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Guest Lars_MQ

Original by AssassiN

 

Yeah, HT is enabled, and yes, I unchecked the 'Use only 1 cpu' option in DVBViewer. OK I guess my cpu is not strong enought, but how is a Celeron 2.8 GHz better ? (I'm referring to a guy who's able of playing live hdtv mpeg4 streams with that cpu.)

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Original by goelectric

 

Yeah, HT is enabled, and yes, I unchecked the 'Use only 1 cpu' option in DVBViewer. OK I guess my cpu is not strong enought, but how is a Celeron 2.8 GHz better ? (I'm referring to a guy who's able of playing live hdtv mpeg4 streams with that cpu.)

Are you using NVIDIA Forceware V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver? You need this to get the hardware support from the Cyberlink h.264 filter - I found this made a real difference over the 84.21 nvidia driver.

 

However I still havent got a perfect working solution - it runs at about 12 frames/s , currently Pentium 2.8G Hyperthreading , GeForce 6800XT, V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver, May 29th Cyberlink h.264 Codec (before they pulled the trial version!) .

 

I bought the CoreAVC 1.1 codec but it is doesnt work as well as the Cyberlink one on my system.

 

I am going to try my 3.4G Hyperthreading plus GeForce 6800XT next.....

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Original by AceOfClubs

 

Hello,

here's my two pennorth on this subject,

 

I've followed all the correct procedures to set-up the GE version using h264 to receive the HD transmisions from BBC at 10847 etc. receiving and decoding ok but very jerky video, sound is fine.

I've even purchased the CoreAVC 1.1 and tried that but it's still jerky, even tried altering some of the DVBSource settings(latency and max queued audio) but makes no difference.

It's fairly obvious that a very powerful dual core pc is required to smooth out the video without causing a massive CPU load( I'm getting 15-20% CPU load with SD transmissions and 95-100% load with HD stuff).Maybe it's time to sit back and re-think whether it's worth it doing it on a pc, especially with the standard moving to DVB-S2 soon and maybe better to save the pennies, strained eyes, frustrations,long nights etc and go buy a HD Satellite reciever and connect to my LCDTV/monitor with an HDMI - DVI cable to get the HD stuff.

I thought it was going to be much easier especially after looking at the test transmission from Astra etc, guess they weren't the real thing when it comes to HD?

 

my set-up:-MSI K7N2 delta (MS-6570 v1.X ATX mainboard

AMD Athlon 3200+ running at 2.23GHz

512Mb dual channel PC3200/400 memory

Western Digital 80GB hard disk(split into 2 equal size drives)

ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128Mb graphics card

XP service pack1

Skystar2 Rev 2.6c tuner card

DVBViewerPro3.26.6.80/ GE version2.0.1.0

Samsung Syncmaster 940MW LCDTV/Monitor (1440x900) with

VGA and DVI input

 

I thought I had a fairly beefy pc, guess not.

 

Can I just say many thanks to all the guys who have developed and posted the necessary stuff on thses boards for us to use. Well done guys.

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Guest Lars_MQ

Original by ACEofCLUBS

 

Hello,

here's my two pennorth on this subject,

 

I've followed all the correct procedures to set-up the GE version using h264 to receive the HD transmisions from BBC at 10847 etc. receiving and decoding ok but very jerky video, sound is fine.

I've even purchased the CoreAVC 1.1 and tried that but it's still jerky, even tried altering some of the DVBSource settings(latency and max queued audio) but makes no difference.

It's fairly obvious that a very powerful dual core pc is required to smooth out the video without causing a massive CPU load( I'm getting 15-20% CPU load with SD transmissions and 95-100% load with HD stuff).Maybe it's time to sit back and re-think whether it's worth it doing it on a pc, especially with the standard moving to DVB-S2 soon and maybe better to save the pennies, strained eyes, frustrations,long nights etc and go buy a HD Satellite reciever and connect to my LCDTV/monitor with an HDMI - DVI cable to get the HD stuff.

I thought it was going to be much easier especially after looking at the test transmission from Astra etc, guess they weren't the real thing when it comes to HD?

 

my set-up:-MSI K7N2 delta (MS-6570 v1.X ATX mainboard

AMD Athlon 3200+ running at 2.23GHz

512Mb dual channel PC3200/400 memory

Western Digital 80GB hard disk(split into 2 equal size drives)

ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128Mb graphics card

XP service pack1

Skystar2 Rev 2.6c tuner card

DVBViewerPro3.26.6.80/ GE version2.0.1.0

Samsung Syncmaster 940MW LCDTV/Monitor (1440x900) with

VGA and DVI input

 

I thought I had a fairly beefy pc, guess not.

