you put the pieces together about it playing find in other players, you'll realize that's not the problem, either. Sadly, even videos played across my wireless LAN from another computer play smoother than these stuttering HD clips.

Has there been any solution to this? Those other threads sadly end without any resolution. Next I will be taking it to support, but I just thought I'd ask here just in case. This is the one thing that keeps SageTV from being the perfect DVR for me. I find everything else to work fairly excellently. It's "just worked" on everything else to the degree that I've not even been motivated to tinker with the UI. That's a first for me.

Thanks in advance.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by spoon

Okay, I've finally gotten really fed up with an issue and started checking here. I find two other threads with no solutions:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30077
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hlight=stutter

My problem is exactly the same. All my imported videos on SageTV play back just fine. These include some very huge/high bitrate videos that take plenty of horsepower. My computer is new and beefy and can take it. Never have a hitch. I can also watch live TV in SageTV without a problem, including HD broadcasts.

The problem comes when playing back OTA HD broadcasts that I've recorded using SageTV. And it ONLY happens if I play them back in SageTV. I'm recording best quality to mpgs. I play them back and sometimes they are find. But I'm finding more and more commonly, they start stuttering at some point. And it's not always the same point. You can watch the same file multiple times and it will be a different point each time. But usually not until it's at least a half hour in. It starts stuttering a little at first, but gets progressively worse until it basically just stops in place for several seconds. The weird thing is that you can pause, wait a minute, then come back and it will often start playing and go without a problem for several minutes.

This is NOT a problem with background processes or anything like that. I've ruled that out. Also, I can take the exact same mpg that SageTV recorded and play it back in Media Player or SMPlayer and it never skips a beat. Only SageTV seems unable to replay it's own recordings properly on my system. I've tried every single setting I can find for decoders and such in SageTV and none have made a difference. Please don't suggest the 64k thing, either, as if you put the pieces together about it playing find in other players, you'll realize that's not the problem, either. Sadly, even videos played across my wireless LAN from another computer play smoother than these stuttering HD clips.

Has there been any solution to this? Those other threads sadly end without any resolution. Next I will be taking it to support, but I just thought I'd ask here just in case. This is the one thing that keeps SageTV from being the perfect DVR for me. I find everything else to work fairly excellently. It's "just worked" on everything else to the degree that I've not even been motivated to tinker with the UI. That's a first for me.

Thanks in advance.

Spoon -

What is your system specs? What video decoders are you running? What is your CPU usage like? What about strength of signal? I have been using OTA and QAM for years with no problems (other than under powered systems and poor signal strength). Trust me, if you are having problems, I am 99% certain it isn't Sage ("My computer is new and beefy and can take it" doesn't mean anything). We need info to help you.

Secondly, your comment about 64K blocks is assinine. Just because it works with other playes, doesn't mean it is going to work in Sage. If you don't follow the recommendations we can't help you. If we all have it working fine thru sage with 64K blocks, and you aren't willing to try it, then what is the point in asking for help? I will tell you that switching to 64K blocks made a huge difference when I switched to HD. For SD, it was no problems. For HD it was huge.

[Razillian]

Also what version of Sage and Java are you running? Take a peak at your Java heap size in Setup->Help->System Info when you are getting stuttering playback. See this thread for more info:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23681

If you are running the latest beta, take a look at this thread for read-ahead optimization:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33285

When you respond, please also include your audio setup and decoder info.

[rosemary]

Okay, here is the SystemInfo.txt attached from an actively stuttering session. Stuttering has been going on for several minutes. UI is completely responsive.

CPU is sitting at around 15% on each CPU and has been this way for at least 20 minutes. Disk use is at about 6 MB/s of the highest listed range. Only 50% of physical RAM is actually in use.

While typing this up, it finally stopped stuttering. CPU is actually now UP a little over during the stuttering period. Disk throughput is down to 2 MB/s.

So the only thing I can see that could possibly be a problem is the disk use ramping up. But again, it never has a problem paying videos not recorded by SageTV. It plays very large videos, including 1080i, 720p, etc. and I have NEVER seen a single stutter in those. Also, I can play back the sage-recorded videos in an external player and have never seen any stuttering there. But just to be sure of that, I'm currently playing the exact same file in Media Player Classic. Will loop it through a few times just to be sure. Will let you know.

