Re: Recorded TV playback

MCE does not use WMP at all (at least not for video playback).
It does uses VMR9 rendering, which is not the default setting in WMP (which
would default to overlay rendering unless you enable hi-quality mode).

With regard to tv playback, the only thing that WMP and MCE have in common
is that they use the same DVD decoder through DirectShow. Settings in WMP
should not impact MCE video at all.

What video card are you using? If it can't do VMR9 in hardware, that could
very easily be the reason why you are having video rendering issues in Media
Center.

--
Jason Tsang - Microsoft MVP

Read my blog for the latest in Media Center topics
(and other topics that interest me)
http://jtsang.blogspot.com

More information by me
http://jtsang.mvps.org
http://www.classicsunveiled.com

Find out about the MS MVP Program -
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx



"GEVan" <GEVan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6144FC05-B61E-4A28-81CD-699A134FBDA8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I can make MCE provide smooth plack if I make two adjustments in Windows
Media Player (Yes, JW, MCE uses WMP and not VM9 -- whatever that it.)

WMP options
1. Turn OFF video acceleration
2. Increase buffer time

I noticed that, when a program stutters/hangs, if I skip back and play it
again, that section plays smoothly. MCE acts like it is decoding on the
fly
and it is not keeping up with playback -- hence the buffer increase.

As for the video acceleration, I had it set to 'medium' because WMP 11 was
not playing internet videos. When I turned acceleration OFF, it plays
fine.

Acknowledged I made two changes at once, so I cannot pinpoint which of
these
two options effects MCE playback most. It may be that both need to be
modified. All I can do is leave my settings where they are now and let
time
tell on improving performance.

Thank you all. I'll let you know the results in a few days.

GEVan

"JW" wrote:

The normal cause of your problem is a fragmented HDD. However, since you
defrag on daily/continuous basis it certainly does not seem to apply,
Since it is not always possible to defrag every fragmented file I would
like
you view the analysis report available in the Windows defragmenter to see
if
there are possibly defragmenter dvr-ms files

Also some decoders apparently do a better job of queuing up the work to
be
done so I would like you to down load and install the 3o day free trial
of
the NVIDIA decoder available at their web site and then make sure it is
the
preferred decoder using the decoder utility.

Yes, certainly your graphics card is not causing the problem as evidenced
by
having no problems it the recordings are on a drive other then C:

Your CPU may be what's called a HyperThreaded or HT CPU which means it
looks
like a dual core to the OS and the OS treats it as such. A HT cpu has
two
sets of registers and two sets of look ahead logic but can only execute
one
instruction at a time for one of the two CPU streams. If it is a HT CPU
then the CPU percentage you are seeing is the total for both "CPU"s and
you
are actually using 40-60% of one of them since playing video does not
make
use of the second CPU system in a multiple CPU system.

With your CPU running at 20-30 percent CPU power is not a issue and if it
was it would also be a problem when playing a program from another drive.


When you say you have no trouble playing a DVD from C;drive are you using
MCE to play the DVD or another program?

Have you tried playing a recorded TV program using Media Player instead
of
MCE? If yes did it also stutter? If no please try to do so.

"GEVan" <GEVan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1D28AFAF-078E-472B-AD15-CCE50184E10C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1. First of all, I thank you for taking a personal intterest in this.
I'm
not
sure if you're a Windows Tech or just a smart person, but you're the
only
one
willing to take on this conundrum. The following is documentation of a
running analysis in my feeble brain. See what you think. . .

2. It's my turn to applogize. I misstated myself concerning the dual
internal drives. I have a HP m1280n, which uses a pullout HD in its
expansion
slot. It connects to the system boad via USB. That's where this
confusion
comes from. Yes, it is internal but it is treated as an EXTERNAL drive
by
the
system. Capice?

3. When I record to this internal/external drive (or any other) drive,
I
get
smooth playback no matter what the source or format. This implies to me
that
my graphics card is strong enough to handle the video information load.
I've
got 256MB RAM on the Radeon X600 chipset. It is a PCI ExpressT based
video
card. All this seems to bring into question the viablility of measured
throughput of the main internal Maxtor 300GB drive. It is a 7200RPM
drive
with average seek time of 7 or 8 ms.

I must add that the Intel Pentium(R) 4 CPU (3.2GHz) is NOT dual core,
but
Device Manager lists it twice. Not sure why. Maybe I can shift eShell
processor association to a perticular CPU node, the signal won't get
fouled
up in the CPU's data splitting and recombination process. After dealing
with
this for a year, I firmly believe THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE HARD DRIVE,
but
rather the CPU throughput. (i.e. when Messenger was running and MCE had
Messenging Service turned on, this caused all sorts of stutters and
stops --
both in recording and playing. When I turned off Messenger in MCE and
uninstalled it from my PC, it GREATLY improved performance. Now, I can
record
two channels at once with no recorded infractions.

So why would the CPU have trouble processing information off the main
drive
and not the USB/IEEE drives? Bios has it set for Ultra-DMA5, SATA.
Should
I
play with these settings?
.

"JW" wrote:

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


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Recorded TV playback
    ... Any and ALL stuttering/ hang problems come from MCE only. ... Your CPU may be what's called a HyperThreaded or HT CPU which means it looks ... both in recording and playing. ... and not the USB/IEEE drives? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: Recorded TV playback
    ... hyperthreading shouldn't be an issue here (if it was an issue with MCE, ... your background task uses the "CPU" other then the one that you are using ... both in recording and playing. ... and not the USB/IEEE drives? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: Recorded TV playback
    ... I can make MCE provide smooth plack if I make two adjustments in Windows ... Your CPU may be what's called a HyperThreaded or HT CPU which means it looks ... both in recording and playing. ... and not the USB/IEEE drives? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: Recorded TV playback
    ... I still believe that the problem is that since MCE uses VMR9 decoding and ... It could be that there is some microcode support that the CPU needs that ... both in recording and playing. ... and not the USB/IEEE drives? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)
  • Re: new computer
    ... That really limits your video upgrades. ... than the still larger drives and gives some redundancy). ... buy now should come with an upgrade to Vista. ... Is Dual CPU 1.6 Faster than Single CPU 3.4? ...
    (alt.sys.pc-clone.dell)
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