Porblem with HD playback with Intel graphics under Vista

[mikesm]

Ok, I am very close to a great installation on my small client machine. It's a Dell Optiplex 745, with a 6400 Core Duo and the built in G965 graphics. This worked flawlessly under XP, except Sage would keep dropping out of full screen mode on resume from S3 suspend, which killed the WAF. Vista doesn't have this problem, but does have one issue on HD playback.

So I have my G965 hooked via VGA to a 1366x768 LCD display at 60 Hz. It's locked in 1:1 pixel mode ans is VERY sharp. I have the Power DVD 7 codec on the machine, with the latest Vista patch. It plays back everything very smoothly, SD and HD.

For 1080i HD though, it looks like I am getting some odd de-interlacing. It's obvious when you have white text on a pure black background, like a credits scene. The text has jaggies on it when fed with 1080i content. I think this looks like bobbing.

The weird thing is that playing back the same file in powerdvd's native application works great. No jaggies. PowerDVD is set to use smart deinterlacing under the advanced settings. Sage is set to use default deinterlacing, and VMR9 with FSE and 3D acceleration turned on.

Everything is generally good except for this problem. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to fix it? It really bugs me.

I would try and look at things with graphedit if folks think it's useful, but I know I am running the cyberlink codec (with hardware acceleration on), and I don't think it's going to tell me much about de-interlacing mode being used.

I thought if I configured PowerDVD's video settings, Sage would pick up those same settings on playback if I used that codec?

WMP works fine too BTW. Sage is the only one that seems to have this problem.

Thanks,
Mike

[Taddeusz]

For some reason Cyberlink doesn't allow any of the settings they have in PowerDVD for use as a standard DirectX filter. The only option they have on the filter is whether or not to use hardware acceleration. Pretty dissapointing. They must have some secret hooks into their decoder to allow more advanced playback through PowerDVD.

I was rather disappointed when I discovered this. You can see for yourself by loading up a filter manager and select the settings for the Cyberlink decoder.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

For some reason Cyberlink doesn't allow any of the settings they have in PowerDVD for use as a standard DirectX filter. The only option they have on the filter is whether or not to use hardware acceleration. Pretty dissapointing. They must have some secret hooks into their decoder to allow more advanced playback through PowerDVD.

I was rather disappointed when I discovered this. You can see for yourself by loading up a filter manager and select the settings for the Cyberlink decoder.

Are you sure? I get different behavior in Sage when I change settings in the powerdvd control panel, at least with the powerdvd 7 version.

thanks,
mike

[Taddeusz]

I do get different behavior. Specifically the black level. Whe I play one of my recorded videos in PowerDVD the black level is correct (video black level is not actually digital black). When I play the same recording in SageTV the black level is incorrectly displayed as a dark shade of gray. It would be nice if everyone would get together and figure out how to display the proper video black level on a computer. Quite annoying if I do say so.

I could be wrong about the other settings. But just my experience with the black level differences tells me that there is something different about the way PowerDVD and SageTV use the decoder.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I do get different behavior. Specifically the black level. Whe I play one of my recorded videos in PowerDVD the black level is correct (video black level is not actually digital black). When I play the same recording in SageTV the black level is incorrectly displayed as a dark shade of gray. It would be nice if everyone would get together and figure out how to display the proper video black level on a computer. Quite annoying if I do say so.

I could be wrong about the other settings. But just my experience with the black level differences tells me that there is something different about the way PowerDVD and SageTV use the decoder.

Well, under Vista I get absolutely no problems when played in PowerDVD, but the issue I mentioned when in Sage. I was assuming this was an EVR vs VMR9 issue, because WMP gives me the exact same performance as PowerDVD, so it can't be locked to the application, but probably the renderer.

Sigh, I was hoping this wasn't an EVR related issue beacuse I have to wait on Sage for a fix in that case.

Thx
mike

[bialio]

Why don't you just go back to XP and disable S3?

btl.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by bialio

Why don't you just go back to XP and disable S3?

btl.

Disable S3? You mean leave the system on the whole time? The system is quiet but not silent, in addition to the power consumption issue. It's in our bedroom which makes noise a real issue.

Thanks,
Mike

[bialio]

I don't know home much a computer costs to leave running 24/7 - so I can't speak to that. As far as noise, I find a bit of white noise when sleeping to be soothing - but to each his own.

The real solution if you are looking for silent is either an HD extender, or a server with enough juice to transcode HD to an MVP. I ended up going that route (MVP) myself since the HD Extenders are still pending. Not for the silence, just because I didn't want a full ANOTHER full on client.

We get our white noise from dedicated noise makers.

btl.

[Taddeusz]

This is really straying from the original topic but... I currently have my X2 4200 (stock speed 2.2Ghz) overclocked to 2.4Ghz. How much clock speed does it take for the Socket 939 X2's to be able to transcode HD in high quality? Somewhere I read 2.4Ghz but that doesn't seem to be true for me.


Keep in mind that I'm also running at most two instances of ShowAnalyzer in the background. Although I can adjust the amount of usage they each take from the system. I'm still trying to tweak that. My original ShowAnalyzer config was hitting the hard drives so hard it would crater MVP playback when all 4 of my tuners were recording.

I may need to eventually upgrade but I'd like to get by with what I've got until the HD extender comes out and I don't need as much horsepower on my server specifically for HD purposes.

My largest concern right now with the MVP is that HD shows that are pillarboxed can't be zoomed in to full screen on my SD TV. I just haven't gotten around to going HD yet. Some day.

[bialio]

I wonder if the transcoder is not limited by CPU speed as much as other factors - memory bandwidth, L2 and L1 cache, etc...

I've read on this forum that various C2D running at 2.4 GHz can do the transcode to HD without trouble.

btl.

[mikesm]

Well, it's an HD set (what sets aren't these days...), so an MVP isn't a good answer.

I still don't understand why Sage wakes up in the tray under XP but not in Vista, but obviously I'd prefer running XP. I just couldn't make it work. It's bugs like that this that drive me a bit crazy - Sage is so close to doing exactly what I want, but doesn't quite get there.

Tadd, in my case, another server runs dirmon and the showanalyzer application (a stock 4200 X2 that also runs exchange and is a backup server for all the other systems in the house). So far, the NAS I have has no problem handling the load, though when I get some time I'd like to try and get SA running on the NAS server (it runs linux) under wine, and get all that network activity off the wire.

Thanks,
Mike

[bialio]

You might be suprised how good an MVP looks on an HD set (although maybe you have already seen this). I was shocked at how well the HD channels come through at "standard definition"

I put that in quotes because it's really more like DVD quality - the image sent over to the MVP for 16:9 source seems to be an anamorphicly squeezed 720x480 4:3 image just like is encoded on SD DVDs. If you have an MVP somewhere you should test it out on an HD set - assuming you have a server capable of doing the transcoding.

btl.