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the_crowbar
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 Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:55 pm |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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I have a R5D1 system that has been working well for several months. I have added a PVR-500 card to the system. Prior to this I had a problem with the commflag running while watching HD content, but that has been fixed by running commflag at night. Now while watching "live" HD content the video gets jerky if the PVR-500 is recording a show. I have one 400 GB Seagate SATA drive. It has 16MB cache and is the faster 300MB/s variety. My motherboard is the Asus A8N-VM CSM and the CPU is an Athlon64 3000+ (1.8GHz)
From reading other posts on the forum, this system should be able to easily handle one HD stream and at least one SD stream. Can anyone tell me things I should check to find the problem, or is this system just to slow?
Thanks,
James
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Girkers
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Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 8:38 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:18 pm
Posts: 1422
Location:
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
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Wizzard~Of~Ozz
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 5:59 am |
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Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:37 am
Posts: 30
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I had this problem using an ATI Card. Switching to an FX5200 card and using XVMC/Bob 2x for playback solved my problem. I also use a 3 drive stripe set for TV recording, but HardDrive speed was never the issue. Commflagging will still cause playback to get messed up tho. (Make sure it's not set to flag commercials while recording)
_________________
AthlonXP 2500/768Mb DDR
AbitNF7 (onboard Audio),Geforce 5200
NFS share for 1.5tb (3 x 500Gb) w/ XFS under FC7.
ATI HDTv Wonder, Hauppauge 150MCE
ThermalTake Bach case
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 8:05 am |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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Thanks for the ideas so far.
Girkers: hdparm is pretty much useless for SATA drives. I could not get it to report much of anything other than geometry for my SATA disks. Do you know if SATA defaults to DMA?
Wizzard~Of~Ozz: I am using a GeForce 6150 (onboard) video card. I also am using XvMC and commflag is set to run during the night rather than while I am watching TV. I will have to check the bob setting tonight. I wish I could use a raid array for my storage, but my media center case only has room for two drives.
Last night I experienced the problem again. I was watching Monday Night Football in HD. The Myth box was recording on one or both of my SD tuners. The video was quite jerky. I went to my desktop and logged into my myth box. When I ran top, my CPU was maxed out. The X server was using about half and mythbackend was using the other half of the cpu time.
I see others on the board have Athlon64 3000+ running HD just fine. Is there a setting I have wrong that may be impacting playback. One theory I have is that the HD recordings that are giving me problems are 1080i, but I output a 720p signal to my TV. I guess in that case the video card/CPU has to deinterlace the video and scale it to the right size. Anyone know if I am way off track here?
Thanks,
James
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 8:15 am |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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My earlier idea about 1080i is wrong. Monday Night Football on ESPN is broadcast in 720p. I did record a couple of Star Wars movies this weekend in 1080i, but I have not tried to watch either of those.
I guess it is back to the drawing board. How can I check to make sure that I am really using XvMC for playback?
Thanks,
James
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ceenvee703
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 8:46 am |
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Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:08 am
Posts: 1637
Location:
Virginia, USA
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the_crowbar wrote: How can I check to make sure that I am really using XvMC for playback?
If your on-screen display (pause, skip, menu, program guide) appears in grayscale instead of color, you're using XvMC.
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:29 pm |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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Ceenvee703: My on screen display is (what I think is normal) normal blue. I thought that Myth 0.20 had fixed the greyscale on screen display. Guess I need to reread the changelog.
Thanks,
James
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RacerX
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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 12:23 pm |
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Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:06 pm
Posts: 690
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I think the thing to do it test with top a couple of different ways and see what the results look like.
For example in top how much cpu usage when just playing back a 720p program? How much when 1080i?
Can you draw a comparision which requires more cpu usage?
Then start recording a SD program and repeat the test. How do the results compare?
After that record two programs and compare the results...
You can even test it with live tv and compare to recorded tv.
This sort of testing will give you a better baseline to measure your sytem
and determine what's up in a more logical fashion....
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RacerX
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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 12:32 pm |
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Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:06 pm
Posts: 690
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I think the way to approach the problem is to test more thourghly with top.
Playback a 720p program and take a look at how much cpu usage.
Try the same thing with 1080i and see if you can compare the two.
Then expand the test by recording SD program and playback 720p and 1080i and compare the results.
Then try it live TV and see how things compare.
What do the results say?
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ceenvee703
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Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:36 pm |
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Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:08 am
Posts: 1637
Location:
Virginia, USA
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:45 pm |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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I was wrong in my initial thought about XvMC. I was using the standard decoder. When I switched to XvMC I had the grey OSD.
Here are some numbers from top:
Record & Playback of 1080i: frontend 35-41% CPU X ~5% backend ~4%
Record 1080i & single SD: frontend 15% ivtv ~9% backend ~5%
Record 1080i, 480i Playback 1080i: frontend 40-70% ivtv ~9% backend ~5%
Playback stutters frequently.
Record 1080i,480i,480i Playback 1080i: frontend 65% ivtv(x2) 18% backend 5% X 5%
Playback stutters constantly.
This is all with the standard decoder. I will try again with XvMC after dinner.
Thanks,
James
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:43 pm |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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More numbers from top. Using XvMC for playback this is what I get:
Recording 1080i, 480i, 480i Playback 1080i: frontend 73+% ivtv ~9% (x2 - 18%) backend ~7%
Recording very jerky. Audio choppy and clipped.
At this time I don't have any 720p recording to test for playback.
