R5000-HD Jittery/choppy playback

[Matt314159]

Hey folks, first post here, and it's gonna be a doozy.

I have a Dish Network VIP211 with R5000-HD mod. Previously, I just scheduled recordings manually in the R5K software onto my netbook, but I really wanted more integrated functionality.

My budget was tight, so I put together an Asus eeeBox as follows:
Intel Atom N330 Dual Core (1.66GHz)
4GB Memory
NVIDIA ION (GT218-ION) graphics
250GB 7200RPM 2.5" SATA HDD
750GB 7200 RPM eSATA ext HDD (for recording)

I installed Windows 7 x64, and disabled media center in the policy editor.

Installed the latest Nforce drivers for everything. Installed CoreAVC codec. Installed R5000 SageTV (from nextcomwireless, not SageTV itself) software. Tested manual recordings...Recordings and playback are both perfect with CoreAVC and Windows Media Player. (whatever version comes with win7...not MPC)

I then installed SageTV 6-point-whateverthenewestversionis trial, and configured the R5000 as a network encoder, no sweat, it showed right up.

However, it seemed like no matter what decoder options I chose in the settings menu, playback is always a little on the stuttery/jittery side. I can't get smooth playback to save my life. I raised the Merits of CoreAVC so it should be using that for h264 playback, tons of restarts, testing, testing, and more testing....same thing. By the same token, if I go in and play the same file that stutters in Sage, but in Windows Media Player, it's completely fluid, looks exactly like it would if it were played directly from my Satellite Receiver. So the recordings are fine, and my playback of those recordings is fine, so long as i don't use Sage. Like sage is somehow still using software decoding and not using hardware acceleration.

Today I decided to try out the Sage TV 7 beta, installed and configured everything for the network encoder, etcetera, and was pleasantly surprised to see that this time I can manually choose CoreAVC codec in Sage. I set that, and then restarted Sage (not sure if that was necessary) but, alas, the same jitery/stuttery looking playback is presenting itself in Sage, while the same file plays back perfectly in media Player.

So, yes, this post has elements of other forum areas---some Sage 7, some stuff about codecs, etc, I figure that since I have a somewhat unique hardware situstion, I would put it in here to see if maybe any other R5000 owners happen to spot the thread and want to help out.

The PC has the horsepower (thanks to the ION graphics, not the atom processor) to playback my 1080i h264 dish transport streams perfectly, but it just doens't seem to play smoothly in sage.

If I can get this working smoothly, I'll be glad to shell out the cash for the full version, but I want to make sure I *can* make it work first.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. I'll be subscribing to this topic w/ instant notification, so I'll be able to stay right on top of things and give you folks quick responses if you have any additional questions, or anything like that.

Thanks in advance,

-Matt

ETA--I've been doing a bit of reading and came across these two threads:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36582
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31255

neither of which seem to be doing it for me. I just can't figure out how windows media player can use CoreAVC to play back the transport streams perfectly, while the same file played within sage, is choppy/missing frames....I guess missing frames is a better way to describe it. A talk show, for instance, might look alright unless you're really up there close looking at it, but on sports or something like nascar, with lots of panning, you can tell something's wrong. I checked the sage.properties file and it is indeed set to use CoreAVC, so i can't figure out what's going on here.

*eta2*...My next step is going to be to create a backup image of the win7 x64 setup with TrueImage and then format to XP and see if that gives the system a little more breathing room for SageTV to work with. Otherwise, I'm stumped.

[Matt314159]

Okay, so I finally got windows XP installed, after a few false-starts getting the SD card bootable, and re-installed everything.

I noticed the video looked better, but still not perfect (sageTV 7) so I went into the settings and changed the video options to the standard overlay, and that seemed to decrease load on things. And now, as long as I'm not perusing menus, or causing anything to come up on the screen (progress bar, info bar, program guide, etc) I can stand to watch the video. It's still not 100% perfect, but pretty close to watchable.

I guess what I'm starting to surmise is that despite the ION graphics, the graphical nature of SageTV is just too much for my little eeeBox to handle. I thought for sure a dual-core 1.6ghz atom would be fine, so long as the ION GPU was doing all the heavy lifting for the video portion. I guess I could have been wrong, though it's quite disappointing, because if I can't get this to the point where it's going to replace my Dish STB, I will probably just go back to my WDTV live for media player and VIP211 for TV, while occasionally doing manual recordings on the R5000. I simply can't afford to put together a full-fledged home theater PC for this.

