Help with smooth video playback (jitter/stutter troubleshooting) (1 Viewer)

[mrceolla]

GraphEdit has "connect to remote graph" that allows you to see a graph from an application that exposes it (MP does expose the graph to public).

Yes, I have tried that option before. A window pops up where it appears I am suppose to select a remote graph to connect to, but the list box is empty. How do I get MediaPortal to show in that box?

Also, what flavor of GraphEdit should I focus on. The 32-bit or the 64-bit one? Again, I am running Windows 7 64-bit.

Thanks again!

Mike

 

[tourettes]

Yes, I have tried that option before. A window pops up where it appears I am suppose to select a remote graph to connect to, but the list box is empty. How do I get MediaPortal to show in that box?

Graph is visible only when the playback is active.

Also, what flavor of GraphEdit should I focus on. The 32-bit or the 64-bit one? Again, I am running Windows 7 64-bit.

32 bit since MP is 32 bit application.

 

[te3hpurp]

GraphEdit has "connect to remote graph" that allows you to see a graph from an application that exposes it (MP does expose the graph to public).

Yes, I have tried that option before. A window pops up where it appears I am suppose to select a remote graph to connect to, but the list box is empty. How do I get MediaPortal to show in that box?

Also, what flavor of GraphEdit should I focus on. The 32-bit or the 64-bit one? Again, I am running Windows 7 64-bit.

Thanks again!

Mike

Also graphedit shoul be runned as admin. Right click exe file and choose run as administrator. Make sure that Mp has active playback.

Br,

 

[mrceolla]

I've got a fresh OS and MediaPortal install. I'm playing some TV through MediaPortal that was recorded in a previous install. I launch GraphEdit as Administrator, go to Connect to Remote Graph and there is still nothing there. Is there something else I need to do to get graphedit to work correctly? I didn't install the entire DirectX SDK. Do I need to?

I replaced dshowhelper.dll and the graph looks much better. The lines are more steady but I still see the stutter and am regularly dropping frames. All numbers seem relatively steady except for NST and AveNST. What are those?

I also noticed that my playback stutters in a similar manner when I hit my Print Screen button. The graphlines all spike downward. Is that to be expected?

Looking forward to your replies. Thank you.

Mike

 

[Owlsroost]

I've got a fresh OS and MediaPortal install. I'm playing some TV through MediaPortal that was recorded in a previous install. I launch GraphEdit as Administrator, go to Connect to Remote Graph and there is still nothing there. Is there something else I need to do to get graphedit to work correctly? I didn't install the entire DirectX SDK. Do I need to?

Not sure if this applies to Win7, but you might need to install 'proppage.dll' - see the link in my sig below.

I replaced dshowhelper.dll and the graph looks much better. The lines are more steady but I still see the stutter and am regularly dropping frames. All numbers seem relatively steady except for NST and AveNST. What are those?

NST = NextSampleTime - if the display and video frame rates do not match the value will constantly change. If you use something like ReClock (or the experimental MP Audio Renderer) this tries to force the video frame rate to match the display frame rate so you get smoother playback.

I also noticed that my playback stutters in a similar manner when I hit my Print Screen button. The graphlines all spike downward. Is that to be expected?

Yes.

The display frame rate reported is a bit out, and the rendering time per frame is long - have you tried using a different (more modern/powerful) video card ?

Tony

 

[mrceolla]

Hi Tony,

Thank you for those tips. I had installed the Windows SDK last night in hopes that would enable Connect to Remote Graph to work. It didn't, but it did install a 32bit and 64bit version of proppage.dll onto my machine. So I just registered them via regsrv32:

regsrv32 "c:\program files\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.1\bin\proppage.dll"
regsrv32 "c:\program files\microsoft sdks\windows\v7.1\bin\x64\proppage.dll"

...and I can now connect to the MediaPortal graph. I had to run both MediaPortal and GraphStudio as admin. Now what am I looking for to identify the source of my problem? I can see the decoders being used, which is great. But what more can I learn from this graph?

I will look into ReClock and MP Audio Renderer. Do you recommend one over the other?

Can you further explain the "display frame rate reported is a bit out" comment? Is Meas rfsh the measured refresh rate of the video or the monitor?

Is there anything I can do to lower render time short of buying a new video card? Is there a way I can confirm if my video card's hardware is being used in rendering? Or is it always used in video playback nowadays?

Are you saying the BFG 7950 GT OC 512MB is not beefy enough for smooth video playback? If not, what is the lowest level Nvidia card that will?

Thank you so much for your continued help!

Mike

Please use GraphEdit to check all video output and input pin fps values.

I can not seem to locate this information. Could you please steer me to it?

 

[tourettes]

Please use GraphEdit to check all video output and input pin fps values.

I can not seem to locate this information. Could you please steer me to it?

AvgTimePerFrame, should be something like 400000, 416666 etc. It is in 100 ns units so 1000 / (value / 10000) should provide the fps. For example 1000 / (400000 / 10000) is 25 fps.

