Thoughts on how to fix stuttering playback and slow menus on HD200?

[LehighBri]

I've had a HD200 for a couple weeks now and love it. A week or so after I got it I experienced stuttering while watching HD shows (both live AND recorded TV) and no matter what I do I can't seem to resolve it. I've restarted my server PC, I've disconnected/reconnected the power and network on the HD200, all to no avail. I also noticed from time-to-time the program guide and menus on the extender become very slow... to the point where either they don't scroll smoothly or I hit a button on the remote and it takes a second or so for the extender to recognize and perform the action. Watching HD on my server's local client plays back very smooth so I'm not sure what's going on here.

As far as my network goes, I'm using a WRT54G router w/ Tomato 1.23 firmware. My server's network card is onboard network that came with my Dell PC (an Intel gigabit connection...speed and duplex set to auto negotiation). I played around with the checksum options per another thread but that didn't do anything.

I recently upgraded to the latest beta firmware that came out this week but no luck (20090128 0). I'm running the latest server beta 6.5.8... same issue happened with 6.5.7. Any ideas?

UPDATE: Before anyone asks, yes, my recording drive is formatted using 64K clusters, I don't have antivirus scanning, and I have disabled superfetch in Vista.

[SageGk]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

I've had a HD200 for a couple weeks now and love it. A week or so after I got it I experienced stuttering while watching HD shows (both live AND recorded TV) and no matter what I do I can't seem to resolve it. I've restarted my server PC, I've disconnected/reconnected the power and network on the HD200, all to no avail. I also noticed from time-to-time the program guide and menus on the extender become very slow... to the point where either they don't scroll smoothly or I hit a button on the remote and it takes a second or so for the extender to recognize and perform the action. Watching HD on my server's local client plays back very smooth so I'm not sure what's going on here.

As far as my network goes, I'm using a WRT54G router w/ Tomato 1.23 firmware. My server's network card is onboard network that came with my Dell PC (an Intel gigabit connection...speed and duplex set to auto negotiation). I played around with the checksum options per another thread but that didn't do anything.

I recently upgraded to the latest beta firmware that came out this week but no luck (20090128 0). I'm running the latest server beta 6.5.8... same issue happened with 6.5.7. Any ideas?

UPDATE: Before anyone asks, yes, my recording drive is formatted using 64K clusters, I don't have antivirus scanning, and I have disabled superfetch in Vista.

I'm having a similar issue. OSD animations used to be very smooth, and playback was smooth as well. Now animations are sometimes a little slow/choppy and so is playback of HD-PVR recordings/liveTV. I never had this problem until a couple of weeks ago, can't pinpoint it, but I did upgrade my Sagetv beta version.

[paulbeers]

What about your Java Heap? Are you maxing out your available memory to your Java Heap? I had this problem when I started adding HD100's to my system. Uping to 512 (okay Sage states 533) fixed it.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

What about your Java Heap? Are you maxing out your available memory to your Java Heap? I had this problem when I started adding HD100's to my system. Uping to 512 (okay Sage states 533) fixed it.

How do I modify this? Is it a registry setting?

UPDATE: I dug around in the forums and found the setting to update is in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\SageTV. When I get home tonight I plan on modifying the value JVMMaxHeapSizeMB to a hex value of 200 (512 in decimal) or higher. There's also a way to see how much of the heap Sage is using within the System Information area. I don't know the exact menu name but it should be there with other system information.

[Brent]

Are you experiencing the stutter only on the HD200 or does this happen when playing back video on the server as well?

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by Brent

Are you experiencing the stutter only on the HD200 or does this happen when playing back video on the server as well?

Stutter only happens on the HD200. Server playback of HD is smooth as silk. A reboot/sage service restart generally fixes it but the stutter returns quite quickly, literally within minutes, of the restart. I'll increase my heap and see if that helps. And for those wondering, I am using the latest version of Java 6 (update 11 I believe).

[LehighBri]

Update: I just increased the heap size on my server to 300 hex (1+GB) and still having the same issue tonight after rebooting the server and the extender. The jerkiness happened during playback after "a night" of recording (e.g. recorded 3 shows on my HVR-2250 in 2 hours).

