Problem watching while recording on ATI x1250 adapter

[keith_leitch]

This problem began when I was trying to solve the problem described on this thread: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post360572

When I was first dealing with the topic of the thread (the intermittent motion blur) I didn't realise that it was a deinterlacing problem. I assumed that I was overloading my CPU. To deal with this, I installed AVIVO codecs, which claim to utilise the GPU on the video card, instead.

Now, I can record as much video as I want with no problem; even four sources at once (2 hi-def, one SD and another from the net). However, as soon as I WATCH video while even one source is recording, the recording turns to jelly (metaphorically speaking of course; if it were literal, I would at least have jelly to console me). It is worse when I watch HD than when I watch SD, and it is fine when I watch a simple low-res MPEG1 file (340x288). This seems to indicate that I am overloading the GPU, which is now trying to do the additional work of transcoding my recordings.

I never had this problem before, so it must be based on something I have installed. I have been focussed on the fact that I installed Catalyst 8.11, but pBS and other experienced members tell me that is the best choice for my x1250 adapter (and, indeed, the imaging did improve when I wasn't recording). So, the other two things I installed was ffdshow and those Avivo codecs.

The only flaw to my theory is that UNinstalling both codec packs has NOT fixed the problem. However, when I installed the codecs, I was able to view MOV and WMV for the first time. Surprisingly, now that I have uninstalled them, I can still watch MOV and WMV. Are shards of them hanging around? Would using the "remove everything ATI" utility get rid of them?

I am convinced this is not based on general system speed or stability. My drives are in IDE mode, but both using Ultra DMA 5 or 6. The CPU is not spiking significantly during these activities.

[keith_leitch]

Hold the phone. This seems to blow the hardware theory out of the water.

I just started three recordings at once (1080i, 720p and 576i). I then exited PVRx2, and began playing three different 1080i recordings in three different players (WMP, MPC and VLC). The players struggled as you might expect (MPC looked great), but they played their content.

I stopped the players and went back to PVRx2 to check the recordings. All three recordings were perfect; they did not suffer at all during that playback.

Then, I played a single 1080i recording with the PVRx2 player. All three recordings began to suffer at exactly the point that I started that playback. (Mostly, there are long pauses of a second or more coded directly into the recording).

This seems to indicate that it is not a video hardware problem at all, as surely it would be equally stressed by the other players. However, it only arose for the first time when I did the installations described in this thread: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post360577, so I will take any discussion of it back there.