This is a double edged sword, as my analog TV is much louder than DVD or my digital TV channels. I have a really loud air conditioner and the range of volumes that Vista offers isn't sufficient, so I often have to alter the master volume using my keyboard.
Vista vs. XP - please post your pros/cons (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Spragleknas
- Start date
This is a double edged sword, as my analog TV is much louder than DVD or my digital TV channels. I have a really loud air conditioner and the range of volumes that Vista offers isn't sufficient, so I often have to alter the master volume using my keyboard.
Hi
I believe that Aero is required for EVR (it may be hardware accelerated EVR, I can't remember).
Mew
I believe that Aero is required for EVR (it may be hardware accelerated EVR, I can't remember).
Mew
Lotsofjazz
Sorry but I have to disagree regarding superfetch. The problem is that it tries to load everything into ram which was used frequently in the past. A good thing in theory but in practise my experience is that it leads to heavy disk activity on reboot and reduce responsiveness of the OS during this phase. It leads to the fact that after some minutes often used programs are launched faster but it takes quite long until the machine reaches this state and acts without latency as expected.
This is one of those typical examples where there is a difference beteween how things should behave in theory and what they are in the real world.
Windows search was of course also switched off.
What I still cannot explain are the latency problems encountered durning playback via SMB. The only conclusion I can draw at the moment is that real time capabilities of Vista are reduced compared to Win XP. Not sure what role exactly plays MMCSS service but it seems that it has impemented lately due to problems which arised regarding those problems (btw. turning it of does not cure the problem).
Regards,
grubi
Sorry but I have to disagree regarding superfetch. The problem is that it tries to load everything into ram which was used frequently in the past. A good thing in theory but in practise my experience is that it leads to heavy disk activity on reboot and reduce responsiveness of the OS during this phase. It leads to the fact that after some minutes often used programs are launched faster but it takes quite long until the machine reaches this state and acts without latency as expected.
This is one of those typical examples where there is a difference beteween how things should behave in theory and what they are in the real world.
Windows search was of course also switched off.
What I still cannot explain are the latency problems encountered durning playback via SMB. The only conclusion I can draw at the moment is that real time capabilities of Vista are reduced compared to Win XP. Not sure what role exactly plays MMCSS service but it seems that it has impemented lately due to problems which arised regarding those problems (btw. turning it of does not cure the problem).
Regards,
grubi
- January 7, 2008
- 464
- 42
- Home Country
-
Netherlands
Do you use Readyboost, with a USB stick? This may really help to reduce the HDD activity..
Yes right after booting a lot is going on, but I found out that on my system it is the Audioendpointbuilder service, which you can NOT switch off (or you wont be able to have audio I think). I have tried to turn of superfetch, but could not practically notice any difference, so I do not see why this is causing your system to slow down... I must say I have the maximum RAM that Vista 32bit can handle (4GB installed of which Vista can use 3.6Gb). After 2 or three minutes the HDD activity on my system is allmost reduced to a blip or two every minute. What also might bugging you is your virusscanner, just turn it off or play with the ssettings that is is not starting a HDD scan right after booting.
The latency problem, hmm, did you set the buffering of your NIC to the max?
Ok just go into the configuration panel of your NIC('s) and set as follows:
Datatransport control: ON
Interupt check: ON
Receive buffer: 512 (maximum)
Priority and VLAN: ON
Speed and Duplex: 100Mb full duplex (set it fixed to the NIC in your network with the lowest spec, like my NAS can not be faster then 100Mb full duplex, so I also set my 1Gb NIC in the HTPC also like that. Do not set it on Auto as this will delay or interupt the network datastream, because it will from time to time check the highest speed it can reach) )
Send buffer: 64 (maximum).
What also might help is setting the performance options in Windows Mediaplayer 11 (if you play WMV's over the network this certainly helps): Open Mediaplayer>Extra>Options>Tab Performance: Set the videobuffer to something like 10 seconds, select LAN 10Mbs or higher for Connection speed, make sure DirectX for videoacceleration of WMV files is checked. Tab network, make sure all options for RTSP/UDP, RTSP/TCP and HTTP are checked ON
Turn off windows defender if you have a seperate Virusscanner/firewall like Norton or mcaffee. It is also a good idea to prevent all kind of programs to start during boot, this you can do as follows: Configuration panel>system manager>System configuration manager>Tab start up.. uncheck programs you do not need to be running in the background
And other thing that might help is to turn on Media sharing (In Network center, one of the grey/green dots, if Media Share is grey, right click on it and turn it on)
One final thing, may be an open door: Make sure that the NAS uses the same Network Name (SSID) and is member of the same work group (Vista default is WORKGROUP), this wil reduce the firewall to be bugging your system. In the firewall, make sure that Port 80 is open, your NAS is probably default using this port
I hope this helps
Lots
Lotsofjazz:
I tried everything to optimize network behavour but without success. For me the so called "next generation of TCP/IP stack" introduced with Vista sucks. There seems no way to statically increase TCP Receive Window size. The different "auto tuning" settings available also do not solve the problem. Etheral traces indicate that those settings only seem to change the scaling factor but the effective window size is more or less the same around 17000 bytes.
I tried everything to optimize network behavour but without success. For me the so called "next generation of TCP/IP stack" introduced with Vista sucks. There seems no way to statically increase TCP Receive Window size. The different "auto tuning" settings available also do not solve the problem. Etheral traces indicate that those settings only seem to change the scaling factor but the effective window size is more or less the same around 17000 bytes.
- January 7, 2008
- 464
- 42
- Home Country
-
Netherlands
Rereading your post I must say I do have occasional stutters with HD playback, but these could be explaned by the fact additional Network activity was going on. But at the other hand I do also have occasional stutters when the movies were just on my HTPC's harddisk, so I do not see a real difference here.. Most of the time these can be explaned by some service is poking around, like a virusscanner or just the TVService updating the EPG or something, or just little mistakes in the movie file itself.
