spdif audio problem

[elbryyan]

I got my new rig up and running using the ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard using the asus spdif module out. I'm currently using the itegrated 6150 video to display the local digital broadcast over the antennea. I was playing around with the video rendering modes such as overlay because the picture would stutter sometimes when watching 1080i content. The problem I'm having is that when I try to use a different video renderer than the VMR9 FSE mode then the audio will start to crackle and stop working after the first few seconds of viewing. Can anybody take a guess as to why that would happen?

[stustunz]

you are asking alot from an onboard video card to do 1080i without stutter
what mpeg decoder are you using ?

[j3flight]

I have an Asus motherboard as well, using the AC97 chipset for digital audio output as well. (I'm also using Vista.) I don't have exactly the same problem as you, but similar... After watching for say, 5 minutes, the audio will start to crackle and then will slowly fade away and sound fine again. A few minutes later the crackle comes back and repeats.

My solution was to switch the "audio renderer" in the config app to "Default WaveOut Device". Since then, it's been perfect. I don't know why exaclty - I would guess it's a bug in the drivers for the AC97 when going through DirectX, but I'm not sure.

Give that a shot and see if it works.

[elbryyan]

you are asking alot from an onboard video card to do 1080i without stutter
what mpeg decoder are you using ?

Well, I'm ok with it for what it looks like but the wife is not. It actually does a real decent job of playback on the content unless there is alot of fast motion and handles it even better with overlay as I think the trasparent OSD is more intensive to use, maybe I'm wrong in that aspect but it does seem to do better with just the overlay mode. Anyway I am using the Nvidia Purevideo decoder and it actually does better when I turn the hardware acceleration off.

I'll try the different audio renderer tonight to see if it works.

[stustunz]

yes hardware acceleration probably wont work with onboard video card cause what would be the point
are you using overlay manager its better
then you will have control over youraudio aswell
overlay is better when your computer is lacking horse power and a good video card
try this :
video decoder >system default
audio decoder >NVIDIA audio decoder

Video renderer >overlay manager

then while movie is playing open nvidia decoder setting (audio doesnt show up unless video is playing )& you cannot do it from gbpvr config you dont get the audio tab unless playing
(icon shows up in task bar while video is playing if it doesnt show up then nvidia pure video isnt working right)

display type> content default

try hardware acceleration on(give it a go then turn off again and try)

deinterlace> auto

dont know what your tv is or screen but if your using 1080i
i would try 720p very similar to 1080i except better i think cause it a progresive signal

deinterlace is up to youbut if you do the 720p then try display fields seperatley
prefer vmr 9
if thats no good try vmr 7
then last overlay weave deinterlace

but if you are sticking with 1080i then overlay would be your best bet for smooth playback but still try them all

the next thing is your audio tabs at the top then go advanced gives you some more option for digital out etc have a play in there you may find a setting that works for you

[elbryyan]

Thanks stunstunz, I'll try and fiddle with the audio portion of the tab the next time I get a chance.

[elbryyan]

My video portion is working great. The problem I am having is with the digital spdif audio out, I'm using an ASUS M2NPV-VM. I'm thinking it is an issue witht he motherboard as it has the spdif module connected to it and I need to find out what would be causing this issue. It is weird to me that it will work fine only in VMR9 full screen exclusive. Everything would be hunky dorie at this point except for the small fact that I can't watch a show that is being recorded at the same time, ie time shifted. It just blows the video all to whack and starts stuttering all over the place. This is fixed if I switch to overlay but then the audio keeps skipping. Anybody have any experience setting up this motherboard witht he spdif module for digital audio?

[stustunz]

have you checked your cpu load/memory load while doing this you may be low on ram the more ram the better (because you are running intergrated graphics i would recomend at least 1gig xp, 2gig vista(maybe you already have that much you didnt say you need to list more than just your mother board if you have these sorts of issues it will help lots)
you also should have 2 physical hard drive (not 1 hard drive with 2 partition)

vmr takes more horsepower hence the reason it stuters more on vmr
as to why digital audio doesnt work it could be related
you have set your audio out to spdif only havent you

in config
live tv set that encoder pass through (if you havent already)

[elbryyan]

Ok, I have gotten my video and audio working great for live TV for both 1080i and 720p using VMR9 FSE. There was a setting on my control panel for hardware acceleration and sample rate conversion quality which I had to set to 'best' and that seemed to get the audio working. I have also been able to watch a previously recorded show while the system is recording another. The time shifting is still a problem.

More info on my setup:
I have two hard drives, 40GB for OS(XP Professional) and 200GB for storing recordings. 1 GB of memory 667Mhz DDR2. An AMD athlon 3800+ X2 dual core processor.

I have 256MB of memory allocated to the integrated video which I may try switching to 128MB to give the system more memory to work with to see if that helps. If that does not help I was then going to check to see what the CPU usages was while trying to time shift. Another thought was that the dard drive couldn't keep up with the reading and writing at the same time but it is the same one that I used perfectly on my desktop system with no time shifting problems.(It did however have a gforce 7800GS graphics card and pentium 4 3Ghz processor). I will continue to work on the problem and let you know. Thanks for any suggestions.

[stustunz]

i cant see why it shouldnt work
i dont normally use time shift instead i record then select watch from the tv guide
(not sure why but i find it works better maybe it depends on where the buffer file is i dont really know why )
try moving your buffer file to another hard drive


control/alt/delete while watching a movie and see what the control panel says for performance cpu and page file in my experience if you dont have at least 250meg of ram more than the page file is using then it you get a slow response from the computer
and because your video is stealing some of your ram you may need even more
have you increased your virtual memory (system properties/advanced)
(if it were me i would be buying a video card on board is fine for everday crap but if want top performance i think you would really notice the difference)