Anything else in that you want to know that's not in SystemInfo.txt?

For reference, here are the specs of the machine:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0010DSDXM

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard
* Hardware Platform: PC
* Processor: 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2
* Number of Processors: 2
* RAM: 2000 MB
* RAM Type: DDR2 SDRAM

Hard Drive
* Size: 500 GB
* Type: Serial ATA



And paulbeers, please lay off the "assinine" bit. I've been working with computers long enough that there are usually about a hundred different things that "worked for some people" when software is malfunctioning. You can spend weeks just randomly trying all these things, including different combinations of them. I do not have that amount of free time to spend playing with it. I'm trying to target the things I try to things that make sense. It does not make sense that live HD TV would be fine, other very large HD video files would play fine both in Sage and in external players, and that the EXACT SAME video files would play fine in an external player, and that the same video file would start stuttering for a while, then go back to playing fine, then the next time you play the file start stuttering in a different place because of 64k blocks.

[chrisc16]

spoon,

I feel your pain. I suffered with that stuttering on HD playback in Sage for two years. And I always had 64K blocks too. It drove me crazy.

Luckily the HD100 restored my sanity. I'm still constantly amazed at how smooth HD shows play, even the pans are buttery smooth. It just... works.

I wish you luck in your quest to end the stutters on the client, though!

-Chris

[Opus4]

But, is your recording drive formatted using 64K clusters? I can't tell simply based on your comments not to suggest it; you've only said you don't want to hear about it w/o saying how the drive is formatted, at least as far as I've noticed.

If it isn't formatted using 64K blocks, then don't bother looking for another solution in SageTV until after you've switched to 64K clusters because it will be pointless. Besides, if it isn't using 64K clusters, then recordings could potentially be messed up too because it can become physically impossible for the drive to keep up with the data throughput required.

And, if it is already formatted using 64K clusters, why not just say that instead of saying you don't want to hear about it? That would be the surest way to stop cluster size suggestions.

- Andy

[rosemary]

*sigh*

No, it is NOT set to 64k clusters. It is set to 4k clusters as part of the standard Vista configuration.

Here's the big problem with the whole "set it to 64k clusters or I won't bother to help you" answer. It's like telling someone to reinstall Windows before you can help them. It's a HUGE hassle.

First, before changing the cluster size, I'm going to need a backup. Either if I reformat the drive, or if I go and shell out money for something like PartitionMagic ($$$), which very well can hose your drive. I don't have anywhere to PUT 300 gigs of stuff. It's not vital stuff and losing it wouldn't affect me long term, but that's a lot of DVDs to re-rip. So my options, once again, are to buy another hard drive ($$$) to back it up onto, or sit there making 100 DVDs that will be useless coasters if all goes well.

I'm sure that there are some problems that the 64k cluster solution fixes. However, I'm also sure there are problem even more problems that the suggestion makes "go away," because the user just isn't in a position to completely redo their system that way.

Can't we just imagine I said "yes, it is on 64k clusters" and move on to what is next in the list of suggestions? ARE there any other suggestions for this problem, considering the symptoms and the fact that I've tried all the decoders SageTV has to offer? Because it seems to me the solution is really running towards "don't bother playing back your SageTV-recorded files in SageTV, just run them through Media Player Classic which amazingly has no problems with stuttering on the EXACT SAME FILE.

I don't mean to come off sounding so grumpy but this is really a drastic measure that you are suggesting and it should be one of the LAST resorts, not the first one.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, though.

[wylee]

I too was using 4k blocks in XP and had stuttering. After all the tweaks I tried to do, I finally bought a copy of Acronis Disk Director which allowed me to adjust the cluster size without losing data (I even didn't backup, so I took a risk).

I must say that after it was done, it was a huge benefit - my stuttering disappeared. It's curious how other applications don't exhibit the same behaviour - it could be how Java does File/IO that is causing the issue as all my other applications are Microsoft products or products that are native to Windows (i.e. natively compiled for the OS)

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Stuntman

Is there any reliable way to 'convert' these to 64k clusters without losing the data???

