The never-ending quest for smooth playback

[pgman]

Does anyone know what issues, exactly, might be caused by running STV in Win7 64-bit?

I have a fresh install on the following hardware:

MSI motherboard with Intel 945 chipset (800 MHz)
LGA 775 Intel Pentium D 840 (3.2GHz) CPU
4GB DDR 667 RAM (dual channel)
dedicated RAID 0 DVR drive array - formatted in 64KB clusters
nVidia 8600 GTS video board connected to my HDTV via DVI-to-HDMI cable
Realtek on-board audio, connected to my HT receiver via S/PDIF optical
Three AverMedia tuners (one is the A180 PCI model, the other is the new dual-tuner PCIe model).

The issue I keep struggling with is genuinely smooth playback - with either HD or SD programs. They play okay, but not perfectly. I've tried every MPEG decoder and H.264 decoder I can find on the web, and none of them seem to make any difference. The files generated by SageTV (HD and SD) don't play smoothly in Power DVD Ultra (which I use for Bluray) or WMP, either.

My CPU load stays around 25% when I'm using the Cyberlink MPEG decoder and VMR9 renderer in Sage TV. It goes up to about 42% if I use EVR, but the smoothness doesn't really change that significantly.

My first thought is that I just don't have the horsepower, but CPU load (as reported by Win7) is not that significant. Also, 1080P Bluray discs play absolutely perfectly with PowerDVD (with almost identical CPU loading).

I tried a Radeon HD 4890 board recently, and it was even worse - I couldn't get it to play interlaced SD programming to save my life (though interlaced HD played fine). I took it back, re-loaded Win7 (from scratch) and went back to my 8600GTS.

What is so odd about this is that, for a certain period of random time, this system will play perfectly. Then, on a cut (edit) in the program, it will stutter and drop frames for several seconds before smoothing out again. Even at that, it never seems to go more than a few seconds without a very small performance hit - usually showing up as a dropped frame. I tried inverse telecine (on and off) and that didn't seem to make a difference. I've tried turning DScaler on and off, I tried all the rendering options I can find (except Overlay, which won't work at all - I get a black screen with sound). I don't know where the setting is for making the Overlay renderer work on my second monitor (which is the television), and I tried turning almost every option on and off on the video card driver. I've also tried many screen resolutions, to no avail, and 1080 progressive seems to work BETTER than 1080 interlaced. If I try 720p, the performance is slightly better but not so much so as to make it a solution.

Is this just a Win7 compatibility issue? This same hardware seemed to work better under Vista 32 (which is hard to believe), but my overall system performance was worse. I want to just start from scratch with all new hardware, but I am not convinced this is a hardware issue - mostly because Bluray plays so perfectly. Also, my system scores a 5.1 overall on the Win7 performance analysis tool, with that number being for the CPU and memory (the video scores a 6.1).

Is there anywhere here (or elsewhere) that lists the recommended renderers, decoders and driver settings? Or, is this just a Sage TV / Win7 thing that I have to endure until Sage releases a new product?

Happy Holidays, everyone.

[jonnydeath]

I tried everything under the sun as well (on Vista). It never looked perfect. I fact, beyond TV was better. Then I got the HD200 and everything is perfect. Its way cheaper and easier than messing around with your computer.

[wayner]

+1 on the HD-200. You may not want to hear it but it is the way to go.

[bmac.to]

I have a feeling you have some low power modes on - your CPU utilization numbers seem strange. I would recommend turning all low power stuff off until you get the desired behaviour - then you can go back and start adjusting the low power stuff until you find the best compromise.
________
Bdsm movies

[pgman]

I might have some CPU throttling running - I forgot to check that. As for the HD-200 box, I don't dislike the idea, but I built this computer almost five years ago to do home entertainment and it works very well in all other aspects. If I did the HD-200, I'd have to go back to a "conventional" home entertainment setup. Right now, I enjoy the ability to surf the web, watch HULU and play Bluray discs all from one interface and without switching inputs on the TV and audio system. It streamlines the whole operation and makes it much easier for my wife to enjoy home entertainment.

Sigh - I guess there just isn't a better way, then? It is just really disappointing that this setup ALMOST works perfectly. If I could just identify the thing (or comination of things) that is causing this little performance glitch I would have a truly euphoric home theater.

Does ANYONE have a truly smooth-playing HD system on Win7 64-bit? If so, what hardware do you have and what decoders / drivers are you using? I would go buy the exact hardware Sage recommends, but they never have really given me any specific recommendations (I've asked them before). I am beginning to wonder if this is because it just isn't possible to achieve genuinely smooth video playback in Windows. I say this because I've had the same basic difficulty with this hardware all along - starting with WinXP 32-bit.

