new install - freeze on live tv start, then jitters? (1 Viewer)

[bob808]

TV-Server Version: 1.0 RC1 SVN
MediaPortal Version: 1.0 RC1 SVN
MediaPortal Skin:
Windows Version: Windows XP SP3
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e
HDD: SATA 500GB Samsung
Memory: Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered
Motherboard: ASUS M3N78-EH
Video Card: Nvidia 8200 GeForce
Video Card Driver:
Sound Card: onboard with mb, audio through hdmi
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Hauppauge WINTV NOVA S2
1. TV Card Type: DVB-S2
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card: Hauppauge WINTV NOVA S2
2. TV Card Type: DVB-S2
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Astra 28.2E
HTPC Case: Hiper Slim Media Case
Remote: Microsoft MCE 2005 Remote
TV: Samsung 32" lcd HDTV
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI



I have just built a slim mediaportal machine for the upstairs of my house... it has the following spec:

• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 Energy Efficient 1MB L2 Cache
• Motherboard: Asus M3N78-EH HDMI AM2,DDR2,VGA,PCI-E,GBLan,mATX
• Memory: Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered
• Hard Drive: Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache
• TV Card: Hauppauge Nova-HD-S2

Now my problem is as follows... If I go to my tv, then tv guide and pick a programme to watch, I get a frozen picture from the channel I want to watch... if I then try to change the channel, it shows a few timeshifted seconds from the first channel, then swaps over... I can notice a slight judder where the whole image shakes up and down slightly. If I try to watch a HD channel it seems ok but stutters on panning from time to time.

I am fearing that this might be the onboard gfx not being up to it, but can anyone suggest anything else that I could look at? I would have expected it to be suitable though as it plays a hd-dvd movie ok from its internal hd-dvd drive so there must be some level of power, and cpu, memory etc should all be ok?

The gfx on the motherboard is a nvidia 8200 chipset and I am using the latest SVN on RC1 (this is working flawlessly on my other pc)


Really appreciate your help on this guys!


bob

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Make sure in Bios graphics memory not set to auto, try and set to 256mb.

 

[bob808]

Bios was set to 128mb - changed to the max 256mb and now bbc hd seems smooth - but there is still a tv judder where the whole picture shakes up and down slightly - this seems better or worse depending on the time it takes to show the tv programme after selecting the channel - the longer the delay between button press and playback the more pronounced the shaking...

Any ideas? I am using the cyberlink powerdvd codecs - should I try purevideo?


thanks


bob

 

[bob808]

I just tried purevideo codecs, but still no change... there is a slight shake on the tv playback of live tv or playback of recorded tv... sometimes I can see half of the screen at the top or bottom shaking, but the other half remaining.

Bizarrely now, HD playback (using nvidia) on BBC HD is better than the SD playback - HD doesnt seems to shake but all SD channels do... I can play divx, xvid and mpg movie files or hd-dvd roms without any issues.

This is really hard to explain but I hope it makes sense to someone and there is something I can do to in order to stop this happening.

edit - just tried changing timeshift drive to using an external usb hard drive and its no different - also tried changing from .ts to .mpg and still no different



cheers

bob

been playing with this further - seems that if I go to the livetv buffer folder and actually play the mpg file in mediaplayer that it works flawlessly - so it is just in MediaPortal that I am having the issues. So clearly tv server itself is ok, but the mediaportal frontend is causing the distortion...

Does this help to track down what I might be able to tweak and change to get it working?


thanks

bob

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Still suspect this may be the graphics, just not up on ATI graphics (Nvidia Guy) so i'm not the best person to give you advice on changing settings to possibly overcome this.

Any chance of telling us exactly which graphics card\chip is being used.

Thanks

 

[bob808]

Still suspect this may be the graphics, just not up on ATI graphics (Nvidia Guy) so i'm not the best person to give you advice on changing settings to possibly overcome this.

Any chance of telling us exactly which graphics card\chip is being used.

Thanks

Ray - it is a nvidia card... the spec that was auto-generated is for my main box... but this machine I am trying to get working is using an integrated Nvidia GeForce 8200 chipset built into my Asus motherboard. I have dedicated 256mb of ram to the graphics in the bios.

I am not sure if you got my prev post as it was merged, but recordings in the buffer directory playback perfectly, so it is just the frontend playback that is being effected.


Any ideas on tweaks for the nvidia would be great!


bob

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB)

Also is this your memory, as needs to be set at 2.1 volts if it is (in Bios)

 

[bob808]

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB)

Also is this your memory, as needs to be set at 2.1 volts if it is (in Bios)

No - that is on my main box again... this is the spec of the machine I am having the difficulties with


CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e 2.5GHz Socket AM2 Energy Efficient 1MB L2 Cache
Motherboard: Asus M3N78-EH HDMI AM2,DDR2,VGA,PCI-E,GBLan,mATX
Memory: Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered
Hard Drive: Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache
TV Card: Hauppauge Nova-HD-S2

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Point this out please, saves a lot of hassle.

TweakGuides.com - Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide

If there is a tweak it here, its a bit long winded, but for little tips in improving performance pretty good.

To me a 8200 may just not have enough grunt for rendering correctly, but I have been proved wrong in the past

 

[bob808]

thanks Ray - I will go through that guide...

what confuses me though is that it plays back fine in windows media player? I can play hd-dvd movies through powerdvd and play all media formats outside of mediaplayer without issue so what makes it not powerful enough in mediaportal itself?

With the slim case I am using I only have a slot for 1 card - my sat tuner, so I deliberately chose that motherboard as it has the 8200 chipset which has hardware decoding of hd video - I would be surprised if it couldnt play standard mpg or ts through mediaportal when it does through windows media player of powerdvd without fail?

See below an extract from hardwarezone on the chipset - it should be ok to cope with what mediaportal is asking of it (esp given other apps playback fine - is MP that much more resource hungry?)

The true gem of the GeForce 8200 isn't actually is 3D performance or DX10 support, but its video capabilities. The GeForce 8200 will feature a complete PureVideo HD engine, capable of 100% hardware acceleration of MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264/AVC video streams. NVIDIA's hasn't confirmed which flavor of PureVideo HD powers the GeForce 8200, but it's surely a newer derivative of the VP2 engine that provides full GPU-based HD video decode and acceleration. The chipset also comes with HDMI 1.3a compliance as well as being able to handle multi-channel LPCM audio output through HDMI as well. This makes the GeForce 8200 the first integrated graphics solution to offer a real solution for low cost HTPC replacement that will fully offload all HD decoding to the GPU