MVP and AVIs

[Gunr]

Hey mvpaagh,

I found this thread which is very similar to what we have been discussing. Not sure if you read it or not so thouhgt I would post a link to it here!

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=4164

Gunr

[mvpaaagh]

Thanks Gunr. I hadn't spotted the other thread. There seems to be a number of threads regarding avi playback on the MVP. As in this thread other threads contain reports of AVI files playing for 5 seconds on the MVP and then crashing. As SUB has said it seems transcoding requires a lot of CPU power. In my case I have a 2.6GHz Pentium 4. I thought this would be plenty but when transcoding for the MVP the CPU runs at 100% with trans2mvp.exe using typically 98-99%. It doesn't seem to matter whether or not FFDSHOW filters are being used or not. I disabled this option in GBPVR config but CPU usage was still 100%. Maybe we need a mainframe. Either way I suspect the best way to get continued playback is to set the mvp transcode pre-dealy as high as you can bear.

[abcwille]

Hi guys

Just bought a MVP and fell over this post.
I am having the same issues. Picture in top and a big black box below.
I know I can use ffshow, but when I try the Hauppage software I get a normal picture. How come ?

Also with Hauppages software I get a 40-50 % cpu usage when playing Divx,
but a steady 100 % with GBpvr. I am using a Barton 2600+ .
I know this is normal, and I prefere Gbpvr anyway.

Thomas

[sub]

I know I can use ffshow, but when I try the Hauppage software I get a normal picture. How come ?

...because I dont have internal knowledge of how Hauppauge are doing this. My work around is to suggest the use of ffdshow.

Also with Hauppages software I get a 40-50 % cpu usage when playing Divx,
but a steady 100 % with GBpvr. I am using a Barton 2600+ .

Yes, as explained, regardless of CPU speed, it'll always use 100%. Its just works a different way to the Hauppauge software. It runs at 'below normal' priority, so it'll use less CPU when you're using machine for other things.

[abcwille]

Thanks for the quick reply.
You are the recent why I bought the MVP.
Hope you get some benefet from Hauppauge.

Thomas

[boondoggle]

Sub,

I really don't mean to harsh on you. GBPVR is great, and I continue to
use it even if AVI support does not work. It is, however, somewhat
disconcerting to watch you turn a deaf ear to this problem.

If the majority of people who used my software said it had a problem and
my response was that there was no problem because it works on my
test jig ... well, I'd be out of business pretty quickly.

-Boondoggle

[groover km]

I have spent a lot of time playing avi's / trying to play avi's on my gbpvr / mvp set up, and to be fair, whenever I have had problems 99% of teh time it has been due to the avi file itself; reencoding them to a different <lower> bitrate has usually solved the problem; for the ones I this doesn't work on, run them through TMPEnc and make mpegs; change the resolution from 720x480 to 352x480 solved the 'black bar at the bottom' described above....

I know, ymmv, and I think a lot of it depends on *your* setup - I have avi's that won't even play in windows media player, and just this week I had a divx that divx player wouldn't play! (corrupt audio header, had to strip it out, convert to wav, then remux).

My point being, check the file. To be fair, it's a little rich to say "....out of business pretty quickly" when we are getting it for free to begin with.

Not flaming anyone, just my $0.02.

[sub]

I really don't mean to harsh on you. GBPVR is great, and I continue to
use it even if AVI support does not work. It is, however, somewhat
disconcerting to watch you turn a deaf ear to this problem

I have to be realistic about how I prioritize my limited available time. I've said several times in the past that avi/divx support on the MVP just isnt a priority for me.

You would be surprised just how small the trans2mvp program is. It's all of about 25 lines of code. The program itself is fine. The problem that some people get lies in the combination and versions of filters installed on your machine. Hauppauge get away with it because their software is hardcoded to use specific filters etc.

[MediaDogg]

I'm also having trouble getting avi files to play back. The Trans2MVP program crashes whenever I try.

I wonder if the author has made a bid to Hauppage for them to buy rights to the software and complete the debugging? Seems like a win-win ...

[LilY0da]

The problem that some people get lies in the combination and versions of filters installed on your machine. Hauppauge get away with it because their software is hardcoded to use specific filters etc.

That makes me wonder about 2 things:
- has someone determined a good set of filters/bitrate, etc... that works with the MVP? I wouldn't mind having a dedicated machine with just 1 set of filters, and reencoding every single AVI to that setting... What I cannot do is reencode them all to MPEG2, cause I don't have the drive space...
- rather than working on Trans2MVP, would it be possible to use Hauppauge's transcoding DLLs?