Vista, Dual Monitors and Sage

[reggie14]

I'm going to have to reformat my hard drive in the relatively near future, and I'm thinking about installing Vista. While the the official release isn't for a couple more days, a lot of us have had MSDN copies for a few weeks now, and I'm curious about compatibility issues.

Specifically, I have a dual monitor setup. Those of you with dual monitors know that you're basically stuck using overlay in Sage if you want to be able to use it on either monitor. However, from what I understand, Vista doesn't play nicely with overlay. It kicks you out of Aero and even then the video doesn't always play. Is this true?

I should note that you don't need to use overlay, actually. VMR9 certainly doesn't work, but the default renderer (VMR7, I believe), mostly works. However, transparent menus do not. CPU usage is actually considerably higher than overlay or VMR9, but thats probably not a Sage issue.

I brought up the idea of improving VMR7 support in Sage in an e-mail to Sage support when I was first getting Sage setup with dual monitors, but the issue went unaddressed. Does anyone know if this is feasible or likely, given the issues with overlay in Vista?

[gplasky]

It's the horsepower required to drive vmr9 on both monitors that is the issue. This is suppose to be addressed with Vista-specific video drivers, DirectX 10 and Direct X 10 being supported in hardware on newer video cards. Certainly nothing we have today.

Gerry

[reggie14]

I understand that that is the issue with VMR9, which is why I've been hoping that they'd do something with VMR7. Really I just want some sort of transparent menu fix, whether its alpha blending like VMR9 or color keying like overlay.

Admittedly I know little about this subject, but it appears that is usually the renderer used by media players. I say that because I can use programs like WinDVD, WMP and iTunes on either monitor, and I know they are not using overlay (since I can run them at the same time Sage is playing using overlay).

I'm curious, what are the advantages of VMR9 over VMR7? Is it an issue of hardware acceleration?

[gplasky]

VMR 7 is old technology and was in use when Direct X first came out. They aren't going to develop for that when VMR 9 is the driving technology (Based on DirectX 9) and with DirectX 10 coming into use with Vista.

VMR was first made available for the Windows XP platforms only. Beginning with DirectX 9.0, a separate version of the VMR, called the VMR-9, is available for redistribution on all platforms supported by DirectX. The two VMR filters are very similar in their implementation and the interfaces that they expose. The primary difference is that the original VMR (now called the VMR-7) uses DirectDraw 7 internally to control the video hardware, while the new version of VMR (called the VMR-9) uses Direct3D 9.

The Video Renderer filter was used to render a single video stream in non-video port scenarios. It was based on graphics hardware technology which is now over five years old, and on an older version of DirectDraw. In certain scenarios, it uses GDI for rendering. This is done either to conserve video resources, which were much more limited five years ago, or else to overcome limitations in DirectDraw that were related to multi-monitor support. Neither the VMR-7 nor the VMR-9 ever uses GDI for rendering; the VMR-7 is based completely on DirectDraw 7 and the VMR-9 is based on Direct3D 9.

In scenarios involving either a video port or multiple video input streams, prior to the VMR the Overlay Mixer filter was used for rendering. This filter only uses the hardware overlay on the graphics card, and so is generally limited to the one overlay surface provided by most cards. The Overlay Mixer performs destination color keying, but it is not capable of alpha blending. Because it does not have a window manager, it must use a second filter, the Video Renderer, for window management. The VMR is capable of true alpha blending, and can create multiple overlays in software in addition to the hardware overlays.

The VMR is more robust than the earlier renderers, in part because it only uses DirectDraw 7 (or Direct3D 9 if you are using the VMR-9) interfaces, as opposed to the old renderers which used a mixture of interfaces from older and newer versions of DirectDraw. The VMR also employs a new image presentation mechanism which is designed for current and future generations of adapters, which have support for Direct3D, increased VRAM and video memory bandwidth, and hardware acceleration features.

