Observations about HD stuttering.

[blade]

I finally got a HD Tuner and have been working on getting smooth playback. I noticed something odd that I haven't seen anyone else post so I don't know if it's something with my particular setup or if others can reproduce it. I have no idea if this will be of any use to anyone, but this is what I found with my setup.

I did a format and fresh install (had the same problem with the old install).
Sage v6.0.19
6200 agp card
Forceware v93.71
Java v1.6
Latest DX9.0c
PureVideo 1.2-233
FSE Enabled
Property set to not disable FSE when focus lost
Fraps (to measure actual frame rate)


VMR9 ouputting 720p
When I do a clean boot I get the full 60fps with both 720p and 1080i broadcasts as well as with the 1080i test clips I've downloaded. After switching from one channel to another or going from one test clip to another several times I can no longer get the full 60 fps. It drops to 54-58 and stuttering is obvious. The same test clips that minutes earlier played perfectly smooth at 60 fps now stutter. If I continue to switch from video to video the FPS eventually falls even further. If I press stop before switching videos it appears that I can switch between shows more times before the problem creeps up. The only way to get the full 60fps again is to reboot.

VMR9 outputting 1080i

On a clean boot with 720p content I can easily get the full 60 fps; however, with 1080i my card struggles to hit 58-60 fps and I get occasional stuttering. This is the card's fault and I believe if I did a little overclocking it would take care of my problem. 1080i content is just a little too much for it when also trying to output at 1080i.

When I switch between videos I see the same problems as I posted above. The difference is the hit to the frame rate is much greater because the video card is struggling more to begin with. The first hit to the frame rate drops it down to 44-48 fps on 1080i content and after more switching the second hit takes me below 30 fps.

History

I have seen this same problem when I was using a 6600gt and on both cards with previous versions of java, drivers, Sage, etc...

The problem wasn't as easy to cause with the 6600gt. I'm guessing because it was powerful enough that the first "hit" to performance wasn't great enough to cause a reduction in frame rate so more switching between videos needed to occur before it would affect the frame rate. Since I only had test clips when using the 6600gt I didn't switch nearly as many times between different videos as I do now. I'm certain the problem was there it was just harder for me to spot it.

Other Observations

I tried the older v84.26 Forceware drivers because many have said they perform better with HD. I tried several clean reboots and outputting 1080i content @ 1080i resolutions the best I could get was 44-48fps. I reinstalled v93.71 and it instantly jumped back to 60fps. So for my card the newer drivers are far better for HD playback. I tried this with my old install as well and saw the same lower frame rates with the older drivers.

This has nothing to do with HD stuttering, but the Nvidia chart is absolutely wrong about the 6200 and Bad Edit Detection and IVTC. With older drivers the 6200 did not have these features, but with newer drivers they are activated. Confirming this is easy using fraps and switching between automatic and smart mode. I don't know exactly which driver version introduced the feature, but all of the drivers I've tried from v84.26 and above support these features for SD. I haven't used HD enough to say for certain if it works or not, but I believe I noticed it working last night during my testing. When I actually start watching HD shows I'll find out for certain. These features are working for both my agp and pci-e 6200 cards.

[SHS]

That why we need Ture Hardware Decoder and hope lee if Micronas manage to get a Manufacturers to start dev and building the MicRacer 1D-X clones being Sigma Designs is no longer building any PC consumer add on board.
But keep in mind the one major problem is min of the Hardware Decoder have none of falling hardware features like Global Motion Compensation (GMC), Data Partition or OBMC (Overlapped Block Motion Compensation) support.
2nd problem problem the MPPA and RIAA alway sticking there nose where it dosen't belong and make it harded for consumer product so only option is the very high cost professional solutions.