recommended decoders

[simonen]

I am putting together a 3 analog tuner & 1 HD tuner system in an overclocked Celeron D @ 3.3Ghz with 512 MB RAM and media extender.

In trying to optimize for HD play back, I noticed that my Radeon 9550 is not really up to the task, but works much better with the VMR9 turned off.

The problem I am having is to locate a good decoder. I have tried the Elecard, but it leaves a lot of interlaced lines with the HD playback. I tried the cyberlink vs. 5 and it was working great until I installed PowerDVD 6.0 and now the decoder gives me errors. I tried removing it and reinstalling, but I still get the errors in Sage playback.

I have also tried some obscure decoders, but I cannot get them to show up as choices in Sage after installing them.

Can anyone offer some assistance on this?

Thanks...

[Jesse]

Hi,

After hearing so many rave reviews (here and everywhere) of the nvidia pure video decoders I gave the free trial a try. They were noticeably superior to the others I tried so I bought them (twice, once on main box, once on client). I liked them so much I bought a nvidia card (6600gt) for my client box. 6600GT + nvidia pure video decoder + 42" HD plasma =

They are free to try (30 days I think) so give them a test drive.

I have read in lots of places that it is not a good idea to have a whole pile of decoders installed. When you find the one you like best you may want to un-install all the others.

Jesse

[simonen]

Thanks, I'll give those a try. I think I made a mistake in buying the Radeon 9550 instead of the Nvidia 6600, but hopefully it will make due.

Thanks for the advice.

[simonen]

Well, I tried the NVDVD decoder and it works nice until I change the channel. Once I change the channel it give me an error saying that the video cannot be displayed. Once I change back to the Sage decoder it works fine. I tried removing the cyberlink decoder and it still shows up in the sage decoder list, so I am assuming that it never really uninstalled.

I am trying to avoid having to reinstall Sage as I am not sure if it would even help.

[Jesse]

Hi,

You probably need someone more knowledgeable than me. That said, since I dont fear breaking things ( ) I would back up my sage wiz and props files, and then uninstall all the decoders you have installed. I would then delete their file folders and search the registry for any sign of them and delete those too. Reboot and make sure everything works with the sage decoder. Verify that sage shows none of the decoders you uninstalled. If all is good then install just the nvidia decoder and then select the "default" video decoder in sage detailed setup.

No warranty on my advice. I break stuff all the time. It seems to be the best way for me to learn .

Jesse

[Polypro]

Here's my decoder set up routine: (Assumes Sage is installed)

Install the Nvidia decoders.

Download and Install DECCHECK from MS http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Download and install (runs from a folder) Radlight Filter Manager http://www.radlight.org/products/fil...ager/index.php

Run DECCHECK and make sure Nvidia is the preferred decoder. Close.

Run RLFM and expand Direct Show Filters>Highlight AC3 Filter and click properties>On the last tab select "Prefer Other Decoder". Close.

Scroll down to Nvidia Audio and Video decoders, highlight and click properties, set up what you can for your specific hardware (Anamorphic TV, Hardware Accel, S/PDIF, VMR9) etc... each case is different. (There are more options that will be available when media is playing, accessed from the tray icon...we'll do them last). Close.

In Sage Detailed Setup, select Default for all your decoders and devices in Video and DVD sections. Try VMR9/3D Accel. Hold off on FSE for a moment.

Running Sage in a window, play (hopefully) an mpeg video or a DVD.

Double click the decoder tray icon and set or verify "Automatic" (there's a problem with "Smart"), "VMR9", "Hardware Accel", and "Pixel Adaptive" (Harware allowing). Apply and close.

Toggle to full screen and enable FSE. Standby to the tray and then exit from the tray icon (Or shutdown from within Sage if you've installed the "Shutdown" STVi). Re-open (It'll open full screen)to see if FSE is stable.

P

[Jesse]

Jesse said,
Hi,

You probably need someone more knowledgeable than me.

Looks like that would be Polypro .

Jesse

[stevech]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Here's my decoder set up routine: (Assumes Sage is installed)

Install the Nvidia decoders.

Download and Install DECCHECK from MS http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Download and install (runs from a folder) Radlight Filter Manager http://www.radlight.org/products/fil...ager/index.php

Run DECCHECK and make sure Nvidia is the preferred decoder. Close.

Run RLFM and expand Direct Show Filters>Highlight AC3 Filter and click properties>On the last tab select "Prefer Other Decoder". Close.

Scroll down to Nvidia Audio and Video decoders, highlight and click properties, set up what you can for your specific hardware (Anamorphic TV, Hardware Accel, S/PDIF, VMR9) etc... each case is different. (There are more options that will be available when media is playing, accessed from the tray icon...we'll do them last). Close.

