Baffled with stuttering/frame skipping

[gkreis]

I installed 98.13 in client mode on my new Core Duo desktop and using the same config as my laptop, I don't get the same performance. I upped the Client Mode Cache to 65536 from 49152. No difference. Here is what gives....

The laptop is 802.11g wireless and the PVR box is also 802.11g wireless. The Code Duo is wired.

The performance on each is the same when selecting a 'recording' - no frame dropping. When I go to the video library and play it from a directory, the laptop is fine, but the desktop drops frames often! It stutters along.

The desktop is faster and wired... hmm, it is a dual processor.

I have three reasons to want to use Video Library over Recorded to play a movie.

1. Recorded has messed with the timeline on some movie playback.

2. Recorded isn't nearly as responsive on Ctrl-<left> or Ctrl-<right> to skip forward or back as using Video Library.

3. I push recorded mpgs to another hard drive to conserve space on the recording drive so they can't be accessed via the Recorded menu.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot it?

[fuzzweed]

are you saying that the same file will play back differently on the desktop depending whether you select it from the recordings menu or the video menu????

[gkreis]

Right! It is so strange, especially since this is a faster machine that is wired.

[fuzzweed]

i dont think it's anything to do with the machine speed - it shouldn't make any difference whether a file is selected from recordings, or the same file from my videos - GBPVR is really just telling Windows to play whatever file you tell it, and so it should be exactly the same playback mechanism each time.

Maybe clear your logs, reproduce the problem (play a minute from recordings, stop, play a minute from my videos) and post the logs for sub to have a look at (or have a quick scan yourself to see if you can spot any obvious differences between the two that might show whats up)

[seldomshaven]

The laptop is 802.11g wireless and the PVR box is also 802.11g wireless. The Code Duo is wired.

The performance on each is the same when selecting a 'recording' - no frame dropping. When I go to the video library and play it from a directory, the laptop is fine, but the desktop drops frames often! It stutters along.

The desktop is faster and wired... hmm, it is a dual processor.

Have you tried connecting the desktop system to the network via wireless, or connecting the PVR to it wired? It's common in my experience for these routers to handle wireless->wireless and wired->wired data well, but to choke a bit on wireless->wired or vice versa.

[gkreis]

Have you tried connecting the desktop system to the network via wireless, or connecting the PVR to it wired? It's common in my experience for these routers to handle wireless->wireless and wired->wired data well, but to choke a bit on wireless->wired or vice versa.

I haven't seen these kinds of problems, though, using VLC on the laptop and on the desktop. Also, why would one play well (except for dreadful response time on skipping forward and backward) and the other skip frames badly (but have unbelievable response time to forward and backward skipping)? Hooking them up for a test would really difficult.

I tried fuzzweed's suggestion and have attached a zip of the logs, one in a folder for playing from the Record menu and one from the Video Library menu.

Here is something I found in the native log for the video library. I didn't see it in the Recording menu library.

FindFilterByName failed to locate filter: CyberLink MPEG Muxer

I think it is defaulting then to a value that is causing this behavior. I tried it with Custom VMR9, VMR9 and Overlay. I tried it with the CyberLink decoder and with the default one.

Any ideas? (I am lost in how all these Decoders/Muxers/Filters interact...)

[sub]

I'm not sure if its anything to do with your problem, but have you tried explicitly setting the audio decoder rather than relying on the system default? I see its picking up the Ligos audio decoder, which has cause problems for people in the past.

[gkreis]

I'm not sure if its anything to do with your problem, but have you tried explicitly setting the audio decoder rather than relying on the system default? I see its picking up the Ligos audio decoder, which has cause problems for people in the past.

I didn't think it could be audio, as the sound has never skipped, just lots of dropped video frames and the audio stays in sync. I tried what you suggested and set the audio to MPEG4 and it still messes up. I'll experiment with a few more settings.

Did the failed msg about the filter meaning anything significant?

Any ideas on why the ctrl + cursor key forward and back skipping is so very slow from the Record menu and so very fast from the Video Library menu? It seems to me that clearly theses are not just two ways to play the mpg. Something different is involved in how they work, right?

[sub]

FindFilterByName failed to locate filter: CyberLink MPEG Muxer

This isnt important. It checks for the presence of this filter when you first enter the video library. Its used to determine if the transcode feature should give the option of converting DVR-MS files or not.

Any ideas on why the ctrl + cursor key forward and back skipping is so very slow from the Record menu and so very fast from the Video Library menu?

No, I dont know. I would have thought they'd be the same (unless one was playing an in progress recording).

[gkreis]

This isnt important. It checks for the presence of this filter when you first enter the video library. Its used to determine if the transcode feature should give the option of converting DVR-MS files or not.

OK. Just some init code.

No, I dont know. I would have thought they'd be the same (unless one was playing an in progress recording).

I only play pre-recorded content that I let comskip finish processing.

I decided to try the Elecard MPEG codec and it works smooth! Strange.

Does a Cyberlink codec come with GBPVR? My video card on the new desktop came bundled with the Cyberlink DVD player. Perhaps this is a different codec from the one on the laptop.

Thanks for the tips... I guess I can just chalk it up to the strange brew that comes of trial and error mixing and matching settings for codecs, VMR9 versus overlay, etc.