Video stutter on DVB-T on Win7 Hauppauge HVR4400 & ATI Video card

Forums › Home Theatre (incl HTPC) › Video stutter on DVB-T on Win7 Hauppauge HVR4400 & ATI Video card

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441 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 522134 16-Sep-2011 20:27

mm1352000: I'm totally not interested in performance. I just want a release without too many bugs that gives me good DxVA support, no black level, contrast or colour issues, no sleep/hibernation issues, and generally just works.

mm

Yep. I'm not a gamer. General desktop, digital photography, HTPC in Lounge. I'll trial 10.4 for a bit and see how the FreeviewHD H.264 video goes.

Still have the option of the Nvidea GT260 if the ATI still glitches. Prefer the video image from the ATI card though.

I've just looked at the GPU activity with 10.4

Four, C4, 7, Prime, Maori, Stratos, U on Freeview (Mpeg4/H264, SD, UHF) the activity is 0%,
SBS One HD (Mpeg2, HD, sat), SBS 2, Gem, Go (Mpeg2 SD sat) it is 0%,
Gem (Mpeg2 HD, Dolby Digital, sat) 33%,
TV1, 2, & 3 (Mpeg4/H264, HD, UHF, Dolby Digital) is 47%, 43 DegC, 30% fan.

Not all channels are using the GPU (with media centre) Is that expected? Not all UHF channels or all HD channels. Looks like it is Dolby digital that is the common denominator?

Edit: I am using on-board sound. Stereo line out. Asus P7P55D-E Mobo, VIA VTI828S 8ch HD audio.

Four has major issues resynching video and audio during chase-play or pause buffer. My TViX M6500A has similar issues with Four

Regards

Regards Allen.

mm1352000

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# 522145 16-Sep-2011 20:53

GPU utilisation depends on video format and codec used. MPEG 2 decoding doesn't require a lot of decoding power, so some codecs may not use GPU capabilities. For me, FOUR on DVB-T uses around 22% (45deg C); TV 2 uses around 28% (47deg C). On DVB-S everything seems to be around 8% (41deg C). This is using the Cyberlink PDVD 10 codec.

mm

[Edit: the resync behaviour you mention also depends a lot on codecs - I don't see it *at all*. That's one of the major reasons I use MP - you can easily choose. I use AC3Filter 1.63b at the moment, but that seems to have trouble when switching to TV One and TV 2 using the new DD streams so I'm going to need to find a new codec for that.]

dale77

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Ultimate Geek

# 522164 16-Sep-2011 21:50

sbiddle:
It's really a shame because the new AMD Fusion mobo's would make a nice HTPC upgrade, I'm just not sure if I want to take yet another gamble on ATI.

Just bought a small AMD Fusion e-350 ultra portable. Seems to work fine with mediaportal DVB-T streamed over wifi. HP dm-1,

HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, AMD X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 4x1Gb, Adata 128Gb SSD, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.3+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Cyberlink Powercinema 6 codec, BLU-RAY: Samsung BD-F7500

dale77

292 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 522166 16-Sep-2011 21:55

mm1352000:
Like I said to you in my first response, the versions since ***11.4*** have been bad (ie. 11.4 is the last known good version)
mm

I tried 11.8 (replacing 10.12). The only glitching I noticed was at the start of playback after "fast forwarding". 11.6 showed glitching in the middle of playback as well.

As this initial glitching does not occur in 10.12 I reverted, as I prefer perfection :-)

SamF

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# 522198 16-Sep-2011 23:36

Well, I got some interesting results from a test I've just run:

I booted into my XP install (which has no glitching) on my media PC, and viewed the live TV stream in the MP client on my main Win7 x64 PC, which glitched when connecting to MP running on Win7 x64 on my media PC... No glitching or corruption! a perfect picture!

So from this I guess I can say that the issue is not a display / rendering issue and rules out video drivers.

At this point, the only remaining element not eliminated is the OS itself, so it could either be a corrupt install or some x64 incompatibility or general x64 Hauppauge driver issue. So the only thing left to do is install Win7 x86 on my media PC to see if that makes a difference. I might try to do that this weekend.

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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# 522240 17-Sep-2011 07:44

dale77:
sbiddle:
It's really a shame because the new AMD Fusion mobo's would make a nice HTPC upgrade, I'm just not sure if I want to take yet another gamble on ATI.

