SageTV v3.0.5 Beta

[dadams]

I've had several strange things happen after updating to the v3 beta.

1) Every once in a while the video will seem to slow down for a few seconds then return to normal.

2) I noticed that my EPG update was taking place around 7:20pm every night. One night while watching my shows late at night I decided I would disable/enable a channel to start the EPG update at approximately 1:15am. In fact, it looks like that is taking place. However it is still updating the EPG at 7:20. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

Thanks,

Dennis

[mkanet]

I had to dig back to where I posted this...

The problem was that my Nvidia decoder's aspect ratio was set to "raw aspect" instead of "content default". After I changed that all aspect ratios are correct.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Thats' what I'm trying to figure out, if you're running a 4:3 resolution, Source should fill the screen with NTSC content. Now if there are bars in the recording it won't fill. And that can be a problem if you're running a 16x9 resolution/screen. In such a case I use 16x9 AR with vertical zoom = ~133%

[mkanet]

I'm sure it probably goes without saying... since nobody has posted about this at all. But, to further elaborate on one of the high priority bugs I submitted (below), it looks like it only happens when you have video being displayed in FSE mode AND try to make it switch to windowed mode or sleep mode (in windows system tray). This is especially problematic when you've selected to show video "Always" and in "Background".

If I hit stop on the remote or "Close File" in the menu, I have a good chance it will work.

Originally Posted by mkanet

3) Problems with rendering when switching from windowed to Full Screen (using VMR 9 FSE). My setup is about as generic as possible in respect to VMR9 FSE (Nvidia 6600GT+Nvidia latest detonator certified driver+Latest Nvidia mpeg2 decoders). If it doesn't work cleanly for me, I doubt it will work for anyone else.
NOTE: Currently, it doesn't want to switch to Windowed mode from FSE mode. SageTV just locks up. I have to do a control-alt-delete and kill the app via task manager.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by dadams

2) I noticed that my EPG update was taking place around 7:20pm every night. One night while watching my shows late at night I decided I would disable/enable a channel to start the EPG update at approximately 1:15am. In fact, it looks like that is taking place. However it is still updating the EPG at 7:20. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

I'm guessing you have multiple channel lineups & you only forced one to update with the channel enable toggle. You could toggle channels for each different lineup to update them all.

This FAQ might be of some help.

- Andy

[eobiont]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I'm sure it probably goes without saying... since nobody has posted about this at all. But, to further elaborate on one of the high priority bugs I submitted (below), it looks like it only happens when you have video being displayed in FSE mode AND try to make it switch to windowed mode or sleep mode (in windows system tray). This is especially problematic when you've selected to show video "Always" and in "Background".

If I hit stop on the remote or "Close File" in the menu, I have a good chance it will work.

"Me too"

I have a Radeon 9800Pro and have the same experience. I switched off FSE and the problem went away. So it isn't just NVidia chipsets that have the problem. I'm running XPProSp2.

And for something positive to say about the beta... I can now watch HDTV programs while they are being recorded. Sage 2.2.8 was pretty shakey when doing this in the past. Somethines it would work, but usually it would freeze after about 10 minutes of viewing. They always played back fine after they were finished being recorded. There are probably too many variables to learn anything from this though.

[matterw]

Any thoughts about support HDTV via a cable box? I find it surprising that many people will want HDTV over the air (OTA).... Interesting...

[Naylia]

give firewire recording a shot, should be able to grab most of your hd channels that way

[zinkpig]

andy, corfirmed that the new plextor driver from their website causes severe unstability in the new beta. I ve been using that driver in my sage setup(2.2.8) since january but using it with the beta causes sage to crash. much smoother with the older drivers.

[sengsational]

Originally Posted by Ken C

...Anyone interested in a very slightly used MyHD 130 'hardware' HDTV card ?

I'll be installing the beta this weekend.
...

Sorry if this is obvious to folks here, but I'm weary after reading some mega posts over in AVS...

Why wouldn't you keep your MyHD board for playback, and use your, say, A180, to record. Wouldn't that mean that you'd be able to play back in MyHD hardware (reducing the CPU load, nice 1080i to to the HDTV set without a fancy video board, etc), and also give you a nicer scheduling interface through Sage? And best of all, no contention between recording and playback since it would be two different chunks of hardware?

I know I'm missing some part of the puzzle, so please, what am I missing?

--Dale--

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by zinkpig

andy, corfirmed that the new plextor driver from their website causes severe unstability in the new beta. I ve been using that driver in my sage setup(2.2.8) since january but using it with the beta causes sage to crash. much smoother with the older drivers.

