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[Mastiff]

I'm totally confused. I have a Core i7 computer with 6 meg RAM, an ATI HD 3800 and fast S-ATA drives and Windows 7 32/64 (dual boot - but the version changes nothing). And I'm unable to play a 1080p MKV/h264/AC3 file without crazy stuttering! I have tried with CoreAVC and FFDShow as the video decoders, with AC3 Filter and FFDShow as the audio decoders and even Zoom Player, MPC-HC, VLC and even Windows Media Center, and on everything it stutters like crazy. So I don't think it's MC's fault. But maybe somebody here knows that the problem is? I have the rig overclocked to 4 gHz, but I tried running it at stock as well, and that didn't change anything at all. Pans are a total jerkfest.

The sound cards are the built in SoundMAX and an Asus Xonar, but that doesn't make a difference if I use either one.

I use FFDShow with AVISynth on the same computer with MC, and it eats up every crazy setting I throw at it. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies work like a charm as well. Does anyody have any idea what the problem can be? It's not the CPU, I think. Decoding with CoreAVC uses around 7 % of the CPU power, and FFDShow stops at less than 20 %. None of the cores are having a problem with it. I have tried several driver versions, but that does't help either.

[rjm]

It looks to me like you've tried all the right things. I'd be inclined to check for a video card driver update next.

[JimH]

Virus checker?  Network drive?

Check the "Stability" thread in my signature for other ideas.

[raym]

What splitter is getting loaded? Can you copy and past your filter graph setup?

[Mastiff]

rjm, that's done as well.

Jim, no virus checker at all in this computer, it's protected by an outside firewall and used only for the home theater. And the gigabit network is not the problem. To be sure about that I copied the MKV from the network drive to the local S-ATA drive, and that didn't change anything.

raym, it loads Haali. I've tried with different renderers as well, but no change there either. Here's my graph:

Code: [Select]

    Filter 'S/PDIF Pass-through Device (ASU'
        CLSID: {E30629D1-27E5-11CE-875D-00608CB78066}
        Host: C:\Windows\system32\quartz.dll
        Input Pin 'Audio Input pin (rendered)'
            Connected to pin 'Out' of filter 'AC3Filter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_PCM, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

    Filter 'Enhanced Video Renderer'
        CLSID: {FA10746C-9B63-4B6C-BC49-FC300EA5F256}
        Host: C:\Windows\System32\evr.dll
        Input Pin 'EVR Input0'
            Connected to pin 'Output' of filter 'DirectVobSub (forced auto-loading version)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_YUY2, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
        Input Pin 'EVR Input1'

    Filter 'AC3Filter'
        CLSID: {A753A1EC-973E-4718-AF8E-A3F554D45C44}
        Host: C:\Program Files\AC3Filter\ac3filter.ax
        Input Pin 'In'
            Connected to pin 'Audio' of filter 'Haali Media Splitter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_DOLBY_AC3, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
        Output Pin 'Out'
            Connected to pin 'Audio Input pin (rendered)' of filter 'S/PDIF Pass-through Device (ASU'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_PCM, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

    Filter 'DirectVobSub (forced auto-loading version)'
        CLSID: {9852A670-F845-491B-9BE6-EBD841B8A613}
        Host: C:\Program Files\DirectVobSub\VSFilter.dll
        Input Pin 'Video'
            Connected to pin 'Video Output 1' of filter 'Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {30323449-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
        Output Pin 'Output'
            Connected to pin 'EVR Input0' of filter 'Enhanced Video Renderer'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_YUY2, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
        Input Pin 'Input'
            Connected to pin 'Subtitle' of filter 'Haali Media Splitter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Text  Sub type TIME_FORMAT_NONE, Format type TIME_FORMAT_NONE
        Input Pin 'Input'

    Filter 'Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder'
        CLSID: {212690FB-83E5-4526-8FD7-74478B7939CD}
        Host: C:\Windows\System32\msmpeg2vdec.dll
        Input Pin 'Video Input'
            Connected to pin 'Video' of filter 'Haali Media Splitter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {31435641-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_MPEG2_VIDEO
        Input Pin 'Subpicture Input'
        Output Pin 'Video Output 1'
            Connected to pin 'Video' of filter 'DirectVobSub (forced auto-loading version)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {30323449-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
        Output Pin '~Line21 Output'

    Filter 'Haali Media Splitter'
        CLSID: {55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D}
        Host: C:\Program Files\Haali\MatroskaSplitter\splitter.ax
        Output Pin 'Video'
            Connected to pin 'Video Input' of filter 'Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {31435641-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_MPEG2_VIDEO
        Output Pin 'Audio'
            Connected to pin 'In' of filter 'AC3Filter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_DOLBY_AC3, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
        Output Pin 'Subtitle'
            Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'DirectVobSub (forced auto-loading version)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Text  Sub type TIME_FORMAT_NONE, Format type TIME_FORMAT_NONE

[MrHaugen]

I've had this problem as well. I got fed up, reinstalled the OS, and the next time everything worked. I used the same components as you do. I had to skip ffdshow and relay on Coreavc for MKV though. It's the only way I get movies about 100% free of stuttering.

