HD reception with Twinhan Card - 30% CPU usage

[mchomicz]

It’s probably old news to those who actually watch HD programming with their Twinhan cards. But I figured I’d post this information because I previously received some miss-information on this forum. “Quotes” below are not verbatim. But this was the basic idea behind what I’ve read here before.

1. “There are no programs for DVB cards that allow to take advantage of hardware acceleration for MPEG2 decoding.” It appears that this is not so. Each of the 3 different versions of stock Twinhan software that I tried has an option that says “Enable MPEG2 DxVA Accelerator.” Since turning the check box significantly changes CPU utilization - I doubt the check box was included just for show. Please read on.

2. “You need a super-powerful computer to watch DVB HD programming.” This is definitely not so. I have an Athlon XP 2600 with ATI Radeon 9700 Pro - a far cry from “latest and greatest.” With stock Twinhan software that came with the DVB card (an old version actually: 2.432; the latest is 2.603 beta) I get around 35% CPU usage and smooth HD playback when DxVA Accelerator is turned on. When I turn it off my CPU usage goes to 65% or so. But it’s still perfectly smooth.

3. “Twinhan software is a piece of junk.” This is quite possible. I guess it’s all a matter of what one intends to do with the software. Stock Twinhan software does not support plug-ins. So all the “special features” one can obtain with other DVB software are not available. With stock Twinhan software it’s strictly FTA and nothing more. But when it comes to HD reception - Twinhan software seems to be good enough. I was able to watch PBS HD just fine. I don’t know of any other DVB HD broadcast in Ku band; is there anything else out there? I was not able to watch HD programming with DVBDream (got 100% CPU utilization and no picture). It’ is quite possible that I might have better luck with DVBDream if I took the time to play with codecs. I have not tired ProgDVB.


Please note - all this information is based on my experience with PBS-HD available on AMC3 ( http://www.lyngsat.com/amc3.html ) As far as I can tell - this is the only HD FTA channel available in Ku band.


Hope this is helpful.
Michael

 

[iammike]

Michael,

I tend to agree with much of what you said, but i do have a couple comments. Unless I'm mistaken, DxVA is a function of video card processors not CPU's. Some of the previous statements about needing a super-powerful CPU may have been from folks with older video cards that don't support DxVA. To the best of my knowledge you're correct about PBS being the only HD available via KU. ProgDVB doesn't support HD, but RitzDVB and MT do so if you're thinking of experimenting I'd point you towards those two for HD. I never had much luck with DVBDream. I'd also suggest trying ProgDVB for non-HD FTA. The time-shifting capability and the ability to stream the signal across the network are both very cool features that don't require any plugins.

 

[Cascade]

DxVA is a hardware "DirectX Video Accelerator" Which is built into your graphics card, all the Twinhan is doing is passing the MPEG2 stream to your Radeon which is aiding in decoding the HD stream.

By many standards your CPU is fast, others may have a slower machine such as a P3-1GHz which would struggle with decoding a high-def MPEG2 stream even if they had a half-decent graphics card such as the Radeon9700 (There's plenty of life left in the 97/9800 series)
Therefore the only programs that support HD are the programs that allow you to pick and choose which video codec you'll use (Most, if not all)

As for the Twinhan software, you're missing out on regular updates and added features, i doubt the Twinhan software is updated once a week.
It'll work well as a basic setup but once you get deeper into FTA you'll probably find you need a greater degree of flexibility which is why MyTheater/ProgDVB etc were written

To clarify, Point 1, you're getting confused as to the role of the budget FTA cards, none of them decode video/audio streams, it's all pushed to your CPU/Graphics card and all programs can/should be able to decode HD, it entirely depends on which codec you use..

Point 2, Consider your machine "Super fast" - not everyone is running a 2GHz+ machine.

Point 3, I've always been an advocate of ProgDVB and I've always said each to his/her own.
There are different programs out there, some may look better or have more features but for stability and customization ProgDVB is where it's at.

* * This is not aimed at true FTAers * *
I won't make any bones about it, MyTheater is so popular because the majority of people who use it are using it with illegal keys*.
It is a commercial product and it looks nicer than any other util, but once Nagravision2 arrives people will stop buying it or ditch it and concentrate on whats important in FTA instead of scanning for DishNetwork channels.

