Is there any hardware that works reliably for 1080i mpeg2 playback?

[fyodor]

After upgrading to a nvidia 8600GT with Vista and encountering the same ^*&^%^ problems as before, I'm wondering if there are any cards that reliably smooth playback of 1080i content. Is this just a Nvidia problem? Are there more complaints about nvidia cards because more people use them or because they're more problematical.

I've read that part of the problem is that nvidia cards have trouble with VMR9 without using FSE. Is this different for ATI users?

F

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by fyodor

After upgrading to a nvidia 8600GT with Vista and encountering the same ^*&^%^ problems as before, I'm wondering if there are any cards that reliably smooth playback of 1080i content. Is this just a Nvidia problem? Are there more complaints about nvidia cards because more people use them or because they're more problematical.

I've read that part of the problem is that nvidia cards have trouble with VMR9 without using FSE. Is this different for ATI users?

F

My integrated Intel graphics in the 965G chipset seem to do 1080i just fine. Nvidia hardware is very capable of doing it too, but the quality of their drivers is just terrible.

On the recommendations of one of the Sage guys I am trying a new ATI card (2600pro) in another client that has an Nvidia card in it now and I'll update folks here on how well that goes.

I'd like to run Vista on that system, but we'll also try it with XP.

Thanks
Mike

[mikesm]

PS You also have to couple any of these pieces of hardware with a good codec, like the cyberlink powerdvd one. The included MPEG codec with Sage is a total POS. Why they even bother shipping it is a mystery to me.

Thanks,
Mike

[fyodor]

I've been using the cyberlink decoder, which is super smooth under media player classic and zoomplayer.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by fyodor

I've been using the cyberlink decoder, which is super smooth under media player classic and zoomplayer.

You aren't running Vista are you?

Did you use DECCHECK to set the cyberlink decoder as preffered?

Thanks,
Mike

[fyodor]

I'm using Vista. I have it set manually in SageTV. I should note also that when I ran the graph in graphedit, it used the cyberlink decoder.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by fyodor

I'm using Vista. I have it set manually in SageTV.

SageTv under Vista is VERY dicey. Vista is optimized for EVR, and Sage doesn't support EVR. There are multiple threads here of people complaining about Sage MPEG playback under Vista esp with Nvidia hardware.

My recommendation to you is to scrape Vista off the system and install XP. You'll have much better luck with it.

Thanks,
Mike

[fyodor]

Sage on XP brought me plenty of pain too. My current setup, while frustrating, is still giving me better results than XP. I'm tempted to give GB-PVR a shot since they've integrated support for firewire.

Originally Posted by mikesm

SageTv under Vista is VERY dicey. Vista is optimized for EVR, and Sage doesn't support EVR. There are multiple threads here of people complaining about Sage MPEG playback under Vista esp with Nvidia hardware.

My recommendation to you is to scrape Vista off the system and install XP. You'll have much better luck with it.

Thanks,
Mike

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by fyodor

Sage on XP brought me plenty of pain too. My current setup, while frustrating, is still giving me better results than XP. I'm tempted to give GB-PVR a shot since they've integrated support for firewire.

You should file a bug report with sage first. Maybe they are working on a fix or something for vista. Lots of people complain but noone from Sage says anything on the forums.

PS what didnt work under XP?

Thx
Mike

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by fyodor

After upgrading to a nvidia 8600GT with Vista and encountering the same ^*&^%^ problems as before, I'm wondering if there are any cards that reliably smooth playback of 1080i content. Is this just a Nvidia problem? Are there more complaints about nvidia cards because more people use them or because they're more problematical.

I've read that part of the problem is that nvidia cards have trouble with VMR9 without using FSE. Is this different for ATI users?

F

What operating system are you running? What decoders are you using? Your 8600GT has more than enough power to play 1080i content flawlessly.

Here's my 100% stutter-free 1080i config:

- Windows Vista Business (32-bit, Aero Desktop)
- Athlon X2 2.0 ghz (clocks down to 1ghz most of the time)
- 1GB RAM, SuperFetch disabled
- SageTV client 6.1.9
- 8500GT
- nVidia PureVideo DVD decoder
- latest nVidia beta Vista drivers
- 3D Acceleration Enabled
- VMR9 rendering
- FSE disabled
- Inverse Telecine enabled
- Per-pixel adaptive deinterlacing and Smart content detection in PureVideo options
- AC3Filter audio decoder

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by mikesm

SageTv under Vista is VERY dicey. Vista is optimized for EVR, and Sage doesn't support EVR. There are multiple threads here of people complaining about Sage MPEG playback under Vista esp with Nvidia hardware.

My recommendation to you is to scrape Vista off the system and install XP. You'll have much better luck with it.

Thanks,
Mike

I disagree. Video playback under Vista should be better than XP for nVidia cards featuring PureVideo acceleration. Why? XP's desktop is rendered by a 2D engine. PureVideo also uses the 2D portion of the GPU. SageTV uses 3D mode, but XP has to constantly context switch between 2D and 3D modes. FSE prevents that content switching and helps some people with stuttering problems. However, FSE has numerous bugs that prevent it from being a practical solution.