 

[Owlsroost]

I will look into ReClock and MP Audio Renderer. Do you recommend one over the other?

Not really, but I'd try ReClock first - just install it and select it as the audio renderer in MP. Note you can't use it for TV, just for video.

Can you further explain the "display frame rate reported is a bit out" comment? Is Meas rfsh the measured refresh rate of the video or the monitor?

Most '60Hz' video content is actually 59.94Hz (or 29.97Hz) - the closer the display refresh rate is to this the fewer dropped or repeated frames you will get. The 'measured refresh' rate is for the display.

Is there anything I can do to lower render time short of buying a new video card? Is there a way I can confirm if my video card's hardware is being used in rendering? Or is it always used in video playback nowadays?

Are you saying the BFG 7950 GT OC 512MB is not beefy enough for smooth video playback? If not, what is the lowest level Nvidia card that will?

I would have thought that a 7900GT would be powerful enough, but the render stats are showing render times almost equal to the display frame period which is a bit odd for a good video card e.g. I get render times of 4-5ms with my 9500GT (which is not that powerful by current standards).

Tony

 

[mrceolla]

Thanks guys. I haven't had the chance to examine graphstudio yet but I did manage to get my measured refresh rate to display something new. I am now attached to my Sony 34" XBR960 CRT television. I had connected to it before to see if my stutter problems would go away, but there was no change and the measured refreshrate and things preformed exactly as they had when connected to my monitor. I don't know what caused the change but the measured refresh now shows 60.003###. The last three numbers vary. The stutter now occurs with less frequency. I have attached some more screens. One of the screens of 720p 24fps playback was from when I was still connected to my monitor and the measured refresh rate is different.

The few things I did before the measured refresh changed was, revert to Generic PnP driver for monitor, remove monitor, remove DVI->VGA adapter on DVI port next to s-video port, connected TV to same DVI port.

Onto the screens... Two of them show recorded TV with and without reclock. Without reclock, the NST gradually rises to around 20, then the video stutters, the NST drops back down, the red line spikes downward and then NST begins to climb again. It does not report dropped frames when this happens. With reclock, the NST stays steady and I don't seem to have the stutter/jitter, however there seems to be some audio sync and playback issues and I get no 5.1, just stereo. I also can't seem to use the Media Center video and audio decoders. When I do I get no audio at all. Perhaps I'm not configuring it correctly? Either way I find the need for something like reclock puzzling.

I'm watching US broadcast television on a US television. Why can my TV do it but my HTPC can't? How can these things NOT match up?

With my measured refresh rate and actual refresh rate so close, why am I still seeing this problem? And fyi, my actual frame rate's last few digits are always jumping around, but it usually reads a clean 60.00.

Is this something all HTPC users have to deal with?

If I change my refresh rate via Windows from 60Hz to 59Hz, the measured refresh does not change. Why is this?

My manual doesn't state, but are all CRT televisions locked at 60Hz or do some have other options?

You will also notice that my render time is back down in these screens. Sometimes the render times (green lines) DO show right next to the yellow line, but usually a seek/skip will clear that up and so will the NST hitting 20 and "resetting". How can this be explained?

I've also attached two screens of 720p 24fps playback. Is that super spikey red line normal? The red line occasionally breaks cadence but it's usually consistant. Again, no apparent difference in playback between 60Hz and 59Hz. From what I've learned as of late, I should expect this on a 60Hz television. Is there any way to make it better?

What is MaxLine and PCD in the video information overlay?

I know there are a lot of questions in here, sorry. But I feel like I've made some progress thanks to all of your help. And hopefully this thread will help someone else in the future.

Thanks again,
Mike

 

[Owlsroost]

Basically, the refresh rate of a PC video card output can't be locked to a video source (which is what does happen in STBs, DVD players, VCRs etc).

Windows makes sure that the video frames are 'presented' to the screen at the correct rate, so if this is different to the display refresh rate then the renderer has drop or repeat frames - otherwise video and audio would slowly drift out of sync.

What ReClock (and the MP Audio Renderer) do is modify the direct show graph render 'clock' so that video frames are presented at exactly display refresh rate (or a multiple of it) - to maintain audio/video sync they have to re-sample/timestretch the audio to match. They can only do this for audio which is decoded in the PC - so it's not possible to bitstream AC3/DTS etc in this case.

Ignore MaxLine (it's just the max value of the Windows display raster line count). PCD is ratio of 'real' time versus 'render clock' time - if ReClock etc is modifying the render clock this will be higher/lower than 1.0

The 'sawtooth' red line is expected if you are playing 24Hz video on a 60Hz display.

To summarise, you need to try and set the display refresh to as close to 59.94Hz as you can - try playing with Custom Resolutions in the nVidia control panel - this will minimise the frame drops/repeats. This is the best you can do for live TV. For Video, using ReClock etc will also fix the problem.

Tony