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[jmone]

I'm looking at reserecting an my old HTPC for the brother-in-law (Vista Ultimate, PentD, nvidia 6200TC, 1GB) for some basic duties and while it plays back Media Files fine for some reason it now sometimes stutters badly during DVD playback (eg under 5fps).  Typically if it is stuttering I can press STOP and the PLAY again and it will then be fine.  So far I've:
- Checked DMA Enabled
- Checked, changed and played with Filters
- Checked, changed and played with HW Decoding
- Turned on/off Virus Checkers etc etc

The only thing that made a difference was I swaped DVD Drives....and while it improved from a 3 in 4 play attempts stuttering to only 1 in 5 - I've run out of ideas (apart from tossing the lot) on what else to try.

Any Ideas on other things to try?

Thanks
Nathan

[JimH]

I'm a software guy, but I know that cabling makes a difference.  Master/slave, etc, and the setting so of the drive itself.  And being on a separate cable from the hard drive.  Bad cables also exist.

Then there are the weird problems like virus checkers.  Check the "weird problems" link in my signature for examples.

Sorry if that's unhelpful.

[raym]

What video renderers have you tried? I've seen similar issues on some systems. 9 times outa 10, switching to Legacy (over EVR/VMR) fixes the problem. Legacy is far less CPU intensive (with or without DXVA enabled) so on a slower system, this should help quite a bit.

[jmone]

Thanks - tried all of that but no change, FYI CPU is not maxing out.  In one minute I can press play/stop 5 time but one of the times it will stutter badly, the other four is fine.
Nathan

[rjm]

Are you sharing the dvd drive's IDE channel with a hard drive? If yes, this can cause problems. It is wise to keep hard drives and optical drives on different IDE channels.

[raym]

Does this PC have an ATI video card by chance? I have seen similar things (which I still don't have an answer for) on certain PC's. The only common link was that they all have ATI VPUs.

[JimH]

Re ATI, try removing the program called atihotkey.  It's a service.  Try a google search to learn about problems with it.

[raym]

Re ATI, try removing the program called atihotkey.  It's a service.  Try a google search to learn about problems with it.

Thanks. Already disabled though.

[glynor]

You might want to also check into the quartz.dll thing with DirectX 9.0c.  I just discovered that it was the cause of some occasional "studdering" (judder actually) on my DVR application.  It caused occasional field order problems in MPEG-2 playback (which could also affect DVD playback I suppose).

[raym]

You might want to also check into the quartz.dll thing with DirectX 9.0c.  I just discovered that it was the cause of some occasional "studdering" (judder actually) on my DVR application.  It caused occasional field order problems in MPEG-2 playback (which could also affect DVD playback I suppose).

Hi Glynor. Could you elaborate please? Is there an update available to this dll somewhere? Sounds like a good lead...

Thanks.

[glynor]

Read here:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8831

and here:

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?p=123359#post123359
http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?p=193327#post193327

Here are simple instructions on applying the fix:

http://www.gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FAQ/Codec#toc6

The "good" version of the quartz.dll (which those instructions refer to, but don't link to directly) is available attached to the post in that first thread at Snapstream (and I suspect the one on the SageTV forum too, but I used the one from the Snapstream post).

It worked for me.  I was having terrible judder with my new 1080p display when playing back MPEG-2 content.  It was sporadic though.  Like described in the thread, if I used FF/RW (skip ahead/back TiVO style) I could sometimes get it to "catch" and go away, but then if I touched the FF/RW at all, it'd come back.  I was able to "hide" the problem somewhat by altering my refresh rate and by tweaking my de-interlacing settings, but it was still there just not as obvious (and the de-interlacing quality suffered).

Replacing the quartz.dll file with the one linked in that first Snapstream forum post fixed the issue completely, and it hasn't returned.

Apparently it is a somewhat well known bug in DirectX 9.0c.  Microsoft doesn't seem to be in any hurry to fix it because it (conveniently) doesn't affect MCE at all, and doesn't affect Vista.  So, what's their motivation, you know?

[raym]

Thanks heaps for this. I look forward to giving it a go as I've gone down a similar path as yourself with no full soluition yet.

Thanks again.

[raym]

Hmmm, wasn't really the silver bullet I had hoped for   I updated the dll and managed to recreate the problem after a short while. I see the issue for all kinds of video types, not just MPEG-2's. I have a bunch of xvid AVI's and MKV's and using ffdshow I see the same problem - judder every now and then expecially after seeking. Pause/Replay fixes it... until the next time it happens.