 

Can I just say many thanks to all the guys who have developed and posted the necessary stuff on thses boards for us to use. Well done guys.

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Original by brightside

 

Yeah, HT is enabled, and yes, I unchecked the 'Use only 1 cpu' option in DVBViewer. OK I guess my cpu is not strong enought, but how is a Celeron 2.8 GHz better ? (I'm referring to a guy who's able of playing live hdtv mpeg4 streams with that cpu.)

Are you using NVIDIA Forceware V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver? You need this to get the hardware support from the Cyberlink h.264 filter - I found this made a real difference over the 84.21 nvidia driver.

 

However I still havent got a perfect working solution - it runs at about 12 frames/s , currently Pentium 2.8G Hyperthreading , GeForce 6800XT, V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver, May 29th Cyberlink h.264 Codec (before they pulled the trial version!) .

 

I bought the CoreAVC 1.1 codec but it is doesnt work as well as the Cyberlink one on my system.

 

I am going to try my 3.4G Hyperthreading plus GeForce 6800XT next.....

 

I'm not convinced that the cyberlink h.264 filter actually manages to offload much work onto the GPU. I have the trialware version with the "enable DxVA" option and when enabled it definately gives a smoother, nicer looking picture but the CPU usage actually goes up slightly and it still wasn't good enough to watch the football at the weekend.

 

Given the transient nature of this feature I'm hoping that Cyberlink themselves have realised they can do better and that the patch rumoured to be available by the end of the month will give a more impressive result. I have a 7800GTX card and would hope that it is capable of a lot better than this.

 

I've gone back to the 84.21 driver since the 91.28beta didn't improve performance but produced an overly bright, washed out image with DxVA enabled on an h.264 stream. It did do better with SD mpeg2 streams though - it eliminated the corrupted bottom quarter of the screen that I get with 84.21 (hardware acceleration enabled). Since hardware acceleration doesn't add much for mpeg2 streams this isn't a major problem.

 

The other problem with the latest version of PDVD7 trialware (ie. with the enable DxVA option) is that something has changed in the audio filters. I can't get DVBViewer to use the Cyberlink audio decoder unless I copy back the 2 changed files in the AudioFilters folder from the old trialware version.

 

Just noticed that nVidia claim that Nero has hardware acceleration support for their purevideo marchitecture. Think I'll check out if the trial of Nero 7 installs any usable DS filters while waiting for Cyberlink to get their act together. Can't do any harm...

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Guest Lars_MQ

Original by brightside

 

Yeah, HT is enabled, and yes, I unchecked the 'Use only 1 cpu' option in DVBViewer. OK I guess my cpu is not strong enought, but how is a Celeron 2.8 GHz better ? (I'm referring to a guy who's able of playing live hdtv mpeg4 streams with that cpu.)

Are you using NVIDIA Forceware V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver? You need this to get the hardware support from the Cyberlink h.264 filter - I found this made a real difference over the 84.21 nvidia driver.

 

However I still havent got a perfect working solution - it runs at about 12 frames/s , currently Pentium 2.8G Hyperthreading , GeForce 6800XT, V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver, May 29th Cyberlink h.264 Codec (before they pulled the trial version!) .

 

I bought the CoreAVC 1.1 codec but it is doesnt work as well as the Cyberlink one on my system.

 

I am going to try my 3.4G Hyperthreading plus GeForce 6800XT next.....

 

I'm not convinced that the cyberlink h.264 filter actually manages to offload much work onto the GPU. I have the trialware version with the "enable DxVA" option and when enabled it definately gives a smoother, nicer looking picture but the CPU usage actually goes up slightly and it still wasn't good enough to watch the football at the weekend.

 

Given the transient nature of this feature I'm hoping that Cyberlink themselves have realised they can do better and that the patch rumoured to be available by the end of the month will give a more impressive result. I have a 7800GTX card and would hope that it is capable of a lot better than this.

 

I've gone back to the 84.21 driver since the 91.28beta didn't improve performance but produced an overly bright, washed out image with DxVA enabled on an h.264 stream. It did do better with SD mpeg2 streams though - it eliminated the corrupted bottom quarter of the screen that I get with 84.21 (hardware acceleration enabled). Since hardware acceleration doesn't add much for mpeg2 streams this isn't a major problem.

