SageTV & HD Audio

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Check your client properties file. Make sure it has the entries below.

videoframe/dolbytruehd_audio_decoder_filter=ffdshow Audio Decoder
videoframe/dts-ma_audio_decoder_filter=ffdshow Audio Decoder
videoframe/vc1_video_decoder_filter=ArcSoft Video Decoder

Then check ac3filter to make sure it's not setup to accept PCM.

With this config VC1 works perfectly.

I've used that setup and sage closes when using the arcsoft codec. What intel driver version are you using? You had said you were using tmt2 for the arcsoft video decoder? In graphedit the sagetv splitter connected to the decoders you have listed work perfectly, but within sage it fails. I need to get sage a new log file to check out.

[babgvant]

I'm using 15.​​17.​​10.​​2189.

If it works in Graphedt, but not in Sage there's a good chance that an unwanted filter is joining the graph.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by babgvant

I'm using 15.​​17.​​10.​​2189.

If it works in Graphedt, but not in Sage there's a good chance that an unwanted filter is joining the graph.

Too bad it's the sage splitter...In all seriousness, I haven't been able to find out what that unwanted filter is. Checking the logs shows nothing to me. I need to resubmit my bug report.

Thanks for the driver version.

[ehfortin]

Hi,

I think my question is semi-related. I have an older ATI 3750 which is doing it's job while using about 50% CPU (Intel Dual-Core 2.2 Ghz). This weekend, I've installed the latest version of MPC-HC (.2499) and tried to play a few HD-PVR recordings (.TS) in Overlay mode (I'm on Windows XP). I was surprised to notice that the CPU is then used at 0-2% (so, really idle). Playing the same files in SageTV or with TMT is using 50% of the CPU.

While in MPC-HC, I've looked at the filter and it is using the MPC Video Decoder. So, I assume they had good success at implementing VXDA in a way that work well with the ATI board. So now, I would like to be able to use the MPC Video Decoder in SageTV to reduce the power consumption and heat dissipation (and just because it would be cool as well) but... it is not showing in SageTV as a few other wrote about. I tried to download the MPC Standalone filter and to put them in the ...\SageTV\Common directory and then, changed the SageClient.properties to have "MPC - Video decoded" but it doesn't seems to work. The playback is working but I'm still back at 50% CPU usage. To me, it seems that SageTV is not finding the decoder and use the default one instead.

What are the proper steps to "force" SageTV to use the MPC Video decoder correctly? Do we have to register the .ax in some way? Can I put them in the Common directory below SageTV or they have to be somewhere else in the Windows directory structure?

Thank you for your assistance.

ehfortin

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by ehfortin

I think my question is semi-related. I have an older ATI 3750 which is doing it's job while using about 50% CPU (Intel Dual-Core 2.2 Ghz). This weekend, I've installed the latest version of MPC-HC (.2499) and tried to play a few HD-PVR recordings (.TS) in Overlay mode (I'm on Windows XP). I was surprised to notice that the CPU is then used at 0-2% (so, really idle). Playing the same files in SageTV or with TMT is using 50% of the CPU.

Try using VMR9 instead.

Originally Posted by ehfortin

What are the proper steps to "force" SageTV to use the MPC Video decoder correctly? Do we have to register the .ax in some way? Can I put them in the Common directory below SageTV or they have to be somewhere else in the Windows directory structure?

The short answer is that you can't use the MPC-HC Video Decoder for ts/m2ts files in Sage. Its mpeg splitter uses a different subtype to represent the AVC/H.264 contained in the file.

If you're using v6 and either the Haali or MPC-HC splitter for MKV, you can use it but getting it to work can be complicated.

[PLUCKYHD]

Reading this thread reminds me why I love extenders

sorry wasn't anything valuable just reminded me.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Reading this thread reminds me why I love extenders

sorry wasn't anything valuable just reminded me.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Well aren't we just the picture person today.

But pretty funny

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Originally Posted by babgvant

Try using VMR9 instead.

The short answer is that you can't use the MPC-HC Video Decoder for ts/m2ts files in Sage. Its mpeg splitter uses a different subtype to represent the AVC/H.264 contained in the file.

I tried to use VMR9 but it is stuttering and/or loose sync with audio (can't remember, will have to retest it to describe correctly but... it has issue).

So, based on the tone of your answer, I guess the mpeg spliiter used by SageTV can't be replaced, right? BTW, yes I'm on SageTV V7. Forgot to tell that.

I'm still surprised that TMT is not handling the same .TS files as well as MPC-HC. There is a large difference between a mere 2% CPU usage and around 50%. I could understand a small difference but... now, I kind of think TMT is not offloading much to the video card (it reduced the load from about 85% to 50% but... that's still not that as good as MPC).

