Video Stutter with v6

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

**salsbst

i have to ask, is the pc setup noted in your link still your current setup? i understand your pain and some of it is still sage's doing but as i posted earlier in this thread i had serious stutter problems that were mostly caused by nvidia audio decoder and my worthless chaintech av710 (it's still a crap card) stopped using both of those and all i get now is the occasional stutter on CBS, the rest are perfect.

Damn it, I was going to use that card to get bit-perfect audio playback? Is that what you used it for? I'm guessing so since it seems to be the only reason anybody buys it.

Did you replace it with another ASIO compatible card?

[astribli]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

**salsbst
.....
that said the pc in your link is pretty weak as far as playback of HD goes, well most of it is fine but a radeon 9600 is so on the borderline that it's just barely capable. also i'm not entirely sure what resolutions you're trying to scale to?
.....

I have to disagree with you. When I first tried getting Sage to work back in December, I bought an ATI 9550 AGP graphics card. Had all these stuttering issues. Took it back and got an nVidia 7300. Same thing. After much experimentation (see previous posts in this thread), got it all to work using Overlay, bla bla bla.

Keep in mind everything I do is via ATSC (digital stream right to hard disk, no MPEG encoding going on but if you had a hardware TV tuner that shouldn't be a problem anyway).

While recording one HD program and playing back another, my CPU runs around 20-30% or so. Not bad for outputting 720p.

But, AFTER I got it working satisfactorily, I did some experiments. I still had the ATI 9550 so put it back in. Works just fine, same cpu. I put in an nVidia 6200, works just fine, same cpu. So that is what I am using now, an nVidia 6200 w/256 MB RAM AGP. I didn't need any fancy super powerful graphics card at all, and HD plays back nice and smooth (using my installation as mentioned above).

I would venture a bet that in my situation, NOT updating Windoze to anything beyond SP2, and NOT letting it install all the latest and greatest WMP and who knows what else, AND using the older nVidia 84.21 drivers, it all works because of some configuration of demuxers, decoders, renderers, etc. Which ones are being used, I don't know. If I get a few hours, I might try PhillJones very nicely done instructions on how to check these.

I would also bet that if I were to let Windows do all the latest updates (directx, WMP, etc.) and install the latest nVidia drivers (93.71), whatever my current video demux/decod/render/ settings are, they would change and cause problems. Unfortunately, I have spent way too many hours and days playing with this just to get it to work to try this out. And then there is still the comments by users that say they didn't have a problem with version 5, but do after updating to version 6. That tells me there is something going on with Sage in combination with all this other stuff, that will eventually be out of my control.

[toricred]

I've got graphedit working and I think I've got it working right. Is there a registry edit to force Sage to use the graph I create?

[GbrNole]

**phil - yes that's why i had it and quite frankly i never really noticed the difference to any appreciable amount but i sure did notice it's pitfalls which included:

a) when outputting ac3 then switching back to mpeg audio in sage (using spdif) it wouldn't play any sound.
b) aided in video stutter
c) drivers wouldn't retain settings
d) can't uninstall drivers unless card is installed
e) the thing always sounded acoustically dead over spdif

i stuck an audigy back in and am much happier for it, screw asio.

**astribli - are you running overlay? i can't tolerate the overlay video quality or lack thereof.

[astribli]

yes, I am running overlay and it looks fantastic. Even SD over ATSC looks so much clearer than DirecTivo.

Can't get VMR9 to work without causing 100% cpu. I can run it for a few seconds and during that time, to me the colors and overall contrast looks washed out compared to Overlay. Overlay looks nice and sharp, great contrast, vivid colors, etc.

[GollyJer]

I think I solved the stuttering issue guys.
See my new thread here.

[Ron]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

I think I solved the stuttering issue guys.
See my new thread here.

Is there a consensus that GollyJer is on the right track? Certainly would be helpful if someone from Sage would offer their comments as to the path that GollyJer is heading.

[Keenan]

Agreed, before I dust off my system and go messing around with it for the umpteenth time it would be nice to know if there is some factual basis for changing all those settings.

[salsbst]

I think that trying different demux and video/audio decoder filters is the right track, but different filters will work differently for different machines and recording files, it seems.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by salsbst

I think that trying different demux and video/audio decoder filters is the right track, but different filters will work differently for different machines and recording files, it seems.

See post 260 for a walkthrough on how to experiment with different filters. I suspect that messing with filters will solve most peoples problems. It's possible to test this solution without making any changes.

GollyJer included a bunch of changes for his audio issues in that walk through. I'm not sure that the stuff with the transport stream is neccersary, I haven't gotten round to testing it on my system.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by Keenan

Agreed, before I dust off my system and go messing around with it for the umpteenth time it would be nice to know if there is some factual basis for changing all those settings.

