Re: Recorded TV playback

You are correct I did not read your last response completly I apologize. I
am trying to resolve your issue which is certainly one of the more complex
that I have worked on in the last couple of years so please bear with me we
will get to the solution.
At one time I thought that you had a second internal drive and when I
sugested that you try puting the page file on it as a test which Ms always
suggests you do when you have two internal drives you replied that you did
not want to put it on an external drive and I can fully understand that

AFAIK MCE Does not use Media player to play DVDs it goes direct to your
preferred decoder and forces it forces it to use VMR9 rendering instead of
Overlay rendering which Media player normally uses by default. Since VMR9
rendering puts a bigger load and takes more clock time on your system then
overlay rendering I think this may be why your graphics card does not have
the clock time required to not drop frames or stutter.. This is therfor why
you are not seing the stuttering problem when not using MCE to play DVDs or
TV recordings.

I understand that your are using the WinDVD deocder.

If you use Media Player instead of MCE to play a recorded TV program do you
get stuttering?

You want maximum hardware acceleration to play recorded TV files.

When you say an internal SATA controller do you you mean an add on IDE
controller card or one built into the MOBO?

Again I suggest that download and install the 30 day free trial NVIDIA
decoder from their Website and try it.

What make/model of graphics/video card are you using and what driver releas
are you using with it? I ask this because it is the less powerfull graphics
cards that actully drop frames or stutter when they does not have the clock
time required to keep up with the data input rate.

"GEVan" <GEVan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:F797DB37-401E-422F-B044-1F8815461508@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I applogiize. It appears that my responses are too long for you to read
them.
Again, I stipulated your requested info in my last two emails.

Again
1. C drive is controlled by an internal SATA controller.
2. I've run several company's Disk Diagnostic programs to check C drive
health and throughput. Everything comes back 'normal' or 'no problems
found'
3. MCE uses Windows Media Player to play .dvr-ms and any videos/DVDs. I
have
verstion 11 -- which is not the problem because I suffered through this
irritation in version 10 as well
4. WMP does not have a built-in MPEG decoder (either 1 or 2). It relies on
the user t purchase and install a decoder. (i.e. If I unstall WinDVD, MCE
will not play ANY video of any kind. WMP uses the InterVideo MPEG decoder.
5. I have hardware acceleration checked. Because I started getting errors
when I played media files on the web. A knowledge Base article suggested I
turn down the amount of hardware acceleration to resolve this issue. I
did. I
can now play web media.
6. I have two decoders for MPEG. '1Click DVD Copy and DVD43.' Multiple
DVD
copy programs (most of which came bundled with suite products. Again, I DO
NOT have trouble playing DVD or copied MPEG-2 files off the C drive. The
stuttering only occurs with .dvr-ms (which are also MPEG-2 based).
7. I downloaded the decoder check program long ago. The trouble was and is
MCE will not install any other video decoder other than the first one in
(in
my case Intervideo). I bought a CinePlayer decoder. Add/Remove programs
shows
it is installed. Task Manager indicates the CineDecoder is up and running.
However, the DVD Decoder Check only lists Intervideo. Also, the WMP does
not
recognize the CinePlayer DVD Decoder Pack plugin I installed.

In the past, discovered that if MCE is set to accept MS Messenger, even
Live
TV would stutter as MCE checked for incoming messages. I de-selected MCE
Messenger and even uninstalled Windows Messenger (I have no chat or
messenger
services on my PC)



"JW" wrote:

Apparently the C: drive is slower in retriving data then the other drives
or
there is some other activity going on on it when you are playing a
recording? And this causes a retrival delay which is not providing
enough
clock time left for the decoding and display process

Is the SATA controller for it built into you MOBO or is it a separate
controller or adapter?

The Win DVD player is probably using Overlay rendering instead of DVR9
rendering which MCE always uses.

What is your CPU utilization when only playing a recoded TV program from
the
C: drive?

What MPEG2 Decoder are you using? And does it have hardware acceleration
enabled? You can use the following utility to check:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

I suggest that you try another such as the Free 30 day trial of the
NVIDIA
Decoder if it is not the one you are using.

What make/model graphics card are you using
"GEVan" <GEVan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13EB6FDF-F216-433C-AB7B-670E109E3101@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Don't know what you mean by 'hard drive cache.' Only thing to tell you
is
it
is a SATA, not IDE like I said before. Ultra-DMA. 300GB. 7200 RPM.

Intel 4 chip, 3.2 GHz, 512 MB on board cash, 800 MHz front buss. 2GB
RAM.

I'm reluctant to move the pagefile to another drive. If that drive went
out,
then Windows will crash. Sure, it would rebuild one on startup, but I
see
better troughput keeping it on the internal drive than moving it
outside
the
box. Temp files are on external drive (1 TB, 7200 USB drive). Watching
copied
DVD's (at MPEG-2) from these drives have no problems. Playback of
.dvr-ms
files on these drives have no problem. Only when I put a DVD or .dvr-ms
on
the C: drive does MCE stutter.

If I use another player for the movies (WinDVD 8), no problems playing
movies on the C: drive. --> the problem must reside in eShell's
operation.
I've tried making the priority higher, but no real effect -- in fact,
it
seems worse as System Services and programs are now starved for CPU
time.

No other CPU intensive programs running duriing recording or playback.
If
I'm working on something while I'm recording, then yes, the actual
recording
has temporary halts and stutters as the CPU tries to handle all the
info.

Checking memory usage (free memory) and CPU usage during recording, I
average around 1 GB free memory (meaning the pagefile is not being
utilized)
and CPU levels is around %20-30. System is NOT overloading. That's why
I
can't figure out why it would be stuttering.

A friend told me to get a stronger power supply (400W -vs- 300W),
believing
my PC is underpowered. But almost all my peripherals are either self
powered
or of minimal power drain (i.e. USB microphone, wireless keyboard,
mouse,
etc.)

"JW" wrote:

You could try putting the Pagefile on another drive.
Are there any entries in the event logs that indicate any disk reading
problems when playing recorded TV?
Any unusual CPU utilization when watchng a recording from the C:
drive?
What is the speed of C drive and how much cache does it have on it?
"GEVan" <GEVan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:83A8117A-EF69-410B-9C7F-6BD54A92806B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1. No problems with Live TV
2. DMA is enabled
3. I can watch a DVD that I've copied to a HDD without any probems
(unless
I've got a heavy CPU program running in the background.)
4. I record TV to my second internal drive to get smooth playback.
It's
only
when I record to the default location (or just C:) that its fouls
up.
Since
my drive is 300GB, I'm not making good use for a lot of space
4. IDE all (two drives are self powered USB interface -- and even
they
work
well)

"JW" wrote:

Do you have any trouble with LiveTV?
Are DMA tranfers enabled for the drive?
If you have another internal drive other then C have you tried it?
Is C: an IDE drive? If yes is another device on the same IDE bus?
"GEVan" <GEVan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5F204CD9-CB18-44FB-8561-BBD0CFCD7B04@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Why is it when I record TV onto the default c:/../recorded TV the
playback
stutters (i.e. stops/hangs) on a random basis (avg. once per two
minutes.)?
Yet when I record to an external drive, the playback is perfect?

NOTE:
No other programs are running in either scenario.
Messenger service is turned off in MCE and deleted in Windows XP.
All hard drives routinely defragged on a daily/continuous basis.
250
gigs
free on C.
2 gigs RAM.
the 'TEMP directory is on ANOTHER drive (O:/) other than C or the
recorded
TV (P:/) drive. Pagefile remains on C.











.

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