Will continue looking around but it seems that's a dead end.

Thank you.

ehfortin

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by ehfortin

Hi,

I'm still surprised that TMT is not handling the same .TS files as well as MPC-HC. There is a large difference between a mere 2% CPU usage and around 50%. I could understand a small difference but... now, I kind of think TMT is not offloading much to the video card (it reduced the load from about 85% to 50% but... that's still not that as good as MPC).

Will continue looking around but it seems that's a dead end.

I'm surprised that TMT isn't doing DXVA on your system, it should be. When you load the file in the TMT application does it use 50% if so, try to find a setting that enables AVIVO (or something like that).

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Well aren't we just the picture person today.

But pretty funny

I get board at work.

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Originally Posted by babgvant

I'm surprised that TMT isn't doing DXVA on your system, it should be. When you load the file in the TMT application does it use 50% if so, try to find a setting that enables AVIVO (or something like that).

Well, it is doing DXVA for sure. It use about 50% of the CPU but if I uncheck the hardware acceleration option of TMT, it then use about 95-100% of the CPU. So it is doing something with the ATI board.

That's why I don't get how MPC-HC can offload 100% of the load to the ATI card (showing a CPU usage of 0-2%) without any tearing or stuttering where TMT will do that using 50% of the CPU (with hardware assistance) or 100% of the CPU (without hardware assistance).

I still have the TMT version that was delivered with the HD-PVR but up-to-date. I've not upgraded to TMT2 as I don't see any benefits. I've tried the demo of TMT2 and it was the same usage (didn't tried it with SageTV however but if I remember well, I saw a few comments that the newest TMT and PowerDVD are not usable from SageTV anymore so... that's useless for me if that's the case).

So, I still don't know how MPC-HC is doing it's trick but I would really like to get that kind of result in SageTV now that it seems the ATI card is able to handle it completely.

Any suggestions? Any alternative decoder that would be better then the one provided by Arcsoft?

Thank you.

ehfortin

[babgvant]

Interesting, the TMT decoder must not fully implement DXVA. I've only used it on Vista/7 which is DXVA2 and have had very good results.

Cyberlink sells a DXVA/DXVA2 AVC/H.264 decoder (also bundled w/ PDVD) but I haven't tested that on XP so I'm not sure if your results will be the same.

[ehfortin]

I've tested TMT2 on Windows 7 with my GF9300/nForce 730i and... the GPU is just not strong enough so if I activate the hardware acceleration, it is stuttering and the GPU load is at 95% and Video Engine load is at a solid 100% (as reported by GPU-Z) with CPU (still Intel dual-core 2 Ghz) using about 35%. If I deselect the hardware acceleration, the Video Engine load is dropping to 0% and... the CPU load is increasing to 70% and the video is just sooo slow, audio is chumpy and not in sync at all.

So, I guess my last test would have to be installing Windows 7 on the machine that has the ATI board and see if it get any better.

I had the Cyberlink H264 decoder bundle in the past and at that time, it was not doing great with SageTV. I would have wanted to try it back with SageTV7 and my new video card but... I can't find the file anymore and... it was available as a download only for 30 days (got that in 2008). I'm not sure I want to pay another 40$ to try it with the system in is current form.

Thank you for your post.

ehfortin

[babgvant]

That's very strange. You should be seeing very low utilization with the TMT filter and a 9300. I tested an ION a while back and it was only seeing 10-20% CPU utilization and playback was very good.

[Fuzzy]

Honestly, instead of spending money on various codecs, I'd recommend just spending a little more on Windows 7. the built in decoders seem to 'just work' with pretty much any hardware.

Also, there may very well be some other filters interjecting themselves in the graph and preventing full DXVA capabilities, so a clean windows would just work so much better.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Honestly, instead of spending money on various codecs, I'd recommend just spending a little more on Windows 7. the built in decoders seem to 'just work' with pretty much any hardware.

Also, there may very well be some other filters interjecting themselves in the graph and preventing full DXVA capabilities, so a clean windows would just work so much better.

But if I am not mistaken the built in codecs don't support hd audio or vc1. At least that has been my experience.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

But if I am not mistaken the built in codecs don't support hd audio or vc1. At least that has been my experience.

Installing ffdshow will sort out both of those on ATI HW.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Installing ffdshow will sort out both of those on ATI HW.

Yep

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yep

Not really. Yes, you can use ffdshow to handle the audio part, but for the video side (vc-1) it doesn't work for me (using Nvidia).