ATI Video Card Help

[emok]

I've been getting occasional blue screens with my setup and I've been trying to resolve the issue. Because the blue screens mentioned the driver stuck in infinite loop for nv4_disp.dll, I figured I'd try a new video card.

After much debate, I ended up getting an ATI x1950pro from fry's (previously was using the onboard Geforce 6150 with my K8NGM2-FID) and trying it out. I haven't found much in terms of decoders/picture quality/issues related to ATI graphics cards (tons of stuff related to nvidia cards).

Just wondering if any of you guys have had experience with the ATI cards and configuring them for use with Sage. I've tried both the purevideo decoders and the cyberlink decoders and haven't had much luck with the picture quality. With both decoders, what I see is a lot of graininess on SD content and also there's a slight shadow (when there's movement, the image noticeably lags behind).

So far, I've installed the latest Catalyst drivers and have installed PowerDVD 7 Trial to get the cyberlink decoder. In order for me to see it as a selection for sage, I needed to set the "videoframe/additional_video_decoders" property.

Has anyone here gotten good results using an ATI video card with Sage? How???

At this point, the picture quality was better with the onboard video and I'm close to just returning the card, unless I can find that magic bullet.

[StephaneM]

Hello,

Originally Posted by emok

With both decoders, what I see is a lot of graininess on SD content and also there's a slight shadow (when there's movement, the image noticeably lags behind).

It seems that you are experiencing the temporal noise reduction bug that concerns the new Radeon 1K series. Basically the noise reduction is applied to moving objects (instead of removing noise) and as a result you are seeing trails or ghosting for moving objects.

You'll have to modify a registry settings to remove this noise reduction. Once modified reboot your PC and this should remove the ghosting effect.

Also I recommend that you use Cyberlink PowerDVD7 decoder over the Nvidia one and that you select "Automatic" for deinterlacing in the Catalyst Control Center.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[emok]

Thanks StephaneM!

I'll try this out when I get home later. Also, for de-interlacing, do you select "Pulldown detection"?

Another issue I noticed. I was watching an episode of Scrubs that was recorded from a QAM HD broadcast and noticed at "jump back" frame problem where during playback, every few seconds, there would be a random frame (I'm assuming from a previous time) flashing on the screen. I read about this somewhere before, but I can't remember where. Have you seen this as well? And is there a fix for it?

Thanks again,
E

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by emok

Also, for de-interlacing, do you select "Pulldown detection"?

No I don't select this, but mainly because we do not need this in Europe. Try first without it and enable it later : from what I understand this is used for reducing some stuttering.

I was watching an episode of Scrubs that was recorded from a QAM HD broadcast and noticed at "jump back" frame problem where during playback, every few seconds, there would be a random frame (I'm assuming from a previous time) flashing on the screen.

If this is with a H.264 transport stream, yes I do see this (and I have submitted bug report to ATI and Cyberlink : but you are really speaking to deaf peoples !!!). I noticed some improvments with the latest PowerDVD version (build 2211a) and I'm running Catalyst 6.9 (I'm really tired to update drivers so I stopped here, since the MPEG2 ghosting issue was introduced with Catalyst 5.13 and never resolved since).

From what I understand this "extraneous frame" is the result of a quirk (in the transport stream) during the deinterlacing (only when using Hardware acceleration). With the latest build of PowerDVD you'll see that deinterlacing is bad during those quirks but at least it doesn't repeat the last frame and it's watchable.

I don't know if the same issue applies to MPEG2 (I do not have access to any MPEG2 HD broadcast, only H.264)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[jkohn]

I too recommend the PowerDVD decoders for ATI cards, I found the performance with Purevideo really poor. Another interesting thing I found is that Overlay yields better picture quality than VMR9, at least on my x1600; less grainy and less posterization in the shadows.

ATI+PDVD+Overlay seems little sharper than the 7600+PureVideo+VMR9 though; and it doesn't look like edge enhancement, it just seems like sharper detail. The picture quality with HD (I don't use Sage for SD) is still a little grainier than when I was briefly using a GeForce 7600GT, but with that card the deinterlacing bug in the software/hardware (not sure which) made 1080i unwatchable for me.