*I'm probably going to get some backlash over that statement, if you check other forums who don't care about breaking the law you'll see a major trend toward MT over any other software package.
I know there are legitimate users of MT who use only FTA, if you're one of them, ignore the last paragraph.

 

[mchomicz]

I'm aware of what DxVA stands for and of the fact that budget DVB cards don't do any decoding onboard. Then again - with DxVA and SP/DIFF pass through they don't really need to, do they? (BTW - I do realize that an SP/DIFF connector needs to present on the sound card and supported in sound card driver)

The sole purpose of #1 was to point out that I was previously specifically told on this forum that no DVB software has the ability to take advantage of DxVA and I wanted to clarify that this is not so.

>once you get deeper into FTA you'll probably find you need a greater degree of flexibility which is why MyTheater/ProgDVB etc were written

Quite possible. Actually - I'm quite curious about what I've been missing out. Could you please provide a few examples of such features?

Thank you,
Michael

 

[Cascade]

I'm aware of what DxVA stands for and of the fact that budget DVB cards don't do any decoding onboard. Then again - with DxVA and SP/DIFF pass through they don't really need to, do they? (BTW - I do realize that an SP/DIFF connector needs to present on the sound card and supported in sound card driver)

S/PDIF doesn't really have anything to do with the satcard, it's merely a standard (In this case optical - Sony Philips Digital Interface) of connecting an audio source to an input. A digital audio signal can also be Co-axial, as in copper wire.
In an MPEG2 mux the audio along with the video should be passed over the PCI bus from the satcard to whatever filtergraph you're using negating the need for a seperate analogue/digital out from the satcard to the soundcard.

As for plugins, the more popular are:
DiSEqC,
Video server/client for streaming
Automated recording,
Plugins to use 3rd party remotes

 

[mchomicz]

negating the need for a seperate analogue/digital out from the satcard to the soundcard

And negating the need to use CPU cycles on decoding AC3 stream as this task gets off-loaded to an external receiver?

Michael

 

[Cascade]

If your soundcard supports AC3 or another Dolby variant and has optical/co-ax out you can use either the PC soundcard or an external receiver.
It depends what soundcard you're using, most new cards are capable of multichannel decoding and some will use more CPU cycles than others depending on the hardware used.

If you have a standard 2-channel card the only way you can hear what's coming off the satcard is by either downmixing into 2-channel stereo or connecting to an external receiver (If the soundcard is 2ch its likely there won't be a digital output but you may be able to hear the older DTS soundtracks via analogue-out to a DTS decoder)

Too many standards for my liking.

 

[WRBreland]

Michael

Do you own one of the JVC D-VHS machines? Roku 1000? MyHD Tuner Cards?

 

[Wayn23]

3. “Twinhan software is a piece of junk.” This is quite possible. I guess it’s all a matter of what one intends to do with the software. Stock Twinhan software does not support plug-ins. So all the “special features” one can obtain with other DVB software are not available. With stock Twinhan software it’s strictly FTA and nothing more. But when it comes to HD reception - Twinhan software seems to be good enough. I was able to watch PBS HD just fine. I don’t know of any other DVB HD broadcast in Ku band; is there anything else out there? I was not able to watch HD programming with DVBDream (got 100% CPU utilization and no picture). It’ is quite possible that I might have better luck with DVBDream if I took the time to play with codecs. I have not tired ProgDVB.


Please note - all this information is based on my experience with PBS-HD available on AMC3 ( http://www.lyngsat.com/amc3.html ) As far as I can tell - this is the only HD FTA channel available in Ku band.


