Everything ok except tv which stutters massivly or fails

[magnets]

TV-Server Version: 1.0 RC3
MediaPortal Version: 1.0 RC3
MediaPortal Skin: blue wide and blue normal
Windows Version: xp sp3 (x2)
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 4200 (on tv server)
HDD: 4 X 250 gb maxtor Sata 1s in 10 RAID + dedicated 7200 sataII drive for time shift + 80gb SataII for OS
Memory: 2gb DDR400
Motherboard: Gigabyte
Video Card: TV server has 7200GS, HTPC has onboard (DX9 compatible), Pornulator has HD4870X2 with 2gb ddr5 on board
Video Card Driver: all up to date, from nvidia site. (apart from ATI card obviously)
Sound Card: onboard (AC97) on all pc's
Sound Card AC3: opticcal SPDIF out on HTPC, standard stereo on pornulator
Sound Card Driver: latest
1. TV Card: Leadtek WinFast DTV1000 T in tv server
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T
1. TV Card Driver: latest
2. TV Card: + Compro DVB-T300 in tv server
2. TV Card Type: DVB-T hybrid
2. TV Card Driver: latest
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: not sure, tried a few
MPEG2 Audio Codec: not sure
h.264 Video Codec: not sure
Satelite/CableTV Provider: none
HTPC Case: MSI Mega 180
Cooling: fan
Power Supply: 500w, not sure and 800W (Tv Server, MSI MEga 180 HTPC, Pornulator
Remote: MS MCER
TV: plasma connect via VGA running at 1024 768
TV - HTPC Connection: RGB (VGA-15 pin d sub)



ok, above is Mr Watchey, he likes to watch. He is a dedicated mediportal tv server in the study.
he is connected via a 100mb router to yhe HTPC: a MSI Mega 180 with a single stick of 1gb DDR400 ram and Pornulator who is a monster.


Everything works ok, weather, streaming music, video etc, all fine. Except when i try to use the tv.
very rarely it works, just, massive stuttering while it's windowed, then when i go full screen it's ok.
most of the time i get the first frame and nothing, sometimes i get video but no sound.
the first frame can be of the correct channel or just black.
Media portal does not hang, it is still responsive, just, about 1 sec between cursor movements, and if i turn off the tv it is responsive again but the network traffic persists, and doesn't stop until i restart MyWatchey (if i restart the client, MrWatchey continues to stream data).
The problem appears on both clients, the htpc and Pornulator so i deduce it's not an issue with the client.
i ran perfmon on Mrwatchey
Whilst tv on i get
Ave Disk Queue length 0.18
Pages per sec 22
% cpu time 1.7

looking at the network performance it sits at 5% whilst streaming.

I have tried:

using a dedicated disk for timeshift
dvbfix is installed
changing all maner of codecs on both clients
I only run one client at a time
only running with one tv card in (tried both cards)
Running without the doors on MrWatchey (in case heat was an issue)

havn't yet tried:
using a crossover cable rather than going through the router, but i think that will not be the problem as it plays movies fine.
Turning off windows firewall

Attached is the logs for the tv server. I cleaned out the logs. what you see here is startup, playing some music, then a client requesting a feed from abc2 at 21:10
i got a black screen for 10secs then vision came in very very very stutterery, sound was fine.
i went to full screen
it was much better maybe a little stuttering every 5 secs
I then brought up the in screen channel change via the mce remote and selected channel 7
it worked too, which was unusual
i switched to ABC1 and now no sound
Switched back to ABC2 still no sound (it had sound before)
turned the tv off and zipped up the logs
I notice MrWatchey is still showing a constant stream of network traffic despite the tv being off.

SO my issues are:

Sound drops and never comes back
Massive stuttering while the menu is up (in screen or windowed)
Mild to massive stuttering when it does work.

When i installed it, the autoscan worked ok with a signal strength of 75-100%
Let me know if you need any other details

[magnets]

i've now tried turning off the firewall and
moving the pc to a different tv socket in the lounge.

no real difference.

[druid9]

i am beginning to think this is just an Aussie thing cause our TV signal is cr*p.

You have probably seen this thread Stuttering on LiveTV which gives a bunch of solutions, but after having live tv down for 2 days after I upgraded to RC2, I have not been game to give it a go so am stuck on RC1. Ambass has an alternative .ts Reader which I think might work, but like I said, I haven't been game.

Seems we aussies are the only ones who struggle with being tens of kilometres from the nearest transmitter......

Better than all living on top of each other I suppose.

In any event, for now my upgrade path is closed (at least until shmbo is away for a week or so) until there is an upgrade option which allows better error handling.

[magnets]

oo i shall go through that stuttering thread.

things have improved now that i changed all clients and MrWatchey over to the latest k-lite mega codec pack.
someone else suggested i turn on evr in directshow filters, so i'll give that a go.

i know my signal isn't that great, but what' frustrating is i live in the inner west of sydney, and not in dip either. yet my analogue tv is plagued with ghosting and unwatchable sbs reception.

i wonder if it's my aerial, i notice it's not as high up as my neighbours. but only by about a 2 meters

[jestermgee]

Just a couple of things to check for...

I have dealt with stuttering on my machine before and have managed to get it to sort itself out somewhat with little help from the forums here.

Firstly, to me, it sounds as if its a rendering issue. Try and play around with your video rendering settings and codecs etc used to decode the video. Codecs are always the worst.

If you record something as a test does it play back alright?

Another thing to check are your cables to your antenna. Even if your TV gets a decent signal the connections to your tuner may be a bit dodgey for digital signals. If you have any signal boosters or splitters make sure these are capable of passing digital signals. I had a 4 way splitter that worked fine with my digital tv but not with my HTPC

One last thing is defrag!!! even live tv is not "live". It is buffered to a timeshift file and read from the same file. If you have a very fragmented drive it can cause stuttering. Same as if your drive is quite full. My issue seems to have been fragmentation. My drive is partitioned into OS and recording on a 320GB drive and the recording portion ended up getting to about 90% full with 99% fragmentation (the whole lot was scattered all over the place due to dual tuners, recording and timeshifting. Get a decent defragger such as UltraDefrag that can defrag and compress your data and schedule this to run when you are not using the TVserver. Since doing this I only get a skip here and there.

[magnets]

mmm good advice, the timeshift and record disk is a dedicated 80gb 7200 sata disc, completely empty but i will defrag it (i use diskeeper)
i tried the evr mode but just got a black screen.
Tv seems pretty watchable now. it;s still really really sluggish and stuttering when it's windowed or ano overlay is on, i'm going to try putting ina video card rather than relying on the onboard and see if that helps.

[magnets]

I put the video card in and it has helped hugely!
almost no stuttering, and no lag/stuttering when another window is up (guide, choose a channel etc).

I put the video card in and it has helped hugely!
almost no stuttering, and no lag/stuttering when another window is up (guide, choose a channel etc).