I've had many different ATI cards over the years (currently using an HD2400 Pro with built in HDMI) and all exhibit the same problem but I've also used other playback software too and I must admit, it's something I've only ever really observed while using MC. That's neither here nor there though. I'm not suggesting it's an MC problem. I've tried things like reclock in the past but this made no difference either. Gees I wish I could get to the bottom of this one. Very annoying...

[glynor]

One question...

Is your library (the database files, not the media files themselves) on a local or a network drive?  I've seen similar behavior (which would even sometimes affect music visualizations) when I had my library files on a network drive.

[rjm]

Are you using the motherboard IDE controller or a PCI add-in controller? I have seen media playback weirdness with the latter.

[raym]

Thanks for the input.

Are you using the motherboard IDE controller or a PCI add-in controller? I have seen media playback weirdness with the latter.

Motherboard IDE.

Is your library (the database files, not the media files themselves) on a local or a network drive?  I've seen similar behavior (which would even sometimes affect music visualizations) when I had my library files on a network drive.

No, local. Media is on a network and when i first looked into this problem way back when, I tested local media and I could still recreate the problem.

Like you said originally Glynor, I can minimise the issue by changing deinterlace settings and/or slight refresh rate adjustments. The problem just never really goes away. Different codecs don't seem to make a lot of difference but alternate renderers seem to. Overlay as opposed to VMR9 for instance seems to reduce the frequency of it.

Thanks again.

[JimH]

If I were as desparate as I think you may be, I would uninstall the virus checker.  Turning it off may not do what you need.  We've seen that before.

I assume you've been through task manager looking for thinks you can kill.  How about services?  Control panel/admin.  Risky but never boring.

Network driver oddities?  It might be worth swapping the card if possible.

I assume you've tried google.

[glynor]

Very annoying indeed!

It apparently wasn't the same as my issue (because both Overlay mode and fixing quartz.dll should make it go away completely -- and do for me).  I'm using an AMD HD 3850 512MB card too, btw.  I did not see the issue before with my x800XT or my X1900XT (though I used those in different setups).

My only other guesses are (as Jim suggested) conflicting software -- probably anti-virus, anti-spyware, performance "monitoring", DRM-enforcing, or actual-virus/spyware -- or bad hardware of some kind.

I hate to suggest it but... Do you have a spare hard drive you could use for a clean windows install and test it out with nothing but windows+drivers+MC+media?

[raym]

No, I don't have a spare HDD but I've done a couple of complete rebuilds to bare basics over the last month to try and solve this (and a different unrelated issue). I don't have a virus checker at all on this PC to disable and I've deliberately not installed any monitoring software of any kind.

Thanks for everyone's help on this. I think I'm nearly ready to admit defeat though. If I had the spare cash I'd like to try some other video cards. I'm starting to think (based on some stuff I've read) that this could all be a problem with AMD/ATI's handling of 50Hz/PAL content within the video drivers. I really don't know. I've tried numerous versions of Catalyst all with the same results.

Glynor, just out of curiousity, what version of ffdshow and Catalyst are you running? Also, what MPEG-2 decoders do you have loaded?

Thanks again.

[glynor]

Glynor, just out of curiousity, what version of ffdshow and Catalyst are you running? Also, what MPEG-2 decoders do you have loaded?

Drivers: Catalyst 8.01.  CCC installed, but not loaded in tray.  ATI Tray Tools is installed, Hotkey Poller is being killed on boot.  VPU Recover is disabled, and the "advanced settings" are generally set following these guidelines.  I upgraded immediately to 8.01 because the 3850 wasn't fully supported by 7.12 (and needed it's own "special" driver).

Deinterlacing: Auto is unchecked.  Slider is set to Vector Adaptive, and Pulldown Detection is enabled.

Display notes: The display is my primary/only display, set to 1920x1080 (its native resolution) @ 60Hz.  Connected via DVI-HDMI adapter.  Sound support in the 3850 is (for now) disabled.

Decoders: CCCP 2007-07-22 (I actually just now saw there is a new release out).  No other DVD Decoders are currently installed, though I'm probably going to bite the bullet and pick up the Nvidia PureVideo decoder or the Cyberlink DVXA-enabled decoder.  For most of my MPEG-2 decoding currently, I'm using either CCCP or the Snapstream SP Decoder included with BeyondTV (which is really probably 90% of the decoding I do since I don't watch DVDs effectively ever).

One question... Did you read some of Jmone's postings about refresh rates and judder from a while back?  He too lives in PAL-land and had trouble with Judder.  He was able to fix it by running the display at 50Hz most of the time, but manually switching it to 24Hz when playing film-encoded DVDs.  I still strongly suspect that this might be overkill... Running the display at 60Hz or higher all the time (if possible with your set) all the time might actually help solve the problem.  It might not though, and many PAL displays don't support anything higher than 50Hz.

