HTPC Help

[schujj07]

I have a HTPC and while watching online video that runs flash player I have been having frame rate problems. The set up is an AMD Athlon II X3 @ 3.1GHz (4th core unlocked), HD 5670 512MB, 5GB Ram, 250GB 850EVO, 1TB HD, Blue-Ray player, 30Mbit Internet connection, and the HTPC is hardwired into the router. I have the most current drivers from AMD as well. I did turn off the post processing forced onto internet video and that helped a bit, but stuttering still occurs just for a second or two now. Will a newer graphics card, like a 260x, help or should I turn off enforce smooth playback. Also I have found that this is only a problem when watching over flash, Silverlight doesn't have this problem. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Newest version of flash? Newest AMD driver?

Honestly a newer card probably won't help, Flash sucks which is why it is dying. The only way to guarenteed have it run smooth is to throw a strong single core at it to do all the decoding.

 

[schujj07]

I have all of the newest drivers from AMD as well as the most current version of Flash. I have tried turning off hardware acceleration in Flash player and the CPU usage is about the same as with it turned on. However, it will jump to 80% at times with hardware acceleration turned off, where as with it turned on it stays at about 30%. I agree that Flash needs to die and die quickly, however, CBS uses them for playing videos.

 

[pauldun170]

I have a HTPC and while watching online video that runs flash player I have been having frame rate problems. The set up is an AMD Athlon II X3 @ 3.1GHz (4th core unlocked), HD 5670 512MB, 5GB Ram, 250GB 850EVO, 1TB HD, Blue-Ray player, 30Mbit Internet connection, and the HTPC is hardwired into the router. I have the most current drivers from AMD as well. I did turn off the post processing forced onto internet video and that helped a bit, but stuttering still occurs just for a second or two now. Will a newer graphics card, like a 260x, help or should I turn off enforce smooth playback. Also I have found that this is only a problem when watching over flash, Silverlight doesn't have this problem. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

I run through the same nonsense with flash videos every once in awhile.
I use an HD7770.
Driver update helped last time it happened (few weeks ago) but this has happened in the past.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Does it stutter when you turn off Hardware Acceleration?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Just for the record, I've begun to conclude that even the OP is "better off" than am I. OP opted to use a dedicated HT - PC. I had always followed a strategy of making my systems "general purpose." Call me nuts -- I dunno . . .

I will promote this advice most emphatically and profoundly, though.

Once you have either the HTPC or "HT-capable-PC" configured for anything related to HDCP, high-def video, display -- even sound -- and you're sure all the drivers are working tip-top, you will update those drivers at your own risk of another spate of frustration and extra work.

If you want HD TV, then plan the hardware to cover those bases. I've variously used Display-port-to-HDMI cables, DVI-to-HDMI cables, and HDMI-to-HDMI cables. I advise you prepare yourself for the simplest, easiest connection with the greatest chance of total success: HDMI-to-HDMI.

Beyond that, with the right components, you can use the WMC plug-in audio-renderer-updater to switch WMC between speaker systems with little trouble. But if you're going to really "do" this -- you'll have to choose your channels based on what's available for the display. It's one thing to have an "HTPC," but another to provide some modicum of LiveTV to several of "any-old-computers" in the house. For this, your cable-provider offers up digital channels which are not "HD."

"Stuttering" is probably a failure with more than one possible cause.

After all this blather above, I'll hold off reciting my own opinion about the extensive troubleshooting you could do with something like this. It took me more than a week or two just to get my first "HT-capable-PC" working right with cable-card, HDHR, AVR and HDTV. Only this week have I totally perfected it after three or more years of higher-than-necessary maintenance.

So why is WMC "orphaned?" Why has XBMC become "Kodi," and SageTV has been absorbed by Google?

Because the time-constrained herd calls the shots in the marketplace.

That's why.

 

[poofyhairguy]

So why is WMC "orphaned?" Why has XBMC become "Kodi," and SageTV has been absorbed by Google?

Because the time-constrained herd calls the shots in the marketplace

That's why.

I really don't think that is it. I think it is solutions like Netflix and Amazon provide "good enough," which keeps people away from harder solutions. I mean, ten or even five years ago something like XBMC was magic when you showed someone. Now at best it is a prettier Netflix with newer content. We have seen the rise of solutions like Plex that take away some of the configuration challenge, and the end result is that good enough solutions win.

Honestly though it is not that bad. My Chromebox kills my old (more expensive) ION box. I have a sub-$40 Android stick I can take on vacations that can play almost any h264 file I have off of a USB drive. We still live in amazing times.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wish I could figure out why my N2830 Asus 15.6" 1366x768 laptop can't play 1080P YouTube without stuttering, but my Z3735D/F/G 7" 1280x800 tablet can. The ST clock speed is higher on the N2830. But when I play back 1080P with it, it runs at like 9% CPU usage, for a few seconds, then spikes way up to 95%, and stutters, and then goes back down. Repeatedly.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I wish I could figure out why my N2830 Asus 15.6" 1366x768 laptop can't play 1080P YouTube without stuttering, but my Z3735D/F/G 7" 1280x800 tablet can. The ST clock speed is higher on the N2830. But when I play back 1080P with it, it runs at like 9% CPU usage, for a few seconds, then spikes way up to 95%, and stutters, and then goes back down. Repeatedly.

Ho! Whoa! Larry! I just finished an OP post for a new thread, per my laptop.

Somehow, I THOUGHT that I could play HD content on my laptop. I had "presidential debate" captures and PBS stuff -- some taken from my HDHR PRime-connected cable lineup, and some taken from my HD-OTA through Hauppauge 2250. I was able to PLAY those files on a below-HD-resolution laptop.

On my other thread, I was wondering about the possibility with that, since there's plenty of non-HD digital content through the HDHRs and cable provider.

I don't think I'd ever fully understood the nature of the encrypted HDCP content.

I'd have to test again to be sure I could play a "Bill Moyers" DVR capture from an HD channel. Maybe the rendering can reduce the resolution for these old non-HD displays? And maybe the encryption doesn't let you do that?

One thing I'm sure. My laptop may have at most 500MB of memory available for graphics.

 

[schujj07]

Does it stutter when you turn off Hardware Acceleration?

It does stutter a little bit as well when hardware acceleration is turned off.

 

[poofyhairguy]

It is probably Flash, but it might not be there are some terrible encodings/transcodings out there.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I had been unable to get smooth flash video (particularly with Hulu) on my HTPC with any version of Flash after 11.1 or so. I was convinced there was something just plain broken in it and had pretty much given up messing with it. But then I tried out Chrome, went to chrome://gpu and saw hardware acceleration was not being enabled and went to chrome://flags and forced it on with "Override software rendering list." Ticked a few other settings there and it's been smooth sailing since. If there's a way to achieve this in the Flash plugins for Firefox or IE I never found it when I was putting all my effort there. Firefox had always indicated hardware acceleration was enabled but that never seemed to carry over to Flash despite it's own HA setting being ticked or not.

One more thing, I have an ATI card, and I seem to remember needing the "Apply current settings to Internet video" setting in CCC ticked as well despite having all those post processing options disabled to keep the flash video smooth.