In Sage Detailed Setup, select Default for all your decoders and devices in Video and DVD sections. Try VMR9/3D Accel. Hold off on FSE for a moment.

Running Sage in a window, play (hopefully) an mpeg video or a DVD.

Double click the decoder tray icon and set or verify "Automatic" (there's a problem with "Smart"), "VMR9", "Hardware Accel", and "Pixel Adaptive" (Harware allowing). Apply and close.

Toggle to full screen and enable FSE. Standby to tray and then close. Re-open (It'll open full screen)to see if FSE is stable.

P

Mere Mortal User Friendly, eh?

[kaudley]

This is an awesome thread. Is there a place in the wiki somewhere that delves into "Video on your TV Display" type subjects?

I have been looking around for a few days now, and I have seen alot of information. Some of it is very old, like the Hauppauge tweaks thread, some of it is newer like this thread.... It would be nice if there was one spot where you could access updated information on getting the best Output to TV quality out of SageTV.

[stevech]

AMEN!

[simonen]

Thanks PolyPro...I will give that a try tonight. BTW, I noticed that you are using the Gigabyte GV-N66T128VP. I am currently using the Radeon 9550 and believe that it is simply not up to the task for HD. How do you like your card? From the searches I have done, I noticed that it is fanless, which is nice.

Is there one that you think is a better choice in regards to fanless video cards?

Thanks

[Polypro]

I like the card, no problems. Idle's at 55-58'C. Not too many options left in AGP. The Asus' look nice for PCI-E$

P

[simonen]

I did as you showed and the NVDVD decoders work well now except that they give errors when trying to playback HD recordings from the external FusionHDTV software, however the Hauppauge decoders work just fine. I ended up using the Happauge video decoders and the cyberlink audio decoder, for some reason the cyberlink audio is the only decoder that gives the best sound and volume qualityfor HD than any of the others. I also overclocked my video card to ease the load on the CPU and that turned out to help as well.

Thanks for your help.

[ben_95sl1]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Double click the decoder tray icon and set or verify "Automatic" (there's a problem with "Smart"), "VMR9", "Hardware Accel", and "Pixel Adaptive" (Harware allowing). Apply and close.

P

Do you have any further info on the problem with using SMART? My choices are smart, auto and film and video as I have a dx8 ati 8500. I would prefer to use smart deinterlacing, but IF it's causing the crashes I've seen, then obviously auto is the way to go.

thanks

[Humanzee]

OK I dont get this. I have 6600GT with purevideo platinum. I ensured that nvidia decoders are prefered with deccheck, I downloaded that filter manager software and configured AC3 to prefer other drivers, I have my speakers configured for 5.1 in the nvidia decoders, and everything works peachy, but only in Windows Media player.

In Sage I set all of the renderer's to default with the settings above, However, I only get audio output on SD recordings off of my analog tuners. When watching an HD recording or a DVD in a windowed sage, I can open the nvidia decoders and see that there is a bit stream coming through on the audio tab, but no sound. I am using an analog 5.1 pc speaker set up via an ac97, not spdif to a tuner.

I have been on a quest to normalize audio volume between media types, HD, DVD, SD, etc. Giving up on nVidia audion in Sagetv I set AC3 back to prefer AC3 and set the audio renderer's to AC3 and video renderers to nVidia. After messing with the auto gain in the AC3 setup I think that the audio is better between sources but that could all be in my head. I'm not sure exactly if it is actually using the ac3 decoder, when I open the ac3 configuration tool while playing a video in Windows Media, I could see the audio levels bouncing. IF you open it while playing video in sage you get no indication that it is running and it sounds like almost all the audio is coming out of just the center channel. Now when playing a recording in sage windowed mode, the nvidia tray icon is not showing up.

Im so lost.

Why do the nVidia/PureVideo audio decoders work for Windows Media, but not for Sage. I even payed for them.

Furthermore, every time I am able to get into the nvidia decoder setup, it seems like there is a different deinterlacing method selected. Its not persistent, & sometimes pixel adaptive is available and sometimes it isnt.

[gplasky]

nVidia Purevideo decoders will only work with 5.1 analog output on Windows Media Player and MCE. It's in the small print on their website. If you want 5.1 with any other app you need to use SPDIF out to your tuner.

Gerry

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by gplasky

nVidia Purevideo decoders will only work with 5.1 analog output on Windows Media Player and MCE. It's in the small print on their website. If you want 5.1 with any other app you need to use SPDIF out to your tuner.

Gerry

Oh thats just fun. I guess I'm stuck with AC3 for now, but why won't the nvidia codec show up for the video processing anymore?