Blu-Ray Playback jittery on Sage TV 7.x Client

[AzJazz]

I have a Win7x64 (Core i7 920), 6GB RAM, and an nVidia 285 GPU.

So, I have plenty of horsepower.

When playing a Blu-Ray Disc (through AnyDVD) on my HD100, it plays back fine.

But, when I try to play the same disc via the SageTV V7 Client, the Blu-Ray playback is always jittery. It seems like there should be a way for me to play Blu-Ray discs on my PC.

I have purchased CoreAVC, if that may help.

AzJazz

[AzJazz]

An additional item: When I play back OTA HDTV, there is no problem with playback "jitters".

I set the Video/Audio settings for the Sage TV MPEG decoder, and "Default" on everything else, with the Video Renderer set to EVR.

[GollyJer]

Another good test case for my perfect playback blog post.
Are you outputting audio via hdmi or playing through computer speakers?

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

Another good test case for my perfect playback blog post.
Are you outputting audio via hdmi or playing through computer speakers?

GollyJer - Thanks for replying back!

First, I am outputting through my computer speakers.

I read your "perfect playback" post, and unfortunately, that looked like too aggressive of solution for me. While it may work, from what I read, it also has the side effect of removing all other installed codecs.

I have had experience with something like that before on my WinXP system with ffdshow. I installed ffdshow to solve an audio problem for a playback issue, and ffdshow solved my problem. Things worked great for a while.

Then, a year or two later, I paid a hefty price for my installation of ffdshow. I had issues with playback on SageTV. When I started investigating the playback path, I found that ffdshow was interfering with portions of the playback stream.

I tried updating ffdshow. I tried installing different "all-in-one" codec packages. I tried inspecting & modifying my codec paths with GSpot. Things eventually got so messed up, I needed to reinstall my Windows OS.

It seems to me that the SageTV 7 client should be able to play back HDCP decrypted content natively, if appropriate codecs are already loaded and the hardware is capable. My nVidia 285 GPU has hardware decoding capability built in.

Shouldn't there be just a few settings I can make to get things to work properly?

AzJazz

[texneus]

What's your CPU load playing BRD? Just because you have DXVA hardware does not mean it is being used effectively. I've never been able to get good results using the SageTV decoders. Since you are on windows 7, try the Win7 built in decoders. These are the surest and simplest way to get DXVA playback if renderer is set to EVR. Be sure to set them for both SageTV and DVD playback. There are separate sections.

Microsoft DVD-DTV Video Decoder
Microsoft DVD-DTV Audio Decoder

[GollyJer]

Hey AzJazz. I promise, if you follow my post ALL your videos will play perfectly whether it's through Sage or any other directshow player in Windows 7, even WMP.

[jimz06]

Originally Posted by AzJazz

It seems to me that the SageTV 7 client should be able to play back HDCP decrypted content natively, if appropriate codecs are already loaded and the hardware is capable.

You'd think so...wouldn't you? This is my biggest letdown with SageTV after otherwise being tickled about most other aspects of it after switching from a Frankenstein mashup of BeyondTV and MediaPortal...getting my hd .m2ts and .mkv files to play properly in SageTV. Of course, the HD300 in the bedroom plays all my files without a hitch while the server with a quad core cpu, SSD, 4 GB of memory, HD5450 video, Win 7 OS will struggle with the same files.

I haven't implemented GollyJer's setup yet but my scorecard to date is as follows:

.m2ts/H264 - using DTV/DVD decoder and ffdshow audio, plays great and bitstreams HD audio

.mkv/VC1 - smooth video playback after disabling the SageTV StreamDemux and installing Haali. However, the audio switching is broken and HD audio is not exposed to ffdshow so looking to use the MPC matroska splitter.

.m2ts/VC1 - best, but noticeably not smooth, i.e. unacceptable, playback comes with DMO decoder. This is a Microsoft OS and it's an issue to get smooth playback with their own codec?

I can probably take care of the last item by remuxing the couple of dozen files I have into .mkv format. Or, of course, give the Shark007 codec pack a whirl.

I basically had four applications running to get the same functionality I have with SageTV so I would never go back to my previous setup but it would be nice if we could make our selections in the SageTV menu and have it create a graph that uses the optimal filters.

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

Hey AzJazz. I promise, if you follow my post ALL your videos will play perfectly whether it's through Sage or any other directshow player in Windows 7, even WMP.