BTW I haven't seen the "frame pulse" bug with my ATI card; I'm surprised to hear you mention that because so far I've only heard of GeForce users having this issue. It was terrible with my 7600GT.

[emok]

Originally Posted by jkohn

I too recommend the PowerDVD decoders for ATI cards, I found the performance with Purevideo really poor. Another interesting thing I found is that Overlay yields better picture quality than VMR9, at least on my x1600; less grainy and less posterization in the shadows.

ATI+PDVD+Overlay seems little sharper than the 7600+PureVideo+VMR9 though; and it doesn't look like edge enhancement, it just seems like sharper detail. The picture quality with HD (I don't use Sage for SD) is still a little grainier than when I was briefly using a GeForce 7600GT, but with that card the deinterlacing bug in the software/hardware (not sure which) made 1080i unwatchable for me.

BTW I haven't seen the "frame pulse" bug with my ATI card; I'm surprised to hear you mention that because so far I've only heard of GeForce users having this issue. It was terrible with my 7600GT.

I tried selecting overlay in sage and it would just give me playback exception when trying to watch a recording. It happened both with the previous onboard 6150 with latest drivers and with the new x1950pro with the latest catalyst drivers. I'm not sure why.

The "frame pulse" only happened with that episode of scrubs (on NBC HD), so it may just be a problem with the source content. It's not happening with CSI (CBS) and not happening with SD content. Do you know of any solutions to this problem?

aside: My other option when debating which video card to get was the 7600GT. I wanted to get one with HDCP support (hopefully future thinking) and the 7600GTs that supported HDCP were on the expensive side ~$170. The other option was a x1600pro with HDMI (~$150), but I wasn't sure how well it could handle playback of HD content. And that's why I ended up with the ATI x1950pro, which supposedly officially supports HDCP. I guess it may all be moot.

[jkohn]

I tried selecting overlay in sage and it would just give me playback exception when trying to watch a recording. It happened both with the previous onboard 6150 with latest drivers and with the new x1950pro with the latest catalyst drivers. I'm not sure why.

I get that too when switching from VMR to Overlay after the initial change. But if you exit and re-start SageTV I think you'll find that it works. (And it's only the initial setting change that causes this, it's not something that keep cropping up).

[emok]

Wanted to post an update:

1. The registry hack mentioned by Stephane solved the shadow problem.
2. Still not sure about the "frame jump" problem. I only saw it with that one recording.
3. Overlay versus VMR9. I was unable to switch to overlay because of the FSE setting. I disabled FSE and have tried both Overlay and VMR9. Overlay seems to be more vibrant (more contrast), but also has more noise when watching SD content. VMR9 seems less noisy when watching SD content (softer image). Is this what your experience is as well?

[blade]

Originally Posted by emok

Overlay seems to be more vibrant (more contrast), but also has more noise when watching SD content. VMR9 seems less noisy when watching SD content (softer image). Is this what your experience is as well?

You can't just switch between the two and compare. The display must be calibrated differently for each type renderer in order to get an accurate comparison. I don't know enough about the technical side to explain it, but there have been posts on these forums and some very detailed posts over on avs explain the why and how.

In general yes overlay does look more vibrant, but if both are viewed on a properly calibrated display they should be very close in that regard.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by emok

Overlay seems to be more vibrant (more contrast), but also has more noise when watching SD content. VMR9 seems less noisy when watching SD content (softer image). Is this what your experience is as well?

Yes : Overlay is generally darker that VMR9, because it is not using the PC range level but the video range (you know those things blacker than black / whiter than white), wheras VMR9 is using PC range. So usually black level 16 is 0 on Overlay (anything between 0 and 16 is black) whereas in VMR9 this will look gray and you'll have to calibrate your display to compensate (usually I do this through the Catalyst control center directly)

Regards,
Stéphane.