H.264 via R5000...working in Beta?

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by HawgGuy

No. The H.264/AVC codec won't show up in the list of MPEG-2 decoders, but sage will use it if it is the default (highest merit) codec for h.264 playback.

How is this done.
how do I ensure it is set as default (highest merit) codec for h.264 playback?

Thanks

* Buying hardware and doing tweaks for the h.264 change over that is coming

1)EVGA 8500GT. Which means a new motherboard and CPU for me
2) PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe ver 7.3. Which I found at a great low price
3) Vista...........maybe But I hope not. way overpriced imo

Does this $pending ever end?

[NEOSG]

I was a pretty harsh critic of this whole H.264 from R5000/Dish playback issue in Sage. I was trying to use CoreAVC to play them back, and was not having any luck. Sage support tried to help but was never able to get their hands on what they needed to get things to work. Today, I bit the bullet and bought Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra. I had been using Nvidia DVD Decoder with AC3Filter.

I uninstalled CoreAVC and Nvidia. Installed Cyberlink. I did not Activate it yet, as all I needed was Sage to use the decoders. Tested successful H.264 recording and playback inside and outside of Sage from R5000/Dish sources. Could not get Cyberlink to respect VMR9 registry settings for MPEG2 stuff if using Cyberlink decoder for MPEG2 in Sage, so I reinstalled Nvidia to handle the MPEG2 stuff in Sage. I made NO custom decoder entries in sage.properties

Now, I have full playback and recording of all content from Dish SD & HD, OTA SD & HD, and Cable SD.

Relatively painless, except for the 100 bucks on Cyberlink

[Ralphjb]

My experience was pretty much the same.

Question for you. How did you uninstall the Nvidia codec? I have not been able to figure that out.

The H.264 files still do not play back all that well within Sage on my XP machine. But this is a somewhat older machine (about 1 year) with a Nvidia 6600 video card. I bought a new 8600 and am hoping that will work for Sage.

Outside of Sage, these files play great in PowerDVD.

[NEOSG]

Originally Posted by Ralphjb

My experience was pretty much the same.

Question for you. How did you uninstall the Nvidia codec? I have not been able to figure that out.
...

I used the installer via Add/remove programs

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

Now, I have full playback and recording of all content from Dish SD & HD, OTA SD & HD, and Cable SD.

Relatively painless, except for the 100 bucks on Cyberlink

What CPU and Video card are you using............please

I have a AMD XP 2800+ CPU and a 7600GS vid card. I fear both is now undered powered for H.264 playback............... but I'm not sure

[NEOSG]

pentium D 2.8GHz

7600gt

almost all h.264 channels play ok. some of them i am getting some stuttering on and trying to find out why.

The stuttering only happens within Sage in those few channels. Same file plays AOK using MPC or WMP

[HawgGuy]

I'll join the crowd having success with r-5000 h.264 playback with sage. Using Cyberlink 7.3, Windows XP, Nvidia 8500GT & latest drivers.

Does anyone but me have a problem with sage crashing while watching live tv on an h.264 channel (NFL-HD, ESPN2-HD, HGTV-TV, etc). It's only certain shows and certain formats.

From what I can tell, it's only when watching live in Sage. If I record the programs and then play them back in SageTV - no crash. Does Sage render the live stream differently than a recorded stream?

[camTexas]

I also bit the bullet with Cyberlink and now have successful viewing of H.264 channels.

I do still have stuttering on some H.264 channels. My server is an older AMD 64 2800+ with fanless 7600GT. Just upgraded to fanless 8600GT and still have some stuttering on local H.264 channels (Dallas). I've tried the properties change as well as just selection of the Cyberlink decoder in the settings screen. I use the Nvidia decoder for basic MPEG2.

I haven't checked my driver version yet to see if I have the latest from Nvidia or not. I think I'm still using a 94.(somthing). Have to wait until the family goes to bed befor I play with the setups again. Hate to have to pull the trigger on upgrading my server but I'm afraid I won't have a choice. All other non-H.264 HD works great with the system (no stuttering at all).

It is nice, after nearly 2 years, to watch locals through Sage again... even if they stutter some.

[NEOSG]

Originally Posted by HawgGuy

I'll join the crowd having success with r-5000 h.264 playback with sage. Using Cyberlink 7.3, Windows XP, Nvidia 8500GT & latest drivers.

Does anyone but me have a problem with sage crashing while watching live tv on an h.264 channel (NFL-HD, ESPN2-HD, HGTV-TV, etc). It's only certain shows and certain formats.

From what I can tell, it's only when watching live in Sage. If I record the programs and then play them back in SageTV - no crash. Does Sage render the live stream differently than a recorded stream?

HawgGuy, I had one crash yesterday while watching an mpeg4 channel.

BTW, my stuttering is so weird. It seems to be on a program by program basis across the mpeg4 channels on Dish. Sageclient.exe memory usage jumps up like 200 more meg than normal to 300+ while the stuttering is going on.

[HawgGuy]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

HawgGuy, I had one crash yesterday while watching an mpeg4 channel.

