HD-PVR Choppy Playback in SageTV

[PLBarton]

I recently purchased a Hauppauge HD PVR 1212 and installed it on an already existing SageTV installation. I had been using a 150 MCE capture card up to this point and everything has been working perfectly. I wanted to make the jump into HD capturing though.

Here is my problem. I have installed the hauppauge 1.5.6.0 drivers and the ArcSoft software package. Using the ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme viewer I was able to view perfect HD video, there was no choppiness and the audi/video was in perfect sync. I have my DirecTV STB set for both 720p and 1080i and the picture is great. However, when I go into SageTV and use the HD PVR as the signal source I get choppy and stuttering playback. Under Audio/Video settings I have verified that the H.264 filter is set to ArcSoft. Is there anything else I need to do? Are there other settings I need to be looking at?

Thanks for any help,

Peter

[HelenWeathers]

You need to provide us with information about your system. What is your SageTV server? CPU, MB, memory, Video Card, Operating system.

Also are you playing the recordings on the server itself or via network on SageTV Client, placeshifter or HD200 etc?

[PLBarton]

SageTV Server Specs:

ASUS M3N78-VM
AMD X2 4800+
Corsair 2GB
EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB
Windows XP Pro fully patched

I am actually viewing the playback directly from the server. I have a DVI-HDMI cable going to my LCD TV.

I do not have any external devices view playback from this server.

It is stand alone.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PLBarton

SageTV Server Specs:

ASUS M3N78-VM
AMD X2 4800+
Corsair 2GB
EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB
Windows XP Pro fully patched

I am actually viewing the playback directly from the server. I have a DVI-HDMI cable going to my LCD TV.

I do not have any external devices view playback from this server.

It is stand alone.

Recording drives formatted in 64k blocks?

Gerry

[HelenWeathers]

Also, in Sage setup Video/Audio have you tried both Overlay and VMR9?

[PLBarton]

gplasky:

I was going to look tonight to see if they are formatted in 64K. I did nothing special when I formatted the drive so it is going to be in whatever the default cluster size Windows chooses.

HelenWeathers:

I am currently running with VMR9 and I do not believe I have tried Overlay.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by PLBarton

HelenWeathers: I am currently running with VMR9 and I do not believe I have tried Overlay.

I had a client with a 9600GT nVidia and overlay worked best for me.
With XP, Arcsoft will use hardware acceleration when it is in control of the Video output but not when video codec is under 3rd party control. IIRC.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PLBarton

gplasky:

I was going to look tonight to see if they are formatted in 64K. I did nothing special when I formatted the drive so it is going to be in whatever the default cluster size Windows chooses..

Then that is part and parcel of your stuttering issue. Unfortunately you'll need to get the data off the drive and format it. Use the dropdown to change from default to 64k.

Gerry

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Then that is part and parcel of your stuttering issue. Unfortunately you'll need to get the data off the drive and format it. Use the dropdown to change from default to 64k.

Gerry

as far as 64k goes, I've never formatted that way for standard def drives, and I've never had stuttering problems (single core celeron with a nvidia 6200). Is it absolutely necessary for HD-PVR files? I'm doing some HD-PVR tests at the moment, and with my dual-core pentium 4, I only get stuttering on HD recordings when I switch sage to full-screen mode.

[gplasky]

It's more noticeable right away with HD files. But as a drive fills it can happen wth SD files also.

Gerry

[HelenWeathers]

And there are so many reasons (all having to do with how hard drives store and retrieve data) that it would be unwise to run any other way than 64K.

With 4k (default) a 1mb file is broken up into 250+ peices (sectors). With 64K the number of sectors is reduced to 16.

Less housekeeping for the FAT and faster reads/writes.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

And there are so many reasons (all having to do with how hard drives store and retrieve data) that it would be unwise to run any other way than 64K.

With 4k (default) a 1mb file is broken up into 250+ peices (sectors). With 64K the number of sectors is reduced to 16.

Less housekeeping for the FAT and faster reads/writes.

for the fat? what if your drives are formatted NTSF?

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

for the fat? what if your drives are formatted NTSF?

I was using the term to refer to the table that exists on hard drives that keeps a record of which sectors are in use by which file. The name FAT32 is a specific structure whereas NTFS is a different structure. There are others as well. But they all handle the same task.

EDIT: FAT stands for File Allocation Table.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I was using the term to refer to the table that exists on hard drives that keeps a record of which sectors are in use by which file. The name FAT32 is a specific structure whereas NTFS is a different structure. There are others as well. But they all handle the same task.

EDIT: FAT stands for File Allocation Table.

ah - sorry, misunderstood you

[PLBarton]

Just wanted to say thanks for the suggestions and the help. The Solution that HelenWeathers suggested was the exact answer to my problem. Once I switched from VMR9 to Overlay my SageTV playback is smooth as silk. I am still running with 4K clusters on my hard drive, but I plan on reinstalling my system to make that change sometime in the near future.

Anyway, thank you very much!!

Peter

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by PLBarton

I am still running with 4K clusters on my hard drive, but I plan on reinstalling my system to make that change sometime in the near future.

If you have seperate drives for video recordings, format them to 64k. Leave your system drive at 4k.

If you are using only one hard drive, seperate it into two partitions and format the system partition to 4k blocks and format the partition you'll use for video to 64k blocks.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

If you have seperate drives for video recordings, format them to 64k. Leave your system drive at 4k.

If you are using only one hard drive, seperate it into two partitions and format the system partition to 4k blocks and format the partition you'll use for video to 64k blocks.

do you do that from within Sage or Windows Administrator tools?

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

do you do that from within Sage or Windows Administrator tools?

Windows Admin - It is destructive though, so is best done when installing a new operating system or on a brand new drive.

[PLBarton]

I have two drives, with a 1TB drive for my video. I will just move all my content off to an external Drive and reformat. Should be a fairly painless operation. Once again, thanks for all the support!!

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by PLBarton

Once again, thanks for all the support!!

You'll find everyone here is more than happy to help when they can.