Showstopper with SageTV: it don't play nice with MyHD

[eswrite]

MyHD cannot acquire a signal while SageTV is running. Why? I don't know. I can receive and play TV with both WinTV (through a PVR-250) and MyHD running, but when SageTV is up and running (even in Sleep mode: not recording or displaying TV), MyHD starts and says "NO SIGNAL FOUND". That's a deal-breaker for me. I need the capability of recording SD broadcasts with the PVR-250 while I use the MyHD MDP-120 to view/record HD programming. Anyone know of a solution for this (other than forget about SageTV)???

[mlbdude]

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...highlight=MyHD

Good luck.

[eswrite]

Tried this and, yes, MyHD can acquire a signal. However, SageTV becomes disfunctional when I try to view/record TV with MyHD running. The error says: "There was an error with the MPEG-2 video setup. Failed connecting video stream to the Overlay Mixer ErrCode=0x80040217." I can hear audio, but no video on SageTV.

[mlbdude]

You sure Sage is not able to record? It may be just in the decoding part. I would assume that both would not work when viewing MPEG streams. They would both be trying to grab the same overlay surface exclusively. This time it sounds like MyHD is taking exclusive access to it.

I have seend posts from other MyHD users out there using Sage. Can any of you answer this better?

[Narflex]

eswrite,

Set the Video Renderer to default and it'll prevent the overlay problem.

[eswrite]

Thanks, Narflex. But I need a little clarity. Where exactly do I find the "Video Renderer" setting?

[eswrite]

I assumed "Video Renderer" actually means "Video Decoder"... Set it to Default, along with the Audio settings, and I get the same error. Is SageTV2 solving any of this? You can let me tinker-winker all you want, but without reliable, usable software, thanks, but no thanks.

[mlbdude]

I assume he means Rendering Filter. Set it to Default (VMR) and see what it does.

[eswrite]

Okay, here's what I did. I enabled VMR9 (Default)--it was in overlay before--and I still could not get MyHD to run concurrently. Then I performed the registry hack for the Intervideo video decoder, and finally, MyHD and SageTV could run concurrently. However, even though I am using the MyHD tVGA-component output (not going through the video card) and SageTV outputs separately through the VGA card, both MyHD and SageTV performance is sub-optimal. MyHD displays some jaggies (not many), and SageTV is choppy. I have a Radeon 9000 and an XP Athlon 2000+ running on a NF7-S nforce2 motherboard, so I shouldn't be underpowered for this.

[heckheck]

I too own a MyHD 100 and am considering the purchase of a SageTV PVR 250 combo. I was wondering if you ever got your issue ironed out? Also, one option I am considering in my case is to install the PVR250 in a different PC, and to use the SageTV client on the PC that has the MyHD card. Like you I will be using the component video out for the MyHD card and S-Video out to display Windows and play content (ala Media Player, etc). I want to use the SageTV client to play content over the S-Video connection, streaming the content across my network from the other PC. I don't suppose you have tried this?

Thanks in advance,

heckheck

[eswrite]

Not to my full satisfaction, heckheck. I can record with MyHD while watching SageTV and viceversa, but I still get choppiness here and there. According to the folks at digitalconnection.com, the PVR-250 is a system hog, and in my experience, SageTV only adds to the problem (WinTV2000 behaves much better). So for now, if I want to make sure something gets recorded w/o hickups, I run only one at a time. This hasn't prevented me from doing anything I wanted to do, but it is a major disappointment. I'm actually considering getting the AccessDTV card on ebay (plus the new software update) and using that for my cable reception/recording (the job the PVR-250 now performs).

And no, I haven't tried the client/network setup. Not my bag.

[dkardatzke]

What do they mean it's a system hog? The card is doing all the work so it doesn't use much on the system resource side. I have two PVR-250s recording at the same time on a Celeron 1.4 Ghz using less than 5% of the CPU.

[Opus4]

I was just browsing through new postings when I saw the comment that "the PVR-250 is a system hog" and I, too, have to wonder what was meant by that?

If I can run a PVR-250 & a PVR-USB2 at the same time on a P2-400 (recording 2 shows) with very little cpu usage, that seems to indicate it isn't a system hog, at least in that regard. Both devices are recording at 3GB/hour w/o any video glitches.

Perhaps it isn't the recording, but the playback that is causing problems? I could see that happening on a slower system using software decoding w/a high bit rate encoded file. I use an Xcard for its hardware decoding & still see very little cpu usage.

I've also seen the suggestion to use a 64K cluster size on your partition to help with video glitches. I would suggest using an ATA100 or ATA133 HD controller card, but my old ATA33 still recorded w/o problems, though that makes the system less responsive than ATA133.

Sorry... I've nothing to comment on regarding myHD... I just couldn't resist wondering what the "system hog" reference means.

- Andy

[eswrite]

The exact quote from digitalconnection.com was, "the PVR-250 is very demanding on your system". I personally doubt that statement also, and rather attribute some of the issues I am experiencing to the SageTV software itself (again, WinTV2000 doesn't cause hickups in the MyHD software). Just after I posted yesterday, I ran into this thread at avsforum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...18#post2881618

Though it doesn't directly address PVR-250/MDP-120 interactions, I am trying out the suggested solution to see if I can get both cards (and software packages) to record concurrently without hickups. I'll have to experiment for a week or so before I can ascertain whether I see improvement. I will post back with my results.

[heckheck]

eswrite, your link to the AVS forum article got me thinking.

One thing I have noticed with my MyHD 100 card is that using the latest drivers, and as it is currently installed, it is sharing an IRQ with my video card. I determined that this is due to which PCI slot I have it in. What is interesting, is that it causes the monitor to never go to sleep. This leads me to believe that it may not be handling interrupts nicely. If I disable it in the device manager, the monitor sleeps just fine. If the MyHD people didn't get the IRQ handling process just right, they might not be properly passing on interrupts to devices sharing the IRQ. In windows, if an interrupt occurs, and it is not yours, you are supposed to pass it back to the OS in a certain manner, so that the next shared device can have a crack at it. This in theory could explain your stuttering problem. I haven't had a chance to move my MyHD card to a different slot to see if I can isolate it away from all other devices and cure this problem.

heckheck

[smurgle]

Hmm I have a MyHD MDP100 hooked up with component video and a PVR250 w/SageTV and get perfectly smooth playback with either when the other is recording. I can even watch a DVD in Theatertek while both are recording.

My system is similar in processor power (P4-2.4) so I'm not sure of the problem you are having. I'd definitely recommend checking your IRQs as heckheck suggested, freeing some up if necessary by disabling everything you don't use like the parallel port and any unused serial ports.

What OS are you using?

[eswrite]

I did some testing this weekend with the fix in the above link. Here's what I found:
1) Any time SageTV is displaying a full screen image while MyHD is also running, CPU goes to 80-85%. Taking SageTV out of display mode drops CPU to 20-25%. I re-instante the "hog" comment.
2) SageTV display while MyHD is running in the background is mildly choppy. Switch it around, and MyHD is rock solid (note MyHD isn't using the overlay).
3) Sharing of onboard (nforce2) sound may be an issue, but muting either application did not have much of an effect on the SageTV image choppiness.
4) Though MyHD doesn't use the overlay, I had to attach the same Powerstrip custom resolution (through an application profile) that SageTV uses. Otherwise, when SageTV launches while I am watching MyHD, MyHD falls out of HD mode.

Using WinXP Pro on an ABIT NF7-S with XP Athlon 2000+ w/ 512MB RAM.