GollyJer - Sigh. I followed your suggestion, and I am very, very unhappy.

1) First, Shark007 installs Microsoft Bing crapware - without giving me the option not to install it! In the past, removal of Bing was a huge pain in the a$$. Fortunately, it seemed to uninstall OK, but if I knew that Shark007 was going to forceably install Bing, I wouldn't have tried it in the first place.

2) After installing and using your suggested settings, my SageTV playback is exactly the same. Small jitters still occur constantly throughout the Blu-Ray playback.

Maybe there is another setting I need to make? Or, should I try Shark007's recommended settings?

Originally Posted by texneus

What's your CPU load playing BRD? Just because you have DXVA hardware does not mean it is being used effectively. I've never been able to get good results using the SageTV decoders. Since you are on windows 7, try the Win7 built in decoders. These are the surest and simplest way to get DXVA playback if renderer is set to EVR. Be sure to set them for both SageTV and DVD playback. There are separate sections.

Microsoft DVD-DTV Video Decoder
Microsoft DVD-DTV Audio Decoder

texneus - I tried your suggestion of using the MS decoders, too. The playback was similar - jittery, but a little less than with GollyJer's settings.

Here's an additional note: Just to see if it is a SageTV/PC codec related issue, I tried a different experiment. I downloaded "Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (64 bit)", and tried playing back through that. The playback was flawless, and CPU utilization was averaging less than 10%. If all else fails, I can fall back to using this, though the user interface is a little kludgey.

So, I know now with certainty that the problem isn't my PC hardware.

There must be a way to get this to work with SageTV, though.

[AzJazz]

Sigh ... I'm still trying to remove the collateral damage from installing the Shark007 codecs. My default search engine in Firefox was replaced by "Bing".

However, I was able to find a solution:

• In your Firefox address bar at the top, enter: about:config
• In the configuration Filter: search box, enter: Bing
• You should see the 3 entries listed below:
• For browser.search.defaulturl, change the value to: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
• For keyword.URL, change the value to: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
• For browser.search.defaultenginename, change the value to: Google

That appeared to fix Firefox. It doesn't look like my other browsers were affected this way.

[texneus]

AzJazz, sorry to hear of your continued problems. The MS decoders should be capable of playing at least MPG2/4 stuff smoothly. My next step would be to look into hardware problems. A couple things to look at...

What is your CPU load when playing video through SageTV? This will tell us if DXVA is being used or not. On your CPU I'd suggest a load of less than 10%, with no other processes working, means it is being used. If it's not we'll have to figure out why not before going any further.

Have you checked for hardware conflicts? Windows 7, at least earlier in it's life, was said to have more issues with this than prior versions. I assume this is a driver maturity issue and may no longer be relevant at this point in time, but it's still easy to check. See here:http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47966. Try the DPC latency checker while playing videos in Sage and see what happens. Follow the troubleshooting steps if you spot problems.

You also said at one point you have CoreAVC. Have you tried it?

If that fails, list all your hardware and describe your setup in detail.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by AzJazz

Sigh ... I'm still trying to remove the collateral damage from installing the Shark007 codecs. My default search engine in Firefox was replaced by "Bing".

However, I was able to find a solution:

• In your Firefox address bar at the top, enter: about:config
• In the configuration Filter: search box, enter: Bing
• You should see the 3 entries listed below:
• For browser.search.defaulturl, change the value to: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
• For keyword.URL, change the value to: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
• For browser.search.defaultenginename, change the value to: Google

That appeared to fix Firefox. It doesn't look like my other browsers were affected this way.

Wow. Sorry about that AzJazz. I forget that Shark007 installs the Bing Bar because I don't use IE and it's never done anything to my Firefox install. But, I use Firefox portable installed in a non-default location so that must be why. It's also surprising that a simple uninstall of Bing from Add/Remove programs doesn't remove everything. Suck... I'll put a warning on the blog post.

Shark007 installs the same codecs used by MPC-HC. You can switch to them by select "Use MPC-HC codec" on the H264 tab. But, Sage doesn't correctly connect to the MPC-HC video decoder even when using the Gabest splitter. It's a bug in Sage. Sage has the same problem with the FFDShow DXVA Video decoder. They're hopefully working on a fix. And, a little more MPC-HC info... The Gabest splitter, which I use in my recommended settings, IS the MPC-HC splitter (A developer named "Gabest" was the original person who started the MPC project). Haaili has become stagnant while Gabest has continued to be developed by the Doom9 community.