Just bought a small AMD Fusion e-350 ultra portable. Seems to work fine with mediaportal DVB-T streamed over wifi. HP dm-1,

I've got one of the same machines as well as two different 780G chipset based machines in the house. None work as well as an old nVidia 8400GT that I presently have in my PVR.

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 522271 17-Sep-2011 10:30

Catalyst 10.4 has the least problems for me, very little stutter but at times the playback is continuously jerky.
Catalyst 11.4 still pixelates and stutters when skipping or changing channels. also stutters at random.

Updated Asus motherboard drivers and utility software

Vertical scrolling (credit rolls etc) are not smooth with any version leading me to suspect that frames are being dropped as well.

Next things to try.

Nvidea GT260
Motherboard BIOS update.

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 522321 17-Sep-2011 13:50

AllenG:
Next things to try.

Nvidea GT260
Motherboard BIOS update.

Have transplanted the ATI 5770 with the NVIDIA GTX260

Early days yet but looks promising on the Pixelation/video stutter front.
Still dropping frames though. Only noticeable on fast panning or credit rolls etc. This is still more noticeable when focus is on another App on the other screen eg Chrome. Frame dropping is much the same as the ATI

Are there any settings I can tweak to reduce dropped frames in Media centre? esp when its running as a background app? With the level of hardware I have I don't expect dropped frames.

Regards Allen

sbiddle

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# 522349 17-Sep-2011 15:10

What frame rate are you running your HDMI connection at? 25/50Hz?

AllenG

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Ultimate Geek

# 522378 17-Sep-2011 15:49

sbiddle: What frame rate are you running your HDMI connection at? 25/50Hz?

I'm using VGA. TV is only 1360x768 native. Nvidia had it set at 60 Hz. I have just manually added 50Hz. Nvidia now seems to default to 50 Hz for the TV.

50Hz should avoid any frame rate conversion for TV. I'll see if it improves frame dropping.

P.S. The TV only has 1 HDMI imput and that is used for an HDMI extender from the Yamaha Z7 receiver in the in the theatre room for Zone 2 display of the theatre sources in the lounge (Oppo BD, TViX Media player).

Regards Allen.

sbiddle

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# 522382 17-Sep-2011 15:55

I doubt you'll get decent VGA performance at 50Hz, and to be honest I'd be surprised if the TV actually negotiates a 50Hz connection via VGA as it probably doesn't support it. Ideally you need to move to HDMI for your connection, which is something you obviously can't do if your TV doesn't support it.

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 522384 17-Sep-2011 16:00

sbiddle: I doubt you'll get decent VGA performance at 50Hz, and to be honest I'd be surprised if the TV actually negotiates a 50Hz connection via VGA as it probably doesn't support it. Ideally you need to move to HDMI for your connection, which is something you obviously can't do if your TV doesn't support it.

Posted Edit on previous post. 1 x HDMI in use for other sources.

NZTV broadcast is only 720/50p and 1080/50i, so 50Hz is perfect for broadcast TV. It should be as smooth as the Topfield PVR that I have been using up till now.

Edit: The VGA output is actually reverting to 60Hz even though set to 50Hz. Just checked the TV manual and 1360x768 VGA only supports 60Hz.? Mmm I might just have to try HDMI for a test..

Regards Allen.

SamF

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# 522410 17-Sep-2011 17:32

I run my TV @ 60Hz, no stuttering / framerate sync issues (at least not like you're getting).

SamF

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# 522523 18-Sep-2011 01:03

Ok, did a whole lot of fresh OS re-installs today with the following results:

- Win7 x86, same driver versions as working XP install - Corruption
- XP clean install, same driver versions as working XP install - Perfection
- Win7 x86, latest drivers - Corruption
OSs were stock, no SPs or updates, minimal configuration, MediaPortal installed with the same options on all builds.

So there's definitely something up with Win7 (in terms of incompatibility) or one of the Win7 drivers (either the Tuner card or the mainboard), at least with my particular setup.

I'm going to post to the Hauppauge forum and if I don't get any quick fixes there, log a support call with Hauppauge.

Here is a screenshot of the typical corruption I'm seeing (click for larger image):

Generally the corruption seems to consist of pixels from a previous frame, very similar to a dropped keyframe type situation, but only part of the screen. I do get other types of corruption too:

To determine whether it's mainboard or tuner drivers, I'm going to install the tuner card in my main PC (Win7 x64, different model mainboard entirely) and see what happens.

mm1352000

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# 522525 18-Sep-2011 01:34

Could you post your MP logs from W7 please. I'd like to take a look at the TV Server logs...

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