The VMR uses the graphics-processing capabilities of the computer's display card exclusively; the VMR does not perform any blending or rendering of video using the host processor, because to do so would greatly impact the frame rate and quality of the video being displayed. When taking advantage of the new features offered by the VMR, particularly blending of multiple video streams and/or application images, the overall performance obtained is highly dependent on the capabilities of the graphics card being used on the computer. Graphics cards that perform well with the VMR have the following hardware support built into them:

- Support for YUV and "non-power of 2" Direct3D texture surfaces.
- The ability to StretchBlt from YUV to RGB DirectDraw surfaces.
- At least 16MB of video memory if multiple video streams are to be blended together. The actual amount of memory required is dependent on the image size of the video streams and resolution of the display mode being used.
- Support for an RGB overlay or the ability to blend to a YUV overlay surface.
- Hardware-accelerated video (support for DirectX Video Acceleration) decoding.
- High pixel fill rates.



Gerry

[reggie14]

Overlay is "old technology", yet they develop for that.

I've been a loyal Sage user since v1.4, but I've been becoming increasingly disappointed with Sage's support for dual monitors. Sage is the only program on my computer that gives me problems with dual monitors. Based on my conversations with Sage tech support, it seems clear its not priority for them. The tech support people are very friendly, and they really seem to try to help, but they aren't very knowledgeable about the issues with dual monitors setups. I've contacted them on two occasions in the past and in both cases after sending a couple e-mails back and forth I simply stop hearing from them. Its quite irritating. No "what you're trying to do is unsupported", no "we'll consider that in the next release", nothing.

Am I being too hard on Sage? My disappointment is a result of the fact that Sage is the only program that I have problems with. Is it going to become impossible to play video in a dual monitor setup on both screens in Vista with all programs without DirectX10 hardware? I find that difficult to believe, but I suppose its possible.

[reggie14]

I have a question about Sage and dual monitors, so I'll attempt to resurrect this old thread of mine.

I have a HVR-1600, and have been happily playing with the new QAM support in the current release client. Its got me thinking about the multi-monitor support, which I'm still not happy with. I have basically the same question that I've posed here many times before. What's the best way to run dual monitors with Sage so Sage will run on both monitors? That is, I want to be able to run Sage on the secondary monitor, not be forced to always run it on the primary monitor.

Right now the only option is to use overlay video without hardware acceleration. Its not quite as pretty as VMR9, but it works. However, my X2 3800 can't play high definition video without hardware acceleration. The default renderer (VMR7) works with hardware acceleration on both monitors, but Sage doesn't really work with the default renderer. Its really slow and there's no support at all for translucent menus.

I recall people discussing the possibility that Vista, DirectX10 and EMR would solve some of these problems (if Sage supports EMR as a renderer). Can anyone confirm that? Does anyone have a "true" dual monitor setup with Sage that plays high-def tv?

[mikesm]

It's EVR, and with some cards, it should help. But I think Sage has stated they are committed to NOT do EVR, because VMR9 "should" work. This is a sore point with me and several others, because the video card companies support for VMR9 in Vista is pretty dicey. Even though Sage seems to recommend ATI cards for HD playback, the latest driver from ATI that 'works' is 7.7, but 7.8 and 7.9 (the last two releases) have a lot of trouble with smooth playback under Sage. Whereas the same files under powerdvd or WMP play back fine.

I love Sage, but some of these decisions are more religious than practical, and make like harder on all of us customers.

Thanks,
mike

[Taddeusz]

I'm running a client on my Vista Ultimate machine which has a Radeon X1950XT and get no stutter at all with the Catalyst 7.8 driver. I'm also using Cyberlink decoder from the latest version of PowerDVD.

That's a pretty disappointing stance to take on EVR support with Vista. Whether they like it or not Vista is here to stay. More people are going to be moving to it every day. Maybe the majority of their customers aren't moving to it now but quite a few are. They need to have their priorities right now though. Getting 6.2 out and getting the HD Extender to market should be their primary focus. Particularly the HD Extender.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

That's a pretty disappointing stance to take on EVR support with Vista. Whether they like it or not Vista is here to stay. More people are going to be moving to it every day. Maybe the majority of their customers aren't moving to it now but quite a few are.

SageTV hasn't said "never" about EVR, so you can ignore that comment above. It is being considered and support for it might be added, but...