 

The other problem with the latest version of PDVD7 trialware (ie. with the enable DxVA option) is that something has changed in the audio filters. I can't get DVBViewer to use the Cyberlink audio decoder unless I copy back the 2 changed files in the AudioFilters folder from the old trialware version.

 

Just noticed that nVidia claim that Nero has hardware acceleration support for their purevideo marchitecture. Think I'll check out if the trial of Nero 7 installs any usable DS filters while waiting for Cyberlink to get their act together. Can't do any harm...

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Original by AssasiN

 

Yeah I'm hoping that the improved h264 decoder from cyberlink with hardware acceleration will solve the shuttering problems I have too and will finally be able to watch live hdtv mpeg4 streams.

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Guest Lars_MQ

Original by bakerpr

 

Have you guys tried the beta 84.43 nvidia drivers?

These are the best I have found and definately allow HWA with the cyberlink Trial PDVD7 decoder.

However, although this provides generally smooth playback there is occasional gliches / stutters and colour smearing on fast motion can be seen.

Using the latest coreavc 1.1 with directshow deinterlacing the pictures are consistent and silky smooth. However, over time the responsiveness of DVBViewer is lost as it appears coreavc takes over. Pictures still remain rock solid and cpu at around 65%.

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Original by brightside

 

Have you guys tried the beta 84.43 nvidia drivers?

These are the best I have found and definately allow HWA with the cyberlink Trial PDVD7 decoder.

However, although this provides generally smooth playback there is occasional gliches / stutters and  colour smearing on fast motion can be seen.

Using the latest coreavc 1.1 with directshow deinterlacing the pictures are consistent and silky smooth. However, over time the responsiveness of DVBViewer is lost as it appears coreavc takes over. Pictures still remain rock solid and cpu at around 65%.

 

Haven't tried that version. When I started playing with HD channels 91.28 was the latest beta so I tried that one. It's a real pain for me to change the video drivers because my screen tells my graphics card that it can only do 1024x768 when connected by DVI whereas it has a native resolution of 1366x768. That means each time I reinstall I have to fanny around with custom timings in powerstrip before I can get full screen video to work - a seriously hit or miss operation which can take ages.

 

Credit to nVidia though, the 91.28 beta had a custom timing tool in their new control panel which gave me 1360x768 full screen quite quickly - probably just luck. It scares the crap out of me every time I have to do this since getting these timings wrong is an easy way to turn an expensive flat panel into a smoking pile of sticky goo on the carpet :arrow:

 

Looks like nVidia have posted a new beta (91.31) recently so I'll try that one out tonight if I have time.

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Guest Lars_MQ

Orignal by bakerpr

 

Have you guys tried the beta 84.43 nvidia drivers?

These are the best I have found and definately allow HWA with the cyberlink Trial PDVD7 decoder.

However, although this provides generally smooth playback there is occasional gliches / stutters and colour smearing on fast motion can be seen.

Using the latest coreavc 1.1 with directshow deinterlacing the pictures are consistent and silky smooth. However, over time the responsiveness of DVBViewer is lost as it appears coreavc takes over. Pictures still remain rock solid and cpu at around 65%.

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Original by brightside

 

Have you guys tried the beta 84.43 nvidia drivers?

These are the best I have found and definately allow HWA with the cyberlink Trial PDVD7 decoder.

However, although this provides generally smooth playback there is occasional gliches / stutters and  colour smearing on fast motion can be seen.

Using the latest coreavc 1.1 with directshow deinterlacing the pictures are consistent and silky smooth. However, over time the responsiveness of DVBViewer is lost as it appears coreavc takes over. Pictures still remain rock solid and cpu at around 65%.

 

Haven't tried that version. When I started playing with HD channels 91.28 was the latest beta so I tried that one. It's a real pain for me to change the video drivers because my screen tells my graphics card that it can only do 1024x768 when connected by DVI whereas it has a native resolution of 1366x768. That means each time I reinstall I have to fanny around with custom timings in powerstrip before I can get full screen video to work - a seriously hit or miss operation which can take ages.

 

Credit to nVidia though, the 91.28 beta had a custom timing tool in their new control panel which gave me 1360x768 full screen quite quickly - probably just luck. It scares the crap out of me every time I have to do this since getting these timings wrong is an easy way to turn an expensive flat panel into a smoking pile of sticky goo on the carpet :arrow:

 

Looks like nVidia have posted a new beta (91.31) recently so I'll try that one out tonight if I have time.