So now that I think about it, I've never tried to directly play a Bluray from disk. How are you attempting to play them? Let me know and I'll try to reproduce. Maybe my settings don't work for playback the way you're doing it.

Just in case, did you verify the settings by right clicking on the FFDShow audio icon in the tray while playing the bluray? Are the problems with a specific movie or all movies? A lot of Blurays contain VC1 rather than H.264 video streams and they won't be hardware accelerated until Sage starts working with the FFDSHow DXVA decoder. You can use MediaInfo to look inside the file container (usually .m2ts) to see the what type of video and audio streams there are. However, if it worked in MPC-HC then it's probably H.264. Either way, your processor is powerful enough to playback without acceleration.

I know we can get this figured out. I really want something simple to recommend that will work for everyone.

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by texneus

AzJazz, sorry to hear of your continued problems. The MS decoders should be capable of playing at least MPG2/4 stuff smoothly. My next step would be to look into hardware problems. A couple things to look at...

What is your CPU load when playing video through SageTV? This will tell us if DXVA is being used or not. On your CPU I'd suggest a load of less than 10%, with no other processes working, means it is being used. If it's not we'll have to figure out why not before going any further.

Have you checked for hardware conflicts? Windows 7, at least earlier in it's life, was said to have more issues with this than prior versions. I assume this is a driver maturity issue and may no longer be relevant at this point in time, but it's still easy to check. See here:http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47966. Try the DPC latency checker while playing videos in Sage and see what happens. Follow the troubleshooting steps if you spot problems.

You also said at one point you have CoreAVC. Have you tried it?

If that fails, list all your hardware and describe your setup in detail.

texneus - I tried the DPC Latency Checker (nice tool!). The DPC Latency Checker showed an average of 120 ms, and a maximum of 226 msec. It never went into the "yellow" zone for the few minutes I ran it. I tried the GollyJer's and the M$ codec settings, and both looked exactly the same on DPC.

Using the GollyJer's settings, I saw a pretty consistent CPU loading of 12% => 13%.

With the M$ codec settings, I saw an average loading of 13% => 14%.

Based on your suggestion, I re-installed CoreAVC. With CoreAVC selected as the H.264 decoder, I couldn't tell if CoreAVC was actually running. When I played Blu-Ray discs through AnyDVD, the CoreAVC tray icon never showed up. Playback appeared to be the same.

Regarding my system setup:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 920
• GPU: nVida GTX 285
• RAM: 6 GB 1600 DDR3
• Anything else?

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

Wow. Sorry about that AzJazz. I forget that Shark007 installs the Bing Bar because I don't use IE and it's never done anything to my Firefox install. But, I use Firefox portable installed in a non-default location so that must be why. It's also surprising that a simple uninstall of Bing from Add/Remove programs doesn't remove everything. Suck... I'll put a warning on the blog post.

Shark007 installs the same codecs used by MPC-HC. You can switch to them by select "Use MPC-HC codec" on the H264 tab. But, Sage doesn't correctly connect to the MPC-HC video decoder even when using the Gabest splitter. It's a bug in Sage. Sage has the same problem with the FFDShow DXVA Video decoder. They're hopefully working on a fix. And, a little more MPC-HC info... The Gabest splitter, which I use in my recommended settings, IS the MPC-HC splitter (A developer named "Gabest" was the original person who started the MPC project). Haaili has become stagnant while Gabest has continued to be developed by the Doom9 community.

So now that I think about it, I've never tried to directly play a Bluray from disk. How are you attempting to play them? Let me know and I'll try to reproduce. Maybe my settings don't work for playback the way you're doing it.

Just in case, did you verify the settings by right clicking on the FFDShow audio icon in the tray while playing the bluray? Are the problems with a specific movie or all movies? A lot of Blurays contain VC1 rather than H.264 video streams and they won't be hardware accelerated until Sage starts working with the FFDSHow DXVA decoder. You can use MediaInfo to look inside the file container (usually .m2ts) to see the what type of video and audio streams there are. However, if it worked in MPC-HC then it's probably H.264. Either way, your processor is powerful enough to playback without acceleration.

I know we can get this figured out. I really want something simple to recommend that will work for everyone.

Hi, GollyJer!

Sorry for being a little snippity before. I was in a foul mood, but I'm better now!

