help with sagetv and whs

[unregistered]

I have SageTV running on whs and all is well for sharing movies, music, etc.

However, watching television is useless. lots of stutter, both video and audio.

I have isolated a drive in WHS outside of the pool, formatted in 64k clusters. This hasn't helped a bit.

The TV cards are HVR-1600's. I am just using the analog ports. Both cards worked fine in previous computers.

two requests for support have gone unheeded, I am looking for help. One thing, my motherboard does not have graphics support (and I do not have a graphics card). Does that matter? With Placeshifter? With Client? With STP-200?

[davephan]

You'll have to be a bit more specific what kind of hardware you are using. CPU speed, memory, etc. How is you system configured? Are you using an MVP or a video card with TV out, or some other configuration?

If the CPU is a single core and low-end, that could causing stuttering. If you are using an MVP and have ports blocked, that could also cause stutter. I had video stutter with both a slow CPU and blocked ports.

If you give more details about your situation, the SageTV forum will most likely be able to help you fix your stuttering problem.


Dave

[unregistered]

Should have given that info.

I am running a fairly powerful server, dual-core e8400 and 2gb memory. No MVPs, either pc's running as clients/placeshifters or an stp-200.

[Jesse]

Hi,

Does the stuttering occur on live tv, recordings or both?

Jesse

[davephan]

A E8400 and 2 gigs RAM should be more than enough to playback without stuttering. I do not have experience with the STPHD200 or Windows Home Server. Although the STPHD200 should perform better than an MVP.

Videos do not stutter with a 3.0 gig dual-core CPU and 2 gigs RAM when playing back two recordings at the same time to two MVP units while recording three other programs, and compressing other videos that were recorded previously.

Do the videos playback without stuttering if you play them back on the SageTV computer and watch them on your computer monitor?

Are the 'clients' running SageTV client software?

Dave

[lotusvball]

I had the same issue. It ended up being my network switch. I just repowered my switch and everything was fine. I am not saying that this is your issue, just something that worked for me.

[unregistered]

Stuttering happens for recordings and viewing. Wired or wireless.

I had the tv cards running in another computer with beyondtv, but I switched to Sage as I wanted the std-200 and I wanted it to run on the whs box.

I can't figure out why this isn't working.

[DOS64K]

The extender does all of the decoding, so your WHS is only passing the content. Have you tried testing any of your mpeg recordings in WMP or VLC to make sure they're recording fine? If they are, then my first suspect would be your network. Search the forums - they are many posts about network related problems.

[unregistered]

great idea, I opened a recorded file with vlc and it was the same stuttered result.

I have searched the forums exhaustively. At least as much as the words 'windows' 'home' and 'server' will return meaningul data (whs is better but not everyone uses the acronym).

[DOS64K]

Originally Posted by unregistered

great idea, I opened a recorded file with vlc and it was the same stuttered result.

I have searched the forums exhaustively. At least as much as the words 'windows' 'home' and 'server' will return meaningul data (whs is better but not everyone uses the acronym).

Did you try to play your mpeg back on your WHS box? If so, try moving it to another PC and trying it there. The idea is to determine
1. Whether the recordings are fine and playback (over the network) is the problem...or
2. The recordings are being botched from the start.

If the recordings are fine, AND you are using the HD200 for playback, THEN the culprit is likely your network. At that point, troubleshooting will become a bit more difficult.

OOOPS! Just noticed the bit in your OP about your WHS being headless, so I guess you couldn't have tested playback on the server directly. Anyway, the same steps will apply as we need to determine if the recordings are good to begin with.

[mangriotis]

Have you ever gotten good output from these cards on your WHS machine?

Check out this thread... I am still having issues with my HVR-1600, and believe it's some kind of driver corruption.

If I uninstall the drivers, reboot, then reinstall, it will records shows correctly for a while... then after a time (I thought it was on reboot of any kind, but doesn't seem so now) I get unwatchable choppy / pixellated video and stuttering audio from this card (note: I also have a PVR-250 in this machine that works fine).

[unregistered]

I copied the file to my local machine, its the recording thats botched. The network should be fine, as other media playback is perfect.

I haven't gotten the cards to work on WHS yet, however they worked fine in other machines/XP.

Day 10 since my request for support and no contact so far.

[unregistered]

Can anybody recommend new tuner cards that work for WHS? I'd be happy to buy something else if it ends up working.

[davephan]

You might also try playing back a file that you did not record. You might try downloading some video files from www.crankygeeks.com, or some other web site, and find out if they also stutter on playback. If those files do not stutter on playback, then the problem may be isolated to only your recorded files.

Dave

[Skiier__Dude]

Originally Posted by unregistered

Can anybody recommend new tuner cards that work for WHS? I'd be happy to buy something else if it ends up working.

I just installed WHS and used my existing HDPVR with their latest firmware and a USB-UIRT that I already had from years back. Everything worked flawlessly first shot - This is probably the 4th time or more in the 4 - 5 years I've had the software so I'm getting experienced -- but, this was by far the quickest I've gone from loading software to recording video.

EDIT: Whoops, you asked for a tuner card. Just ignore me.

[Jesse]

Hi,

I just migrated to WHS. See my sig for the tuners that I have working.

Jesse

[Zorglub]

Since I've migrated to whs, I have the same behaviour with my hvr-1600. I also suspect the driver, but I tried various version of the drivers without success, any of you have resolved this problem ??

[mangriotis]

I gave up. I had sold a PVR-250 (from 5 years ago) to a friend when I bought the HVR-1600. I went back to him, and traded him the 1600 for my old 250... works perfectly with no corruption issues.

I was using it for analog only, so no difference to me. (I guess, net I am out ~$50 from a 3-year old purchase, but I have something that works now, so I am willing to eat it).