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Guest Lars_MQ

Orignal by brightside

 

The 91.31 drivers gave a slight but noticeable improvement over 84.21. Best result to date on my hardware so I'm sticking with them for now.

 

91.31 still has an issue with overly bright washed out video images with default settings. It was a bit weird - whenever I started DVBViewer the picture looked horrible but if I opened the nvidia control panel applet to adjust video colour, at some point during its boot process it must alter some settings somewhere because the picture became normal.

 

I found that if I enable the "Apply these settings to all video technologies ..." option in the control panel then DVBViewer starts with normal video every time. Not really sure what this option does and it may have a downside which I haven't spotted yet (since it is off by default) but for now I'm happy.

 

The video fluidity is almost there - it doesn't so much judder any more as "shiver" occasionally. The image quality is fabulous though - and I always thought that the BBC SD satellite transmissions looked good!

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Original by goelectric

 

Yeah, HT is enabled, and yes, I unchecked the 'Use only 1 cpu' option in DVBViewer. OK I guess my cpu is not strong enought, but how is a Celeron 2.8 GHz better ? (I'm referring to a guy who's able of playing live hdtv mpeg4 streams with that cpu.)

Are you using NVIDIA Forceware V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver? You need this to get the hardware support from the Cyberlink h.264 filter - I found this made a real difference over the 84.21 nvidia driver.

 

However I still havent got a perfect working solution - it runs at about 12 frames/s , currently Pentium 2.8G Hyperthreading , GeForce 6800XT, V91.28 (Beta) Graphics driver, May 29th Cyberlink h.264 Codec (before they pulled the trial version!) .

 

I bought the CoreAVC 1.1 codec but it is doesnt work as well as the Cyberlink one on my system.

 

I am going to try my 3.4G Hyperthreading plus GeForce 6800XT next.....

 

Is you 6800XT AGP or PCI-E? If it's AGP, your card does not support H.264 Hw acceleration (crippled hardware engine).

Hi,

 

I got the 6800XT PCI-E one - I spotted the note about problems with the AGP card in the forums.

 

It is now working perfectly - the Angel Falls fly over is breathtaking and the Michael Owen goal plays smoothly :arrow:

 

So this is my final solution:- 3.4G Pentium 4 with 6800XT 256MB (PCI express), NVIDIA V91.28 Beta Graphics driver, DB Viewer Beta 3.4.10.13, Cyberlink h.264 Codec (before they pulled the h.264 support in the trial version0 with DxVa checked (hardware acceleration).

 

And England have just beaten Trinidad - cant wait to see England play in the next round in HD :huh:

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Original by The One

 

Hello,

    here's my two pennorth on this subject,

 

  I've followed all the correct procedures to set-up the GE version using h264 to receive the HD transmisions from BBC at 10847 etc. receiving and decoding ok but very jerky video, sound is fine.

  I've even purchased the CoreAVC 1.1 and tried that but it's still jerky, even tried altering some of the DVBSource settings(latency and max queued audio) but makes no difference.

  It's fairly obvious that a very powerful dual core pc is required to smooth out the video without causing a massive CPU load( I'm getting 15-20% CPU load with SD transmissions and 95-100% load with HD stuff).Maybe it's time to sit back and re-think whether it's worth it doing it on a pc, especially with the standard moving to DVB-S2 soon and maybe better to save the pennies, strained eyes, frustrations,long nights  etc and go buy a HD Satellite reciever and connect to my LCDTV/monitor with an HDMI - DVI cable to get the HD stuff.

  I thought it was going to be much easier especially after looking at the test transmission from Astra etc, guess they weren't the real  thing when it comes to HD?

 

my set-up:-MSI K7N2 delta (MS-6570 v1.X ATX mainboard

                AMD Athlon 3200+ running at 2.23GHz

                512Mb dual channel PC3200/400 memory

                Western Digital 80GB hard disk(split into 2 equal size drives)

                ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128Mb graphics card

                XP service pack1

                Skystar2 Rev 2.6c tuner card

                DVBViewerPro3.26.6.80/ GE version2.0.1.0

                Samsung Syncmaster 940MW LCDTV/Monitor (1440x900) with

                VGA and DVI input

 

  I thought I had a fairly beefy pc, guess not.

 

  Can I just say many thanks to all the guys who have developed and posted the necessary stuff on thses boards for us to use. Well done guys.

 

I disagree,

 

I have the exact same setup as you and I get 98% perfect play back at 24fps.

 

only difference is 1GB Ram & Technotrend S1500 (even same Monitor)

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Original by AssasiN

 

Since you can play BBC HD with no problems, it's not your video card. Apparently something else. Btw what channel is showing black to you ?