And, thank you very much for trying to help me (and others) with this.

Do I need to uninstall the CoreAVC codec and reinstall/reconfigure the Shark007 package?

I am playing my DVDs with an internal SATA Blu-Ray DVD player, and using Version 6.7.7.0 of AnyDVD.

I was trying playback with 2 different BluRay DVDs: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (British Edition), and Planet Earth.

Using MediaInfo, I saw that both DVD's video steams are encoded in VC-1. Does that mean I'm skrood?

AzJazz

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by AzJazz

Hi, GollyJer!
Do I need to uninstall the CoreAVC codec and reinstall/reconfigure the Shark007 package?

I've tried CoreAVC, in addition to many other codecs in the past. I dont' see a need to have it installed. Right now, MPC-HC, FFDShow DXVA, and PDVD10 (all installed by the Shark007 pack) are the best options. FFDShow DXVA would be the holy grail but Sage currently has problems using it. Like I said before, hopefully those will be worked out soon.

Originally Posted by AzJazz

I am playing my DVDs with an internal SATA Blu-Ray DVD player, and using Version 6.7.7.0 of AnyDVD.

Hmm... Where in the UI do you go for playback? I didn't realize Sage could even play back directly from the disk.

Originally Posted by AzJazz

I was trying playback with 2 different BluRay DVDs: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (British Edition), and Planet Earth.

Using MediaInfo, I saw that both DVD's video steams are encoded in VC-1. Does that mean I'm skrood?

You won't get hardware acceleration but I can play back a bluray with VC-1 remuxed into an .mkv container no problem. Sage falls back to the Microsoft video decoder when playing VC1.

I'm off to see if I can play back a bluray disk. Talk to you later Az.

[Rico66]

The BDMV VC1 playback issues that you're describing have been discussed in a number of threads in this forum. The best playback seems to be using an Arcsoft decoder, but even that does not always give flawless playback. So you may try that one.
I think you're lucky, if you can get flawless VC1 playback with the Sage splitter. To me that's still kind of broken in Sage, though it's only certain hardware configurations that show this as some people have reported good playback with the Sage splitter in combination with the DMO decoder.

For mkvs this issue can be worked around by using another splitter instead.

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

I've tried CoreAVC, in addition to many other codecs in the past. I dont' see a need to have it installed. Right now, MPC-HC, FFDShow DXVA, and PDVD10 (all installed by the Shark007 pack) are the best options. FFDShow DXVA would be the holy grail but Sage currently has problems using it. Like I said before, hopefully those will be worked out soon.

OK ... I removed CoreAVC, "repaired" Shark007, and re-applied your settings. So, I should be back to normal (Whatever THAT is. )

Originally Posted by GollyJer

Hmm... Where in the UI do you go for playback? I didn't realize Sage could even play back directly from the disk.

I didn't know at first, either. By hunting through the forums, I found that you have to list your DVD root drive directory as a "Media Center Import Directory" for Video import (Setup >> Detailed Setup >> General >> Media Center Import Directories). Then, after you do an import refresh (Setup >> Scan Import Media), you'll see your main title ready to play under the "Videos >> DVD/BD" menu.

Originally Posted by GollyJer

I'm off to see if I can play back a bluray disk. Talk to you later Az.

Let me know what you see ...

Cheers,

AzJazz

[jimz06]

I think one thing this thread makes clear is that "flawless" playback of Blu Ray means different things to different people. I think the most prevalent formats that would be in the average blu ray enthusiasts hard drive are probably:

.m2ts/VC1
.m2ts/H264
.m2ts/mpg2
.mkv/VC1
.mkv/H264
.mkv/mpg2

So a complete solution should address all those formats. Of course, you would want the ability to bitstream the HD audio from those two container formats also.

Based on AzJazz's experience it sounds like the Shark007 pack fixes issues with playback of anything in an .mkv. That sounds like overkill since I was able to fix my .mkv playback by disabling the Sage splitter (with no adverse effects to other types of playback) and installing Haali (registering Gabest probably would have been a better choice as GollyJer mentioned). HD audio bitstreaming is still an issue with that fix however.

What seems to be the common issue through many of these playback threads is getting decent VC-1 playback in the native .m2ts container. This looks like another Sage splitter issue since you can dump the video file in another container and use the same DMO decoder, a different splitter and get proper playback.

