Live TV start / stop stutter

[betlit]

errr...? AFAK only the xcard has a limitation of 256 colours regarding menus/osd...
i'm using the tv out of a 350 and my menus and osd look really good... definitely not like 256 colours...

[GoodGuys]

Is that so? I will give it a try, although this has a downside - I can't view anything that is not MPEG2, and I got plenty of those...

[sub]

First, can anyone please explain what the BDA Multiplexer actually is?

Its only used for BDA capture sources, so not relevent to your problem, and would have had no effect.

I got some more clues:
During the freeze part of the stutter, the audio still plays well.
I noticed the OSD waits until the next stutter boundary.

What I mean is this:

If I am fast enough to hit the blue button when the picture freezes, the OSD will appear only when the stutter un-freezes.

The opposite is also true - with OSD up, I hit the blue button during freeze, the OSD will disappear only when the picture un-freezes.

This is expected. The render can only update the OSD when the video is playing. If the video is paused, or in your case stuttering, then the OSD cannot be changed in anyway during this (incl hiding/showing etc).

Maybe we can get help fixing the Overlay size. My hunch is that for some reason Overlay in full-screen mode uses 800x600 instead of the TV's 720x576 resolution. The down-side is that Overlay means no semi-transparent OSD, AFAIK.

No, it definitly not 800x600. Check your <HorizontalZoom> and <VerticalZoom> settings a zero in the config.xml file.

Since you're using live preview mode, do you have the deinterlacing set to 'encoder passthrough'? This has the best chance as being kept properly in sync.

[GoodGuys]

Hi Sub, thanks for the info and ideas. Here are my results, plus more experiments and questions:

1. I did not use Encoder Passthrough. When I try, and go into LiveTV, I immediately receive the infamous "Object reference not set to instance of an object" error. I also tried to play some capture file with Encoder Passthrough, and got a black screen, and GB-PVR hungand nothing I did was able to bring it out, not keys, not remote. Ctl-Alt-Del showed it as Not Responding, so I killed it, and reverted to Deinterlacing - None.
   
2. For SleepyHollow - I see the same "first time much worse" condition as you. Yippie :-((
   
3. Tried disabling the anti-virus altogether - still the same.
   
4. Tried CyberLink decoder with Encoder Passthrough : Got the same "Object reference not set to instance of an object" error.
   
5. Do you think the Audio decoder has anything to do with it? Audio renderer?
   
6. Check my zooms in Config.xml:
   
   Code:

   <HorizontalZoom>1</HorizontalZoom>
<HorizontalOffset>0</HorizontalOffset>
<VerticalZoom>1</VerticalZoom>
<VerticalOffset>0</VerticalOffset>
   Tried to set them to:
   
   Code:

   <HorizontalZoom>0.9
<HorizontalOffset>0
<VerticalZoom>0.96
<VerticalOffset>0
   
   Because 800 * 0.9 = 720, and 600 * 0.96 = 576.
   And of course - switch to Overlay.
   Result: Too small!
   
7. Now I set the zooms to 0.99 (both H & V) and the result was:
   Very pleasing!
   Until I find a solution with VMR9, I will be testing this one. I still want the semi-transparent OSD.
   It seems that when Zoom=1/1 (H/V), we get it too big. But 0.99 works very nicely (712.8 x 570.24). I wonder if it will take 0.9999 and what will happen.
   Sub - any ideas why that happens like this?
   SleepyHollow - I hope this works for you too...
   

OK. I got quite a few more things to try, but need to find a time that's convenient for this. Right now is anything but. I plan to try a friend's copy of PowerDVD 6 (my one is v5). I can also get my hands on AnyDVD and WinDVD.
Sub - do you think I should try them?

Thanks,
GGF

[sub]

I did not use Encoder Passthrough. When I try, and go into LiveTV, I immediately receive the infamous "Object reference not set to instance of an object" error. I also tried to play some capture file with Encoder Passthrough, and got a black screen, and GB-PVR hungand nothing I did was able to bring it out, not keys, not remote. Ctl-Alt-Del showed it as Not Responding, so I killed it, and reverted to Deinterlacing - None.

With encoder pass-through enabled, try different MPEG2 decoders. Some of them dont like this pass through mode.

OK. I got quite a few more things to try, but need to find a time that's convenient for this. Right now is anything but. I plan to try a friend's copy of PowerDVD 6 (my one is v5). I can also get my hands on AnyDVD and WinDVD.
Sub - do you think I should try them?

If you want to find a fix, you're going to have try stuff.

[GoodGuys]

Hi Sub,

Of course I will test more. Thanks.

What do you think about the Zoom=0.99 / Zoom=1 problem with Overlay?

Thanks,
GGF

[SleepyHollow]

Hi there,

<quote>
With encoder pass-through enabled, try different MPEG2 decoders. Some of them dont like this pass through mode.
</quote>

Thanks sub, thats the critical point.

I deinstalled cyberlink software dvd player and used the following settings:


Playback ->
Decoder: all System Default
VMR9
LiveTV pre-play at 500

Misc -> LivePreviewMode
Encoder pass-through

Result: No stuttering at startup but sometimes stuttering at channel-change.

Great improvement but far from being perfect, still hangups during channel-surfung but not as offen as it was before.

Gspot ist telling me:

Splitter/Other: MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
Video Codec: InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder for Hauppauge
Audio Codec: InterVideo NonCSS Audio Decoder for Hauppauge

Maybe with another decoder the result will be better. For the moment its a little step in the right direction. The knowledge that it is a problem with the right decoder with the option "Encoder pass through" is evident for further experiences.

Strange expression "encoder". The right name for it is not "decoder pass through"? I'm wondering about the PVR350 using hardware encoding during live TV in preview mode.

I will look in the forum to find decoder advices. Every link would be great.

Thanks for helping,
SleepyHollow

[sub]

Strange expression "encoder". The right name for it is not "decoder pass through"?

When not using 'encoder pass-through', it uses raw YUV video data from the capture device. When you use 'encoder pass-through', it uses MPEG2 from the capture devices MPEG2 encoder. Sure, it gets piped through a decoder further down the track, but thats not the important part.

I'm wondering about the PVR350 using hardware encoding during live TV in preview mode.

I stopped development for the PVR350 before I implemented Live Preview mode, so it doesnt support it.

[SleepyHollow]

I stopped development for the PVR350 before I implemented Live Preview mode, so it doesnt support it.

Alright then I'm stuck with this status. It works but not really good. On the other side I don't want to look whole films with live tv. I just want a mpg2-videorecorder and ~player. Perhaps its enough. Recorded files are playing well enough.

Bye,
SleepyHollow