Choppy or Stuttering Video

Product(s)
TriCaster

Search Tags
Sutter, choppy, output, UI

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
When recording, and when one source is configured to record H.264:

• the recorded files,
• live output,
• and the video in the user interface

is choppy or stutters.
It is possible that this stuttering will be accompanied by error messages stating a drive may not be fast enough.

Possible cause:
The embedded Intel graphics hardware is not being used (as it should be) to encode H.264, and this is causing the CPU to be overtaxed. This could happen due to:

• possible hardware failure
• or through disabling the embedded graphics in BIOS.

SOLUTION AND WORKAROUND

To diagnose the possibility of a BIOS settings causing this issue, (and then correct those issues), do the following:

1. Restart Windows and hit ‘F2’ when you see the NewTek splash screen to get into the BIOS.

2. In the BIOS menu, navigate to Configuration > Video and hit [ENTER].

3. You should now see some video configuration items they should be configured like this:

4. Save and exit the BIOS configuration – returning to the TriCaster software.

Another step to validate the problem and determination a fix requires looking at the debug log from the system.

This file is overwritten every time a session is started, because of this you will want to exit to the desktop right after you have had the problem. It will be found along this path:
“C:\TriCaster\Bin64\Logs\debug_log_last_run.txt.gz”.

Open the log file and search for “H264 Encoder”. You should see 2 lines that look like this (NOTE 1-these 2 lines will be in the log once for each time a recording using H.264 is started in that session NOTE 2- the gz file will need to be extracted using WinRAR, Gzip or another tool capable of recognizing the file type):

[RECORD] H264 Encoder Init using HARDWARE encoder.
[RECORD] H264 Encoder Init returned 0.

If the two lines in the log mention “SOFTWARE” encoder, then the above changes to the BIOS should resolve this issue.

If the above changes to the BIOS do not resolve the issue, or the BIOS was already configured in the above manner, or the debug log shows that we are using ‘HARDWARE’ encoder, and yet they are still getting stutters, then that is a new issue not covered by this description. Customer Support will need to be contacted.