Would I be better to buy a Mac and try this again?

For what it's worth, I DID copy an entire show to an external HDD and take it to work, where I have a Dell XPS gaming tower, equipped with the same video board as my system (but a more powerful motherboard). That PC didn't play that particular program smoothly either, but I am not sure how to tell if the problem is with my recordings. The symptom is so random that I can't easily tell if it is occuring in the exact same place every time.

[bits]

Originally Posted by pgman

I might have some CPU throttling running - I forgot to check that. As for the HD-200 box, I don't dislike the idea, but I built this computer almost five years ago to do home entertainment and it works very well in all other aspects. If I did the HD-200, I'd have to go back to a "conventional" home entertainment setup. Right now, I enjoy the ability to surf the web, watch HULU and play Bluray discs all from one interface and without switching inputs on the TV and audio system. It streamlines the whole operation and makes it much easier for my wife to enjoy home entertainment.

Sigh - I guess there just isn't a better way, then? It is just really disappointing that this setup ALMOST works perfectly. If I could just identify the thing (or comination of things) that is causing this little performance glitch I would have a truly euphoric home theater.

Does ANYONE have a truly smooth-playing HD system on Win7 64-bit? If so, what hardware do you have and what decoders / drivers are you using? I would go buy the exact hardware Sage recommends, but they never have really given me any specific recommendations (I've asked them before). I am beginning to wonder if this is because it just isn't possible to achieve genuinely smooth video playback in Windows. I say this because I've had the same basic difficulty with this hardware all along - starting with WinXP 32-bit.

Would I be better to buy a Mac and try this again?

For what it's worth, I DID copy an entire show to an external HDD and take it to work, where I have a Dell XPS gaming tower, equipped with the same video board as my system (but a more powerful motherboard). That PC didn't play that particular program smoothly either, but I am not sure how to tell if the problem is with my recordings. The symptom is so random that I can't easily tell if it is occuring in the exact same place every time.

Do the un-edited SageTV generated files (I assume this means files scheduled to record by STV but actually recorded by your capture/tuner devices) play smoothly on other PCs? Do they play smoothly provided you have not edited them or re-encoded them? What are you using to re-encode your files? to edit your files? Does the problem follow a particular tuner/capture device? Do recorded video files from other PCs/sources play smoothly? If you rip a SD commercial DVD to your PC can it be played smoothly? remember no editing, no re-encoding?

Can you record video without using STV? Most tuner/capture devices have software that can do this. If you record video not using STV as the scheduler does it play smoothly after being edited? before being edited?

Have you taken a look at your codecs? Not sure if gspot will work in x64 but if it does you should use it to list all of your codecs. Look for the ones highlighted as being broken and make sure to set their priority to zero.

FWIW I went with HD200 recently instead of HTPC and I am quite glad I did. There is not much more that you can do with an HTPC that you can not do with the HD200 + SageTV. I watch full BD rips that play nice and smooth end to end. We can schedule recordings from the couch, watch Hulu and lots of other network stuff. The one thing we can not do is surf the internet but that is a non-issue for us. You could take your HTPC and use it as a full PC/server instead.

Using a Mac as an HTPC is a bad idea...well not if you like pain and challenge, have lots of money.... I am not even sure it can actually be done.

[pgman]

I was able to achieve a noticable improvment using the nVidia PureVideo decoder. I've owned a copy of PureVideo for a couple years but it never worked with Vista, so I hadn't been using it. The CPU load is still only around 29% with a HD video playing, and the choppy playback has been greatly reduced (to the point where I can almost say it's acceptable). I am still not fully satisfied, but this is a significant advance.

One of the videos I am finding most challenging is "Celtic Woman - Songs from the Heart" on PBS. This program was recorded in Ireland and was most certainly in PAL video (lower frame rate). I don't know if the conversion to NTSC has made this particular video more difficult to render, but it seems to be one of the more troublesome recordings I currently have on my drive.

What does this mean? I don't know.

[bits]

Originally Posted by pgman

I was able to achieve a noticable improvment using the nVidia PureVideo decoder. I've owned a copy of PureVideo for a couple years but it never worked with Vista, so I hadn't been using it. The CPU load is still only around 29% with a HD video playing, and the choppy playback has been greatly reduced (to the point where I can almost say it's acceptable). I am still not fully satisfied, but this is a significant advance.

One of the videos I am finding most challenging is "Celtic Woman - Songs from the Heart" on PBS. This program was recorded in Ireland and was most certainly in PAL video (lower frame rate). I don't know if the conversion to NTSC has made this particular video more difficult to render, but it seems to be one of the more troublesome recordings I currently have on my drive.

