dvb-t -> much worse in Vista than XP !???

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › dvb-t -> much worse in Vista than XP !???

aucklander

478 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 11

#23202 21-Jun-2008 21:27

I built my htpc and got it running the same day with very nice results. Cristal clear on TV1 and 2 and the "usual" slight motion blurr on TV3. See signature for innitial setup; I used to get the following cpu loads:
TV1/2: 30%-40%
TV3: 40% - 55%

Everywhere I go to look for advice, I get pretty much the same: you need Vista and nVidia 8x00 to get freeview working really good.

So I got Vista Home Premium and a $150 8600GT 2xDVI 512/DDR3 silent.
And now it is so much worse than before!
TV1/2/HD: 60-80%
TV3: 80 - 100%, sound is good but image freezes for one sec every 5 sec...

On the other hand, the nVidia interface looks so basic! The Catalyst interface for the on-board chipset had lots of settings.

I got the 8600 out of the pc and went back to the mobo connection. Same problems, no difference. Under Vista, the image is badly pixelated (if you look closer) and I get very high cpu loads. This makes me think it is something I need to adjust in Vista. But what?

I tried to follow the instructions in this forum, but I cannot find one of the files I am supposed to modify. I have one, but not the other file. I run a search, there is only one of them (the TVSettings.ini file).

And the modifications did not bring any improvement. Did anyone get it done in Vista Home Premium (32)? Where do you "click" the EVR setting everybody gets working? I cannot find such thing anywhere. I agree I am not familiar with Vista at all, I just installed it. Under XP, Powercinema worked pretty decent from the first attempt.

I would like to use Powercinema, as it works with the remote control supplied with the tv card. Why do I get higher cpu loads with Vista than before, under XP Pro? I have 2GB of RAM and at a certain point it showed that only 150MB is available. Is Vista so memory-intensive? Might need more than 2GB ??

mobo Intel DH55PJ, RAM: 4GB RAM, Nova-T 500 HD + Avermedia Trinity tuner card, Geforce 520 video, 120GB SSD Sandisk + 640 WD + 1000SG, Win7 Home Prem 64-bit, Media Portal 1.15.0; BTC 9019URF Cordless Keyboard, Panasonic 55" (HDMI cable), HTPC Case Silverstone Grandia GD05B.

Vorbis

176 posts

Master Geek

#139640 21-Jun-2008 23:02

If your cpu load is that high I'd say your hardware acceleration for decoding isn't on.

amphibem

138 posts

Master Geek

#139644 21-Jun-2008 23:14

aucklander:And the modifications did not bring any improvement. Did anyone get it done in Vista Home Premium (32)? Where do you "click" the EVR setting everybody gets working? I cannot find such thing anywhere. I agree I am not familiar with Vista at all, I just installed it. Under XP, Powercinema worked pretty decent from the first attempt.

I would like to use Powercinema, as it works with the remote control supplied with the tv card. Why do I get higher cpu loads with Vista than before, under XP Pro? I have 2GB of RAM and at a certain point it showed that only 150MB is available. Is Vista so memory-intensive? Might need more than 2GB ??

As far as I know EVR is a setting only avaliable in MediaPortal, I use it with the PowerDVD8 codec and my sig machine to get hardware acceleration on my HTPC.

In fact I have sort of the opposite problem, despite having a slightly faster CPU than you (5200+) software HD does not work properly (under Vista), I get tearing, blocking, freezes and audio lag.

And you shouldn't need more that 2GB, I use 1GB and I think others run on less than that. I can only suggest going back to XP or trying a different software suite. MediaPortal works with most common remotes including the one included with the Nova T 500 if thats what you are using.

Desktop: 5200 X2 - 3GB - 320GB - Nvidia 8600GT - Vista Home Premium - PVR150 - MediaPortal 1.0
My HTPC Blog - HTPCnz, the Home Theatre PC Resource

DS248

1702 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 771

Lifetime subscriber

#139648 21-Jun-2008 23:46

aucklander: ... I tried to follow the instructions in this forum, but I cannot find one of the files I am supposed to modify. I have one, but not the other file. I run a search, there is only one of them (the TVSettings.ini file). ...

For HA while watching live TV, you need to change TVSetting.ini in both locations as per the instructions in the post you linked to.

For HA while watching recorded TV, you need to change MovieSetting.ini in both locations as per the instructions.

ie. both sets of .ini files in both the C:\Users\.... and C:\Program Files... directories.

We do not have any PC's with Vista32, but have it working both under Vista64 Home Premium & Vista64 Business. Should be similar under Vista32, but I cannot test it ( C:\Program Files... maybe named differently in Win32?)

#####

For watching recorded 720p TV, try SMPlayer (free) - has slider etc for moving fwds & back. Works reasonably well for TV1 & HD Preview on my PC, but it does not handle 1080i (TV3). Have not looked at the configuration, so it maybe possible to get it playing TV3 recordings.

Two other free players you might look at are VLC and GOM Player. Both seem to be popular. I had problems with both of them, but that may be a Vista64 compatibility issue?