With occasional I mean 2 or 3 times for just a few seconds, during a 90 minute movie, rest of the time.. no problems. I watched Iron Man yesterday, a 21Gb Full HD MPeg, downloaded from usenet, only the movie, no menu's, no extra's. On certain passages the movie stuttered, I think this was in the Mpeg itself, and not because of the network, because when I spooled back, it happened again in exact the same way.
My HTPC is now busy downloading a 1:1 HDDVD Appolo 13, 30Gb !! Because this is not a reencoded movie I am sure the quality of this movie must be 100% so perfect to test my network.. Will report back tomorrow night
Lots
With occasional I mean 2 or 3 times for just a few seconds, during a 90 minute movie, rest of the time.. no problems. I watched Iron Man yesterday, a 21Gb Full HD MPeg, downloaded from usenet, only the movie, no menu's, no extra's. On certain passages the movie stuttered, I think this was in the Mpeg itself, and not because of the network, because when I spooled back, it happened again in exact the same way.
My HTPC is now busy downloading a 1:1 HDDVD Appolo 13, 30Gb !! Because this is not a reencoded movie I am sure the quality of this movie must be 100% so perfect to test my network.. Will report back tomorrow night
Lots
Rereading your post I must say I do have occasional stutters with HD playback, but these could be explaned by the fact additional Network activity was going on. But at the other hand I do also have occasional stutters when the movies were just on my HTPC's harddisk, so I do not see a real difference here.. Most of the time these can be explaned by some service is poking around, like a virusscanner or just the TVService updating the EPG or something, or just little mistakes in the movie file itself.
With occasional I mean 2 or 3 times for just a few seconds, during a 90 minute movie, rest of the time.. no problems. I watched Iron Man yesterday, a 21Gb Full HD MPeg, downloaded from usenet, only the movie, no menu's, no extra's. On certain passages the movie stuttered, I think this was in the Mpeg itself, and not because of the network, because when I spooled back, it happened again in exact the same way.
My HTPC is now busy downloading a 1:1 HDDVD Appolo 13, 30Gb !! Because this is not a reencoded movie I am sure the quality of this movie must be 100% so perfect to test my network.. Will report back tomorrow night
Lots
Ok seems that this is slightly different from my szenario. I only have the sutter when playing back from SMB share. Playing back the same file locally works without a problem. With XP same files work from SMB share also.
- January 7, 2008
- 464
- 42
- Home Country
-
Netherlands
With SMP, you mean a Shared Media Player?
If it is a real Mediaplayer you mean also probably that the movie is decoded on the mediaplayer itself before streaming to the HTPC, I think there lies the ptoblem. Difference is that on my system I decode on the HTPC, the NAS is only used as file storage. I do not have a clue how this should work, do you use remote desktop or special application for this? Do you have software specially for the SMP? maybe a good diea to check the SMP manufacturer site for advise, maybe you need a software or firmware update.
I tried to play Apollo 13 HDDVD from the NAS, but PowerDVD doesnt swallow that, it just doesnt start at all.. I am now copying the complete HDVD to my HTPC harddrive, to see if will start there, because i read somewhere PowerDVD doesnt play HDDVD over a network. I will try to make an ISO of it relocate the complete ISO to the NAS and try again. I have sucessfully played a Blue Ray ISO over the network allready, so I do not see why HDDVD would not work the same..
Will let you know if it worked.
Lots
If it is a real Mediaplayer you mean also probably that the movie is decoded on the mediaplayer itself before streaming to the HTPC, I think there lies the ptoblem. Difference is that on my system I decode on the HTPC, the NAS is only used as file storage. I do not have a clue how this should work, do you use remote desktop or special application for this? Do you have software specially for the SMP? maybe a good diea to check the SMP manufacturer site for advise, maybe you need a software or firmware update.
I tried to play Apollo 13 HDDVD from the NAS, but PowerDVD doesnt swallow that, it just doesnt start at all.. I am now copying the complete HDVD to my HTPC harddrive, to see if will start there, because i read somewhere PowerDVD doesnt play HDDVD over a network. I will try to make an ISO of it relocate the complete ISO to the NAS and try again. I have sucessfully played a Blue Ray ISO over the network allready, so I do not see why HDDVD would not work the same..
Will let you know if it worked.
Lots
Sorry this is a typo.
I'm talking about simple SMB (M$ protocol to access windows shares).
Why not simply remuxing a transport stream containing only the main movie (e.g. using tsMuxeR) and putting on the NAS? This one you could simply play back win MediaPortal if the correct codecs are installed.
- January 7, 2008
- 464
- 42
- Home Country
-
Netherlands
Well, I also got PowerDVD7.3 installed and tried that and it plays fine from the NAS! No stutter whatsoever. BUT First try I got PowerDVD crashed (video and audio freezed) and found out TV service was using 60% CPU. So I turned of the option 'Allways try to update existing entries (might raise CPU usage)' (tv server setup, general, tab EPG) and all seemed to return to normal. During that 60% usage allso the harddrive showed a rage of activity. So you might take a look at this as well.
I know it can be transcoded, but I just want to try an original HDDVD, it seems to work nice with PowerDVD7.3, I appearently have not the complete license for PowerDVD8, however it does show the HDDVD logo on the start screen.
I have now pauzed the movie after watching for an hour, and till now everything seems to work very good, also the lipsync is perfect.
So I am now really out of options what can cause your problems, other then that there must be more then only the streaming of your movie. You are not running a torrent client, or downloading or grabbing something over the same network, right?
Lots