New To BTV Has Questions

[MistyEyes]

Hi all!,
I have been experimenting with codec settings, and no matter what I do, I get jerky motioned video

I am on xpsp2 Huge HDD lots of memory. I have a Creative audigy 2ZS board.
My setup is a Hauppauge HVR-950 S-video right to my DirecTV DVR.
I am (trying) to copy shows from the DVR to my HDD.
I have owned this program for about 4 days, and I have had 4 days of frustration!
I have a good selection of codec to chose from, and I have tried different combinations, all with the same or
similar results ... jerky video and broken sound.
The combo I have now, is a tiny bit better, but not good enough.
Recording Preferences
MPEG2
Quality - Good (DVD Ready)
everything else on that page is set to no.
--
Player Settings - Video Playback
Snapstream Video/SP Decoder
I have also tried -
Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder , or Nvidia, and even Ligos.
The audio is always Snapstream audio decoder.
Deinterlacing Mode - none
video render - overlay
Latency - wait
skip forward - 30
backward - 7
reaction delay - 5
Beyond TV Link Integration Mode - disabled
--
Timeshifting - default. I had it doubled (4096), but does it make a difference?
Video Qualities expanded - 3718 kbps Good (DVD Ready) (MPEG-2 Recording Default)
Audio freq, and bitrate - default
FPS - 25.
Dimensions - 720x480
Variable bitrate - enabled
MPEG2 Stream Type - program stream
--
No show squeeze
--
When I go to play back on my media player 10,
all that shows in the playlist for the vid and audio is Ligos audio and video.
What is a good combo of codec so this skipping and jerking stops, and how do I get that combo
to actually show up in the media player?

So that's the main problem.
A question that I have is about all the extra files when making an mpeg2.
I'm talking about the .xml files, and the .dat files.
What are they for, and are they necessary?
Am I going to have to hand edit the commercials out since I am recording from a DVR?

Thank anyone that answers! I REALLY appeceiate it!

[Deuce911]

This may not be a codec issue, also is it on Live TV or Recorded Shows or both?
First of all could you give us some of your system specs such as CPU Type & Speed, Memory Size, motherboard Type, etc. Also do you happen to have your Hard Drive Formated to 64K Clusters, that makes a huge difference.

You gave us alot of info but knowing the above is more important for help.


Thanks
Mike

[tscales]

It may be an under powered CPU problem. Unfortunately, the 950 is a poor choice for this, as it doesn't do hardware encoding for SD. It's really best as an HD OTA tuner.

[MistyEyes]

Originally Posted by Deuce911

This may not be a codec issue, also is it on Live TV or Recorded Shows or both?
First of all could you give us some of your system specs such as CPU Type & Speed, Memory Size, motherboard Type, etc. Also do you happen to have your Hard Drive Formated to 64K Clusters, that makes a huge difference.
You gave us alot of info but knowing the above is more important for help.
Thanks
Mike

Hi Mike, and thanks for the quick reply!
Here are my machine's stats:
My system:
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2

Processor
2.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Memory Modules
1024 Megabytes Installed Memory

Main Circuit Board
ASUSTeK Computer INC. M2N-E 1.XX

Drives
SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-352B [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]
IOMEGA ZIP 100 [Hard drive] -- drive 0
[Hard drive] (400.09 GB) -- drive 1
[Hard drive] (400.09 GB) -- drive 2

Controllers
Standard floppy disk controller
NVIDIA nForce 590/570/550 Serial ATA Controller (3x)
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

Bus Adapters
ALi PCI to USB Open Host Controller (3x)
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller (2x)
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller

Other Devices
OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
PS/2 Keyboard
HID-compliant Cordless Mouse
NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator
Generic USB Hub
USB Root Hub (6x)
=====
The above is my standard paste of what is in my machine. It is about 1 year old.
I will also tell you that I do not have any problems using the Hauppauge software, but the quality is not great at all!

When I record with the BTV, or TRY to record, I use only the advanced, "record now".
I have NO channels since it is the 950 so my DVR feed is always there.
I set the timer for the 1/2 hr or hour and it stops automatically.
I am really starting to get ticked off BIG time!
If I had to, I prolly could return the 950, but what ever unit I do get has to be USB.
I really like the Hauppauge products. This is my 2nd tuner/pvr. I have the WinTV USB.
The OLD one from like 2002 LOL!
I am open to suggestions, as I have to do something quick!
The whole purpose of getting all this stuff was to get all the shows off the DVR as it is in need of a reformat!
If push came to shove I would have to call customer support and return the BTV
It's to expensive to let sit and do nothing!
Even thought I like it, I have to be real.

