[rosshuts]

Hi Everyone,

Finally got round to getting my TBS 6981 DVB S2 tuner card for my htpc and so far so good apart from a couple of issues I hope someone or a few people can kindly help me out with.

I have the latest XBMCbuntu and nvidia OS running along with the latest frodo XBMC program. I have chosen TVheadend as my backend system mainly as it looked the easiest to install and configure.

As I previously mentioned things are going well but it appears I can't record a program on one channel and watch a program on another which my card supports so assume its a software configuration or am I wrong?

Has anyone had this problem before at all, not really sure where to start and have looked around on search engines and seems there are lots of comments relating to MediaPortal and MythTV which of course not what I am using.

The other issue I have is with performance. One is with changing channels in XBMC. It seems to stutter for 3 or 4 seconds and then carry on normal even with HD and standard definition channels. Again I really can't see how and where to solve this or am i just being stupid.

The other performance related issues is with HD channels. They look stunning compared to my Humax Foxsat box that I plan to get rid of in favour of my all in one XBMC media center. However when I watch match of the day, the motion of the ball seems blurred and if the camera is moving a lot again it sort of blurs but only softly. I also watched final score today and had live score ticker rolling and although text and graphics looks so crisp it blurs only slightly but enough to make your eyes squint.

I haven't messed with anything yet, but want to note that my XBMC movie collection mostly in MKV format has no issues ever either in 1080p or 720p playback. I can only assume its driver related but used the latest TBS drivers when setting up the system.

If anyone can help with this I would be most grateful.

Thanks
Ross

[Guitar1969]

I am also noticing playback quality of recorded TV on XBMC Frodo 12 is worse in action than if viewed directly in my backend Live TV software -NextPVR. I just watched my first recording through XBMC - the superbowl and was disappointed. Any type of action is blurred/pixelated. The same recording looks fine if I view it directly in NextPVR. I am not exactly sure how the backend and XBMC relate but it seems they may use different video rendering systems. I am experimenting with the few video settings in XBMC, mainly deinterlacing type but have not been able to figure out the issue. I also find the LiveTV capabilities in XBMC to be flaky related to channel switching and fastforwarding and rewinding.,

[FernetMenta]

XBMCbuntu /Linux

Most channels broadcast interlaced, hence good de-interlacing is essential. On Linux AMD and Intel just offer very basic de-interlacing (bob). NVidia offers high quality de-interlacing methods (temporal/spatial).

- A Linux box is ideally equipped with a NVidia GT520M / GT610. Those models can do temporal/spatial on 1080i@60.
- Update XBMCbuntu to XBMC version of wsnipex ppa. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=116996 This version has huge improvements for NVidia and AMD. You won't have much fun with Intel graphics on Linux when it comes to de-interlacing

[rosshuts]

Thanks for your help FernetMenta.

Just to clarify, you suggest I uninstall the current version of XBMC and then replace it with the XVBA version?

I am using a Nvidia GeForce 9300 Gfx card in my ITX HTPC so do I still need to do this? Never heard of it before so even though you are an XBMC member just wanted to double check. In terms of me playing back my movie library of 720p and 1080p MKV movies it won't cause me any issues?

That link also seems to show instructions on how to install for AMD GPU's which of course is not what I have, do the same rules apply?

Sorry, hate to sound like such a newbie and stupid to all this.

[FernetMenta]

That ppa started with only XvBA enabled but meanwhile wsnipex also enabled it for NVidia and Intel. It is built of my master branch:
https://github.com/FernetMenta/xbmc

I started development on this as I was in the same situation as you are now and I even had the same gfx card. Live TV (interlaced) was far away from good and this is still the case with mainline version (Linux). Lots of dropped frames and every now and then video freezes for a second and catches up in ff mode. Now I can watch 1080i (temporal/spatial) for hours without any stuttering.

GT 9300 won't make temporal/spatial for 1080i@50. qvdpautest gave me approximately 47 field/s on my old system. This was after I activated dual channel by inserting a second dimm module.
Set your SD channels to temporal/spatial and HD to temporal.

EDIT: ignore the instructions for AMD.

How much video memory does your system have? Should be 500MB.

[rosshuts]

Hi,

Not sure how much GFx on board RAM I have but it comes with my Zotac Motherboard and for purposes seems more than enough to do the job so far with MKV movie playback.

Seem to be getting very frustrated over all with the Live TV addition to XBMC. Been using xbmc as my media centre choice for a few years now and just seems flaky at best. I guess it's early days but spent ages matching my TV channel icons to png files I downloaded and then slowly but surely they just disappeared and after coming back home from work they have all gone. Giving serious thought to getting rod of the tv card and keeping xbmc as a film and tv show media centre and forget Live TV which would be a huge shame.

I will give the XVBA a shot and then make up my mind from there.

Thanks very much for your help thus far.

[rosshuts]

Thanks for the help FernetMenta, messed about with the deinterlacing controls and performance issues are now resolved. Changing channels is not spot on but will leave with it in hope it improves in time.