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Guest Lars_MQ

Original by andykng

 

I having even more serious problems, with a similar setup.

 

I have DVBViewer GE with the H264 kit installed, and turned on in the options.

AMD Athlon 3200+

2GB 400mhz ram

abit an7 motherboard

Nvidia FX5600 graphics

Skystar 2

CoreAVC 1.1 Pro

 

I was hoping to get some sort of playback from the live feed, then I would look at upgrading my graphic's card, but just a black screen. Some of the information is read in the DVDsource filter.

 

I have tried cyberlinks H264 decoder too.

 

I can play the BBC HD download 70-80% ok.

 

Really puzzled why I get a black screen after hearing that there has been medium to really good success using DVBViewer and CoreAVC 1.1 pro.

 

Is it my graphic's card or am I missing something.

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

Andy G

 

Original by ACEofCLUBS

 

looks like more Ram the better, i'll try that path first.

Where's my piggy bank gone????

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Guest Lars_MQ

Original by ACEofCLUBS

 

looks like more Ram the better, i'll try that path first.

Where's my piggy bank gone????

 

OK this threads is now restored.

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Here is a 30 seconds (meaningless) clip from the swedish world cup DVB-T HDTV broadcasts that I recorded about a week ago if someone wants to have a look. It's in 720p50 H.264 AC3 5.1 at (an amazing) 20.4mbit.

 

I use DVBViewer and CoreAVC 1.1 to watch it and it works like a charm using an AMD X2@2500Mhz. I've tried using the Powerdvd7 trial with DXVA (Geforce7600GT) and the cpu usage drops a lot but the picture is jerky. It works fine with every 1080p trailer I've tried but not with the world cup broadcasts unfortunately, I guess they are a bit too demanding and it feels like the gpu can't keep up. Hopefully new improved nvidia drivers and/or h.264 codecs will solve this.

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Nice clip, I'm jealous... But what do you think, is 20Mbps really nesessary for 720p50, even if we are talking about high-motion sports like WC-football? Thats more or less the capacity of a whole terrestrial mux, right?

 

I made a small test and re-encoded the clip into h264, with a little better settings in what comes to compressibility. It seems that the content actually fits into 40M (versus the original 80M) with 10 Mbps bitrate (versus the original 20Mbps) with practically transparent encoding quality (opsnr over 47 dB). So I'm only wondering, why spend a full mux for the transmission, if half of that actually suffices...? stb specs don't allow better compression settings?

Edited by emmel
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It's definitely not necessary with 20mbit I think. This is just a test during the world cup running in 4 cities here in Sweden, and yes it uses one whole mux by itself. They will lower the bitrate in the future but I read somewhere that they don't have the equipment to do it now. So we can just enjoy it while it lasts :arrow:

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Original by: Oliver

 

It is only working with the SS2 at the moment.

 

But keep in mind you can't receive the new Pro7/Sat1 h.264 broadcast since it utilises DVB-S2. Therefore new tv-cards are necessary. But currently there aren't any.

 

Twinhan has one already - see www.twinhan.com

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A dual 3.4 GHz Xeon machine with 2GB RAM should easily cope with decoding H.264! I manage alright with my dual 3.2 GHz Xeon and 2GB RAM! The CPU load spread over all 4 threads is only around 30% even with the Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 H.264 decoder. Because the decoders are still quite new they don't seem to be optimized to work properly. So I still get a picture that is tiring to the eyes and after a little tweaking seems to improve.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not a lot of action in this thread recently :-) Actually BBC HD (on Astra 2) works pretty well now on my system (AMD X2 4200+), using Cyberlink PDVD 7 - fortunately PDVDs h.264 codec of the trial version didn't stop working after 30 days, only the main application :bye:

 

There is still one strange observation that I don't understand yet:

  • When I watch a BBC HD directly from within DVBViewer, it is nearly smooth (but still slightly jerky) at a CPU charge of about 90%, but after a minute or two it becomes jerky and CPU usage drop to about 65%. Resetting the graph improves the situation again to its initial nearly-smooth state, but only for another minute or two. For some reason DVBViewer seems to fall back to using only one CPU core after a few minutes ("use only 1 CPU" isn't checked). at least that's what I suspect. Whether I record the stream or only watch it doesn't seem to make any difference.
  • However, if I only *record* the BBC HD stream using DVBViewer with A/V off and send the (still open) .ts file *in parallel* to TSPlayer, TSPlayer shows the stream perfectly smoothly! No frames are lost in the recorded file. Yes, the CPU load climbs to about 95-98% in this scenario, but it looks perfectly. And I'm watching the same .ts file that DVBViewer is recording in parallel (timeshifted), you would expect more performance problems this way than in the scenario above, right? After all, the harddisk has to do a lot more (writing and reading instead of only writing), and there are two programs running.