Yes, there are disk partition utilities that will do it, such as Disk Director Suite from Acronis.

Originally Posted by spoon

No, it is NOT set to 64k clusters. It is set to 4k clusters as part of the standard Vista configuration.

That's most likely one of the problems, then. There may be other issues too, but this can be a show stopper before you get started.

And, you only want the recording drives to have 64K clusters, not the OS or application partition(s).

shell out money for something like PartitionMagic ($$$)

I stopped using that one when it did seem to cause data loss. I've used Acronis ever since.

Can't we just imagine I said "yes, it is on 64k clusters" and move on to what is next in the list of suggestions?

Not really. If the file is fragmented, it can become impossible for the drive to keep up w/all the seeking it has to do. I know you've said it played OK in some other app(s)... I don't know what they are doing differently other than doing a larger read-ahead and trying to keep a larger buffer full before & during playback... but I question whether it could keep that buffer full on a badly fragmented video file on a 4K cluster drive.

The same issue can affect recording the show in the first place, as I said above -- if the file is messed up from the start, no other player will be able to deal with it either. There is no way to buffer this further since the huge video file has to be written to disk at some point & if the drive can't keep up, then video data will be lost.

I don't mean to come off sounding so grumpy but this is really a drastic measure that you are suggesting and it should be one of the LAST resorts, not the first one.

It really should have been one of the first things done & is suggested as part of the SageTV configuration process.

People have said they could never get HD to play w/o stuttering using a video card & it works fine playing on the HD100, but even that solution won't solve this because if the video stream can't be read fast enough by SageTV, then it will stutter on the HD100 too.


This same subject comes up repeatedly -- formatting using 64K clusters solves a lot of stuttering issues. Hardly anything (if anything at all) solves it for 4K clusters.

- Andy

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by spoon

Hard Drive
* Size: 500 GB
* Type: Serial ATA

Is this drive dedicated to recording, or does it double as an OS drive as well?

When you notice stuttering in SageTV, is there another show recording in the background? This may be the reason that you see stuttering in SageTV but not when playing in another application.

It could be that live TV does not stutter because you are writing to and reading from the drive at nearly the same place, so the head does not have that far to travel, but, if are recording to one place on the disk while playing back from another place, you are jumping around the disk a lot more.

And finally, where are the "other very large HD video files" that play back fine coming from? Did you copy them to the drive from somewhere else? If so, it could be that they are not fragmented as much as a new recording will be, so the drive does not have to seek as much when reading from the drive.

These seem like plausible reasons for the problems you are seeing, all of which could be fixed (or ruled out) by partitioning with 64K clusters...

-Dan

[gplasky]

There can always be another cause for stuttering but there's probably not a person out there recording and playing HD that does NOT have their drive formatted for 64K. That's why they actually put that text in the setup of Sage TV before you set up your recording drives. It is imperative that if you will be recording HD material you need to have your drives formatted to 64k. Other products make the same recommendation. Some other recommendations:

1. Use 64 k clusters
2. Turn off all indexing to the drive (also no Desktop Search either)
3. It's better to make sure the drive doesn't have a swap file running.
4. Make it a dedicated physical drive or array of drives just for video storage. (Seperate OS drive.)
5. Turn off any anti-virus checking for that drive
6. If you have to store/view other smaller files (like pictures, music) put them on their own dedicated drive.

Any or all of these should all help reduce/eliminate any stuttering.

Gerry

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by spoon

And paulbeers, please lay off the "assinine" bit. I've been working with computers long enough that there are usually about a hundred different things that "worked for some people" when software is malfunctioning. You can spend weeks just randomly trying all these things, including different combinations of them. I do not have that amount of free time to spend playing with it. I'm trying to target the things I try to things that make sense. It does not make sense that live HD TV would be fine, other very large HD video files would play fine both in Sage and in external players, and that the EXACT SAME video files would play fine in an external player, and that the same video file would start stuttering for a while, then go back to playing fine, then the next time you play the file start stuttering in a different place because of 64k blocks.