Probably a stupid question, but you're not using those post processing settings of yours in FFDShow right? I tried it one time, but it's rather intensive on 720P, and especially 1080P

[Mastiff]

I'm working on that same thing at the moment. I had to anyway within the next half year, since I was using the RC version of Windows 7 on the HDPC. Now I'm done with the basic installation of the release version, with updatede drivers, and I'm going to do a full image backup before I start messing around with any media settings and stuff! Going to be interesting to see what comes out of this... I think I need a very strict dual boot system - one for regular DVD's with FFDShow and all that stuff and one for HD material only, with only CoreAVC and PowerDVD 7 & 9 (since PowerDVD 8 & 9 for some strange reason has removed the support for HD-DVD - we still have them even though the format lost unfairly to the hysterically closed Blu-ray). I'll update this thread when I know if that helps!

[MrHaugen]

You've been the one who instructed me how to set up a HTPC many years ago, but still I'm tempted to give you a few suggestions. I've used a dual boot setup my self, but It's primarily to get 100% backup images, and to separate games from the media stuff. It would drive me nuts to have media on different OS'.

I've tested a lot of codecs and configs on XP, and I've also had the chance to dig a bit into this in W7 the last two months. I just want to say that a setup with MC14, AC3, ffdshow and CoreAVC can give you great results on divx, DVD's as well as HD material combined. I think you will end up being more frustrated if you have to dual boot all the time to switch.

With your backup images it should be fairly easy to test out a combined setup for all your media. The last time I got things to work I actually skipped pretty much everything you do to customize the OS, and Jumped directly to the important parts: installing drivers, MC14, AC3, CCCP, FFDShow and CoreAVC. After THAT was done, I did the tweaking. The important part is to make CoreAVC and MC14 work.
If you manage to use CoreAVC for mkv's only and ffdshow with post processing on the rest it should be possible with a setup with good result for both HD and SD.

[Mastiff]

One of my articles at hw.no, I think. Yeah, I had a few readers on those series.

And thanks for the tips. But the thing is that I only watch two types of media: DVD's and HD. And HD is the odd h264-file (which I'n fighting with now) and Blu-ray/HD-DVD. Since a reboot to any of the systems take a minute or so I find it a good investment to keep them separate. I have had them separate before, but the DVD setup (with FFDShow) had started to "spill over" to the HD setup because of the h264 problem. Of course I had a backup of it (full image) that I could restore, but I figure going from RC to RTM would probably be a good idea anyway. That CCCP scares me, I have messed up HTPC's with that before. Codec pacs doesn't always help reliability. Of course I may try to merge them later, but for now I'll only try to get h264 and Blu-ray/HD-DVD working correctly.

[JimH]

That CCCP scares me, I have messed up HTPC's with that before. Codec pacs doesn't always help reliability.

We've had good luck with CCCP.  9 times out of 10 it solves the problem.  The only exception is that the "task bar notification" causes problems if you don't turn it off (2x in FFDShow and once in Haali).

glynor believes that CoreAVC is faster and worth the money.

[JimH]

Check the "Stability" thread in my signature for other ideas.

[Mastiff]

Thanks, Jim! Yeah, I have CoreAVC as well. Hoping this new installation will work better. It's so clean you can eat your dinner of it! And I did go through the checklist, but a lot of that has to do with crashes, and frankly I can't really remember the last time MC crashed! Problems like these are a pain in the butt to fix. We'll see tonight how the movie looks...

[JimH]

Mastiff,
I'm still not sure you got here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24031.0

Search for "stutter" in that thread.  You'll find a lot of interesting stuff.  Don't skip the audio stutter posts.  There are two pages of this thread.

All problems in the thread were caused by other software and hardware.  All were solved.

Jim

[Mastiff]

Yeah, I was there. But I figured I'm going to see how this clean install works first. Then I'll do the checklist like a nice, little pilot.

[Mastiff]

Yep, that was it! Works now! I have no idea what I messed up on the last 7 install, but at least it was fixed with a reinstall. Thanks for your help, guys!

[MrHaugen]

That CCCP scares me, I have messed up HTPC's with that before. Codec pacs doesn't always help reliability.

Codec packs never helps regarding reliability But it helps newbies like my self from messing up everything. because most things works well out of the package. CCCP is the best of the best. And even though I'm very anal about my media setup, I have no problem with that one. That don't matter much for you anyway though. As you don't need it anyway. All you need is AC3 for audio, CoreAVC for mkv's and Dscaler and ffdshow for DVD's and post processing Glad you got it to work. I've solved many problems by starting from scratch my self.

[Mastiff]

I actually prefer nVidia's DVD codec. I have an ATI card that I use, but then FFDShow doesn't work with hardware acceleration anyway. And the Nvidia codec looks better on the setup I use now. I was using the dScaler, but went corporate at some time...