PureVideo Settings

[Mahoney]

I'm building a system this evening - a GeForce 6150 based client for SageTV. It'll be running ForceWare 91.33 and PureVideo 1.02-223. I was wondering if someone could give me a quick run down on what the important settings are to get the best possible playback with SageTV?

I'll be playing back on a 1920x1080@60 HDTV with 1:1 pixel mapping. I'm in the UK, so it will be PAL MPEGs I'll be playing. I watch a lot of sport, so I'm keen that it should turn each field into a frame - but equally I don't want to discard half the detail when I'm watching a film.

I'm guessing that I want deinterlacing detection set to "Automatic" and mode set to "Adaptive". Is there anything I need to fiddle with in the ForceWare settings? They seem to move stuff around between the two, and I'm getting confused!

Finally, if I'm playing back PAL encoded movies, do I care about inverse telecine? I'm gussing not... I'm under the impression that the whole telecine thing is only done to change fil to NTSC, not to change it to PAL which is a lot easier because 24 -> 50 is basically add an extra frame and multiply by 2!

[Mark SS]

The latest Forceware drivers broke the BBC HD trial for me so for the time being I'm on the version before 91.33.

I've always used "Smart" deinterlacing and due to what must be a bug in either Purevideo or my SDI card drivers, I have to disable hardware acceleration (or upscale with ffdshow which forces software mode) otherwise Sky via SDI jitters constantly.

UK PAL content is at 50hz so you should in theory get a better picture using 50hz output.

There are some new sharpen and denoise controls with the latest purevideo/forceware combo but I didn't see much improvement from using either, YMMV.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mahoney

I'm guessing that I want deinterlacing detection set to "Automatic" and mode set to "Adaptive". Is there anything I need to fiddle with in the ForceWare settings? They seem to move stuff around between the two, and I'm getting confused!

Smart and smarter are supposed to be better than automatic; however, there is a bug that some people (myself included) experience when using smart and smarter that makes it unwatchable. Try smarter and if you experience any strange artifacts or stuttering then go back to using automatic.

You are correct in using adaptive. Everything else should be at default.

I can tell a little improvement when using the new sharpen and denoise settings in the nvidia control panel.

[Mahoney]

Thanks, Mark. I'll try the TV at 50hz, and see if nVidia manages that better than ATI did. Though I'm under the impression that any LCD screen will actualy have a static refresh rate, and if it accepts a different one of say 50hz it will actually have to scale it to refresh itself 60 times a second, so I guess it's a question of whether the computer or the TV is better at changing 50 frames into 60 a second. Might be wrong on that, of course.

[Mahoney]

Cheers, Blade. Couldn't find any info on "Smart" and "Smarter" in the PDF, and I saw some info on them being moved to the ForceWare control panel.

[Mark SS]

Wasn't aware of the static refresh rate with LCDs, be interested to hear more if confirm this.

Apparently Smart/Smarter were indeed removed from the Purevideo control panel and someone mentioned the equivalent now is the inverse telecine check box?

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

equivalent now is the inverse telecine check box?

I dont think inverse telecine is supported on a 6150 based chip.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

[Mahoney]

It is for standard definition according to that table.

[toricred]

I can't find "smarter". I remember seeing it previously though. How do you get the setting?

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by toricred

I can't find "smarter". I remember seeing it previously though. How do you get the setting?

I think its been removed in the latest forceware versions. Its mentioned in the release notes.

I can't remember why they took it out, I think it just wasn't doing what it was supposed to. That or they improved the automatic setting, so it became redundant.

[Mahoney]

Installed last night - no "Smarter" option, as pointed out, and no "Adaptive" deinterlacing option, either. Which is more than a little irritating. Playing back a video in WMP it looked OK so long as it wasn't at full screen, at full screen it was jerky. Why does setting up decent image quality from a PC have to be such a total hassle?

Haven't got as far as installing Sage yet, I'm having some S3 issues I want to iron out first. It's possible VMR9 and FSE via Sage will sort it all out.

[Mahoney]

Mark - I know you have the same TV as me. I can't change the refresh rate to 50 - well, I can, but it changes itself back as far as I can see almost instantly.

[Mark SS]

I just checked my video card settings and its definately set to output 50hz. Default was 60 but it stuck when I changed it.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mahoney

Installed last night - no "Smarter" option, as pointed out, and no "Adaptive" deinterlacing option, either. Which is more than a little irritating. Playing back a video in WMP it looked OK so long as it wasn't at full screen, at full screen it was jerky. Why does setting up decent image quality from a PC have to be such a total hassle?

Haven't got as far as installing Sage yet, I'm having some S3 issues I want to iron out first. It's possible VMR9 and FSE via Sage will sort it all out.

Adaptive deinterlacing is only available when using VMR9, but I assume you already knew that. Are you sure WMP was using VMR9?

To get smooth playback at 1080i with my 6600GT I have to use VMR9 with FSE or fall back to Overlay.

[Mahoney]

Thanks, Blade - no, I didn't know that. WMP can't use VMR9, can it? I thought it was Overlay only. Can someone recommend a media player that will use VMR9 with the PureVideo decoders? Running in Sage you don't get the properties to open.

As usual for me it's proving a nightmare; VMR9 with FSE results in it going wrong early, displaying one stuck frame as a sort of grid with the rest playing behind it. Overlay doesn't have this issue, but it does use far more CPU than I'd expect - between 40% up to 90% playing back some SD sport recorded at 12MB/s, leading to regular dropped frames. I tried setting the resulution down to SD in case it was the effort of upscaling to 1920x1080 that was causing the problem, but that didn't help either.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mahoney

Thanks, Blade - no, I didn't know that. WMP can't use VMR9, can it? I thought it was Overlay only. Can someone recommend a media player that will use VMR9 with the PureVideo decoders? Running in Sage you don't get the properties to open.

I think to get WMP to use VMR go to -Tools- then -Options-, click on the -Performance- tab then -Advanced-. Under video acceleration select -Use high quality mode-. At least I think that's how you tell WMP to use VMR. It's been awhile so I could be wrong.

The tray icon will open with Sage if you select default decoder (assuming the Nvidia is your default) instead of Nvidia. For some reason when you select it by name in Sage the tray icon won't open.

[Mahoney]

Cheers. I think I may have to RMA my motherboard - it looks to me like there is something wrong with the 61150 part of the chipset. Going to start a thread checking if this is the case.

[tbonessc]

I have gotten that same stuck frame/grid on my MSI 6150 board in VMR9. I noticed this after upgrading to Forceware 91.31. I have been having better luck with 84.21.
FYI, I have never been able to get smooth HD playback with VMR9. Overlay is ok, but the colors don't look as good.