I agree that there can be a 100 different reasons why a computer won't do what its supposed to do, but when all the recommendations are to set your HD to 64k clusters from people who have it working and can attest to this being their fix, isn't that a bit asinine to not try it?

Merriam-Webster defines "asinine" as:
1 : extremely or utterly foolish <an asinine excuse>
2 : of, relating to, or resembling an ass

[rosemary]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

I agree that there can be a 100 different reasons why a computer won't do what its supposed to do, but when all the recommendations are to set your HD to 64k clusters from people who have it working and can attest to this being their fix, isn't that a bit asinine to not try it?

Merriam-Webster defines "asinine" as:
1 : extremely or utterly foolish <an asinine excuse>
2 : of, relating to, or resembling an ass

Great definition. As in "It would be asinine to go through all the trouble of backing up 300 gigs of data and changing your drive settings when other programs demonstrate that they can read the exact same data without any stuttering."

If this was something that could be done easily, I would try it in a heartbeat.

I know people keep bringing up anecdotal evidence about 64k fixing their stuttering problem, but I have yet to have a single one say that the stuttering was ONLY happening on playback of HD SageTV recordings, and not on live HD tv and/or playback of other HUGE high bitrate files through SageTV. It's apples and oranges.


As it is, I guess I'm just another one of the problems that will "go away" because the only thing people will suggest is so onerous. Guess I'll just start playing my SageTV recordings in Media Player Classic. It's sad, because otherwise I found SageTV to be great.

[paulbeers]

[QUOTE=spoon;287429]
I know people keep bringing up anecdotal evidence about 64k fixing their stuttering problem, but I have yet to have a single one say that the stuttering was ONLY happening on playback of HD SageTV recordings, and not on live HD tv and/or playback of other HUGE high bitrate files through SageTV. It's apples and oranges.
QUOTE]

Ummm. My post stated "I will tell you that switching to 64K blocks made a huge difference when I switched to HD. For SD, it was no problems. For HD it was huge." That isn't anedotal, that was a fact. My studdering all but disappeared switching to 64K clusters.

The other issues with playback are usually video card related, however, in your case you have an 8500GT which should be fine for using HD.

You also never mentioned what video decoder you are running? Are you using the Sage provided? If so, stop. Go download the Nvidia PureVideo decoder.

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by spoon

eople keep bringing up anecdotal evidence about 64k fixing their stuttering problem, but I have yet to have a single one say that the stuttering was ONLY happening on playback of HD SageTV recordings, and not on live HD tv and/or playback of other HUGE high bitrate files through SageTV. It's apples and oranges.

As I said above, you could easily attribute all of these things to not having the drive formatted with 64k clusters.

Only HD SageTV recordings - Larger files, higher bit rates, more fragmentation

Not on live TV - Reads being physically close to writes on disk. Also, you never answered if the stuttering on non-live TV is occurring while another program is being recorded.

Not on playback of other HUGE high bit rate files - All depends on how much the files are fragmented. Since they were generated by a different process, they are probably not as fragmented as new recordings. This could actually be interpreted as an indication that lack of 64k clusters is the problem...

-Dan

[rosemary]

Ummm. My post stated "I will tell you that switching to 64K blocks made a huge difference when I switched to HD. For SD, it was no problems. For HD it was huge." That isn't anedotal, that was a fact. My studdering all but disappeared switching to 64K clusters.

The other issues with playback are usually video card related, however, in your case you have an 8500GT which should be fine for using HD.

First, saying something is an anecdote isn't saying it's not fact.

Second, were you getting stuttering when watching live HD or when playing back HD videos other than SageTV recordings? This is the crucial aspect in sorting out the difference between different problems.

[rosemary]

Originally Posted by CyRex

As I said above, you could easily attribute all of these things to not having the drive formatted with 64k clusters.

Only HD SageTV recordings - Larger files, higher bit rates, more fragmentation

Not on live TV - Reads being physically close to writes on disk. Also, you never answered if the stuttering on non-live TV is occurring while another program is being recorded.

Not on playback of other HUGE high bit rate files - All depends on how much the files are fragmented. Since they were generated by a different process, they are probably not as fragmented as new recordings. This could actually be interpreted as an indication that lack of 64k clusters is the problem...