Hope this is helpful.
Michael

The reason I don't like the Twihan software is that I am locked in on the decoder choice, I can use up to version 2.2 with my 1020 and it uses intervideo decoders, It can do HD but it can't do 4:2:2, with most other programs you can use the elecard decoder for 4:2:2 and mix and match decoders for HD by building your own graph in graphedit. I use DVBDream with the cyberlink decoders I got with the latest ATI update and got cpu usage of 17%-21% on the PBS HD feed, most decoders that work for DVD's
will work for HD and most support 4:2:0 HD with DXVA as long as your video card supports it, ATI cards have supported it for along time and NVidia cards
support it also.
I think most of the 3rd party DVB programs out there are based on the DVBcore from MyTheater but not all of them are as refined as Mytheater. I paid for the DVBcore when I bought TVedia so I don't feel too bad about not paying for it in free programs like DVBDream or ProgDVB.

 

[mchomicz]

Cascade - you wrote that "S/PDIF doesn't really have anything to do with the satcard." Continuing with the idea behind my original post, I was merely suggesting that off-loading the task of AC3 stream decoding to an external receiver may further reduce CPU usage for HD DVB playback.

As for my specific setup - I have 2 different PC rigs, one with AC3 decoding done in hardware (so there is hardly any benefit of passing it through to a receiver) and one that supports this task in software - but also has 2 digital out ports (coax and optical) for pass-through; the second setup does benefit from SP/DIFF pass-through (in terms of lower resource use on the PC).

To clarify - I'm not really confused about anything or asking for help. I often do ask for help here; not this time around though ;-). I simply did some tests of my own and they contradicted what others told me before (as outlined in original post points 1 and 2; point 3 was more of an opinion than factual statement). So I though it would be beneficial to the group to write about my findings.

If my posts don't sound overly assertive it is because with my choice of words I try to avoid sounding inflammatory. I don’t want anybody to feel like I’m proving them wrong. Only hoping to provide information that others may find useful.


WRBreland - no, I don’t own of these devices.


Thanks,
Michael

 

[mchomicz]

Twihan software [..] can't do 4:2:2

Wayn23 – can you pls point me to satellites with 4:2:2 programming? Names of birds would be sufficient; Lyngsat links would be ideal ;-)

Thank you,
Michael

 

[Cascade]

I don’t want anybody to feel like I’m proving them wrong. Only hoping to provide information that others may find useful.

Which is why this forum (along with the quality of people who post) make it all work so well

 

[Wayn23]

Wayn23 – can you pls point me to satellites with 4:2:2 programming? Names of birds would be sufficient; Lyngsat links would be ideal ;-)

Thank you,
Michael

I belong to another forum and as part of the deal as a member is to not disclose info on specific feeds that I did not find myself, check your what's up there forum here to see if anyone has posted info on 4:2:2 feeds. I am not a member of that section so I don't know what is listed, sorry about that.

 

[mchomicz]

I belong to another forum and as part of the deal as a member is to not disclose info on specific feeds that I did not find myself

Can you pls give me a link to that forum so that I can sign up? This way if I find any 4:2:2 feeds on my own - I'll be sure NOT TO TELL ANYONE After all - isn't this what forums like this one are all about? NOT exchanging information!

Thanks,
Michael

PS Just a joke; Wayn23 - if you do not want to or can not tell me about 4:2:2 feeds - I have to respect that.

 

[iammike]

You may be able to get the NBC 4:2:2 feeds on AMC1.

 

[mchomicz]

You may be able to get the NBC 4:2:2 feeds on AMC1.

Thanks for the info. Actually, I did not realize that Lyngsat flags 4:2:2 feeds as such. A simple google search finds quite a bit of them.
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=%224%3A2%3A2%22&num=100&hl=en&c2coff=1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=lyngsat.com%2F&safe=images

Thanks,
Michael

 

[iammike]

You'll probably want to stick with AMC1 though. Most of the ones on the Google results are either encrypted, not beamed towards north america, or C-band.

 

[timmy1376]

He is probably a member of the new finds forum part of the SatForums network.

http://forums.satforums.com/SatForumMaster/common/messages.php?bpr=1&msg=134.1#134.1

I may be wrong, but I bet that is it.

Can you pls give me a link to that forum so that I can sign up? This way if I find any 4:2:2 feeds on my own - I'll be sure NOT TO TELL ANYONE After all - isn't this what forums like this one are all about? NOT exchanging information!

Thanks,
Michael

PS Just a joke; Wayn23 - if you do not want to or can not tell me about 4:2:2 feeds - I have to respect that.