Stuttering on LiveTV (1 Viewer)

[Lotsofjazz]

burken.

That your recorded TS files also stutter is kinda logic, you just have recorded the stutters as well.

OK when reception is bad, you should be able to notice when scanning the channels, if the green bars are below 75%, you should do something about the reception or quality of the signal that comes inside your house via the coax cable. This does NOT mean you must replace the TV card, that is the last thing you should look at. first things first.

Check the coax cable plugs throughout your house, if there are plastick ones without shielding.. replace them with decent completely shielded metal type plugs (hirschmann is a good brand).. This is the most common source of distortion of the signal, the plastick plugs are open places where microwave, cell phone, wifi etc. radiowave interference is bugging your signal.

Check the coax cable itself, if the isolation shows cracks or if it is brittle or if the copper core is broken easily or has a greenish dull surface, replace the complete cable (use the old one to pull the new cable through the pipes.) replace with hirschmann coax.

If after this you still have bad signal, install a signal amplifier near the HTPC (just a cheap one, about 15 euro's).

I have been strugling for month before I found out that my coax cable and plugs were the culprit of being unable to receive dicovery channel HD, after installing/replacing all of the above, everything was fine. You see if you buy another TV card first, you might discover that you still have a bad signal

About codecs, I see you use the ATI codecs... not a good choice. just download PowerDVD 8 (or 9 I heard is out!) trial, and use the codecs of them (cyberlink), I have heard you can keep on using the cyberlink codecs after the trial period has expired (not sure), or just use the MPA and MPV codecs that come wih Mediaportal.

I hope this helps!

Lots

 

[burken]

Thanks a lot for your tips Lotsofjazz.

When connecting the TV card directly to the antenna outlet I get around 90% on both signal strength and signal quality.

I bought a signal amplifier a few weeks ago and when using the amplifier I get above 90% on signal strength but signal quality drops to around 80-85%. This is on the lowest amplifier setting (+10dB I think). When increasing the amplification the signal quality drops. The amplifier doesn't seem to help with the problem.

I have also tried different cables but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I have other problems with my TV card so I think buying a new one will not be a complete waste of money even if it doesn't solve the problem with the HD channel. I have very slow channel switching speed when switching to a channel that is on another frequency/mux and the only drivers that seem to be reasonably stable are from 2006. Newer drivers cause a lot of "cannot start timeshifting/cannot create graph" problems. I borrowed a Floppy DTV card from a friend a few months ago and that card had much better channel switching speed and no driver issues. I didn't test it thoroughly enough to see if it had problems with the HD channel though because at that time I didn't have any good HD codec to test with (that ATI codec available at that time performed badly).

Regarding the ATI codecs. Yes, they used to be bad. But with the latest codecs included in Catalyst/Avivo 9.1/9.2 the HD codecs are quite good. I have tried ffdshow and CoreAVC and they don't seem to perform better.

burken

 

[Lotsofjazz]

I have a floppyDTV myself and works great,

If you have tried everything I sugested, you'r right, then maybe the TV card isnt that good. Strange is that with the signal amplifier the quality goes bad, that should not happen. In that case the amplifier may be broken as well. With 90% signal strength and 90% quality, the floppyDTV should perform well, allso on HD channels.

I have tried Catalist 9.1, but then my Blue Ray ISO's did not play anymore, also deinterlacing goes bad when I do that, so I stick with the drivers delivered with the Gainward HD4650 Card I have as there deinterlacing works as it should and all my blue ray iso's play fine.

 

[rlevis]

That your recorded TS files also stutter is kinda logic, you just have recorded the stutters as well.

Yes, but you may have missed this sentence from burken.

When watching the recording on the Dreambox itself there are no visible problems at all with the picture and no stuttering.

Which is why he mentioned it. But as others are saying, it is likely to be the codec used in Dreambox to decode the file is better at handling the corrupted data than the one MP is configured to use.

 

[burken]

When watching the recording on the Dreambox itself there are no visible problems at all with the picture and no stuttering.

Which is why he mentioned it. But as others are saying, it is likely to be the codec used in Dreambox to decode the file is better at handling the corrupted data than the one MP is configured to use.