You know, I wonder how it would work if I stuck sageTV on my quad-core, 8gb PC in the bedroom, brought the R5000/VIP211 in here (I have a satellite feed) and got an HD sage extender for the living room. Down side is I don't have ethernet run for in there, I would be relying solely on wireless "N" with my DIR-655 router. That seems like a recipe for frustration in and of itself, since I'm sure the wireless would see throughput issues on occasion as signal fluctuates, etc. ...Then again, Dish's 1080i h264 stream is like what, 5mbit/s? that shouldn't be hard to sustain, even if the signal did fluctuate.

if there are any more tips to fine-tune SAGE and lower its footprint as far as drain on the computer, I'm all ears. or if there are any special tricks to getting it to work fine with the eeeBox configuration above (only now running WIndows XP 32 bit, so it's only using 3GB of the memory (i guess the ION graphics take 512) I'm all ears, I'd love to hear from somebody knowledgeable enough, or who has gone through a similar experience, to help point me in one direction or the other.

[Matt314159]

*bump*...anyone? Thoughts? commentary? Bueller? Bueller?

[Fuzzy]

Did you try using the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder on the Win7 setup? I use it exclusively - no need to install any 3rd party codecs - though admittedly, i don't have an ION system. Works perfectly smooth on either my Phenom II x2 server (with 785 chipset graphics), or on my i3 client with h55 chipset.

Honestly, though, with the limited Atom based system, you'll end up being happier getting an HD300 for playback, and leave the Atom as a headless server.

[Matt314159]

Thanks for the reply. Was starting to get a little lonely there. IIRC, I cycled through all the available codecs in win7, but could never get smooth playback. With Winxp, it's essentially fine if you leave it alone, but if you try scrolling through menus, bringing up the guide, etc, you get some stuttering until the menus clear the screen. And this is with the standard overlay chosen, nothing fancy.

Honestly, if I go with an extender, I'll be selling the Atom/ION system, because now we're climbing out of my budget. I built it just for this project, cost around $290 all-in. Then we add $100 for SageTV software/placeshifter, another $150 for the extender, etc... We have a light-duty Quad-Core Q9400 2.66hz/core PC with 8GB ram in the bedroom as a video editing/photo editing workstation, and I keep thinking if I got the extender, I'd set the quad-core up as the server, and use the extender. But I still wonder about network throughput until I get a cable run to the living room. Dish's HD is around 5mbps, which isn't bad, but I wonder if I should even try to sustain that wirelessly. I have a DIR-655 N Router, but even playing 720p x264 files, we'll occasionally get network congestion or fluctuating signal and it will cause problems. just now and then, 98% of the time, I'd say, it's fine. By "headless" server, do you mean to say there's a way to run sage such that you don't have the UI up all the time? If it was something that could just run as a service in the background that would be great for the bedroom PC, so people can still use it for web browsing and that kind of thing.

On 2nd thought, what would the requirements be for a "headless" server? Basically all it would have to do is transfer data in and out, right? in from the R5000, back out to an extender. I have a P4 2.8ghz PC with 2GB ram in mothballs, I wonder if I could set that up as the server successfully. Then we wouldn't have down-time when someone uses the computer. I dunno, I just need to think about this.

[Fuzzy]

the P4 would be sufficient as a headless server - for sagetv alone. It wouldn't work well if you wanted to start running comskip or other CPU intensive tasks on it - such as placeshifter. Even an Atom330 board is enough to run as a plane-jane sagetv server.

[Matt314159]

I hate to have to ask this, but do you know of any posts off-hand that talk more in-depth about what goes into setting up a headless server, what it involves, what it does, etc? I'm still not 100% sure I have my mind wrapped around it. It it sageTV sans gui?

lol a bit of googling and I seem to get the impression that "headless" means a tower sans monitor...interesting. I'm gonna be searching and reading but like I said if you know any links off-hand I'd be more than grateful!

*eta*...so I'm seeing sageTV Media Server for WHS, which looks like what we'd be talking about running on a headless server, but for the life of me I can't seem to find it in the online store, so as to price it. The reading continues....

[Fuzzy]

SageTV for WHS uses the same purchased license as the normal SageTV for Windows. It is just a different installer designed to run in the WHS console. (It also includes on free Placeshifter license, intended for use to configure/use the headless server. As for how sage works headless, you certainly don't need to use WHS for this. You can simple set up any SageTV server.. then disconnect the monitor.