The situation is the same using the Pro and the GE version. It seems that TSPlayer handles displaying more efficiently than DVBViewer (they are both configured using PDVD7 h.264 codec). I can live with the situation more or less, but it has some drawbacks; the main problem is that you must record a stream to watch it smoothly (uses diskspace and stresses the HD).

 

Another question (not related to DVBViewer): is there still no tool available that can cut and (re)join h.264 .ts files (only at I-frames so no re-encoding is needed)? I know TSPlayer can "somehow" cut files (by using the Convert option), but

  • it can't join clips together into one .ts file (as far as I know), so when you try to remove commercials, you end in seperate .ts files
  • it can only convert while displaying the stream, ie in "realtime" - or is there a way to turn off display and convert "fast speed" that I didn't find out about?
  • Finding the cut points is a pain... no fast forward/reverse for seeking, no thumbnails all 2 seconds or so for navigation (like cuttermaran), no keyboard shortcut support - you actually have drag the cursor with the mouse, and hitting the (moving) cursor is rather tricky; if you click to the left or right of the cursor, it jumps to a position sometimes near, sometimes far off, in a way I'm not able to tell in advance. Finding a particular scene is a hit-and-miss game (more miss than hit actually).
  • Screenshots, same problem as above. As there is no frame-advance-and-backward feature, you must pause the stream and "hope" to hit a good frame for a screenshot. Also it seems to me that this is only possible for I frames, not for frames in between (I can only suspect though, as frames in between seem to be impossible to "hit" using the Pause feature).

I tried Cuttermaran, ProjectX and Womble... none can handle these h.264 files at the time it seems. Only Mpeg2 HDTV-files (like HD Forum etc) seem to work, but no h.264 files. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to be able to cut&join these files...?

 

Regards, Klaymen

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..in reverse order. Don't expect me to give an exhaustive answer :bounce:

 

Processing H.264 (or mpeg) ist beyond the scope of the DVBViewer. The other tools mentioned in your post will need major changes to deal with the new streams. But I'm sure it will come :bye:

 

The difference in performance and behaviour of live decoding/rendering and playback is difficult to explain at least if you want to identify the exact reasons. You could play with the parameters of the source filter and check with graphedit whether there are differences between the graphs.

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The difference in performance and behaviour of live decoding/rendering and playback is difficult to explain

It's quite likely that DVB device drivers - at least some of them - are not working smoothly anymore on high processor load. Maybe they can't deliver data in time under these circumstances, thus affecting live playback.

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The difference in performance and behaviour of live decoding/rendering and playback is difficult to explain at least if you want to identify the exact reasons. You could play with the parameters of the source filter and check with graphedit whether there are differences between the graphs.
It's quite likely that DVB device drivers - at least some of them - are not working smoothly anymore on high processor load. Maybe they can't deliver data in time under these circumstances, thus affecting live playback.

Yes, that I would understand... but I think you misunderstood... I was not talking about first recording and later playback. I was however talking about recording (with DVBViewer) and playback (with TSPlayer, that can open the .ts file that DVBViewer is still writing to, like a pipe) *at the same time*!! The CPU charge is even higher then, and device drivers must be under an even higher stress. But still everything is working smoothly. Only when I leave both jobs up to DVBViewer alone (which should be less work), things become jerky.

 

Note that playing back a recorded stream with DVBViewer instead of TSPlayer is also a bit jerky (like when showing a live stream initially), but only with a live stream does the jerkyness increase dramatically after a minute or two. This looks as if a high CPU charge at some point "forces" the display engine of DVBViewer to go into a "low consumption" (1 CPU?) mode and staying there until a reset occurs.

 

Still, as said, displaying a stream with TSPlayer that DVBViewer is writing to in parallel is perfectly smooth.This is actually the (fortunate:-) situation I don't completely understand...

 

[EDIT] I just tried your suggestion of changing filterproperties (View -> Filters-> DVB Source) and - more or less by trying - changed tha "May queues audio (ms)" from 500 to 2000, and (File) from 200 to 800. I still get the same problem, but the "lockout" seems to happen later. So it might have to do with a queuethat fills up.