Vista (running Aero) does not use 2D mode for rendering the desktop. Everything on-screen is a 3D surface. That means no context switching while running SageTV, leaving the 2D portion of the GPU (PureVideo) free to decode and accelerate video.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

I disagree. Video playback under Vista should be better than XP for nVidia cards featuring PureVideo acceleration. Why? XP's desktop is rendered by a 2D engine. PureVideo also uses the 2D portion of the GPU. SageTV uses 3D mode, but XP has to constantly context switch between 2D and 3D modes. FSE prevents that content switching and helps some people with stuttering problems. However, FSE has numerous bugs that prevent it from being a practical solution.

Vista (running Aero) does not use 2D mode for rendering the desktop. Everything on-screen is a 3D surface. That means no context switching while running SageTV, leaving the 2D portion of the GPU (PureVideo) free to decode and accelerate video.

But Sage doesn't support EVR and there are numerous complaints of this not working. I agree in general playback should be better in Vista, but Sage doesn't appear to have done the work to make that happen. Thats why playback in vista in wmp and powerdvd is great but lousy in sage.

Do you disagree with that?

thx
mike

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by mikesm

But Sage doesn't support EVR and there are numerous complaints of this not working. I agree in general playback should be better in Vista, but Sage doesn't appear to have done the work to make that happen. Thats why playback in vista in wmp and powerdvd is great but lousy in sage.

Do you disagree with that?

thx
mike

I agree that EVR support would be nice. However, Sage still needs to fix very basic bugs first (like no DVD menu selectors in Sage on Vista). I have the EVR/PureVideo 2 capable PowerDVD 7.3 with the latest patches. I don't notice any appreciable quality difference in 1080i HD content between Sage + PureVideo decoders and Cyberlink + EVR/PureVideo 2.

I don't have HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to compare, but Sage doesn't support either format yet. VMR9 seems to be sufficient for now.

[stroths]

I get smooth, stutter-free 1080i playback in Overlay mode using a 8500GT under Vista32 and the Nvidia PureVideo codec. My configuration in my sig.

[SHS]

Just my 2-cents about it video glitch-free playback it impossable as long as we are still stuck with Soft Acceleration

[fyodor]

Well, a lot of things "should" be better. My CPU and Videocard setup "should" be able to playback 1080i content better than a $150 media streaming device, but here we are.

I haven't tried enabling Aero, but it was my understanding that it drained resources. Maybe I'll give it a spin.

Regarding what you've said below, I'm not sure how accurate it it. It's my understanding that video decoding in windows VMR9 is basically a function that uses the 3d portion of the GPU. It's also my understanding that the purevideo mpeg2 decoder didn't support hardware acceleration in vista-Nvidia has basically just exposed the hardware interfaces to third party decoders and has not updated the decoder to work with vista.

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

I disagree. Video playback under Vista should be better than XP for nVidia cards featuring PureVideo acceleration. Why? XP's desktop is rendered by a 2D engine. PureVideo also uses the 2D portion of the GPU. SageTV uses 3D mode, but XP has to constantly context switch between 2D and 3D modes. FSE prevents that content switching and helps some people with stuttering problems. However, FSE has numerous bugs that prevent it from being a practical solution.

Vista (running Aero) does not use 2D mode for rendering the desktop. Everything on-screen is a 3D surface. That means no context switching while running SageTV, leaving the 2D portion of the GPU (PureVideo) free to decode and accelerate video.

[fyodor]

Originally Posted by stroths

I get smooth, stutter-free 1080i playback in Overlay mode using a 8500GT under Vista32 and the Nvidia PureVideo codec. My configuration in my sig.

This is what I ended up doing for now.Overlay seems to solve the stuttering, but I get periodic tearing issues.

[mikesm]

This stuff shouldn't be that hard. I also had periodic stuttering with the purevideo codec on nvidia hardware (even in XP) and haven't seen better performing drivers since the 93.XX series.

I finally got sick and tired of all the driver crap from nvidia and bought my first ATI card in 5 years. I installed a new passively cooled 2600pro (which I got for $80) last night, and it works REALLY well. It made even the stuff I thought the nvidia played back well look a lot better. SD scaling is head and shoulders over my old card too.

This is via HDMI to my Sony SXRD 1080p display and using the powerdvd 7 codecs. I haven't done a lot of playback (I finished up around 1 AM last night), but it looks very nice, and I'll look at CPU usage later, but it seemed pretty light.

Since the Sage folks said ATI is the card to use for Vista and Sage, I'm going to set up my client to do dual booting and see how Vista performs with this card. I had a lot of issues with Vista and the nvidia. PowerDVD and WMP worked great, but Sage looked terrible.

Thanks,
mike

[ToxMox]

I have an ATI 2600XT on the way as well and when I install it I will post back how well it works in Vista.

[bialio]

I get flawless 1080i playback on both of the video cards in my setup - 8500GT and 8400GS. Both running Vista in AERO mode.

I don't know why it works so well for some and so poorly for others......

btl.