2 Things to try to fix stuttering

[Evil_Attorney]

I think that solved my problem too, except I upgraded from 2k to xp sp2. I also had some horizontal "micro-stuttering" after I fixed that problem. After playing around, I realized that it was from shows recorded with a lower encoder quality. And after further investigation, it appeared that despite the "default" setting for certain shows, they were encoding at a lower rate. I think this issue was previously mentioned. Anyway, after resetting the encoding rate for each favorite, the problem was mostly gone.

Fast motion video like sports still seem to give slight horizontal jerks, but it's much less noticable.

[abbott_m]

Well aparently I'm not getting hardware acceleration turned on. I've got a 6600GT running the 76.10 drivers with the Nvidia DVD decoder. In overlay the CPU is around 10%, in VMR9 it jumps to around 65% with obvious stuttering. I'm using the VPP decoder selection in the Sage setup menu but I noticed that in the decoder properties it looks as if it's still software based cause it has something about software decoder settings.

I'm lost on how to get it to go to hardware decoding in VMR9.

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by abbott_m

Well aparently I'm not getting hardware acceleration turned on. I've got a 6600GT running the 76.10 drivers with the Nvidia DVD decoder. In overlay the CPU is around 10%, in VMR9 it jumps to around 65% with obvious stuttering. I'm using the VPP decoder selection in the Sage setup menu but I noticed that in the decoder properties it looks as if it's still software based cause it has something about software decoder settings.

I'm lost on how to get it to go to hardware decoding in VMR9.

The VPP is for software more. Don't use it if you want to use DXVA on the card.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by abbott_m

I'm using the VPP decoder selection in the Sage setup menu but I noticed that in the decoder properties it looks as if it's still software based cause it has something about software decoder settings.

You cannot use both Hardware Accelleration (DXVA) and the VPP filter at the same time, the VPP is a post processor just like ffdshow and as such precludes the use of DXVA.

If you want DXVA you need to use just the nVidia Video Decoder.

[abbott_m]

OK, that makes sense then, finally starting to figure this out I guess. Still can't run VMR9 in 1080i though without significant stuttering specifically on the news channels. The crawl across the bottom of the screen is horid.

In overlay and DVXA it's flawless. The big reason I'd like to use VMR9 is that the picture is sharper.

[infiniti_guy]

Is Java 1.5 Stable? Is it better? Why isn't it included in the "Release package"?

[brandium]

I've been having problems with stuttering while sage is recording - I can tell as soon a scheduled recording starts because whatever I am using at the time starts to stutter in the same way. Depending on my mood it sometimes won't bother me, so I've let it go on for a while now, but I think it started when I upgraded to 2.1 from 2.0. Every 2-3 seconds, there is a small delay in processing and whatever is happening completely pauses whether it's winamp, or a game, or anything, it's like something with a higher thread priority class is running the cpu at 100% for a split second and starving everything else. When I play back a recording when nothing else is recording the content that was being recorded during a stutter seems to be missing completely, it just skips forward that split second. The same thing seems to be going on during time shifting, both types of stutter show up. I closed down most of the processes i don't really care about with no effect, I can't seem to tell which process might be hogging the cpu though - the time span is probably too small a percentage of the polling interval to tell. I tried the registry thing with no luck, but now I have tried upgrading to java 1.5, and after watching about an hour of live tv, I noticed one stutter that seemed a little different, so could have just been something else waking up. So, i'm going to tentatively say that upgrading java fixed it for me, thanks! I hope all this is useful to somebody. Just to be thorough, here's my specs - XP pro SP1, Sage 2.2.8, PVR 350 - driver 1.18.21.22266, P4 2.0 Ghz, nVidia 6600 256MB, and 2 drive 7200 rpm IDE RAID w/ 32 k stripe (IIRC) and NTFS w/ 64k clusters

[mkanet]

I'm surprised nobody asked this, maybe I overlooked it on this thread, but what adverse effect does BoostThreadPriorities=0 have? If it's such a good thing, why isn't it set to 0 by default?

I changed mine to 0 and it seems to make sageTV slightly less sluggish in certain cases. I don't know, maybe its my imagination

[brandium]

shoot, not quite. I'ts definately still stuttering since upgrading java. It's much better though, instead of every few seconds, it'll go 10 minutes or more without a stutter, but occasionally has one or two a minute. The duration might be a little longer, but its really hard to judge that.

[Steerpike]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You cannot use both Hardware Accelleration (DXVA) and the VPP filter at the same time, the VPP is a post processor just like ffdshow and as such precludes the use of DXVA.

If you want DXVA you need to use just the nVidia Video Decoder.

Sorry for being dumb here, but after reading this thread I'm not sure where to make the various settings.

I have an NVidia 6150 based board (asus a8n-vm csm), which sounds like it should support the hardware DXVA, right?

So - in sage Detailed Setup, Video/Audio, I should set "MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter' to "NVIDIA Video Decoder" and not "NVIDIA Video Post Processor" - right?

Do I need to do anything further? The very next option on the 'Video/Audio' screen is 'DXVA MPEG Mode', with choices of 'MPEG Mode Default', and then 'MPEG Mode A', then B, C, D. I'm currently set to 'Default'.

