Which codecs do you use? (HD PVR codec compatability) HELP please.

[bastian74]

So I've tried the following:
CoreAVC
Arcsoft
Cyberlink
ffdshow

Depending on whats installed what works where keeps changing.

Arcsoft works well for BD playback with hardware accel on or off.

Arcsoft with hardware accel on and HD PVR recordings is really poor quality wtih my video card (ATI HD 3870) but with hardware accell off the textures are good, but when the camera pans the image "shimmers" in a nausiating way. So poor quality textures if hardware acceleration is on, and poor quality motion if hardware acceleration is off.

Arcsoft also plays well with SageTV.

CoreAVC has both good texture and good motion, but it only works in graphedit. With Core and Arcsoft installed media player chokes, and sage doesn't work no mater what codec is selected. I really don't understand why graphedit can play back fine and media player classic cannot. They should be using the same graphs shouldn't they? I can't get graphedit to connect to remote graphs to verify.

I can get coreavc to work in sage if Arcsoft isn't installed, even if it is specified in sage.props file as the h264 decoder. It locks up sage.

I couldn't get sage to work with any codecs if cyberlink was installed.
I also couldn't get any player to play back smooth with ffdshow enabled for h264.

So I'm curious, what combination of codecs are you using?

I'm viewing on a 67" screen, so artifacts show up magnified.
I'd really like to use CoreAVC for Sage and Arcsoft for blu-ray but I cannot get that to work. Does anyone have that working?

All I want to be able to do is this:
Watch HD PVR recordings in good quality with good motion handling
Watch blu-ray movies in a blu-ray player app
Watch downloaded divx/xvid movies

[ShortySeanbo]

Here's what I've got:

GF 9800GT (make sure you have the latest drivers!!)
Intel Q9450
Asus P5E-VM
HD-PVR (dunno what version but with a noisy fan) 1.0b drivers
Toshiba 46XF550U (46" 1080p) via HDMI

I watch Blu-rays using ArcSoft's Total Media Theater which inherently uses the ArcSoft codecs for playback. They look great, both older ones (such as Planet Earth) and a newer H.264-based movie (Iron Man).

I have SageTV set to use Overlay with hardware acceleration. The h264 codec is ArcSoft and and so is the audio decoder. The others (mpeg2 etc) are ffdshow (mostly for compatibility with a lot of the media files I already have).

Playback is VERY smooth with blu-ray and with both live and recorded HDTV from the HDPVR. I have noticed one or two split second movements that looked choppy when there was a lot of movement on the screen, but in general I can't tell the HDPVR feed from the HDMI feed direct from the cable box.

Could you describe more the "bad quality" you see when hardware acceleration is turned on? Make sure you have the latest drivers for your card and check the settings in the ATI CC to make sure nothing is going on there. You can also try increasing the anti-aliasing and texture filtering through there.

[ghostlobster]

3 different machines running as clients with the following video cards/drivers:
ATI 2400XT, Catalyst 8.10
ATI 2400 Pro, Catalyst 8.10
nVidia 8500GT, 178.24 drivers

Server has the Arcsoft package installed.
HD-PVR C2. I took the cover off and placed a laptop cooler on top of the open case to keep it cool and prevent lockups.
Version 1.1 of the Hauppauge drivers, audio delivering DD 5.1.

Client machines all have:
Vista Home Premium SP1.
Entire Arcsoft pacgake installed.
Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.
Cyberlink h.264 decoders are being used in Sage.
Cyberlink mpg2 decoders are being used in Sage.