Recent Issues With Major Stutter: Freeview NZ (1 Viewer)

[1gkar]

Hi,

About a week ago I started having issues with recorded programmes having major stutter. I have tried redoing the aerial & co-ax connections, but not sure if it is even this: plugging the co-ax directly to my non-Freeview NZ LCDTV gives a pretty good signal of a UHF analogue TV station. I have also taken my co-ax line back to its minimum connections, removing a splitter.

I have tried reverting back to an earlier Ghost image of my boot drive, so the issue is not OS related, I guess.

The information is as follows:

CPU idle drops to no more than 80% viewed with Process Explorer. When Mediaportal is in windowed mode & running TV3 -1080i+AC3 DVB-T station- system load is 10% maximum with a nominal load of around 3-8%.

Shift+! shows the following:

TV1 is a 720P + AAC-He station
TV3 is a 1080i + AC3 & AAC-He station

TV3 -VMR9 = 50 down to 10 with an average FPS of about 43.5. Jitter hovers around 40. This is up considerably on my normal.
TV1 -VMR9 = 50 down to 15 with an average FPS of about 44. Jitter hovers around 36.

Dropped frames on both channels = 0.

I have begun to believe this is a hardware-related issue within my HTPC but have no idea on where to begin with actual diagnosis. I will start with the obvious & remove extra cards, reseat GPU & RAM, etc in the meantime.

I have included logs from the most recent attempt to sort the issue, in which it replicated itself but have no idea on what I am looking at. All & any help/assistance/ideas are greatly appreciated

 

[kiwijunglist]

CPU 80% is pretty high, that must be your problem there. Strange that it is only 3-8% in windowed mode.

 

[1gkar]

CPU 80% is pretty high, that must be your problem there. Strange that it is only 3-8% in windowed mode.

That's not CPU load, it's the system idle % ie. the HTPC has a CPU load of 20% maximum. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[kiwijunglist]

does live tv have same problem?

is your refresh rate set to 50hz?

Run graphstudio and see what is going on in the directshow filter graph (post screenshot)

 

[1gkar]

I also meant to mention that the only affected media files are ones recorded/viewed from FreeviewHD. Any H.264 mkv files I have playback fine. Same for any previous recorded FVNZ broadcasts.

Update:

I have removed any extra analgoue TV tuner cards, re-arranged the RAM moduled to the other channel slots & reseated the GPU.

I am currently watching the TV3 news (for some 13 minutes) & the issue is still present: dang!

 

[kiwijunglist]

Maybe related to EVR: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...oblems-dropping-frames-evr-74360/index25.html

Idea:

Change to Blue3 skin, disable all plugins except for TV plugin, retry.
Some plugins are known to introduce stutter.

My jitter starts around 7-8 then very slowly it drops.

 

[1gkar]

I appreciate your assistance, Kiwijunglist. Let's see if I can answer some of your queries.

The issue does occur with Live TV, also.

I have never run my LCDTV @ 50hz. I am reticent about doing that as I stuffed my older CRT 29" Sony TV running non-recognised resolutions. The TV manual states it only recognises 60hz. Is there any documentation on the web stating the safety of running custon resolutions to LCDTVs that have a default one of 60hz?


I have XPMCE SP3 so don't use EVR.

GraphStudio does not show any unusual activity. MP File Reader>MPA>default DirectSound Device with video Cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7.x)>VMR9

Not sure what disabling plugins & reactiviating default skin could do, as I've run this config for some time, now. But I will try.

At present, in windowed mode, MP has an average FPS of 33.41, dropped=26 with jitter=67.

Question: could the GPU be the cause of this: I think I will try putting my older 8500GT card back in to see if that helps. Won't have time tonight.

Also, the issue seems to worsen with time; time watching the same channel.

 

[kiwijunglist]

It could either by an SVN issue or a driver issue perhaps.
Ideally you should run a 50hz display, however this is not the cause of your low frame rates.
Since your source fps =/= refresh rate, make sure you have vsynch disabled, altho i doubt this is the cause of the problem.

 

[1gkar]

The more investigation I do, the firmer the belief it is the HVR-2200 tuner card on its way out. I set up the analogue tuners & worked perfectly.

I ghosted back to an early image with MPRC4. Put my 8500GT card in & same issue. Didn't think it would work, but I had the card lying around, so gave it a try to eliminate the possibility.

I was planning on purchasing another 2200 card so I can view the Olympics without disruption. Guess my plans are now expedited. If it's not that: I don't know.

Have just resetup the analogue tuners & am getting BSOD: so looks like I have my culprit. Will put my 150MCE card back in to doulbe-check analogue channels.

 

[1gkar]

Just to close this thread off, here is the final update.

I bought & installed the latest model HVR-2200 card. I decided to take my OS right back to nearly a total reinstall -basic CD install with OS activation & chipset drivers. I then reinstalled everything I needed for a properly working system, to sort some minor issues with getting SAF codecs working right. All is good now.