In case you haven't done so yet, don't forget to submit a bug report so SageTV can follow up on that to see what the problem is.

- Andy

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by sengsational

Sorry if this is obvious to folks here, but I'm weary after reading some mega posts over in AVS...

Why wouldn't you keep your MyHD board for playback, and use your, say, A180, to record. Wouldn't that mean that you'd be able to play back in MyHD hardware (reducing the CPU load, nice 1080i to to the HDTV set without a fancy video board, etc), and also give you a nicer scheduling interface through Sage? And best of all, no contention between recording and playback since it would be two different chunks of hardware?

I know I'm missing some part of the puzzle, so please, what am I missing?

--Dale--

The only reason I'm keeping my MyHD is because it records QAM and also because I'm too lazy to sell it. Switching between the MyHD app and Sage is a pain in the... and the MyHD apps sucks in comparison (for everything) IMO. Plus my Geforce 6800 provides a better picture.

[that_kid]

Well I submitted a bug report for serial tuning problem I'm having. I have 4 direct tv boxes but 2 of the 4 boxes use the old serial tuning command and the remaining 2 use the new serial tuning command. For a good while everything will work fine then after a few hours of channel changing one set of boxes won't change channels anymore. sometimes it's the new set sometime it's the old set. When that happens I have to restart the Sage service and all is well for a short while and then it's the same routine.

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by sengsational

Why wouldn't you keep your MyHD board for playback, and use your, say, A180, to record. Wouldn't that mean that you'd be able to play back in MyHD hardware (reducing the CPU load, nice 1080i to to the HDTV set without a fancy video board, etc), and also give you a nicer scheduling interface through Sage? And best of all, no contention between recording and playback since it would be two different chunks of hardware?
--Dale--

I don't believe you aren't going to have a "contention between recording and playback" with Sage and a Fusion or other supported card. Unless I'm missing something, playback is software only. But what MyHD card would do is allow you to manually pick up the recording of any conflicts that your card(s) supported by Sage can't pick up.

I'm still trying to determine whether the MyHD card will playback files created by Sage & Fusion. I want to do that because my computer probably isn't up to the task of playback through Sage.

[Rogue9]

Ok, I think I've narrowed my "jittery" playback problem to the quartz.dll directx file.

Does FSE mode in v3 get rid of this FF/RW problem or not? I'd hate to replace my quartz file if its going to break my FSE mode in ZP.

It seems people are still getting the FF/RW bug, but I'm not sure if they are in FSE mode or not. And apparently FSE will not work with the DX9b version of the quartz file.

So should I upgrade to v3 or not? Any ideas?

[Blue]

If I understand it correctly, you need the latest quartz.dll for FSE. However, the latest quartz.dll causes the FF/RW problem.

[White94Cobra]

Yes, to use FSE you have to endure the jittery playback. We have stopped watching anything on Sage and are reverting back to Tivo. I'm sick of having to ff/rw 2-3 times after every commercial to get it to stop. The other night while watching boxing it would sometimes take 5 ff/rw sequences to get the video back to normal.

This has been an ongoing issue in Sage for quite some time. Hacking DirectX9 should not be considered a solution, as it can break other applications. Unfortunately this is becomming a deal-breaker since the WAF drops to zero. Anytime I try to watch a show in Sage now my wife says "Not Sage, it sucks... watch it on Tivo."

I now have 4 tuners working in Windows MCE and may completely switch to that after being a loyal Sage user for several years.

[that_kid]

White94cobra,

Are you using set top boxes with MCE? If so i'd like to find out how you got it all working.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by White94Cobra

I'm sick of having to ff/rw 2-3 times after every commercial to get it to stop. The other night while watching boxing it would sometimes take 5 ff/rw sequences to get the video back to normal.

Have you tried just pressing Stop then Play again? That always worked for me, that is when I was using the latest quartz.dll.

Reverting back to the older quartz.dll also breaks full screen mode in TheaterTek.

[White94Cobra]

No, I'm just using basic cable. That would be the one down-side to moving to MCE... on Sage I have both DirecTV and basic cable working.

Blue -
I actually don't have the STOP button mapped on my remote (I mapped the Play/Pause function to it for enhanced navigating through a show). I may switch it to see if that solves it each time. It's still an unacceptable workaround in my opinion though.

[mlbdude]

What are the drawbacks of not using VMR9 and using Overlay for TV to avoid this issue?