FreddyK

84 posts

Master Geek

#139649 21-Jun-2008 23:53

To be honest, I would give up on Powercinema since thats where I believe your problem lies although I'm making that judgement on not having used the package myself.

As someone already said, MediaPortal is compatable with the remote you have so theirs no reason why you souldnt at least give it a go. If you do, then you will need a HW supported decoder like PowerDVD or the Arcsoft one that comes with Totalmedia Cinema. At least you will have a glimpse at how FreeviewHD should be seen if you do.

If you want to stick it out with Powercinema, then leave a message of your problem in the Powercinema HW acceleration thread as DS248 seems to visit it regularly and Im sure he'll sort you out.

I've recently moved to Vista and DXVA2, and havent looked back since.

EDIT: Speak of the devil, he got in just before me

MediaBox - CASE: Antec Fusion V2 with 430W ATX PSU, MOTHERBOARD: Foxconn 6150K8MA-8KRS , CPU: AMD64 X2 4200+ with fanless Scythe Ninja Mini cooler, RAM: 2 Gig DDR400, HDD: 1 X 1Tb & 2 X 320Gb, TV TUNER: 1x Hauppauge WinTV Nova T 500 HD card & 1x Hauppauge WinTV-PVR150MCE, VIDEOCARD: XFX 8500GT passive cooling, DISPLAY: Panasonic TX32LX700A LCD TV, SOUND: Logitech Z-5500, SOFTWARE: Windows 7 Ultimate x86.

DS248

1702 posts

Uber Geek
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Lifetime subscriber

#139651 22-Jun-2008 00:06

One point I should have mentioned re SMPlayer - under the default config at least, there is no HA (not crucial for me, as the CPU has the oomph to handle the load easily).

juliant

104 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 4

#139664 22-Jun-2008 04:31

You can definitely get this working in Vista 32 as I have by following the thread you linked to.

You need to tell Vista to show hidden files and folders (windows explorer organise folder and search options show hidden files and folders).Then for some of those ini files you need to open with administrator rights. So I right click on notepad and choose open as administrator then file open and find the file. Then edit as required and save

My cpu usage is around 25% but it was around 90% in TV3 so its working for me

Now Powecinema works well for me except for the slow ffwd but then I had errors with Media Portal so gave up on that. Bring on Vista Fiji

Dell

Shop now for Dell laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

juliant

104 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 4

#139665 22-Jun-2008 04:37

aucklander

478 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 11

#141148 29-Jun-2008 07:40

I got Powercinema working and I also figured it out how to record one channel and switch to another, and if I want, start recording the second one as well. Recordings are all ok including scheduled recordings, overlapping or not, but not bringing the htpc from a sleep state, I have to leave it "on".

The only reason I went for MediaPortal is the ffwd speed higher than in PowerCinema. But Media Portal crashes so often, and I could not get TV3 to work at all. The major issue is that Powercinema is not working at all now. Even if I stop "TVServices" from Task Managaer (once installed, TVServices runs in backgorund at startup).

did you guys have problems especially with TV3 in Media Portal? I also liked how fast it changes channels as well. (There is no black screen at all, as opposed to Powercinema where I get 2-3 sec of silence and black screen when switching channels).

amphibem

138 posts

Master Geek

#141153 29-Jun-2008 08:45

I am using MediaPortal with almost the exact same graphics card as you (its the 256MB version) and it works fine. It didn't work properly with the 6100 onboard, no crashing just didn't have enough grunt to decode in software so skipping etc.

Regarding MP, are you trying with the SVN builds?

Desktop: 5200 X2 - 3GB - 320GB - Nvidia 8600GT - Vista Home Premium - PVR150 - MediaPortal 1.0
My HTPC Blog - HTPCnz, the Home Theatre PC Resource

aucklander

478 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 11

#141191 29-Jun-2008 12:26

SVN builds? I really do not know what this is... unfortunately.

I downloaded one file only, which installed MP 1.0.0.0 RC1 and created three icons on the desktop. I know they call this a "deployment tool", as opposed to previous versions where you had to download and install separate files for the three modules. Am I right?

Should I understand the advice is to go back to an earlier version?
HTPC is not permanently connected to Internet.

All channels working fine in MP, except TV3 and C4, where I get stuttering every 5 sec but the sound is OK. CPU usage for any channel is 40%. Before this, with PowerCinema, I successfuly enabled HA and got 12-18% CPU loads on any channel... before enableing HA, I used to have 35 - 60% CPU load in PowerCinema. (Higher values on TV3 all the time).

It appears that if I let it run for a while (20-30 min), the stutters reduces a lot, occuring only briefly every 2 minutes or so.

mcraenz

1140 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 222

#141202 29-Jun-2008 13:15

Yes Apply the latest weekly snapshot for mediaportal

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-tv-server-1-0-rc1-svn-builds-268/

You do have PowerDVD 7 or 8 H.264 codec install right? And have you enabled Hardware acceleration in the powerdvd codec settings in MediaPortal?

Run MediaPortal (Or any other media app) in non-fullscreen; while playing TV (or any other video file) use graphedit to "connect to remote graph" and see for sure what codecs are being used.

This is one of the best ways to troubleshoot codec issues. Report back what you find out.

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