I always used the ATI Cyberlink decoder in the past, but since I rebuilt the HTPC and gave up my old AIW X800XT card, I can't use it anymore (it won't install with the 3850 annoyingly -- even though it would with my X1900XT card).  So I'm currently torn on what to do...

EDIT: I'm also unclear on if I already have an ATI Decoder installed as part of the AVIVO package.  It looks like (according to a bunch of posts over at AVSForum) maybe it is an MPEG-2 decoder, but not a DVD Decoder.  I plan to investigate this further, but haven't gotten there yet...

[hit_ny]

No one's sugggested this but have you been able to duplicate the problem using any player other than MC ?

..which might tell if its the rig or MC.

[raym]

Glynor. Thanks again for the detailed info. At 60hz, I get BAD judder (as expected). At 50Hz, everything's silky except for this occasional issue. I really think refresh rate wise, everything's setup properly. I'll take another look at my other settings and compare with yours though.

FYI - re the AVIVO package, yes, you can use the mpeg audio/video codecs for mpeg-2 playback but NOT for DVD playback (in MC). I'm sticking with my trusty old Cyberlink 7 decoders for the time being. 

Back to more tweeking....

Oh, hit_ny... thanks but yes, I see the issue in WMP also. Don't think it's an MC problem.

Thanks.

[Yaobing]

FYI - re the AVIVO package, yes, you can use the mpeg audio/video codecs for mpeg-2 playback but NOT for DVD playback (in MC).

Are they usable for DVD in other applications? In other words, is it an MC issue? If it is I would like to know. You can not use them because they do not perform well? Or you simply can not select them (MC not listing them as DVD filters)?

[raym]

Hi Yaobing. The AVIVO codecs don't appear for selection in the DVD options dialog and this is why I havn't been able to try them. To be honest, I havn't tried using them for DVD playback in any other app but I' believe they are supposed to work.

I've been using the AVIVO video decoder for live TV playback (where it IS selectable) and it's by far the best I've ever used. For some reason (maybe related to the DVD problem) the AVIVO audio codecs don't appear for selection though.


EDIT: For anyone who cares, I seem to have corrected the judder issue or at least minimise it substantially by using the VMR7 video renderer. No idea why but I don't mind... I've always avoided VMR7 in the past due to it's colour control limitations but I'd rather this than the judder.

[glynor]

The AVIVO codec appears to be a MPEG-2 decoding filter, but NOT a DVD Decoder (no deCSS support).  So I think that's the deal.  You can use it for "plain vanilla" MPEG-1/2, but not for DVD playback (unless you use something like AnyDVD).

Now, I'm not sure if/why they don't show in the Transform Filters "side" of the filter selection dialog in MC.  Haven't checked yet (only just got it all installed correctly over the weekend).

(BTW... Sorry I haven't been around much lately.  I'm in full-on-political-junkie-mode right now, and on top of it busy at work.  I'm still checking in, but don't have much time to contribute.)

[Yaobing]

The AVIVO codec appears to be a MPEG-2 decoding filter, but NOT a DVD Decoder (no deCSS support).  So I think that's the deal.  You can use it for "plain vanilla" MPEG-1/2, but not for DVD playback (unless you use something like AnyDVD).

Thanks glynor. That's what I was wondering about. Perhaps the filter does not support DVD_ENCRYPTED_PACKS as media type on its pins.

Now, I'm not sure if/why they don't show in the Transform Filters "side" of the filter selection dialog in MC.  Haven't checked yet (only just got it all installed correctly over the weekend).

Filters there are in "DirectShow" filters category. All we check is that they have at least one input pin and at least one output pin and they are for audio or video media types. This maybe a problem for some filters that dynamically generate output pins (and thus do not register output pins).

[glynor]

Something that could help... AMD released Catalyst 8.2 today.  Included in the release notes was this gem:

Playing DVD content using the Windows Media Player no longer results in the playback being choppy. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32136

Incidentally, it also lists these, which look good for those of us with newer cards:

Audio stutter is no longer noticed when using the HDMI connector. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32118

Playing an H.264/VC1 title on a system with a display resolution higher than 1440x900 no longer results in the content failing to play in hardware mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32154

The secondary HDMI Display may turn off when resuming from an S1 hibernation with an HDMI display connected. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31146

Resuming from hibernation mode with HDMI display connected may result in a black screen with only a mouse cursor being displayed. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31149

I haven't tried it yet, but hopefully this might help you out!  (I've had trouble searching for that ticket number -- their Knowledge Base searching utility on their web site appears to be broken right now.)

[raym]

Sounds positive. Thanks for the heads-up!

[hit_ny]

I'm in full-on-political-junkie-mode right now

Maybe start a thread about it ?