Stuttering on LiveTV (3 Viewers)

[putkonen]

TV Server configuration shows full signal quality for both of my DVB-C cards. Still there are those errors I had in the log once in 5 seconds. Strange!

If 1.0.1 arrives soon I could do a fresh install. I'm using MySQL, and a similar setup was working fine in XP.

Do you have EPG grabbing turned on on your DVB-C cards? It can cause stuttering in some cases.
If that doesn't help, try to find out what happens every 5 seconds. Eg. some hard drives have very aggressive power saving features that causes them to try to park their heads very often. That can be such a thing you should look for.

I disabled EPG grabbing while idle, but it didn't help (grabbing while recording is already off). Your theory about hard disks is interesting, however I don't really think that's the case because with XP I didn't experience this issue.

Is there somewhere a list of things one should do in Vista to get optimal MP performance?

 

[morpheus_xx]

I don't know where I have read about this tool, could be here in forum.

Take a look at DPC Latency Checker pci latency checker. As I understand it can show up bottlenecks in device access that can lead to stuttering. I haven't tried it yet, because I identified the Cool&Quiet feature to cause my stuttering.

But I will test it, because I also would prefer to use cool&quiet also.

 

[astrapowerrr]

hi
i had some stutter problems and i think i fixed it..
just testing right now.
my problem was it stutters on the same moment the timeshift file was writen to hdd.
every 4.2 min...
tried using a usb stick to timeshift there didn`t work also.
plugged in another sata disk made new drive and used a timeshift folder there and seems to be fine..

the first folder i used(with problems) was on a raid 1 setup disk with 2 partition c:\ and d:\
i used my folder on d:\timeshift
now i am not realy a compwizz but i think this has to do with reading and/or writing speed from the raid array????

can i test read and/or write speed of my raid array and compare that speed to my new plugged in sata hdd?

and if my array is slow with read/write can i fix that?

i hope this help some people out of problems

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

morpheus_xx

Use the amd dual core optimiser, that used to solve my XP stuttering and lets you leave cool'n'quiet enabled.

Cheers

 

[morpheus_xx]

I used this before on XP. But I had stuttering also. Anyway, I'll try

Meanwhile I solved my problem this way:
I enabled Cool&Quiet, but set the Vista power saving schema to use min and max. 50% cpu power. This way my CPU always runs at 1GHz instead of 1.8/2.0 GHz.
So it's always "underclocked" and everything runs smoothly It's even "greener" this way...

 

[rlevis]

Based on the description of the AMD Dual-Core Optimizer, I wouldn't have thought it would have any impact on stuttering in MediaPortal. It mainly handles an issue with time counting in some software like games which rely on accurate timing. MediaPortal shouldn't be using RDTSC instructions. or is it?

I get a stutter when a program starts recording while watching TV. I'm just thinking out loud but perhaps there is not enough read-ahead buffering. eg. If you have a stutter issue in an audio application, you increase the DirectSound buffer size and the problem goes away. I have written an audio player so I know about audio related stuttering.

Is it possible for MediaPortal to read-ahead a bit more so the hard drive or CPU can be temporarily busy without affecting playback?

 

[putkonen]

I have now reinstalled Windows XP.

Yesterday I brought a DVB-C set top box right next to my HTPC, and watched the same TV program using both devices. There was at least one stutter every couple of minutes by my HTPC, and not a single stutter by the set top box.

Some times the stutters are happening all the time on the HTPC, at least once in ten seconds. I am completely clueless what to try next. I have installed all XP updates, AMD dual core optimizer, AMD CPU driver, and I'm not using cool'n'quiet.

I ditched my Topfield PVR 1,5 years ago when I installed MPC and after that I have never been able to get rid of the stuttering. I'm really starting to think switching back to Topfield.

 

[oekie]

Jip i agree,... its frustrating... But i can solve it by pausing the signal for a few secs and press play again.....
But it's not how it shout be....
Someone can help me out with that?

greets oekie

 

[Lotsofjazz]

I have now reinstalled Windows XP.

Yesterday I brought a DVB-C set top box right next to my HTPC, and watched the same TV program using both devices. There was at least one stutter every couple of minutes by my HTPC, and not a single stutter by the set top box.

Some times the stutters are happening all the time on the HTPC, at least once in ten seconds. I am completely clueless what to try next. I have installed all XP updates, AMD dual core optimizer, AMD CPU driver, and I'm not using cool'n'quiet.

I ditched my Topfield PVR 1,5 years ago when I installed MPC and after that I have never been able to get rid of the stuttering. I'm really starting to think switching back to Topfield.

Looks like you have eather not enough graphics memory, or not enough memory assigned to your on board graphics card. OR the specs of the graphics card is not sufficient, so most of the work has to be done by the CPU and because the CPU also has other things to do, it will cause stutter.

in case of on board graphics, assign the maximum memory possible to your graphics.

If possible upgrade your HTPC with a dedicated HD graphics card like a ATI HD4650 with at least 1GB DDR memory on board.. I had very good experience after upgrading to this graphics card.. and it is not an expensive upgrade, only $70 in my case, and that was 6-7 months ago. Reason for my upgrade.. bad performance of the on board X1250, causing... stutter, blocking and what not.

Lots

Jip i agree,... its frustrating... But i can solve it by pausing the signal for a few secs and press play again.....
But it's not how it shout be....
Someone can help me out with that?

greets oekie

Your problem lies in the codecs you use.. FFD show for H264 is not the greatest. MPV is CRAP!!

Try to find PowerDVD8 (or 9, dont know if this works OK) and start using the Cyberlink codecs. Problem with above codecs is that they use CPU power, and PC memory.. and because these have also other things to do, this will cause stutter. With the cyberlinks you can use hardware acceleration, so ONLY the graphics power is used for processing the video stream.

MPV you MUST UREGISTER, using Radlight, otherwise it will force itself to be used anyways no matter what you select in mediapotal configurator.

I am pretty sure when you start using H/A and other codecs, your problem is gone. If not try to upgrade your graphics by installing more memory on the card, 256 is a little low for HD stuff.

I hope this helps.

Lots

 

[oekie]

MPV you MUST UREGISTER, using Radlight, otherwise it will force itself to be used anyways no matter what you select in mediapotal configurator.


Thanks for your reaction

But how do ik unregister the mpv codec... And i downloaded Radlight,.. but can't find it in MP ???

greets oekie