Video is stuttering with QAM

[RamonS]

Hi!
Switching over to FiOS TV required me to remove my over-the-air antenna from the digital tuner input and hook the TV cable on to it because all I get is QAM signals.
I use the Hauppauge HVR-1800 PCIe card and SageTV version 7 that all runs on Windows 7 64 bit on a 3GHz quad core AMD 64 bit processor with 16 GB RAM and a Zotac GeForce 9800GT (with 1 GB RAM as far as I recall). After the channel scan I managed to get the video to play fine, but did not have audio. After trying the various combinations I now have audio, but since then the video is stuttering. I tried a few things but soon came to the realization that I really have no clue what the changes I make might or might not do. Obviously, what I want is non-stuttering video with stereo audio.

I list below the options in the Detailed Setup for Video/Audio with the choices available and the one currently selected marked with a *. Any advice on which setting to change to get proper audio and video is greatly appreciated. Also, if I should download or install something additionally (codecs) please let me know. I hesitate to just slam every codec I can find into my system as that usually generates more problems than it solves.
Also, WinTV7 works without the stuttering and with audio, but that craptastic tool of junk crashes too often to make any use of it.

Video Renderer
- Default Video Renderer
- Video Overlay Renderer
- DirectX9 Video Mixing Renderer (VMR9)
* Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR)

MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter
- Default
- ffdshow MPEG-4 Video Decoder
- MainConcept MPEG-2 Video Decoder
- Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
* SageTV MPEG Video Decoder

SageTV MPEG Video Decoder uses DXVA (hardware acceleration)
- Yes
* No

H.264 Video Decoder Filter
- Default
* DivX H.264 Decoder
- Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
- MPC - Video decoder

VC-1 Video Decoder
- * Default
- MPC - Video decoder
- WMVideo Decoder DMO

Media Player for non-MPEG files
* Always use DirectShow
- Use SageTV Player for online videos; DirectShow otherwise
- Always use SageTV Player

DScaler Deinterlacing Filter
- DScaler Deinterlacer: Enabled
- Deinterlacing Technique: Blended Clipping
- Double Refresh Rate: Enabled
- Odd Field First: Enabled

Audio Renderer
- Default
- Speaker (Realtek High Definition)
- Default DirectSound Device
* Default WaveOut Device
- DirectSound: Realtek Digital Output
- DirectSound: Realtek Digital Output (Optical)
- DirectSound: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
- Realtek Digital Output
- Realtek Digital Output (Optical)

MPEG2 Audio Decoder Filter
- Default
* AC3 Filter
- ffdshow Audio Decoder
- MPEG Audio Decoder
- SageTV MPEG Audio Decoder

HD Audio Decoder Filter
- Default
* ffdshow Audio Decoder

Audio Playback Delay (0)

HD Audio Output: Disabled

[RamonS]

Hi!
Got some improvement by switching to the overlay rendering (which sometimes only works on monitor 1, but I know that) and I changed the directory where video is stored.
The directory change seemed to have made the biggest improvement as it now writes to a different hard drive (not just different partition). There is still some faint stuttering at times. Is there any way to configure SageTV to not record the currently watched channel? I understand that this will disabled features such as starting over or going back, but I never used those features anyway. Once in a while I use the scheduled recording.

As before, any further suggestions are greatly appreciated!

[Tiki]

You should take a look at the detailed info in Sage for the video files that are giving you trouble to see how they were encoded.

Most likely they are MPEG-2. So, I would start with the MPEG2 Video Decoder Filter. I get the best results with the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder and the worst results with the SageTV MPEG Video Decoder. Try each one and see what works best for you.

[RamonS]

Thanks for the tip! I tried the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder and that turned it back to the original strong stuttering. So I set it back to what I had before.
What I also noticed is that the overlay not only works on the secondary monitor, but works there even better, but only for SD channels.
Also, I do not watch any files (such as recordings from disk), this is for live TV only. In fact, I don't want it to record anything when watching live TV.


Rhetorical question: why can't it just work?

[ranger]

I just fought a long battle with video stuttering on a machine that had been working correctly for a couple years. Turns out that updating the AMD /ATI chipset and video drivers was a bad idea. Went back to the original chipset drivers and everything worked again. FWIW

[RamonS]

I eventually figured it out. After hours of staring at what is the solution I finally got it! Didn't I mention that "WinTV7 works without the stuttering and with audio"? Yes, I did! So what I did was take a screen shot from the configuration in WinTV7 and then set SageTV to exactly the same settings. For most of them I had to opt to display all options, which extended the list to a few dozen in each category. Most of the options are now set to MainConcept or Hauppauge.
With that I was also able to change from overlay rendering to EVR (which I had originally) and with that I can now see everything on the second monitor.
Once in a great while there is a wee bit of some 'optical vibration', but only when there are fast moving scenes on HD channels. That may have reasons that go beyond the SageTV configuration.

Everyone who tried to help a very big THANK YOU! There is still life in SageTV despite Google killing one of the best media center apps ever made.