[Matt314159]

so --forgive how dense I'm getting here, it's embarrassing, I assure you-- do you just install regular SageTV on the 'server' and leave it running all the time? Or is it more like a service that runs n the background so that the SageTV gui doesn't have to be up and running on the screen all the time?

[gplasky]

It's your choice. You can start and run it like an app and minimize it to the system tray. Or you can configure it to run as an actual windows service and have it always running when your machine boots whether you log into the desktop or not.

Gerry

[Matt314159]

Thanks, that sounds perfect. I think I'm gonna set up my old Optiplex GX260 and see how well it works, using my Quad-Core as a client at first just to test things out. If it works fine like that, then I'll get an HD300 extender and use that as the main box in the living room.

It's gonna be a chore getting the family on board with all the changes, however, I'm not sure they're gonna like some of it (taking 8-10 seconds to change the channel, etc) We currently have the VIP211 hooked up with an EHD for PVR functions, but I got so tired of missing opportunities to capture stuff, because I had already passed that point in live TV...I figure running it all through Sage will fix that!

[gplasky]

One of the things you may find out like the rest of us is that you watch less and less "live" tv. All of our TV watching is recorded as favorites so other than sports (football) we rarely, if ever, watch live. So the channel change is never seen.

Gerry

[Matt314159]

That may very well be. I think they will like having the integrated media player...currently we have a WDTV Live for alternative media, but this removes the need to switch inputs, etc.

This is gonna create a monster, though, because I know later on once I get all this figured out, I'm gonna want com skip and other functions that will necessitate a higher-end server.

[gplasky]

Welcome to the Club!

Gerry

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Matt314159

This is gonna create a monster, though, because I know later on once I get all this figured out, I'm gonna want com skip and other functions that will necessitate a higher-end server.

There's nothing that restricts comskip to running on the server. You can just as easily run Comskip on that quad core desktop on your network... Comskip is not a part of sage, it's a separate program that creates .edl files to accompany the recordings. sage (with the comskip playback plugin) simply reads those .edl files to figure out where to make the skip points.

[Matt314159]

Ahh, I see. i wonder how much of a drain it would be to just install the sagetv server as a service on the quad-core and bypass all the shennanigans with the old P4. The quad-core is on all the time anyway, so it would save electricity over having the quad AND a p4 running 24/7, and I think would be more than up to the task of being a sagetv server AND doing web browsing and other light tasks...only when we're editing HD videos or rendering would it become a problem. I'll play around with different configurations until I'm ready, i think. Though I will probably order the $199 HD300 and Sage license combo, to save $29 on that anyway. Then figure out what I want to do with servers and so-on.

[Fuzzy]

the problem with using your main general use desktop as the server, is that you, inevitably, will have to reboot it for some general tasks - which means you'll either have to work that around the recording schedule, or lose a portion of the recordings. Plus, a headless server, doing nothing but sage, will simply work better, because you won't be 'messing with it'.

[Matt314159]

Yeah, that's true, from a reliability standpoint, a dedicated box is best. I just hate the thought of another 350 watts of electricity running 24/7! *sighs*...I might see if I can find a way to hang onto the eeeBox and use that as a server only...that thing seems to use less than 40 watts, which would make it ideal for a 24/7 unit that stays out of everyone's way.

[Fuzzy]

I doubt your P4 system uses 350W, unless it's actually working. it won't really be 'working' as a sagetv server.

But, yes, you will save power moving to a newer processor (Atom would save teh most, but may end up being limited - an i3 would probably be the best, having plenty of power, but VERY agressive power saving features.)

[Matt314159]

hmm, this has me thinking...it's been a long time since i've "built" anything from scratch. I have about $280 in my eeeBox all-in, i bought it barebones and added the memory and HDD myself. The "assembled" ones, with 2G memory and 160gb HDD are selling for like $379 on ebay, and mine has 4G/250G...If I were to sell that and see what I could build on the cheap...then again I have no idea what I could build a cheap i3 system for. I find this part of the process in any new venture is exceedingly fun, believe it or not, as I learn and read about which route to take...

Okay, What I think I'm gonna do for now is take the plunge on an i3 system to use as a full SageTV box for now. I really only need it in one room at the moment, but that will let me grow into an extender/server configuration later. I've got my WDTV Live on eBay, my Hava Platinum on ebay, the eeeBox...you guessed it...on ebay! Amongst the proceeds from all that, I'll take off $100 for Sage, and apportion the rest towards building out a decent PC for this.