[solved] (Micro)Stutter when playing TV (1 Viewer)

[HTPCSourcer]

With 70% CPU load there's no chance to get a stable playback. Switch on the CPU monitoring in parallel to the network load to verify the spikes as the 70% are an integrated value.

owever now that it is attached to my NUC then I only have a very limited range even though I have installed the latest graphics drivers.

You have a driver issue if refresh rates are not available in Windows. If you haven't already done it, you could install the Intel driver app and let it search the system for any available update.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

I would also check each of the available LAV acceleration options to check if the CPU loads are changing.

 

[BlueMax1916]

Hi,

with 50i your PC needs to interpolate the video stream to 50p. There are options in LAV to d this depending on the selection this is maybe done by software instead of by hardware. That could explain the CPU load.

Cheers

Blue Max

 

[CyberSimian]

Its a plasma TV with VGA input running at 1024 x 768 60Hz.

According to the instruction manual, the screen is capable of displaying 1080/50i.

I was under the impression that a VGA connection cannot work at 50Hz; I think VGA supports only 60Hz or higher. Does your plasma TV have any other connections, such as HDMI or DVI? If it does, the 1080/50i may apply to those connections, and not the VGA connection. If your NUC has an HDMI connection, try using an HDMI cable (or HDMI to DVI).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Digsy]

With 70% CPU load there's no chance to get a stable playback. Switch on the CPU monitoring in parallel to the network load to verify the spikes as the 70% are an integrated value.

OK, will do.
*EDIT* The CPU load is steady at 70-80%. Almost all of this is the MP2 Client process.

You have a driver issue if refresh rates are not available in Windows. If you haven't already done it, you could install the Intel driver app and let it search the system for any available update.

I can select other refresh rates but nothing below 60Hz

I would also check each of the available LAV acceleration options to check if the CPU loads are changing.

Good idea, I will try it.
*EDIT* I have tried all of the hardware acceleration options. None of them make any difference to the CPU load or frame rate. It is always around 30-40fps.

with 50i your PC needs to interpolate the video stream to 50p. There are options in LAV to d this depending on the selection this is maybe done by software instead of by hardware. That could explain the CPU load.

I'm not asking it to display at 1080/50i at the moment because the display driver doesn't support it.

I was under the impression that a VGA connection cannot work at 50Hz; I think VGA supports only 60Hz or higher. Does your plasma TV have any other connections, such as HDMI or DVI? If it does, the 1080/50i may apply to those connections, and not the VGA connection. If your NUC has an HDMI connection, try using an HDMI cable (or HDMI to DVI).

According to the instruction manual, 1080/50i over VGA requires "separate vertical and horizontal sync". Unfortunately the screen pre-dates HDMI / DVI connections. There is a whole page of "allowed" signal formats which I can scan and post, but I only have a handful of resolutions available for VGA on my NUC.

For those awaiting logs, here they are. I played an HD channel on my NUC for about 15 minutes. Video was very pixellated and audio went out of sync almost straight away. I then took logs from both client and server. I hope this is what you were asking for.

 

[Digsy]

OK, hold everything, there's more than one problem with HD channels going on here..

There is a definite frame rate problem on my bedroom NUC client. However i think the audio going out of sync is a different issue as I can also see it on my main server machine. I even tried disabled the separate audio output to my amp and used HDMI audio and the screen's built in speakers. The delay is still there.

Stats for the server are much better than the NUC. Solid 50fps, 30% CPU load. No video "stuttering" that I can see, but the audio still goes out of sync when watching live HD channels.

I hadn't really noticed this before as the majority of channels I watch on a daily basis are not HD. It only became apparent when doing back to back tests with my NUC today.

 

[Digsy]

FIXED! (I think).

I just went into codecs and switched everything I could from LAV to Microsoft. I am getting a solid 50fps on the NUC and the audio delay has gone on both the client and server machines. CPU usage has dropped from 70-80% on the NUC down to 30% On the server CPU use has dropped from 30% while streaming to one client down to 10-20% while simultaneously streaming live TV in HD to two clients and SD to my tablet.

So it seems that it is the LAV filters which are resource-hungry and not the media itself.

Another interesting thing is that network traffic has also dropped considerably. Even when streaming all of the above I was still seeing <10MBits/s at the server.

Only issue is that I now have to move my timeshift folder back onto my HDD as it is too easy to fill up 1Gb while streaming HD TV. Hopefully everything will remain stable after I do this.

 

[HTPCSourcer]

Your issues would most likely be cured under Win 10. I had similar problems with a small machine while running under Win 7 that all went away with Windows 10. With Win7 I also had to use MS-DTV.

 

[Digsy]

Your issues would most likely be cured under Win 10. I had similar problems with a small machine while running under Win 7 that all went away with Windows 10. With Win7 I also had to use MS-DTV.

Is that because W10 handles media over networks better, or because W10 machines tend to be newer and higher specification?

It will be interesting to see if these codec changes also fix the other issues I am having with the stability of the video player if you fiddle with it while watching a video (reported in another thread).

What are the advantages of using LAV compared to MS?