They need to have their priorities right now though. Getting 6.2 out and getting the HD Extender to market should be their primary focus. Particularly the HD Extender.

This is the more correct info about EVR: there are other priorities for now.

- Andy

[reggie14]

I'm mostly happy with Sage. They're sometimes a little slower than I'd like (<cough> HD extender </cough>), but overall they usually seem to get their priorities straight. I've been trying out the new release client and I think it looks pretty good. That being said, I don't use HD now (my server can't play it, much less transcode to my MVP), and that seems to be where everyone is having problems.

Dual monitor stuff has been a disappointment for me. My screens are different aspect ratios, which gave me problems with Sage6, but gplasky made a wonderful plugin to fix that problem. I don't like having to forgo hardware acceleration to get it to work, but that seems pretty common- BeyondTV is the same way (in fact, their forums made it sound like dual monitor setups are unsupported). I'm not sure what Microsoft and Apple do to get it to work, but it seems to be somewhat hard, or at least non-trivial since not everyone does it.

I mostly blame it on Microsoft and the video card manufacturers. Applications, in general, shouldn't have to worry about which monitor they are running on.

Taddeusz-
I assume you just have a single monitor setup, is that right?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Taddeusz-
I assume you just have a single monitor setup, is that right?

I do actually have a dual monitor setup on my client PC. When I watch stuff on it I usually do it on my main monitor, which is a wide screen. My second monitor is a 19" 5:4 LCD.

I was just viewing some recordings on both monitors. Both SD and HD. They both show approximately the same CPU usage when played on either monitor.

This is with an X1950XT. I'm not sure if things would be different with an Nvidia card. Since I've been running strictly ATI cards for some time I don't know how it is on the other side of the fence. What I do know is the same thing could not have been done with XP. I assume since Aero is 3D accelerated that means that VMR9 video is also going to be accelerated on either display. I haven't had issues playing video on my second monitor since I switched to Vista.

[reggie14]

Taddeusz-

That's actually really great to hear! I'm going to try to upgrade my computer in the next few months and I'll keep that in mind. I have a Vista license but I've avoided using it because I didn't think I could get dual monitors working well. It sounds like it might actually work *better* (at least, better than my current setup which uses XP and an 6600GT).

Can you give me more detailed specs of your computer? I'm curious how high-powered it is. Also, I don't suppose you, or anyone else, could tell me what video cards can do acceleration on both monitors, can you? I was sort of expecting a DirectX10 card would be required, but I'm pretty sure the X1950 is DirectX9. Its probably mostly a driver issue.

[Taddeusz]

Yes, the X1950 is a DX9 card. My client system is actually pretty beefy. It's also my main system that I use for gaming. I just recently upgraded it. It is:

Intel C2D E6550 (stock 2.33Ghz 1333Mhz bus)
Intel DP35DP mobo
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB DDR2 800 dual channel kit
Sapphire X1950XT 256MB PCIe (Cat 7.9)
CL Sound Blaster X-Fi
Vista Ultimate x64
SageTV Client 6.2.8
Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 decoder
AC3Filter
Gigabit network to server

My previous system was basically the same except it was an AMD X2 4200, Asus A8N-E and 2GB DDR 400. The previous system also had no problems playing back recorded HD shows, which are all MPEG. Although, I had been having trouble playing 1080p h.264 video, 720p was fine. I'm not sure why because other people don't seem to have the same trouble. There could have been other issues. That said, I no longer have any problems with playing back those videos.

I'm probably not the best judge at the minimum system you can get and still have good HD playback.

[reggie14]

That's a pretty nice system. Its not ridiculously overpowered. I'll probably be upgrading to something roughly on the same order. I'm really glad you're around to relay your experience. It makes me much less disappointed on the dual monitor issue. Thanks.

This is off-topic, but since you had an X2 4200 I'll ask. When I upgrade, my current X2 3800 with an Geforce 6600GT will get switched over to my server. That should certainly play HD video (at least, it seemed to pretty well when I tested it briefly), but can it transcode HD to the MVP? Standard quality transcoding is fine (high would be nice, but that sounds like it needs 2.4GHz). I imagine I'd be able to overclock it to X2 4200 speed.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Opus4

SageTV hasn't said "never" about EVR, so you can ignore that comment above. It is being considered and support for it might be added, but...

