Broadcom decoder

[Lahr]

I have the broadcom bcm970012 decoder card installed on my
Intel D945gsejt Sage Client. While using Archsoft, Total Media Theater I can playback wireless N 150 streamed SageTV recordings with fantastic results and very low CPU usage, Flash HD videos and Youtube HD videos are beautiful also. Sage is not using my hardware decoder and is just butchering live TV and recorded TV unless I turn off hardware acceleration and just go with overlay resulting in high CPU usage. Is there any way to get Sage to use this hardware setup or am I just out of luck?

[paulbeers]

Did you select TMT as your decoder in Sage? I would assume if it can use it outside of Sage, then it should use your broadcom decoder in Sage (as long as you tell Sage to use TMT). This is purely speculation on my part, since I do not own that card and have no way to test.

[Lahr]

So you are saying that I can use an application (TMT) as the decoder in sage?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Lahr

So you are saying that I can use an application (TMT) as the decoder in sage?

Yep.

[Lahr]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Yep.

Can you elaborate?

[HelenWeathers]

Lahr:

Check out this post - maybe it'll help:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...4&postcount=13

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Lahr

I have the broadcom bcm970012 decoder card installed on my
Intel D945gsejt Sage Client. While using Archsoft, Total Media Theater I can playback wireless N 150 streamed SageTV recordings with fantastic results and very low CPU usage, Flash HD videos and Youtube HD videos are beautiful also. Sage is not using my hardware decoder and is just butchering live TV and recorded TV unless I turn off hardware acceleration and just go with overlay resulting in high CPU usage. Is there any way to get Sage to use this hardware setup or am I just out of luck?

TMT is using "Broadcom Video Decoder" in it's own playback graph. Use Direct show filter manager and select Broadcom Video Decoder and change it's merit value from "Do not use" to normal or prefered. Reboot and then select Broadcom Video Decoder in Sage.

[Lahr]

Originally Posted by jerryt

TMT is using "Broadcom Video Decoder" in it's own playback graph. Use Direct show filter manager and select Broadcom Video Decoder and change it's merit value from "Do not use" to normal or prefered. Reboot and then select Broadcom Video Decoder in Sage.

Tried it and although I do think it was using the broadcom decoder because the CPU usage went down to 30% with settings set to use directx 9 (it was through the roof before), something still is not right. The picture quality was degraded like looking through a screen door.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Lahr

Tried it and although I do think it was using the broadcom decoder because the CPU usage went down to 30% with settings set to use directx 9 (it was through the roof before), something still is not right. The picture quality was degraded like looking through a screen door.

Overlay, VMR9 or EVR?

[Lahr]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Overlay, VMR9 or EVR?

Tried with EVR first, tried again with VMR9 and different audio decoder and got better results last night but my sage client app shut itself down last night while I was sleeping, I had left it going for test purposes.

EDIT: When viewing the filter graph with "Graphedit" and "DirectxFilterSpy.dll" of a recorded show played using TMT (to get better picture quality) I can see that it builds the graph using VMR7 but VMR7 is not a choice in sage settings.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Lahr

The picture quality was degraded like looking through a screen door.

Sounds like an improper refresh rate. Does full screen and windowed mode have this same problem?

You might try the "native recording patch" filters to see if they correct the playback.

Also get the data on the refresh rate during playback.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Lahr

Tried with EVR first, tried again with VMR9 and different audio decoder and got better results last night but my sage client app shut itself down last night while I was sleeping, I had left it going for test purposes.

EDIT: When viewing the filter graph with "Graphedit" and "DirectxFilterSpy.dll" of a recorded show played using TMT (to get better picture quality) I can see that it builds the graph using VMR7 but VMR7 is not a choice in sage settings.

VMR7 is the "Default" choice. (EVR, VMR9, Default)

Gerry

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Sounds like an improper refresh rate. Does full screen and windowed mode have this same problem?

You might try the "native recording patch" filters to see if they correct the playback.

Also get the data on the refresh rate during playback.

Broadcom Video Decoder works without Native Recording Patch.
MPEG2 is fine but H.264 uses too much CPU. Windows Media Player plays both types fine using the Broadcom 3.3.0 drivers.

Native Recording Patch breaks playback in Sage with the Broadcom Video Decoder.

[btrcp2000]

Attempting to use the broadcom decoder in a dell zino win7 64 bit. Filter Manager already had it at the highest merit level well above preferred, and doesn't let me save changes at all.

Sage doesn't see it. What is the exact syntax to add it as a video filter? Couldn't find anything via search and this doesn't work:

videoframe/additional_video_filters=Broadcom Video Decoder

[gplasky]

I don't think it is seen as a standard dshow filter. Supoort for it needs to be added thru the application.

Broadcom site:

Applications currently supported include Windows Media Player 12, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, ArcSoft TotalMedia™ Theatre (OEM edition) and CyberLink PowerDVD (OEM edition). Please check back for additional application support.

Latest driver release version 3.5.0


Other applications known to work include GOMplayer, Kmplayer and Media Player Classic (including Home Cinema Edition).

Gerry

[btrcp2000]

Okay then I'm confused. I thought jerryt had it working, albeit with some playback issues, it sounded like. You're saying it won't work at all with sage until broadcom explicitly supports it?

EDIT: Or until Sage explicitly supports it?

[gplasky]

That's the way I read it from the Broadcom site. If I'm wrong then every app that uses directshow filters would work. And that's not what the broadcom site says. They only cite specific apps.

Gerry

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Attempting to use the broadcom decoder in a dell zino win7 64 bit. Filter Manager already had it at the highest merit level well above preferred, and doesn't let me save changes at all.

Sage doesn't see it. What is the exact syntax to add it as a video filter? Couldn't find anything via search and this doesn't work:

videoframe/additional_video_filters=Broadcom Video Decoder

Broadcom Video Decoder is what I was using. Open the broadcom decoder in Directshow Filter Manager, open "Show Filter Properties", copy exactly what is listed after "Friendly name".

If none of this works, try the earlier drivers, v2.14.4.0

I have had the Broadcom Video Decoder working as a selectable video decoder in Sage, but it may have only been for H264 files from HDPVR, so the Sage property file edit would be different. Never needed the decoder for MPG2 files. Also I was on win 7 32 bit OS.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by jerryt

Native Recording Patch breaks playback in Sage with the Broadcom Video Decoder.

This is the last thing jerryt said on this. If the Sage 7 build is based on the work they did with the native recording patch then it probably won't work. You'll need to see how the graph is built just using TMT and if it is built differently using TMT from within Sage.

Gerry

[btrcp2000]

HDPVR files is all i really need it to do. This is a client for the kitchen, need a full pc as well as sage. The zino almost works out of the box, but drops a lot of frames on those files. The CPU only gets to 60-70% at worst, tolerable for me because if it's being used as a sage client it's not doing anything else anyway. Seems like it's so close, I was hoping to fix it for $50 or so before trying the latest zino model.

I will try these last couple ideas tonight and report back. Thanks to both!