What does this even mean? Factual basis? If I knew what you were asking maybe I could help.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

What does this even mean? Factual basis? If I knew what you were asking maybe I could help.

Probably wrong choice of words, what I was trying to say is, is there some actual reason in the Sage etc. software that would explain why your results have worked. IOW, if it works, why can't there be a "fix" to how Sage works to fix the problem. I realize that all machines are different but it would be nice to be able to set a parameter or two within Sage to accomplish what you have done by trial and error and by setting or changing parameters in several different parts of the data chain, software and equipment included.

I guess what I'm saying, does Sage work with 1080i HDTV material or not, without having to go through all sorts of equipment and software settings to make it happen.

I believe I'm capable of making the changes you have to get it to work, hopefully, but should we really have to go through all those contortions to make something work that should work "out of the box" ?

I appreciate your efforts BTW, don't take my post as an affront to your efforts, I've just been frustrated with Sage basically since I've had it, and in fact don't even use it anymore because of this stuttering problem.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by Keenan

Probably wrong choice of words, what I was trying to say is, is there some actual reason in the Sage etc. software that would explain why your results have worked. IOW, if it works, why can't there be a "fix" to how Sage works to fix the problem. I realize that all machines are different but it would be nice to be able to set a parameter or two within Sage to accomplish what you have done by trial and error and by setting or changing parameters in several different parts of the data chain, software and equipment included.

I guess what I'm saying, does Sage work with 1080i HDTV material or not, without having to go through all sorts of equipment and software settings to make it happen.

I believe I'm capable of making the changes you have to get it to work, hopefully, but should we really have to go through all those contortions to make something work that should work "out of the box" ?

I appreciate your efforts BTW, don't take my post as an affront to your efforts, I've just been frustrated with Sage basically since I've had it, and in fact don't even use it anymore because of this stuttering problem.

No problem. I feel your frustration. The only reason I stuck with Sage instead of going back to BeyondTV was because of the Music functionality and SageMC. I spent all of last month gaining a much deeper knowledge of this stuff than I ever cared to know. It's great having it finally all work though.

[PhillJones]

Okay, so here's where we stand.

We think that this issue is because one or both of the sage demuxes is broken. Here are the questions as I see them.

1) Have these filters changed since v5?
Answer) I have the filters that went out with 5, since I still use V5. If anybody with the stutter issue wants to try my filters, let me know, I'll send them to you to test to see if that's the issue.
2) Is it just that people were using the nVIDIA demux with v5 and weren't even aware of which demux was being used? Now the sage v6 installers forced the use of the sage demux? Certainly, I was using the nVIDIA TS demux and hadn't really looked into it.
3) Has anybody gotten sage to confirm that their demux is the source of the error.

I'm curious because I'm considering the change from v5 to v6 but am worried about the fact that HD playback may or may not be broken. I really don't have the time to upgrade and then end up having to do another nuke and pave if v6 doesn't work correctly.

[GbrNole]

version 6.1.3 works just fine for me with HD content.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

version 6.1.3 works just fine for me with HD content.

Are you using the same filters that you were for the previous version?

Are you saying that 6.0.whatever, stuttered, then you uprgaded to 6.1.3 without changing any settings et voila, smooth as a baby's bum?

[GbrNole]

nope - i'm saying that HD has always worked for me except for recordings on CBS which would stutter like crazy on version 5 and 6.

changing the sound card and the audio codec to AC3filter fixed that though. CBS recordings still aren't perfect for me like fox, abc and nbc but they're close enough to it where i can live with any slight glitches or micro stutter that might occasionally crop up.

before those changes i couldn't watch CBS. i haven't ever touched the demux settings so unless by some miracle sage isn't using its demux filter then i'm stock other than that.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

nope - i'm saying that HD has always worked for me except for recordings on CBS which would stutter like crazy on version 5 and 6.

changing the sound card and the audio codec to AC3filter fixed that though. CBS recordings still aren't perfect for me like fox, abc and nbc but they're close enough to it where i can live with any slight glitches or micro stutter that might occasionally crop up.

before those changes i couldn't watch CBS. i haven't ever touched the demux settings so unless by some miracle sage isn't using its demux filter then i'm stock other than that.

Could you possibly verify which demux you're using?

[GbrNole]

i could but the fact that it works coupled with me having to load graphedit on the pc to determine it kinda makes me a bit gun shy.

i have to load 6.1.4 tonight so maybe i'll give it a whirl.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

i could but the fact that it works coupled with me having to load graphedit on the pc to determine it kinda makes me a bit gun shy.

i have to load 6.1.4 tonight so maybe i'll give it a whirl.

Just so you know, GraphEdit is a stand alone app. Download it into a folder and click the .exe file to run. No "install" required.