I should add that the the amount of corrupted data in this example was very low. It was enough to cause stutter in MediaPortal with the default settings (RelaxTsReaderForBadReception disabled) but almost not visible with RelaxTsReaderForBadReception enabled. If I look closely I can see one or a few horizontal lines of pixels flashing at the time of the problem. On the Dreambox it can't been seen at all though.

On the HD channel I have access to (SVT HD) there are much more visible problems with RelaxTsReaderForBadReception enabled (and stutter without). Quite often I see pixelation in large portions of the picture and sometimes there is also some stutter even with RelaxTsReaderForBadReception enabled. I cannot watch this channel on my Dreambox to compare since my Dreambox cannot handle HD material. It can been seen in recorded material in VLC on another computer though so it is not just visible in MediaPortal.

I have heard that it might be possible record the HD channel on my Dreambox even though I cannot watch the recording on it so I might try that to see if the problem is with the broadcast or if it is with my TV-card/MediaPortal.

burken

 

[Snader]

I have a floppyDTV myself and works great,

If you have tried everything I sugested, you'r right, then maybe the TV card isnt that good. Strange is that with the signal amplifier the quality goes bad, that should not happen. In that case the amplifier may be broken as well. With 90% signal strength and 90% quality, the floppyDTV should perform well, allso on HD channels.

I have tried Catalist 9.1, but then my Blue Ray ISO's did not play anymore, also deinterlacing goes bad when I do that, so I stick with the drivers delivered with the Gainward HD4650 Card I have as there deinterlacing works as it should and all my blue ray iso's play fine.

Is it possible to amplify a digital signal? I mean.. 1's and 0's.... do they become 2's and 1's or??

 

[herrbasan]

Donno if someone allready suggested it, or if it helps, but:

i've had a similar problem and found that it was the AMD Cool & Quiet setting. Disabled it in Bios and removed the driver, and the problems where gone.

 

[Kaoh]

Which is why he mentioned it. But as others are saying, it is likely to be the codec used in Dreambox to decode the file is better at handling the corrupted data than the one MP is configured to use.

I should add that the the amount of corrupted data in this example was very low. It was enough to cause stutter in MediaPortal with the default settings (RelaxTsReaderForBadReception disabled) but almost not visible with RelaxTsReaderForBadReception enabled. If I look closely I can see one or a few horizontal lines of pixels flashing at the time of the problem. On the Dreambox it can't been seen at all though.

On the HD channel I have access to (SVT HD) there are much more visible problems with RelaxTsReaderForBadReception enabled (and stutter without). Quite often I see pixelation in large portions of the picture and sometimes there is also some stutter even with RelaxTsReaderForBadReception enabled. I cannot watch this channel on my Dreambox to compare since my Dreambox cannot handle HD material. It can been seen in recorded material in VLC on another computer though so it is not just visible in MediaPortal.

I have heard that it might be possible record the HD channel on my Dreambox even though I cannot watch the recording on it so I might try that to see if the problem is with the broadcast or if it is with my TV-card/MediaPortal.

burken

This problem consist out of three party's, one the allready mentioned reception, two the ts reader and how it handles corrupt data and third is the codec and how that handles those glithes. Commercial codecs tend to do this better then the build in mp codec. So it is wise to try different codecs. However I ended up with the build in one at the end since it gave me the smoothest frame playback. On some machines i use the relax ts reader setting since they handle it well, and on others it works bad so I do not use it.
Reception is hardest to influence offcourse if you did not make the obvious mistakes, but it is clear that it is good enough in your case. Try using different codecs if you have any, it can give amazing results.

 

[tompa]

If after this you still have bad signal, install a signal amplifier near the HTPC (just a cheap one, about 15 euro's).

Just a small note on amplifiers.

The above applies if u have high/good signal/quality and u need to split the signal to more TV-cards or receivers, otherwise u shall always put the amplifier (of good quality) as close to the antenna as possible. This is to keep the noise figure low in the system.
Cheap amplifiers often have linearity problems, and that will give poor signal quality!

/tompa

 

[Crashdummy]

I also have a stuttering problem on LiveTV, but only on 2 channels, the rest is fine.
After a reboot these channels work fine, but after a while they begin to stutter. Which suggest a problem with timeshift.

When I pause these channels for a sec and press play again, it runs smoothly.

Using the latest "disaster's build".