Edited by klaymen
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A strange thing that I noticed: when I boot up the Htpc and, as first application, I launch DVBViewer and tune on a H.264 channel, (for example Luxe TV, using Cyberlink H.264 codec), the CPUload (on my 3.0GHZ Pentium4, HT activated) is extremely low, most of the time below 40%, but I can see that only one of the two HT "cores" is working, the other one is almost free of load (naturally, the "Use only 1 CPU" is unticked). Then, if I close DVBViewer, open another DVB application, close it and turn DVBViewer back on, the CPUload is way higher (around 80%) but I can see that both cores are working....anyway, in both scenarios, the video plays fine.

Edited by Zyknyp
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Are there any error reports on the DVBViewer Filter's property page when the "lockout" begins?

You mean discontinuities? No, none whatsoever, not even increased queued video buffers or so. I append a screenshot of the CPU graph below, you can see where the CPU load drops. Also I attach a screenshot of the filter properties after the CPU load decreased. You can also see that it didn't happen at an extremely "heavy loaded" spot, it just suddenly "slowly" comes down to about half the load it had before (hence my assumption that only 1 CPU was used).

 

Regards, klaymen

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using Cyberlink PDVD 7

I forgot about that..

 

The Cyberlink does its own buffer management, as I've observed (similar to the Cyberlink MPEG2 decoder). That's why there is no "expected" amount of video data queuing up in the DVBViewer Filter, and you'll never see buffer overflow errors there.

 

If data is coming too quickly the Cyberlink gets into trouble with its buffer management, and it will start to drop data sooner or later (it does here on my AMD 64 3200+ PC). Maybe your PC is just a bit too slow, or just at certain moments. It's not so critical in case of file playback, since the data is pulled from a "very large buffer" (the file on your hard disk :bye: ) on demand.

 

In case of push mode live playback the data has to be processed when it comes. And if the buffers are not able to absorb surplus data, the whole thing may profoundly get out of rythm. "Pull" and "push" are very different modes of operation, with different requirements.

 

However, nobody really knows what's going on inside the Cyberlink decoder. It would be quite interesting to switch off the Cyberlink's buffer handling, thus leaving it to the DVBViewer Filter, and see what happens. But I couldn't find an according registry value...

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That's an interesting, and somehow alarming, discovery, Griga. Afaik, the Technotrend DVB-S2 cards (3200 and 3600) will ship with Cyberlink H.264 codec in bundle....if the codec has these buffer difficulties, it could backfire Technotrend support...

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if the codec has these buffer difficulties,

I wouldn't assume buffering problems in general. All software components that use buffering may get into trouble if the PC is working close to its limits, particularly in the "push" mode of operation. Time critcal processes are likely to cease to work properly on 95% CPU load. Live playback is time critical, file playback is not... that's what I wanted to explain.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I wouldn't assume buffering problems in general. All software components that use buffering may get into trouble if the PC is working close to its limits, particularly in the "push" mode of operation. Time critcal processes are likely to cease to work properly on 95% CPU load. Live playback is time critical, file playback is not... that's what I wanted to explain.

 

Yes, I can see your point and it makes sense. Still it seems strange to me that CPU usage drops so much (to below 45%) and stays there. Also the CPU load wasn't really at max before (around 90% maybe), so I tend to consider it as a buffering problem (if not even bug) of the Cyberlink codec.

 

It still isn't logical to me why playback from a file onto which DVBViewer *is still writing to* can work smoothly - while CPU load is much more maxed out than in the scenario before. After all, the time critical recording process onto the same file is still running in parallel. It doesn't even seem to me that the playback position were relatively running backwards after some time, but of course that's difficult to say for sure.

Edited by klaymen
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  • 2 weeks later...

Klaymen,

 

Did you get anywhere with the performance drop when watching BBC HD live? I think I am experiencing same.

 

I first started this HD stuff with a single core 3700. No matter how much I pushed (clocked) it, I still could not get a smooth picture. So having recorded Plante Earth, I gave up for a week or so. Anyway last week I managed to get hold of a 4600+ X2, (prices have fallen dramatically) and thought my troubles were over!!

 

I’m also on the NovaS+ and original cyberlink decoder into a 6600GT PCIe card.

 

Like you I see a smooth received “live” picture to start with, then after a few minutes or so, you can see some jerkiness begin to creep into the picture, until it gets quite noticeable.

 

Watching the CPU load graphs they start up quite high 80% - 90%, and coinciding with the onset of vision disturbance, you can watch the graphs for both cores gently fall to about 30%-40%.

