Significantly higher CPU utilization in SagePlayer vs WMP?

[morfinx]

Seems like CPU utilization is much higher in SagePlayer vs WMP. I've compiled the following comparison:

Video: 300 Movie Trailer 1b
Format: 1080p / H.264
Decoder: PowerDVD H.264/AVC Decoder (w/ hardware acceleration)
Computer: See sig



Note after the first minute or so, the CPU utilization in SagePlayer got so high the video completely cut out while audio continued. At this point I cut off the playback. You can clearly see SagePlayer starts to get out of sync near the end of the minute. WMP successfully and smoothly played back the entire trailer but is not shown beyond the first minute in the comparison.

Anyone has any insights on this?

[GKusnick]

What version of Sage? What version of Java? What third-party plugins? Did you run the test full-screen? With FSE? Drive-letter or UNC file paths? There's a lot of variables that could be affecting performance.

[morfinx]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

What version of Sage? What version of Java? What third-party plugins? Did you run the test full-screen? With FSE? Drive-letter or UNC file paths? There's a lot of variables that could be affecting performance.

SageTV v6.0.19
Java 1.5.0_10 (Sun)
No 3rd party plugins
No FSE (causes problems so I don't use it)
Running off of the 300GB Seagate, drive E
I don't know what UNC file path is.

EDIT: 2nd comparison removed, found inaccuracies in my method

[GKusnick]

UNC file paths are the kind that don't have drive letters, e.g. \\server\share\file. Some people have reported performance issues when Sage is configured with UNC paths to local drives.

[morfinx]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

UNC file paths are the kind that don't have drive letters, e.g. \\server\share\file. Some people have reported performance issues when Sage is configured with UNC paths to local drives.

I see. All of my files are local.

Any other suggestions?

[morfinx]

I found the problem. This is from SageTVPlayer (mplayer)'s command line output when I tried to play the video:

==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [faad] AAC (MPEG2/4 Advanced Audio Coding)
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 256.0 kbit/16.67% (ratio: 32000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [faad] afm: faad (FAAD AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio) decoder)
==========================================================================

It's not even using the Cyberlink decoder. I dug around mplayer's documentation, and supposingly you can import your own codec:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en...importing.html
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/DOCS...odecs.conf.txt

But I've been messing around with it for a few hours and couldn't get it to work. Should I submit a tech support request?

[bcjenkins]

I am not sure this is a bug.. It looks like you're trying to play an mp4 not mpeg2. afaik, the decoder settings in sage are only for mpeg2 not mp4 files. That said..

I took a brief look at some other postings.. There was a way to specify decoders for other file types in version 5 but may be broken in 6? User Stephane seems to be on this as well. Might want to send a PM.

B

[stanger89]

Might want to try this (in the sage[client].properties file):
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false

[morfinx]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I am not sure this is a bug.. It looks like you're trying to play an mp4 not mpeg2. afaik, the decoder settings in sage are only for mpeg2 not mp4 files.

Right. My problem is that the SageTV player isn't using the prefered DirectShow filter (Cyberlink) to decode the h.264 file, but forcing ffdshow decoder, which is less efficient.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Might want to try this (in the sage[client].properties file):
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false

That's already set to false in sage.properties

[morfinx]

I found a solution. Well, actually not really. I found that by setting "always_use_dshow_player=true" in SageClient.properties, it forces SageTV to use the default DirectShow Filters instead of launching SageTVPlayer. However, I'm only able to play one of my h.264 file this way, with slight sound artifacts. All my other h.264 files either come up blank with no audio, blank with screeching audio, or just crashing the system by the hands of SageTV MPEG Splitter (stvmcspmpeg.ax - what a MPEG 1/2 splitter doing with a H.264 file I dunno).

I'm so frustrated right now it's almost worth it just to get a faster CPU and call it a day

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by morfinx

I found a solution. Well, actually not really. I found that by setting "always_use_dshow_player=true" in SageClient.properties, it forces SageTV to use the default DirectShow Filters instead of launching SageTVPlayer.

always_use_dshow_player=true should not be used yet because the SageTV MPEG splitter is not able yet to expose H.264 videos. So when this setting is not enabled and SageTV try to play a MPEG with H.264 video, it will send it to SageTV Player for playback (the first release of SageTV beta 6 was not doing this)

All other H.264 containers should be handled by Directshow player when using mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false (and then the Haali Splitter might help for some of these videos).

Upcoming SageTV 6.1 should be better with H.264 videos (at least MEPG contained ones).

Regards,
Stéphane.

[morfinx]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

always_use_dshow_player=true should not be used yet because the SageTV MPEG splitter is not able yet to expose H.264 videos. So when this setting is not enabled and SageTV try to play a MPEG with H.264 video, it will send it to SageTV Player for playback (the first release of SageTV beta 6 was not doing this)

All other H.264 containers should be handled by Directshow player when using mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false (and then the Haali Splitter might help for some of these videos).

Upcoming SageTV 6.1 should be better with H.264 videos (at least MEPG contained ones).

Regards,
Stéphane.

So you are saying SageTV 6.1 should be able to use the preferred DirectShow Filter (in my case Cyberlink) when playing H.264 videos without having to use SageTV Player?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by morfinx

So you are saying SageTV 6.1 should be able to use the preferred DirectShow Filter (in my case Cyberlink) when playing H.264 videos without having to use SageTV Player?

Well, I read here during the beta phase right before 6.0 was released that they were working on H.264 for 6.1 so... as the H.264 TS playback is kinda not working, I guess we could say that this is what should be fixed (Too bad that in January I will not have access anymore to DVB-T H.264 broadcasts tests we have now in France).

[morfinx]

For people who might be following this thread, thanks to Stephane's help, I've came to the conclusion that currently SageTV's splitter can't correctly separate H.264 video stream from a Quicktime (.MOV) container, so it falls back on mplayer to handle them. This is what's causing all sorts of problems for me when I force dshow player in SageTV. Hopefully 6.1 will bring better H.264 handling.

[Patilan]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Upcoming SageTV 6.1 should be better with H.264 videos (at least MEPG contained ones).

What is the source of this information?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by Patilan

What is the source of this information?

This is one of the beta tester from V6 that was told this by one SageTV dev. and this beta tester (I think it is Mark_SS) told us about it in the beta forum.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[Patilan]

Thanks.

[morfinx]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I'm happy to report that the H.264 playback problem has been solved in v6.1.4. Kinda.

Using the internal mplayer, the playback is still choppy. However by setting "always_use_dshow_player=true", now H.264 video plays correctly. So apparently SageTV Splitter is now able to correctly extract H.264 video streams. Although I've only tested it on videos in Quicktime containers (.MOV), I suspect other containers should work as well. Anyone else feel free to confirm this.