Tearing with VMR and Directshow

[megamojo]

Well, I never re-installed windows when I completely changed out my hardware, so I think that's my next step. However, the first video driver I install will be 7.11, not the current one!

[benjatelcom]

I have similar horizontal tearing... Been running XP pro with sage for the last four years, and have had this tearing on my 450Mhz P-III with a Radeon 7000, on my dual xeon 6600GT AGP, and now on my X2 with an ATI 3450.

Overlay fixes it every time... but come on, its overlay... ugly... and screws up my AVCHD M2TS playback in SageTV.

Any headway on this? I get the tearing in other apps that use VRM9 too. I dont use MCE, so I have no other HTPC shell to compare sage to.

Its my observation, that some people just can't see the tearing. Many of my friends don't notice it, but to the discerning eye, its all too obvious.


Where is the VSYNC setting in the latest ATI CAT drivers?

[benjatelcom]

Vsync on/off doesn't make any difference. What should I do next? Since this problem manifests itself in several different VMR9 applications, I had assumed it might be a video driver issue, and had opened up a ticket with AMD/ATI.

I have received two computer generated "solutions" in a row, from their auto-responder at AMD. Apparently the tearing is a result of using too small of a power supply :-) I'm sure thats the issue. 300W is more then enough here.

[John@TunerUK]

I've tried loads of different settings and configurations and trawled through countless posts about it, but no matter what I do the tearing just won't go away.
My system certainly has the hardware to do the job, but in the end I just got so frustrated I decided to go with overlay.
The only problem with that is, it seems to limit me to 720p for some reason, whereas VMR9 allows me to display 1080p.

If sage could fix this, add the option to play a CD, and add the ability to display Sky HD, I'd be a very happy man.

[megamojo]

I too have tried every single thing I could think of, all to no avail. I'm pretty sure you're right in that some people just don't notice it; I suspect I've always had the problem and just started noticing it recently. If you don't think about it after a while you notice it less, but it's still definitely there.

[Lightarrow]

Hi, i am fairly new to SageTv Here is my hardware:

Amd X2 5200+
2gig ram ddr 667
m2n32
ATI 3870
2x 500 gig
500 watts Earthwatts psu
Hd-PVR
Usb-uirt


Using cat 8.8 and sagetv 6.4.8
For codecs im using Klitecodec pack 4.17 i think... upgraded not too long ago.

I am having the same problem as you guyes.
I used to use a x1950 Pro 256 megs for this rig and never had any problems with VMR9 - directshow.

I bought a 4870 not long ago so my 3870 was unused. i put it in the media pc thinking it would help since its the HD series now that i am recording and decoding HD.

The 3870 did help alot by reducing the overall heat of the system (and cpu utilisation from 30-60% down to 5-15% but i am having these weird problems with it.

I am not at home right now so i can't really put some screenshots but let me tell you that the 3870 and VMR9 just don't work for me. I always get crazy tearing plus all the colors become distorted and ugly.

Switching to overlay and voila, no more tearing and weird distortions.

I have tried every decoder available to me

Sagetv decoder
Arcsoft decoder
cyberlink powerdvd 8 decoder

All using directshow

3d acceleration enabled / disabled didnt change anything.

I love the transparent menus and overlay does not offer them. so VMR9 would be nice.

I have tried lots of different drivers from ATI, i have tried everything mentionned in this thread and nothing fixes this issue.

It cannot be the Power supply because it runs games at super high resolutions (at least 1600X1200) without a hitch and also no artifacts.

I am thinking to going back to the x1950 Pro but i wanted to play some games on that tv and the x1950 pro is just not as nice and powerfull as the 3870.

Anybody got a fix for this issue ?

Tried searching but i just can't seem to find anything...

[Milord]

I'm also having the same issue with a 2600XT. I've tried everything to no avail.

[stryker]

From time to time I have the tearing issue too (as described in this thread), I'm using an ati 3650 HD powercolour.

[megamojo]

I've totally given up on it. It's not very noticeable anymore if you don't actively look for it. Can anyone definitively confirm that nvidia cards are free of this issue? It seems like everyone in this thread has an ati card.

[Ryokurin]

I don't have tears anymore with a Geforce 9600GT. did with an 8500gt unless I ran in overlay, and used ffdshow which pushed some of the processing to the cpu. If the source was 720p, then it actually could pull it off in VMR9.

It all just depends on several factors. your screen resolution, the source's resolution, if you run overlay or vmr, if you do any post processing and so forth. If you plan on running in vmr9, then you need a good video card to back it up if you plan on running it in a HD resolution. Period. Thats going to be a 8600GTS or better, on Nvidia, and probably a 4000 series or better ATI wise. Yes, 8200s and 3200s are supposed to handle Blu-Ray, and it seems like they can, as the 8500 did much better on some hd movies clips I had, but since I don't have a Blu-Ray player I can't say definite. I expect that however as its a controlled environment, and frankly, what is killing the weaker cards is having to handle deinterlacing duties.

At least 9600s are in the 80-100 dollar range, and not 200 anymore, but frankly, I feel you still get what you pay for.

[benjatelcom]

I observe this behavior in sage, and PDVD7.6 watching DVDs and BDs.

Reclock fixed these problems on a much slower and older AGP test sled, but created other problems.

I recently upgraded to PDVD8, on the same platform that was running 7.6, and the tearing is gone as far as I can tell.