-Dan

You need to add to the list:

Not on playback of the same SageTV recording file by Media Player Classic or SMPlayer

Not always in the same place in a the same file on multiple playbacks

I do fully agree with you and see the logic with your point. The big problem I have is that last bit of the symptoms.

Again, what people seem to ignore is the enormity of me switching to 64k. I would love to, but there's just no way I can back up the data right now. And changing the cluster size, even with something like Acronis or PartitionMagic, is a risky operation and it would be unwise to attempt it without a backup.

To not offer other suggestions is either just downright stubborn or an indicator that there are no other suggestions and maybe there's a bug in SageTV. If there's a bug, I'd love to help them out to track it down and fix it.


Edit: Sorry, Dan, meant to answer some of your other questions. This drive is the only drive in the system and doubles as the OS drive as well. I understand it would be better to have a dedicated drive, but there is no room in this box for a second drive. As such, turning off the swapfile or moving it to another drive is a non-starter. No, there are no other shows recording in the background. I only record Lost and The Office and both are done for the year. As far as the other large files go, they way they are created do make it much more likely they are unfragmented. I am running a full defrag right now to try to eliminate that variable (see, that's a good suggestion right there that doesn't require me to back 300 gigs up before doing anything.)

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by spoon

You need to add to the list:

Not on playback of the same SageTV recording file by Media Player Classic or SMPlayer

Not always in the same place in a the same file on multiple playbacks

I do fully agree with you and see the logic with your point. The big problem I have is that last bit of the symptoms.

Again, what people seem to ignore is the enormity of me switching to 64k. I would love to, but there's just no way I can back up the data right now. And changing the cluster size, even with something like Acronis or PartitionMagic, is a risky operation and it would be unwise to attempt it without a backup.

To not offer other suggestions is either just downright stubborn or an indicator that there are no other suggestions and maybe there's a bug in SageTV. If there's a bug, I'd love to help them out to track it down and fix it.


Edit: Sorry, Dan, meant to answer some of your other questions. This drive is the only drive in the system and doubles as the OS drive as well. I understand it would be better to have a dedicated drive, but there is no room in this box for a second drive. As such, turning off the swapfile or moving it to another drive is a non-starter. No, there are no other shows recording in the background. I only record Lost and The Office and both are done for the year. As far as the other large files go, they way they are created do make it much more likely they are unfragmented. I am running a full defrag right now to try to eliminate that variable (see, that's a good suggestion right there that doesn't require me to back 300 gigs up before doing anything.)

I would get a partioning program like Acronis and slowly move your recordings to a dedicated partition formated like has been recomended. You don't have to do it all at once you can reduce the size of the existing partition. Create a new one correctly formated. Move some recordings. Reduce the partition again and add the space to the 2nd partition. Then move some more. Repeat this until you have all your recordings on to your dedicated recording partition. A PITA but is doable because I've had to do this exact process before. Backup while advised when doing this is not a requirement. I didn't and it worked for me - doesn't mean it will for you but you could have a crash in windows that corrupts your MFT and the partition becomes unrecoverable and loose recordings too.

Does that help in the constructive suggestions any?

[rosemary]

Very constructive and very appreciated, but I would still need to backup the drive before shrinking the partition. I've been doing computer work for a large enough number of years to have hosed a few partitions. Unfortunately, shrinking runs pretty much the same risk as just converting in place to 64k. In both you have the risk that something going to munge your partition table (my favorite is when the power coincidentally goes out in the middle of the process ).

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by spoon

Very constructive and very appreciated, but I would still need to backup the drive before shrinking the partition. I've been doing computer work for a large enough number of years to have hosed a few partitions. Unfortunately, shrinking runs pretty much the same risk as just converting in place to 64k. In both you have the risk that something going to munge your partition table (my favorite is when the power coincidentally goes out in the middle of the process ).

Do you have a possiblity of using an external drive? Doing so could allow you to have backup capability for more than one computer (if you have multiples) or just increase the number of things you can have on disk. This would allow you to DO the backup to be safe and get you increased storage and the recommended cluster size.