 

I only see this with “live” processing in DVBviewerGE. If I replay a previously recorded file in DVBGE, the performance holds up through the whole prog. Circa 50mins long.

 

Also If I do something within DVBGE, like change a setting, or change a channel, and then change back again, I can restore good live reception again for a minute or so until again performance gradually fades away. It is as if this re-sets something, and begins the cycle again.

 

I did for a time have a version of CoreAVC installed also, but removed it, as I found Cyberlink had a slight edge. I am however pretty certain that if I forced decode using CoreAVC I had the same problem.

 

Rgds

Andy

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Watching the CPU load graphs they start up quite high 80% - 90%, and coinciding with the onset of vision disturbance, you can watch the graphs for both cores gently fall to about 30%-40%.

 

I only see this with “live” processing in DVBviewerGE. If I replay a previously recorded file in DVBGE, the performance holds up through the whole prog. Circa 50mins long.

Yes, these are precisely the figures I get on my system. And I'm sorry, I didn't find any real solution. I can only recommend you doing what I do... record it to a ts file and watch this file using TSPlayer. As I wrote above, you can do both at the same time. So it is *not* necessary to record the whole movie first and watch it later; it is perfectly sufficient watching it "timeslipped", you're then maybe 1 second behind. I'm not sure if this became really clear in my postings above; I think I stated that several times, but from the reactions I'm not sure if this point was really understood. As TSPlayer can open a ts file that is still written to, you can just drag the file DVBViewer is writing to onto TSPlayer, so the file actually works like a unix "pipe". Of course you must disable A/V in DVBViewer itself for it to work (or just minimize it if you configured it the way minimizing is disabling A/V). Funnily, I get a perfectly smooth playback then.The only drawback is that it eats a lot of harddisk space, as the pipe is never cleared.

Edited by klaymen
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The “pipe” works fine for me also, and yes I understood the principle from your initial posts. It’s a bit of a pain however, and not yet a suitable method for the less experienced members of the household!!

 

It’s interesting to note that we appear to be the only two to have identified this problem. I’d be interested to find out the config of anyone else running and X2 and getting perfectly smooth “live” reception.

 

I don’t remember noticing this problem with my single core 3700, but then that was mostly jerky anyway.

 

I’m tempted to put that chip back in to see if I can observe any speed reduction tendencies in the graph, that might be similar to those noted with an X2.

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.... (or just minimize it if you configured it the way minimizing is disabling A/V)...

 

Is there an option for this somewhere or is it the default behaviour? I've only spotted the option to disable A/V while recording.

 

Although I don't yet have a dual-core system I have seen a similar effect on the CPU utilisation when I was playing with different versions of the PDVD filter. When I used the non DxVA version I had low (around 40%) CPU load but a very jerky picture. When I got DxVA activated the picture improved (although still not completely smooth) but the CPU load jumped up to > 90%.

 

My guess at the time was that this was a result of the heavy load decoding HD streams puts on the CPU. Without DxVA my CPU on its own couldn't get close to coping with the workload so somewhere in the pipeline buffers overflowed and a lot of data was dropped. This gave me a very jerky picture but a lowish CPU load since so many frames were dropped the decoding workload was reasonable. Activating DxVA however, meant my system nearly managed to cope so less data was dropped and the picture improved but the CPU was getting seriously thrashed because more frames were making it through to be decoded.

 

The question is: where is the bottleneck? I had assumed that it was simply that my hardware was too feeble so I had kind of given up on HD until I got an upgrade but I don't understand how this can be the case if you are managing to play recorded streams from disk perfectly smoothly.

 

I take Grigas point about CPU loads so high that the clock cycles needed to handle IO interrupts become significant, but disk IO must handle interrupts as well so unless disk IO is just that much more efficient then I don't see the difference.

 

Just to throw in another factor - my viewer is not using the NovaS+ drivers to handle IO, it receives a network stream from another PC which is doing no decoding and not suffering any CPU overload. None of the network interfaces appear to be struggling either.

 

I haven't tried recording and playing back an HD stream from disk so I don't know if my current hardware can handle this smoothly but I'll give it a go now - just to see ....

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The Cybelink for sure contains a mechanism that starts to drop frames as soon as it becomes clear that is it is not possible to process them all - a fallback to decoding only I-Frames, don't know. Maybe this mechanism is switched off in case of activated DXVA, regardless whether DXVA really works or not. In your case I would say, it does not.

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