I honestly don't think it has to do with GPU horsepower, or your system. It has to do with how intelligently the playback application matches the source video frame interval with the host PC screen refresh interval. Anyone have some 1080p60, p24, and p30 to test with?

The worst I see it, is when playing back cartoons that are 480p h.264 encoded MP4 files in sage.

[megamojo]

That actually makes a lot of sense. I used to use reclock all the time, but when I upgraded to sage version 6 a long while back it didn't seem to be needed any more, and we all know the complications that reclock adds, so I removed it from my playback stream. It's probably been since that point that I've noticed the tearing. I also tend to notice it a lot more with imported videos, which tend to be 24 fps, and even more with 25 fps material. This all makes sense now, and for that I thank you. If we can't fix the problem, at least I feel better knowing the cause.

[stryker]

behave, I don't think its gpu hoursepower given the cards mentioned in this thread. Besides, I recorded dantes peak and its great for showing the tearing effect in sagetv because of the dust and lightning scenes, however it plays 100% fine when I play it through VLC.

Agreed, I think it looks like some kind of mismatch in frame rates, however adjusting the displays rates 50/60/75/80 seems to make little difference, even with recordings I know are either pal or ntsc.

[Wirenut]

I have a ATI HD3850 of the AGP flavor and have had no tearing problems with it, unless I try to do hardware acceleration and VMR9 on the Secondary Monitor

If I set it up as the primary monitor... [my Olevia LCD via HDMI] I have no problems in VMR9 and Harware Accel. it just works. And it's got a smooth, jitter free, vivid picture.

This is on an elder Via PT800 board with 2Gig Ram, 3.4Mhz Prescott P4. Cpu is always lower than 15% even with HD 1080 material. I'm using the newest Catalyst Control Center drivers(8.9 I see today they've posted 8.10...but I'll have to read the release notes, cuz if it aint broke..", the ATI AVIVO decoder and AC3Decoder for audio.

Oh yeah... this is on WinXP pro SP3. And... I used to use ReClock also... but then somewhere around version 6, it goofed up, so I had to also remove it from the filters.

I have pull down detection selected and have de-interlacing method set to Vector Adaptive. I have DeNoise disabled, and Edge Enhancement at 33%.




Works for me, YMMV.

Peace,

Wirenut

[stryker]

thanks wirenut, my GFX card is the AGP one too. From what I read the various vendors do a bit of a botch with the 3xxx chipset on AGP cards, as its supposed to be used on pcie cards. I'll try those settings.

[Wirenut]

Oh, and I'm using the AGP Hotfix drivers... which can be found with a little googling should be right from the AMD/ATI site... The version that came out in August really made an improvement in PQ on my system and ended a few of the hiccups it was having. My card is a Sapphire.

I've heard so many negatives about the putting that HD3XXX engine on the AGP bus that I was reluctant to try it. At first... it was shakey, but the latest drivers have really made a differance. I really don't have the energy to swap out an entire mobo at this time, but needed some HD processing power.

I also use DriverCleaner to take out all the ATI stuff between driver changes... as ATI tends to leave some things behind on the swap.

All said, I'm still waiting for the STX100 HD Extender to become available again... and just use the server box as a server box.

Peace,

Wirenut

[ehfortin]

Hi all,

What is the definition of tearing? I have an issue with the display which is not stuttering or blockyness but I don't know how it could be called. Basically, what I have is some horizontal lines that appears in the image like if the image was splitted in two. It happens mostly on the bottom part (about at the station logo level) but can happen in the upper part as well. If I do a pause/play or stop/play, it's getting away for a few minutes.

Most of the movies are not showing this. I actually saw it a few times in the last few days. However, series are horrible. They all do that. Maybe it's because of the logo and/or the fact that with the ads, the resolution is switching from HD to SD and then back.

I have an ATI 2400 (think it is the XT) and I'm on vista home premium. I'm using overlay and directshow for the H264/MP4 files that are recorded with HD-PVR.

Is that what tearing is about?

Thank you.


ehfortin

[megamojo]

That is tearing all right. It's when part of the screen updates before the rest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing

[ehfortin]

Thank you for the information.

So, my post "strange display problem" should be posted in this thread. I'm actually reinstalling Windows and SageTV completely. I never had tearing previously and I think (it's a big "maybe") it started when I've installed WinDVD which installed a different version of DirectX (9c if I remember correctly).

I'll just put Vista, Arcsoft (Hauppauge version) and SageTV client to see if it resolve the issue and I'll post the result in case it can help.


ehfortin

[ehfortin]

Hi,

I've reinstalled everything from scratch. I still have the tearing issue. It's strange that I never got that before and it started about when I first installed WinDVD. Since I just reinstalled everything (SageTV, Arcsoft - HD-PVR edition, Java 1_06_07 and most recent ATI drivers), it seems that it was probably not related.

I'm using overlay, tried 3d accelation on/off. CPU is not using more then 50%, heap memory seems good.

I'm just thinking that I added Cyberlink M2TS decoder in the previous install and did not this time. I would think that it's not related but... I guess I'll have to try it to make sure. Maybe it was that decoder that was used instead of Arcsoft's one.

Is it usually better with XP Pro then with Vista? I have both licences so I can still reinstall back with XP Pro if it can resolve this issue. Until we got EVR support.

Thank you. Will let you know about the M2TS decoder if it helps or not.


ehfortin