H264 playback choppy

[fuzzweed]

Hi, I can't seem to find a working combo to playback some h264 / ac3 / mkv files I have through NPVR.

I'm watching via a client over a wired network.
Decoder options available to me under the H264 decoder drop down are LAV, Microsoft, ATI and ffdshow.

Video renderer is set to EVR.

All the decoders I've tried are extremely choppy and slow and completely unwatchable, and I can hear the PC fan step up a gear as the PC churns away.

VLC seems to play back the same files with out breaking into a sweat.

Any ideas?

[smajor]

If your video card has software settings, is hardware acceleration enabled?

Do you have the latest drivers from the manufacturer's website for it?

Even with a decent video card, I've had clients were the bottleneck was something on the systemboard/PCIe slot. I used to have an older Gateway e4610 (P4 HT) that did the exact same thing even with an nVidia 9800GT card in it. When I moved that card to a PC with a little more modern system bus, it was smooth as glass.

For me, I've found for most all mkv, even at 1080, Microsoft for the h.264 and ffdshow for audio works pretty well for me.

[psycik]

What is your CPU usage while playing files?

I use an ATI card as well, and it's < 20% while playback is occuring.

[hoborg]

Did you tryed to play your file from local source (not from network)?
Did you tryed to use ReClock?

I have ATI 6450 output set to 50Hz over HDMI to FullHD LCD TV, WinXP, Latest SAF (to simply enable DXVA) and VMR9 FSE in nPVR and ReClock. Playback is perfect.
All my media is stored locally.

[imilne]

The decoder options in NPVR's settings only relate to how it handles Live TV and .ts files from recordings. All other file types - including mkv - are passed to DirectShow for playback so fiddling with the settings in NPVR will make no difference. Your best bet is to post some logs showing an attempt and then we'll/you'll be able to see what decoders are actually in use.

Iain

[fuzzweed]

OK thanks for the advice so far. Will be a few days before I get any maintenance time, but will follow up soon........

[Reddwarf]

OK thanks for the advice so far. Will be a few days before I get any maintenance time, but will follow up soon........

I'v found that the Cyberlink PDVD12 is the decoder that works best with ATI cards, but for DirectShow to use it, it has to be at the top of merit.

[Lao Pan]

I'v found that the Cyberlink PDVD12 is the decoder that works best with ATI cards, but for DirectShow to use it, it has to be at the top of merit.

A big plus one for this and use GraphStudioNext to render files to see what is actually being used by directshow (and change filter merits)

[hoborg]

Cyberlink PDVD12 is good only for TV for me, due missing subtitles support.
Only FFDshow DXVA decoder alow DXVA + subtitles ATM...

[Reddwarf]

Cyberlink PDVD12 is good only for TV for me, due missing subtitles support.
Only FFDshow DXVA decoder alow DXVA + subtitles ATM...

Don't know how you do it, but subtitles works great here...