[DonK]

By looking at your specs, your problem probably isn't memory or cpu related, since your cpu looks to be an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (guessing, since that's the same spec as the desktop I'm writing this on.) That system has the horsepower even for software encoding without breaking a sweat.

I think your bottleneck is possibly your I/O or Video subsystem.

What I would be looking at is:

1) chipset drivers - are you using the latest Nforce driver for the system? Install the appropriate NForce chipset drivers.

2) Bios settings for the drives and UDMA settings - Are the drives set for Ultra DMA operation both in the bios and the OS itself? An easy way to check is right click My Computer and click Manage, go to Device Manager and open the IDE/ATA/ATAPI controllers, and then double click on each channel where you have a drive attached, click the Advanced Settings tab and see what the current transfer mode is. If it says "PIO only" then your problem can be that right there. Change it to DMA if available. If it is set to DMA If Available already, then you need to check your bios settings for the drive controllers and make the appropriate adjustments. The reason why I say this is because this can have the most adverse effect on the system, regardless of whether or not you've formatted with 64k clusters etc... PIO mode = VERY BAD. UDMA = Good. One way this can occur is if your system bios is not really set to auto detect a drive, windows can still see the drive and try to use it. I had a problem with my Intel based Xeon server acting really borderline with recordings, especially when I had at least 3 tuners going, or when I had multiple HD recordings going (which have a much higher need for drive throughput than SD does). Make SURE that the system detects your drives on startup.

3) Make sure you have stable video drivers, (also, if applicable, are your AGP window settings are correct in your bios, etc, but it doesn't look like that's the case with this board...) What video solution are you using? What resolution are you running at?

and more obscurely: 4) USB adapter drivers - Make sure to install ALi's drivers. The default drivers in XP might not be right for your USB chipset. I say this because I picked up a cheap 5 port USB pci card for my BTV server and couldn't get 2K3 to work right with this card until I installed the proper drivers for it instead of the built in drivers. XP and 2003 are closely related enough that it can make a difference, and is a possibility for you. Once again, you're I/O bound here and if your USB subsystem isn't running at full speed, you'll see a problem with the adapters trying to get the data through to the disk subsystem via USB.

Check those, and see if that helps.

[MistyEyes]

Oh My Donk,
You speak as if I understand a word of what you say! LOL!
I understand a teeny tiny bit, but this new SATA system I am totally clueless.
I feel like a rookie.
My old system I knew inside and out, but this one has me baffeled!

I did look at the device mgr, and this is what was listed:
Primary -
Device 0:
Transfer Mode: DMA if avail.
Current tranfer: Ultra DMA mode 2
Device 1:
Pio Only
Pio Mode
Secondary -
DMA if avail. for Device 0 and 1
--------
Would you be so kind as to PM me, so we can talk off forum, as my personal computer
setup does not need to be here in forum.
I have TONS of questions and this is not the place for that.
Then once I get that straightened out I can bring it back to BTV related issues
TY!

[DonK]

If you have 2 drives and only the first one of them is in Ultra DMA mode then you need to go into your bios setup on boot (F2 or Delete usually) and check your drive settings as well as your drive controllers (make sure they're all enabled). Once you do that you'll probably see it pick up.

I'm assuming you're using your second drive as the folder for recording, or you have both in the recording pool. That would definitely cause issues.

[tscales]

I'd bet both of those are his optical drives, not his SATA hard drive.

[MistyEyes]

Originally Posted by tscales

I'd bet both of those are his optical drives, not his SATA hard drive.

HIS? erm... HER!!!!

My HDD both are SATA non raid systems

[pvrguy]

Cool...girl geek...not too many of them here...I think anyway.

[MistyEyes]

I call myself a geekette! LOL. AND I am OLD! ha ha ha!
BUT my new SATA system makes me feel like I am back in kindergarten!
It's a whole new learning experience, and all the programs and hardware attached "could"
act very different from my old, very simple system.
I have been troubleshooting with a forum member (Bless his heart! ),
to find out why I am getting the weird jerking and stuttering.
That is why I kinda stopped posing, but I will be back after we figure it out!
laterzzzz