This is the more correct info about EVR: there are other priorities for now.

- Andy

This is great! This is the first time I have ever heard someone from Sage saying they'd look at implementing EVR and that it was because other things were more pressing.

I for one am very happy you guys are communicating a bit on what you are working on, because it helps your customer base know which direction to go and what to buy. Not having any comments on repeated requests makes us think you are ignoring us. It's nice to know you guys are not.

Thanks,
mike

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by reggie14

This is off-topic, but since you had an X2 4200 I'll ask. When I upgrade, my current X2 3800 with an Geforce 6600GT will get switched over to my server. That should certainly play HD video (at least, it seemed to pretty well when I tested it briefly), but can it transcode HD to the MVP? Standard quality transcoding is fine (high would be nice, but that sounds like it needs 2.4GHz). I imagine I'd be able to overclock it to X2 4200 speed.

I used to have an X2 3800 in my server. I now have my 4200 in there currently running at 2.4Ghz. They both transcode fine in "Standard" but high quality is out of the question even at the higher clock speed. I'm not sure why but I just end up getting stuttering in high quality. I've always assumed it was the clock speed limiting things but it seems weird to me that my CPU doesn't seem to be maxing out while transcoding on high quality but I still get stuttering. It does work otherwise though. If the channel is in full 5.1DD I even get the full AC3 audio through my MVP. Pretty sweet.

[mikesm]

I have an overclocked 3800 X2 server and it has issues with doing HD transcode to an MVP also - lots of stuttering. Not sure what the problem is because the server is not CPU bound.

Thx
Mike

[bialio]

Just for another data point - my ridiculously over powered E6850 in my server transcodes HD in High Quality to the MVP without breaking a sweat. Looks almost as good as the real deal on my 26" HD Tube.

[reggie14]

I contacted Sage support about the dual monitor issue. A Sage developer is pretty convinced that you can't use hardware acceleration on the secondary monitor. I know this is at least partially false, but it is consistent with everything than I've read that has said you can't create a VMR9 surface on a secondary monitor.

However, I am pretty sure DirectDraw acceleration works on secondary monitors, and that that is how programs like Quicktime get hardware acceleration working on secondary monitors. Quicktime actually has a configuration option devoted to this issue. I think DirectDraw is used with VMR7, while Direct3D acceleration with VMR9. Can anyone confirm?

So, I hate to bug you again Taddeusz, but I want to clarify that you are using VMR9 and not default/VMR7. I can use VMR7 right now with XP and get hardware acceleration working, but Sage acts pretty quirky when VMR7 is used, as opposed to VMR9 and overlay. I also want to make sure you only have one video card in the system. Finally, do you know if its specific to the Cyberlink decoder? If you switch to a different decoder does Sage still work on the secondary monitor properly?

By the way, since you said your two monitors are different aspect ratios, I want to make sure you know about the plugin that GKusnick wrote that automatically changes the display aspect ratio when you move the Sage window from one monitor to the other. Its called the Display Aspect Ratio Switcher and can be found in the downloads section of the forums.

[reggie14]

I just had a strange experience with the newest Nvidia drivers (162.18). For some reason, I think overlay stopped working. I couldn't play videos in any program. I tried switching Sage to VMR9, and it mostly worked. I was able to turn acceleration on in the Purevideo options. CPU usage on the primary monitor was about 10%, and it was about 40% on the secondary monitor. Those percentages should really be doubled, since I have a dual core computer. That was for standard definition, and even though utilization was only at 40% (or really, 80% for the core), it was still a little choppy on the secondary monitor. But, it seems to me Nvidia is working on this issue, perhaps accidentally via some other issues.

What's frustrating is that these video acceleration issues when using dual monitors don't seem to be well documented. No one seems to know what's possible, and whether limitations are in hardware, drivers or DirectX. Various things are buggy when using dual monitors. For instance, the Purevideo color settings are completely ignored after you move the video window from one monitor to the other. I realize we're a niche market (dual monitor users), but is it really that small?