Thanks,
James
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RacerX
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:47 am |
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Joined: Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:06 pm
Posts: 690
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I read you results and decided to do some reseach and here is what I found. I recommend that you read this post on ivtv-dev it may provide a possible answer to some of your frustration.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ivtv-devel@ ... 03305.html
After I read this I got the idea that it might not be a bad idea to upgrade the bios on your board to the lastest version. Check the Asus site.
If this does not help there are a few things you could try.
First check out the log on your machine /var/log/messages
and see if you're getting DMA errors.
If you are then you will probably be best with option A
A). Try splitting the backend to a different machine. It could be something very inexpensive like a 1ghz PIII or so. It would give you the advantage of being able to run commercial flagging all the time....
Otherwise you could try
B). Using a pci express card it might help and I know the quality of the onboard graphics is pretty poor compared to a dedicated card...
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:13 am |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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RacerX: Thanks for the thread link.
My BIOS is up to date (ver 1001). My log file has no indication of DMA errors. In fact my log has no messages other than the MARK message every 20 minutes.
It seems my problem is simply with the frontend consuming all availble CPU time.
XvMC actually uses more CPU than the standard decoder. I don't know what to check next. I guess I need to do a search on XvMC setup.
I can add a PCI-E video card if that will fix the problem. I have been holding off on that because I don't have one on hand. I want to make sure that would fix things before I spend the money on a new card.
Thanks,
James
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the_crowbar
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:28 am |
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Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:50 pm
Posts: 42
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Here is the XvMC info from the frontend log. (-v all)
Code: root@mythtv:/home/mythtv# grep -i xvmc mythfrontend_11202006.log
2006-11-20 17:25:04.024 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:28:17.208 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:29:47.589 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:33:16.668 MSqlQuery: SELECT data FROM settings WHERE value = 'UseXvMCForHDOnly' AND hostname = 'mythtv' ;
2006-11-20 17:33:16.668 MSqlQuery: SELECT data FROM settings WHERE value = 'UseXvMCForHDOnly' AND hostname IS NULL;
2006-11-20 17:33:16.719 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:35:07.060 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:36:54.327 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:37:43.403 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:39:51.043 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 17:40:19.538 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 18:11:08.784 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 19:54:18.035 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 20:02:06.856 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 20:02:25.192 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 20:03:15.176 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 20:27:34.649 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 20:36:24.523 MSqlQuery: UPDATE settings SET value = 'PreferredMPEG2Decoder', data = 'xvmc', hostname = 'mythtv' WHERE value = 'PreferredMPEG2Decoder' AND hostname = 'mythtv';
2006-11-20 20:37:55.046 VideoOutputXv: XvMC version: 1.0
2006-11-20 20:37:55.046 XvMCSurfaceTypes::find(w 1920, h 1080, chroma 1, vld 0, idct 1, mpeg2, sub-width 0, sub-height 0, disp, p<= 270, 2700 <=p, port, surfNum)
2006-11-20 20:37:55.056 Trying XvMC port 270
2006-11-20 20:37:55.056 Found a suitable XvMC surface 0
2006-11-20 20:37:55.056 XvMCSurfaceTypes::find(w 1920, h 1080, chroma 1, vld 0, idct 1, mpeg2, sub-width 0, sub-height 0, disp, p<= 270, 2700 <=p, port, surfNum)
2006-11-20 20:37:55.057 Trying XvMC port 270
2006-11-20 20:37:55.057 Found a suitable XvMC surface 0
2006-11-20 20:37:55.058 VideoOutputXv: XvMC surface found with IDCT support on port 270
2006-11-20 20:37:55.064 AFD: Looking for decoder for MPEG2VIDEO_XVMC
2006-11-20 20:37:55.064 AFD: Opened codec 0x84d2c00, id(MPEG2VIDEO_XVMC) type(Video)
Stream #0.0[0x8c0], 1/90000: Video: mpegvideo_xvmc, xvmcidct, 1920x1080, 1001/30000, 25000 kb/s, 29.97 fps(r)
2006-11-20 20:37:55.249 VideoOutputXv: XvMC version: 1.0
2006-11-20 20:37:55.250 VideoOutputXv: XvMCTex: Init failed
2006-11-20 20:37:55.251 XvMCSurfaceTypes::find(w 1920, h 1088, chroma 1, vld 0, idct 1, mpeg2, sub-width 0, sub-height 0, disp, p<= 270, 2700 <=p, port, surfNum)
2006-11-20 20:37:55.251 Trying XvMC port 270
2006-11-20 20:37:55.251 Found a suitable XvMC surface 0
2006-11-20 20:37:55.251 VideoOutputXv: XvMC surface found with IDCT support on port 270
2006-11-20 20:37:55.251 VideoOutputXv: XvMC Adaptor Name: 'NV17 Video Texture'
2006-11-20 20:37:58.362 VideoOutputXv Error: ProcessFrameXvMC: Failed to get OSD lock
[mpegvideo_xvmc @ 0xb719d1c8]00 motion_type at 85 45
[mpegvideo_xvmc @ 0xb719d1c8]Warning MVs not available
[mpegvideo_xvmc @ 0xb719d1c8]concealing 0 DC, 0 AC, 0 MV errors
root@mythtv:/home/mythtv#
If anyone knows what these errors mean I would appreciate some help. For now I will try to search Google and maybe update the nvidia drivers to 9629.
Thanks,
James
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