What does this mean? I don't know.

Converting from PAL to NTSC can be troublesome and is probably the issue and not your PC. When trying to troubleshoot your PCs ability to play video files you need to base it on clean non messed with stuff. Like I suggested above rip a SD commercial DVD to your HDD and use that as a test. Do not re-encode it or transcode it. Simply play one of the .vob files using VLC or play the video via the video_ts folder using PowerDVD. If that plays smoothly and without issue then your problem is with what you or others have done to the video. To play a video properly it has to be decoded properly which means it had to be encoded properly. There are lots of ways to mess up video header information.

Without more careful work on your part and more information there is little to no chance anyone can help you.

[pgman]

Thank you for the good information.

I am going to continue to work on this and try to be more methodical. The thing is, I am only trying to use about one-tenth of what SageTV can do. I record live television (from a roof-top antenna) and then play it back. Even when I am watching live television, I see this jerky phenomenon, so I have to imagine it is either bad edits in major network broadcasts (I know, they do happen) or something wrong with my system. I am not editing anything or re-coding it - just recording and playing it back.

Also, I am not sure how to even rip a DVD. Does SageTV do this? I will look into that and see if it sheds any light.

Thank you, again for the help.

[bits]

Originally Posted by pgman

Thank you for the good information.

I am going to continue to work on this and try to be more methodical. The thing is, I am only trying to use about one-tenth of what SageTV can do. I record live television (from a roof-top antenna) and then play it back. Even when I am watching live television, I see this jerky phenomenon, so I have to imagine it is either bad edits in major network broadcasts (I know, they do happen) or something wrong with my system. I am not editing anything or re-coding it - just recording and playing it back.

Also, I am not sure how to even rip a DVD. Does SageTV do this? I will look into that and see if it sheds any light.

Thank you, again for the help.

SageTV does not rip DVD and I am not sure now is a good time to learn how to do it.

Are all of your recordings OTA (from your antenna)? Which tuner capture device produces the jerky playback? Remind me again but these un-edited recordings, do they also play jerky in Window Media Player? in VLC? VLC is a free media player that plays nearly everything. If you do not have it then I suggest you get it and install it. It is also known as Video Lan.

SageTV does not do the actual recording it is merely the scheduler. What recording quality setting are you using? This is important, the poorer the quality the worse playback will be, especially when there is lots of movement or panning shots. These recordings are mpeg2, correct?

Can you schedule a recording using the capture devices software, the software provided by the capture device manufacturer?

How is it that you have played BD on your PC? Where did you get the file? Was it the full BD or was it a file from someone else that may have re-encoded it?

For now I would do all of my recording and testing using pretty much anything but SageTV. If you get poor play back then SageTV has nothing to do with your issue.

[pgman]

SageTV does not do the actual recording it is merely the scheduler.

Okay, so now my head is REALLY spinning! I am not sure how I am recording this stuff, then.

I have white-box tuner cards (both AverMedia). One of these cards is a dual ATSC tuner with a PCI-E (x1) interface. The other is an older A180 with analog capture AND a single ATSC tuner - it is a regular PCI card. I do not believe either of these tuner cards came with software of any kind (other than drivers). I DO know that I didn't load any software associated with the tuner cards. Just as a reminder, I ONLY record OTA ATSC signals, and my signal strength (on channels I regularly use) is between 75 and 100% every time I do a channel scan. I do not use satellite or cable and most of the shows I watch are 720p (FOX, ABC and a couple of local independents). The recordings I have on my HDD all seem to play the same way in WMP AND PowerDVD which, on the surface, would rule out SageTV. I just don't want to make any assumptions, though.

What recording quality setting are you using?

I did not set the recording quality at all, which means it must be the default one. I thought that, with ATSC, this setting was irrelevant.

How is it that you have played BD on your PC?

I have a Sony BD optical drive installed, and I use Power DVD Ultra. As I said before, this works brilliantly - I couldn't be happier (unless PDVD was free).

For now I would do all of my recording and testing using pretty much anything but SageTV. If you get poor play back then SageTV has nothing to do with your issue.

SageTV is the only application I have installed that is capable of recording OTA television (as far as I know). I can try VLC - I've played with it a little bit before, but I am not very confident in my ability. I have been succesful building PCs many times in the past, but I just don't know much about compressed video. I think I need to read some more about it.

Thanks so much for your help. If I DO get this working, it will be, in part, because of your insight.