[wayner]

I am also having this problem but the weird thing is that I have two HD-PVRs and it only happens when playing back content from one of these. I haven't noticed any problems with animation but playback has a slight stutter about once every 3-4 seconds. Is this what you guys are getting? But the other HD-PVR plays back fine without any trouble and playback on SageClient on a PC also works fine.

Note that I submitted a bug about a week ago but have not heard back from Sage which is strange as they are normally back to you ASAP.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Update: I just increased the heap size on my server to 300 hex (1+GB) and still having the same issue tonight after rebooting the server and the extender. The jerkiness happened during playback after "a night" of recording (e.g. recorded 3 shows on my HVR-2250 in 2 hours).

Do you have a laptop that you could load placeshifter on and test the wired connection from your server to where your HD200 is? Could be a network or line issue also. Maybe your router is your bottleneck?

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Do you have a laptop that you could load placeshifter on and test the wired connection from your server to where your HD200 is? Could be a network or line issue also. Maybe your router is your bottleneck?

I just downloaded a trial of placeshifter 6.5.9 on my work laptop and played back content both via wireless and my HD200's wired connection... both worked great. I am ruling out network as the HD200 used to work fine using the same WRT54G modem but in older versions of the server... I am just trying to backtrack my steps and figure out where things went wrong.

Part of me might give Win 7 (or heck Win XP) a shot on my server and see if that helps. I definitely don't want to go much further back than 6.5 as it has the new EVR support which is a must on my Vista server client.

Also, I just installed the newly released 6.5.9 and no luck there... same issue.

[LehighBri]

Not sure if this could be the issue... but I'm using the latest SageMC beta 12 prerelease version. I switched back to the default STV interface using the Sagetv3.xml from 6.5.9. The interface seems MUCH more responsive.

Could that really have been the issue?

[SageGk]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Not sure if this could be the issue... but I'm using the latest SageMC beta 12 prerelease version. I switched back to the default STV interface using the Sagetv3.xml from 6.5.9. The interface seems MUCH more responsive.

Could that really have been the issue?

Is video still stuttering or are just the menu's more responsive?

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by SageGk

Is video still stuttering or are just the menu's more responsive?

Menus are more responsive. On my PC client, video plays back smooth... I experience some stuttering still though randomly on my HD200.

[valnar]

Buy a real switch. Don't use the WRT54G switch ports.

PS. This isn't an offhand remark. I'm serious. The WRT54G is crappy as a switch.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Menus are more responsive. On my PC client, video plays back smooth... I experience some stuttering still though randomly on my HD200.

Have you tried loading videos that you are having problems with, onto a USB drive and playing them thru the stand alone mode? If they play back that way just fine, then most likely it would be a network issue and not the HD200.

[metapath]

I had a similar stutter when I first got my HD-200's.

I'm using the WRT54G router along with a 3-COM 8 port hub for the house, a 5 port NetGear hub at the Sage server (to feed a Linux laptop in the mudroom) and a little Linksys 4 port hub at my SD TV (to feed a ReplayTV). Only the SD TV stuttered, when I fed it HD streams from the server.

The fix? I just power cycled the little 4 port hub that fed the HD-200 connected to the SD TV. Every few weeks, the stutter starts again and the power cycle fixes it. Must be a bug in the Linksys...this hub is half the size of a pack of cigarettes...but as long as I know the fix, I probably won't buy a replacement.

[wayner]

I would replace your hubs with switches, or did you mean to say switch?

[SageGk]

I'm using rosewill switches and still have the stutter. Also, the HD200 used to work smoothly, now the animation are stuttering.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833166006

P.S. Just for kicks, I'm going to disable service mode (and just leave sage run on the server) and see if I still have stuttering on the extenders.

[appelm]

What router do you have? See this post http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...8&postcount=12 . We narrowed the problem down to the router, surprisingly enough.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by SageGk

I'm using rosewill switches and still have the stutter.

I'm not sure a $13 switch is a good alternative to the Linksys.