BTW, my stuttering is so weird. It seems to be on a program by program basis across the mpeg4 channels on Dish. Sageclient.exe memory usage jumps up like 200 more meg than normal to 300+ while the stuttering is going on.

It does seem random to me. I wonder if it's related to the encoding method used by Dish? I was able to get SageTV to crash while playing back a recorded show last night. Previously all of the crashes had been with live h.264 stream.

The windows error messages are always the same, indicating a problem with SageTV.exe and cl264dec.ax. This happens with either Nvidia card or ATI card, VMR9 or Overlay and FSE on or off.

Does not happen if I watch in the Cyberlink player or Media Player Classic.

[bhyman1]

It looks like the R5000 is finally working well. This may clinch my move to Dish.

[DualQuad]

I have upgraded my Powerdvd to the latest patch (from July 6, I believe) and modifed my codec list using Direct Show filter manager. Suprise of suprises, I get limited playback of Starz and MaxHD. Playback is stutterring badly, I will upgrade the video card and report back in with software list.

[UPDATE]
H.264 playback is working rather well with the addition of an 8600GT to the mix. I am running:
MSI 8600GT passively cooled
PowerDVD (July 6, patch)
Nvidia Drivers (Forceware Release 162)

Fast pans show some lack of smoothness, but I may be CPU limited (X2 3800+) but in general I am the only one in the family that notices this issue. CPU monitoring shows high utilization which indicates enough processes to fully occupy a processor.

DQ

[Ralphjb]

Thought I would report my experience with getting SageTV to successfully play back mpeg4 files recorded from a modded Dish VIP211 box. I owe a debt of gratitude to other posters on this forum and elsewhere for getting this to work.

I have a media server network with 2 PC's setup to playback SageTV files and a third PC which serves simply as the server. I made the following changes to them:

Livingroom PC:
Got a new 3.3ghz Intel (single core) eMachine PC (heck of a deal from Tigerdirect for $230) with Vista Home Basic. 1 gig of memory and then bought and installed an nVidia 7600GS video card. Installed PowerDVD Ultimate on this machine. Plays mpeg2 and mpeg4 files great.

Home Theater PC:
This is an older, Dell 9100 PC with a 3.0ghz Pentium 4 processor. with XP Home edition. 2 gig of memory. I had an nVidia 6600GT card, which worked great playing back mpeg2 HD files, but could not handle the mpeg4 files when playing back within SageTV. Worked fine when playing back with PowerDVD Ultimate. I upgraded to an nVidia 8600GT card and problem solved - playback within SageTV works great.

[paulbeers]

Making an assumption here, but I assume that these H.264 files can not be transcoded for use on a MediaMVP correct? If that was possible, I would drop my cable co and hop onto Dish in a second.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Making an assumption here, but I assume that these H.264 files can not be transcoded for use on a MediaMVP correct? If that was possible, I would drop my cable co and hop onto Dish in a second.

That should be theoretically possible. I believe the sagetv transcoder is just ffmpeg renamed. According to this: http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC24 it can decode h.264. And if it can decode something it should be able to encode it to whichever codec thats sent to the MVP (MPEG-2?).

[paulbeers]

Hmmm....Anyone got a clip from their R5000 they want to send to me?!?!?!

[NEOSG]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Making an assumption here, but I assume that these H.264 files can not be transcoded for use on a MediaMVP correct? If that was possible, I would drop my cable co and hop onto Dish in a second.

FWIW This does not work with 6.19

[NEOSG]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

I was a pretty harsh critic of this whole H.264 from R5000/Dish playback issue in Sage. I was trying to use CoreAVC to play them back, and was not having any luck. Sage support tried to help but was never able to get their hands on what they needed to get things to work. Today, I bit the bullet and bought Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra. I had been using Nvidia DVD Decoder with AC3Filter.

I uninstalled CoreAVC and Nvidia. Installed Cyberlink. I did not Activate it yet, as all I needed was Sage to use the decoders. Tested successful H.264 recording and playback inside and outside of Sage from R5000/Dish sources. Could not get Cyberlink to respect VMR9 registry settings for MPEG2 stuff if using Cyberlink decoder for MPEG2 in Sage, so I reinstalled Nvidia to handle the MPEG2 stuff in Sage. I made NO custom decoder entries in sage.properties

Now, I have full playback and recording of all content from Dish SD & HD, OTA SD & HD, and Cable SD.

Relatively painless, except for the 100 bucks on Cyberlink

On my main client, I ended up having to swap the 7600GT out for an 8600GT. Stuttering is gone on. Other slightly newer clients did not have stuttering

[lobosrul]

This is a bit OT but is there any working commercial detection with h.264 streams? What about video editing software (ala VideoRedo)?

[Fluffdaddy]

OK now with these hardware and software upgrades


1)AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200.................... $83.00

2)ASUS A8V-XE Socket 939 Motherboard........... $45.00

3)8500GT 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card........ $100.00

4) PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe ver 7.3 ................. $9.94

I'm playing-back H.264 recordings stutter free on 98% of the channels