I also have 'Video Renderer' set to VMR9.

I just want to confirm these settings (and any others I'm not listing!) because some posts above suggest there are other settings relating to DXVA.

Also - as an aside - I use Closed Captions, and found that Closed Captions work with Video Decoder set to 'NVIDIA Video Decoder', but don't work when set to 'NVIDIA Video Post Processor'. HOWEVER - if I change them within Sage without exiting/restarting, CC's appear to work with both settings. What this tells me is, if you are switching between video decoders while testing, you may be getting false results because it seems you must exit sage and re-enter in order to see the true effect of such a change.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Steerpike

I have an NVidia 6150 based board (asus a8n-vm csm), which sounds like it should support the hardware DXVA, right?

So - in sage Detailed Setup, Video/Audio, I should set "MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter' to "NVIDIA Video Decoder" and not "NVIDIA Video Post Processor" - right?

Correct on both accounts.

Do I need to do anything further? The very next option on the 'Video/Audio' screen is 'DXVA MPEG Mode', with choices of 'MPEG Mode Default', and then 'MPEG Mode A', then B, C, D. I'm currently set to 'Default'.

Nothing else is needed. The other settings should all be default. If the Nvidia decoder is your default decoder you can leave it set as default in Sage as well.

Also - as an aside - I use Closed Captions, and found that Closed Captions work with Video Decoder set to 'NVIDIA Video Decoder', but don't work when set to 'NVIDIA Video Post Processor'. HOWEVER - if I change them within Sage without exiting/restarting, CC's appear to work with both settings. What this tells me is, if you are switching between video decoders while testing, you may be getting false results because it seems you must exit sage and re-enter in order to see the true effect of such a change.

Are you reloading the media player after you make your changes? You shouldn't have to exit Sage, just reload the media player for the changes to take effect.

[Francois Parent]

Originally Posted by Narflex

For those of you with occassional video stuttering, hiccups or long pauses, there's 3 things I'd like you to try to see if they help at all (try them independently):

1. Set the following registry variable as a DWORD:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters\MpegMux\BoostThreadPriorities=0

2. Use Java 1.5

3. If you're using the SageTV Windows Service, try it without the service.

Please post your results here. Thanks for the help.

I have tried these 3 suggestions without any noticable improvement.

[Steerpike]

Originally Posted by blade

... If the Nvidia decoder is your default decoder you can leave it set as default in Sage as well.

What defines 'default' in this context? Is this a 'system level' default, defined outside of Sage, or some setting within Sage?

Originally Posted by blade

Are you reloading the media player after you make your changes? You shouldn't have to exit Sage, just reload the media player for the changes to take effect.

How do I 'just reload the media player'? I'm using the Sage Client, on a separate computer from the recorder/server.

[GKusnick]

If you change decoders while something is playing back (or paused), you'll see a "Reload Media Player" button at the bottom of the menu. If you make the change while nothing is playing, you won't see that button, and the change will take effect the next time you play something.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Steerpike

What defines 'default' in this context? Is this a 'system level' default, defined outside of Sage, or some setting within Sage?


How do I 'just reload the media player'? I'm using the Sage Client, on a separate computer from the recorder/server.

Yes, it's the windows default decoder. You can use this to see and change your default decoder.

Usually if you've selected the decoder by name, it won't let you access the tray icon and sometimes won't even display it. Using default (instead of selecting it by name) should allow you to access the tray icon when playing videos in Sage.

You can also access it by playing back a video in Windows Media Player (if it's the default decoder for windows). The best way IMO is to set it as the default decoder for Windows and choose default in Sage until you're done tweaking, then select it by name. This way if another decoder gets installed and takes over as default it won't affect anything in Sage.

If you're playing a video in Sage and open the video setup page you should see an option to reload the media player.

[Steerpike]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

If you change decoders while something is playing back (or paused), you'll see a "Reload Media Player" button at the bottom of the menu. If you make the change while nothing is playing, you won't see that button, and the change will take effect the next time you play something.

My observations don't seem to agree with this. I stopped playback; changed from 'NVIDIA Video Decoder' to 'NVIDIA Video Post Processor'; restarted the display of TV; Closed Captions continued to work. But if I then exit Sage and re-enter, Closed Captions no longer work (and it's my understanding that NVidia Post Processor does not support CCs). Maybe there's something weird about my setup?

<update: I just made a point of NOT stopping playback while making the same change, and it behaves as you suggest - that is, I see the 'reload' button, I do the reload, and my change takes effect right away (CC's are no longer working). So it seems that stopping playback before making a change is a bit of a problem - you really need to exit/re-enter before a change takes affect.>

<update2: still further testing now confirms exactly what you said; so either I'm smoking something, or ... anyway, things are working as expected at the moment!>

Also - regarding

1. Set the following registry variable as a DWORD:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters\MpegMux\BoostThreadPriorities=0

I already had the registry entry (that is, I never created it manually) but it was set to '1'. I changed it to '0' to see if it helped (doesn't appear to do so). What is this supposed to do? what's the difference between '0' and '1'? Is '0' "off"? That is, by following the instruction, we are disabling the Boost Thread Priority feature?