So if anyone has VC-1 in a .m2ts container playing smoothly (emphasis on smooth) with HD bitstreaming I'm all ears.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by jimz06

I think one thing this thread makes clear is that "flawless" playback of Blu Ray means different things to different people. I think the most prevalent formats that would be in the average blu ray enthusiasts hard drive are probably:

.m2ts/VC1
.m2ts/H264
.m2ts/mpg2
.mkv/VC1
.mkv/H264
.mkv/mpg2

So a complete solution should address all those formats. Of course, you would want the ability to bitstream the HD audio from those two container formats also.

Based on AzJazz's experience it sounds like the Shark007 pack fixes issues with playback of anything in an .mkv. That sounds like overkill since I was able to fix my .mkv playback by disabling the Sage splitter (with no adverse effects to other types of playback) and installing Haali (registering Gabest probably would have been a better choice as GollyJer mentioned). HD audio bitstreaming is still an issue with that fix however.

What seems to be the common issue through many of these playback threads is getting decent VC-1 playback in the native .m2ts container. This looks like another Sage splitter issue since you can dump the video file in another container and use the same DMO decoder, a different splitter and get proper playback.

So if anyone has VC-1 in a .m2ts container playing smoothly (emphasis on smooth) with HD bitstreaming I'm all ears.

Very good summary jimz06.
The combination of my 4 steps to perfect playback + how to bitstream audio work perfectly in WMP. In fact, if SageTV playback wasn't a concern, I'd recommend choosing the FFDShow DXVA video decoder on the H.264 tab in Shark and "Use FFDshow DXVA for WVC1, not Microsoft" on the SWAP tab. FFDshow DXVA provides hardware accelerated playback of H.264 AND VC1 video with the amazing benefit of subtitle support that doesn't break DXVA (not a simple feat).

Imagine my "4 Steps" post but using FFDShow DXVA instead of PDVD10. That's an ideal world. At that point it would be a "4 steps to perfect HD Video Playback in Windows 7". That in combination with my Bitstream Audio in Windows 7 is the ultimate. AND, after installing Shark007 would literally be a 10 minute affair.

The problem we face with Sage is that it can't use FFDShow DXVA, or the "Gabest" MPC-HC filters (which I beleive can hardware accelerate VC1 video), properly. Even when forcing Sage to use the Gabest splitter, I'm able to get bitstreaming audio but the video is always an all green screen or all black screen depending on the stream.

Honestly, I didn't even want to put my blog post up until I was finished working with Sage support on getting their splitter to work with FFDShow DXVA. But, I'm skeptical that will come anytime soon, hence the choice to go with PDVD10 (which is a great video decoder but doesn't do DXVA for VC1 or support subtitles).


OK, long story short. Here's a setup that works perfectly for each of these scenarios.
.m2ts/VC1 (bluray)
.m2ts/H264 (bluray)
.mkv/VC1 (bluray)
.mkv/H264 (bluray)
.ts/H264 (hd-pvr)
.mpg/H264 (hd-pvr)
Follow my two blog posts, BUT:
on the SWAP tab, check "Use FFDshow DXVA for WVC1, not Microsoft"
on the H.264 tab choose "Use FFDshow DXVA codec"

At that point you'll have perfect playback of Bluray content through WMP, MPC-HC, GraphStudio, or any other directshow player.
I can't speak to .m2ts/mpg2 and .mkv/mpg2 as I don't have any examples to test.

I WISH those settings worked in Sage, but they don't. Play those same files in Sage and you'll get bitstreaming audio but no video. Tell Sage to ignore it's own splitter and use the default and Sage STILL can't play back the video. Sage knows this is a problem, I finally was able to explain it to them clearly, and hopefully they're working on it. Until then we have to do the best we can.

[AzJazz]

GollyJer - I tried your suggestions for the Shark007 settings to play on WMP, but WMP claims that my DVD drive is empty. Is there a piece of the puzzle I am missing?

[GollyJer]

Yes. The piece to the puzzle is I've never try to "play" a bluray disc because I know it wont work. I either transcode to mkv or go into the stream folder and double click the biggest file. I'm guessing you're trying to somehow just play the disk like it's a DVD. I can't imagine why anyone would want the world to be so simple..

If you go into the stream folder and play the largest file do you get perfect playback?

Also, I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you regarding playback of a bluray directly in Sage yet. I may not be able to find time until Thursday.