LiveTV Stutter and black recording

[lingenfr]

I have been using GBPVR for a week or so. It is pretty nifty, but the performance is much worse that the Hauppauge app. My setup is as follows

Uniwill 259IA3 Laptop
2.1Ghz Pentium-M
2GB RAM
60GB 7200 rpm HD
On board ATI Radeon 9600
Hauppauge WinTV PVR USB2
XP Pro latest
ATI Catalyst drivers latest

When running ANY other app with GBPVR, LiveTV stutters. I can run twice as many apps with the Hauppauge app with no stutter. When I try and record, I can't watch LiveTV at the same time. Similiarly, I can with the H app. I am not complaining. I hope that I can change some settings and make it go.

*** Probably somewhat solved. To save folks from having to go through the entire thread, try the following. Open task manager. If you don't already have it, add the Base Process Priority tab. Scroll down to gbpvr.exe. Right click on it and set process priority to above normal or high as you desire. My best solution so far is that I created a batch file in my gbpvr directory that includes the following line:

start /abovenormal gbpvr.exe

I am hoping to find a better way. Don't waste your time changing codecs.

[sub]

It might be worth using perfmon to try looking at the CPU when these problems occur.

My initial guess would suggest trying a different video decoder. Some have higher CPU requirements than others. Also try making use of the DXVA offered by your Radeon.

[lingenfr]

As you guess, the processor % pegs when the stuttering occurs. Where do I select a different video decoder? I am assuming on the Playback tab under Software MPEG-2 Playback. The stuttering begins with the Audio. Audio will cut out for long periods of time. I assume that I should try different audio decoders (and renderers?) also? I went into CCC and did some searching, but could not find DXVA. I assume that you may be talking about deinterlacing. Mine is currently set to auto-detect. The following options are available.

# Auto Detect
# Bob deinterlacing
# Adaptive deinterlacing
# Motion Adaptive deinterlacing
# Vector Adaptive deinterlacing
# Weave

Which one should I choose. Thanks for your help.

[sub]

Where do I select a different video decoder? I am assuming on the Playback tab under Software MPEG-2 Playback.

Yes

The stuttering begins with the Audio. Audio will cut out for long periods of time. I assume that I should try different audio decoders (and renderers?) also?

Most likely the video decoder is having the most impact on CPU usage.

I went into CCC and did some searching, but could not find DXVA.

Some video decoders, like the Cyberlink one, give you an option to use DXVA or Hardware accelleration. These may help.

[chud]

the DXVA is not set in the CCC, it is set in the video decoder. if you use the hauppauge provided InterVideo decoders you can do a search on these forums to find some registry hacks to enable DXVA.

the difference in performance between WinTV and GBPVR may also be the renderer. trying setting the GBPVR renderer to overlay rather than VMR9 (if applicable).

[lingenfr]

Thanks. For the Cyberpower drivers, there is a check box for Hardware Acceleration. The processor was still pegging and I was still getting stuttering, so I switched to Overlay. It is slightly better, but still not perfect. I may try the Intervideo drivers and the registry hack. Thanks for the feedback.

I found the thread that chud was referring to. It is here:

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...istry+dxva

It is a little ambiguous. Would have been helpful if one of the two smart folks who provided the information would have created a .reg file. One of the registry lines referrs to:

"IASDKPATH"="C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\InterVideo\\DVD7"

I know the drivers provided by Hauppauge are not located there. Any ideas?

[lingenfr]

I have about given up on GBPVR at this point. Would appreciate any assistance in gettting it to equal the performance of the Hauppauge application. It is already more stable, but the LiveTV and the recording are very noticably worse. I am not bitching and I will follow development, but I multitask and my machine and right now that makes GBPVR unusable and it will not record and show livetv at the same time. Thanks.

[sub]

Switch to using Overlay and the Intervideo decoder and it should give you exactly the same picture quality as in WinTV, since these are the components it uses.

If it still has problems, zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

[lingenfr]

I made the changes and it is still stuttering. Resource usage is about 20% higher than with the Hauppauge app. I assume that the gbpvr.exe.log is the right file. Here is the output.

[sub]

Attach a complete set of log files.