Live TV cpu usage: MP vs Windows Media center (WMC) (1 Viewer)

[senorito.ako]

I've notice that the CPU usage when watching live tv is around 25% for both MP and Hauppauge's Wintv

Vs.

WMC negligible cpu usage.

WMC seems to be using the video card (hardware acceleration) for playback. I've enabled the Nvidia's decoder which MP says that it's available but still getting 25% usage.

Did I miss anything ?

Video card is Zotac gt9800
CPU AMD 620 quadcore @ 2.6ghz

 

[kiwijunglist]

MediaPortal often does more in the background than WMC, so I would expect MePo cpu usage to always be higher than WMC. Is the channel you are watching interlaced? If an interlaced channel and hardware decoding is working, then you should see a big difference in CPU usage with below settings...

Change video codec = LAV Video, LAV Setting: Hardware acceleration = DXVA2 native.
Check CPU usage
Change video codec = LAV Video, LAV Setting: Hardware acceleration = none, Enable software deinterlacing.
Check CPU usage

 

[senorito.ako]

Extra Info
MP ver 1.4
Hauppauge HVR-2250 (latest drivers/software from website)
Location New Zealand (h.264 native broadcast)

I've tried the DVXA, Nvida and None but all three consume the same amount of CPU cycles. I guess when comparing to WinTV they're not that far off.

I just don't know how WMC uses hardware accelerated decoding differently.

I'll try to poke around Hauppauge's setting, as I'm pretty sure if I can get the CPU usage down MP's usage would follow.

 

[Owlsroost]

Which OS are you using ?

If you are using Win7 (and maybe Win8) try using MS-DTV-DVD video decoder (this is basically the same as decoder that WMC uses).

I think the problem may be that the gt9800 uses quite an old chipset, and the DXVA2 hardware acceleration it can provide may not be compatible with LAV (so it falls back to using software-only decoding).

 

[kiwijunglist]

I would expect CPU usage to change. it seems that for whatever reason hardware acceleration is not working for you.

 

[senorito.ako]

Which OS are you using ?



If you are using Win7 (and maybe Win8) try using MS-DTV-DVD video decoder (this is basically the same as decoder that WMC uses).



I think the problem may be that the gt9800 uses quite an old chipset, and the DXVA2 hardware acceleration it can provide may not be compatible with LAV (so it falls back to using software-only decoding).

Kia ora,

Thanks for replying guys, Owlsroost reply got me thinking (and researching).

Live TV/Record playback are now 6-11-14% cpu (down from 22--25-30%).

What I did was I've checked the automatic decoder settings (all the video decoder settings got greyed out). How I understood this is it implies the system will use whatever MCE is using or whichever codec ranks highest in its internal merit system. Which seems logical as MCE seems to get it right, CPU-wise.

I will try to uncheck the audio splitter that might be the last bit of the puzzle.