Choppy play back of dvr-ms...

[leprechaun]

My computer specs:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600)
AMD Sempron 2800 (1.6 Ghz)
ASUS M2NPV-VM ACPI (BIOS Revision 1201, 9/20/2007)
NVIDIA GeForce 6150/nForce 430 (integrated to the MB, 181.22 driver)
Available Physical Memory 3.21 Gb (4 Gb real, but OS only 32bit)

WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual Tuner PCI Express TV tuner w/ remote kit
WinTV-PVR-500 w/ remote kit

===============================================

So now that I have been using my new HVR-2250 to record OTA ATSC shows to dvr-ms files its just been a pain.

The show records fine and if I play them back using PowerDVD (7.3) they play pretty well (very little choppy-ness, but if you look real hard you can see some occasionally, CPU railed). If I play the same file in GBPVR it is real choppy all of the time. By choppy I mean the video stops for a second and then continues to play and the whole time the CPU is 90-100%.

Is my system to lightweight to handler the HD content or is there another deeper issue?

I can't really upgrade my whole system for this, so my other thought was to convert the video to something else. But after hours of trying and searching web/GBPVR I haven't found a solution that works well. If someone could point me in the right direction that would be helpful.

[persim]

Your specs look just a little weak to handle HD content for playback. I used to have a very similar system to you and had similar problems. Once I upgraded all the choppy issues went away. I found this tool :

http://dvrmstompeg.googlepages.com/dvr-m...gconverter

It was the only thing that ever worked for me to convert dvr-ms recorded HDTV to mpg without some type of audio sync issue. From there I would use RipBot264 to compress further. I know you said you didn't want to upgrade but in the end I just found that to be the easiest solution.

[leprechaun]

What do you think the minimum requirements would be for a OTA ATSC HD system(CPU & Video wise)?

Keep in mind I have to have a micro ATX motherboard with integrated video. Don't have enough room in the case for anything but integrated.

[BigMoose]

Oddly I've done something recently while trying to fix my 0 byte recording problem that means I now have choppy dvr-ms playback. It's not CPU related, I've got a 2.4Ghz dual core that can cope with software H264 decoding fine and before a recent update I was able to playback my dvr-ms recordings fine. Now dvr-ms is unwatchable but mpg recordings are still fine.
I have the same issues outside of GBPVR when rendering dvr-ms files in graph edit but can get them to play in MPC. I think my problems were down to an ATI driver upgrade to 9.1 as the only other thing I have done recently is the 0 byte recording patches but it cant be down to them as it happens outside of GBPVR.
I realise the OP is using Nvidia but thought I'd mention I have a similar problem that is nothing to do with the CPU.

[TonyXL]

leprechaun,

If you can figure out which codec PowerDVD is using, you should be able to use that codec in GB-PVR as well.

Which ever codec you use, make sure it supports DXVA hardware acceleration.

Consider trying the PureVideo decoder (http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html). It should let you use hardware acceleration on the 6150, which according to (http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/Pure...arison.pdf) supports HD mpeg2 acceleration.

[elbryyan]

I belive we have the same motherboard setup or close to it. I think my processor is a little stockier though. I was able to get my OTA HD/digital programming to play just fine with it so an upgrade may not be completely necessary.

I had issues with the onboard video when I first put it together. The two things that you can try that may help is to increase the amount of shared memory that the onboard video uses. This is set up in the bios, I think the default is 64MB or somehting like that which I would increase to at least 256MB. With the amount of memory you have in the system you could even increase it to 512MB. This will allocate the system RAM for the video card use and effectively lower the amount available to windows but I only had 1GB of RAM and had it set to 256MB and the system ran fine.

The second thing that I found was that it actually performed better if you turned the hardware acceleration option of the purevideo off. Don't ask me why but it helped on my setup.

I upgraded to a GeForce 8500GT because it will play the true HD content(blue ray) if I ever have need of it and I got it at a great deal.

[mikeh49]

Try using the VMR9 FSE video renderer. I had to go to this for even SD on a LCD TV at 1366X768 with the Sempron 2800 and a Geforce 6200. I upgraded to a 9600Pro and now can do reasonably good HD. I use the Purevideo decoder with hardware acceleration turned on.

I'd say your system is right at the absolute minimum for HD. While FSE gives a good picture, there are some drawbacks with it not wanting to give up the screen, or complaining on coming out of hibernate. Search the forum on FSE and you'll find some solutions.