[bobsj2000]

do yourself a favor and get core avc .. It fixed all my jerky playback issues. In addition, there is a free trial so you can see for yourself



Bob

[bits]

@pgman:

To clarify; your tuner/capture cards do the actual recording/capture and encoding, SageTV merely communicates with them and tells them what channel and when to start recording. The other thing SageTV does is provide a way to play the recorded video and it uses the decoders specified in it the setup.

I would be extremely surprised to find that your capture cards did not come with some sort of recording scheduling software. You may consider visiting Avermedia's website and seeing if you can download their PVR software.

Since it is OTA you probably do not have an option for recording quality. I assume you have a coaxial cable running from your antenna to the capture cards; correct?

I do not think you can record with VLC. I was suggesting it as a video file player.

I am pretty much out of ideas at this point.

If you can play a BD, using PowerDVD from a BD drive smoothly then that indicates that your system can play video smoothly in that configuration.

What you need to confirm is whether your system can play non-recorded virgin video files from your HDDs smoothly.

To seperate out whether SageTV could be introducing something into the video recordings you need to be able to do AB comparisons. Record a particular channel with a particular capture card using the PVR software from the manufacturer and using SageTV as the scheduler. Play the recorded video using VLC.

As a shot in the dark take a look at your codecs using Gspot. Be sure to set the priority to zero for each broken codec it finds.

[sic0048]

When you say you get studdering when watching Live TV, is this "Live TV" through Sage, or directly from the antenna? If it is from the antenna, then clearly there is a problem with the reception. Digital TV is a funny thing and will produce studders if the reception isn't right. With multi-path issues or weak signals, studdering is quite common.

If you haven't tried watching the material directly from the antenna, then I suggest that you do so to determine if the weak link is the broadcast itself, or the recording of the broadcast.

[SWKerr]

Based on what you described I doubt that playback is the problem. Your Hardware is fine. The cpu may not be great but the nVidia 8600 should be able to play it back using the Cyberlink software with almost no load to the cpu. The BluRay content is cpu intensive but the OTA mpeg2 stuff should not be a problem.


Windows7 will see your tuner card and in most cases download a driver for it so it may not be necessary for you to install any software to make the capture card work. AverMedia does include an app that you can download but it should work fine in SageTV as well. (the AverMedia app sucks) The card will also work with the Windows7 Media Center as well.

Sage will walk you through the setup of these tuners when you install it if the proper tuner is available. If you have a guide you have a tuner setup.

I expect that what you are having a problem with is either multi-path or signal strength. When a digital signal is lost the recordings will seem jerky and drop out. Sometimes you may get the audio with not video for a second. You really have not described what you are see when you playback the video. Try to describe exactly what it does.

Most tuners like to be in the mid 80 for signal strength. Dropping below that mark may cause problems. Some tuners deal with poor strength better than other. An amplifier can be used to help with this.

Multi-path is a problem where the signal from the TV tower bounces off a tree or tall building and gets to the tuner a fraction of a second after the original signal. This will confuse the tuner and it will appear jerky or drop out completely for a few seconds. In the old days of analog this would appear as ghosting on the TV now it is all or nothing. Some tuners are better than other with multi-path. I found the HDHR works best and I have a stack of them now. The best fix is a highly directional antenna.

The tuners on TVs seem to be better for some reason but do you have a TV hooked to the antenna and does it play well and what is the signal strength. If you preview it in sage is there a signal strength drop that corresponds to poor playback in the preview window?

[pgman]

Okay - now we're getting somewhere.

CoreAVC loaded - set as H.264 decoder
PureVideo - set as MPEG decoder
EVR - set as video renderer

CPU load now at 40-50% during playback - more like what I would expect

Video PQ significantly improved and...

Playback is almost perfectly smooth.

There is a small skip or dropped frame every once in a while - mostly noticable on edits (cuts) but I can live with that - particularly when compared to what it was doing ten minutes ago! Oh, and the preceding comments are in reference to the Celtic Woman program I mentioned before (which has been converted to NTSC from PAL) so it is a worst-case scenario.

Thank you EVERYONE for your help. I am not sure this is completely resolved but, if it never gets any worse than this, I can say I am happy with it.

[theguru]

You guys are running PureVideo on Windows 7 x64?

I've always been confused by this software from Nvidia. The last version I had was released over 3 years ago now. It seriously works on Win7 and makes things better?

I thought that stuff was built into the newer drivers?

[koan00]

Originally Posted by pgman

Okay - now we're getting somewhere.
EVR - set as video renderer

Playback is almost perfectly smooth.

There is a small skip or dropped frame every once in a while - mostly noticable on edits (cuts)

Try overlay for the renderer.