Microsoft Mpeg-2 decoder on Vista works great!

[popechild]

I post a lot of questions, but rarely something that I just hope will help someone out, so that's all this is. I just did a new build using Vista, and spent ages trying out all the various combinations of EVR, VMR9, Overlay, HA on/off, FSE on/off, etc. I could get things to look good, but not great, and almost inevitably experienced tearing on fast-moving programming like football games.

On a whim, I noticed that Vista SP1 comes pre-loaded with its own Mpeg-2 decoder. I've always used the PureVideo decoder on XP because it's always looked the best, but when I noticed that I wasn't getting HA on Mpeg-2 material I figured maybe it was the decoder. Sure enough, switching to the Microsoft Mpeg-2 decoder not only gave me the HA I was looking for, but totally blew away the picture quality of everything I was having trouble with.

No more tearing, no feeling of blurry backgrounds during fast motion, everything crystal clear and smooth. Not sure if anyone else will rule out the Microsoft decoder by default, just based on thinking it can't be as good as the PureVideo decoder you have to pay good money for, but if you haven't tried it and are having PQ issues on Vista, give it a shot!

For the record, I ended up on EVR, HA on, FSE on. Using the new beta 6.5.3, I get 5-10% cpu on both mpeg-2 and h.264 content on a dual core e5200. Smoothest PQ I've achieved yet.

[Underfunded]

thanks for the tip. I've been having some problems with my SageTV / Vista install and am almost ready to give up on it. This will be a good try.

[abbott_m]

A couple questions on this:

1. what is your cpu and graphics card
2. are you using a MS decoder for the H.264 recordings from a PVR as well as the .mpg files?

I'm considering a move to vista over the holidays and am trying to make sure I understand as much as I can.

Mike

[popechild]

Originally Posted by abbott_m

A couple questions on this:

1. what is your cpu and graphics card
2. are you using a MS decoder for the H.264 recordings from a PVR as well as the .mpg files?

I'm considering a move to vista over the holidays and am trying to make sure I understand as much as I can.

Mike

1. This is a new build on a NVidia 9400 series mb using the onboard hdmi video. (It's the new Gigabyte board). The cpu is a dual core e5200.
2. I'm using the ArcSoft decoder for H.264. I didn't even try the MS one for those b/c the ArcSoft decoder looks great and already uses HA.

[thorforyou]

Is it possible to register this decoder with Vista Business? I know that the codec is not included but I can copy the required DLL's from my Vista Home Premium machine. When I try to register the codec it fails with a message 0x80004005.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[popechild]

Originally Posted by thorforyou

Is it possible to register this decoder with Vista Business? I know that the codec is not included but I can copy the required DLL's from my Vista Home Premium machine. When I try to register the codec it fails with a message 0x80004005.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Sorry, as a president-in-waiting likes to say, that's way above my pay grade.