Picture Tear

[frankmcg]

Tried changing to VMR7 and that seems to have helped although thought my setup would have been good enough to manage VMR9! Am I losing anything important by "downgrading"?

[TomV]

My onboard 6150 was unable to hang with the demand, so I stuck in a 7600gs, voila! NO MORE TEARING

[frankmcg]

I'm hoping to avoid that except as a last resort, quite keen on the convenience of having an onboard video card, no heat/noise issues etc!

Problem I've got is only during v fast moving scenes, a line appears above 1/3 from the top which makes the picture look about a frame or so behind. I can't change to anything other than VMR9 custom as then I get the nvidia graphics bug where picture only appears in top left quarter of the screen.

Any other options I could try?

[Braklet]

I can't change to anything other than VMR9 custom as then I get the nvidia graphics bug where picture only appears in top left quarter of the screen.

Any other options I could try?

My GB-PVR installation was working GREAT with analog TV (PVR-500) and VMR9 Custom, nVidia PureVideo decoder, 6600 based vidcard.

However, when I added an ATSC receiver (AVerTVHD A180) all digital TV had terrible artifacts; stuttering and tearing galore. This manifested on live TV as well as recorded dvr-ms files.

Long story short, the only way I was able to get acceptable ATSC performance was to change GB-PVR & PureVideo to use Overlay. I also had to set GB-PVR to use System Default video and audio decoder settings, and ensure that my DirectShow defaults involved PureVideo. Whenever I'd set GB-PVR to use nVidia PureVideo video and audio decoding, I'd get more stuttering and generally bad performance.

I tried sorting through lastgraph to figure out the difference between the two settings but I could never get a valid graph to display when I use System Default. But my system works almost flawlessly now.

Changing to Overlay mode means I get opaque OSD instead of transparent, and Auto aspect processing no longer works. Neither issue seems particularly bad; F7 still gets me to the proper aspect ratio.

I suspect that if I want "flawless," meaning 100% great HD playback as opposed to my current 98%, I'll have to upgrade the 6600 based card to one with >= 30Gbps memory bandwidth.

[frankmcg]

I've give it a shot when I get home tonight. I thought overlay still had the nvidia bug though - but sounds like you're not getting this?

[Braklet]

I've give it a shot when I get home tonight. I thought overlay still had the nvidia bug though - but sounds like you're not getting this?

Oh, I got the "video in upper left" problem a lot, that's why I went to VMR9 Custom to begin with (for analog video with the PVR-500). I'm not getting it with my current settings, either analog PVR-500 or digital AVerTVHD A180.

I wish I could remember the exact sequence of config/test cycles but I have performed hours of frustrating tuning exercises. Adding ATSC was definitely a trial, but the results are worth it.

There is some sort of interaction between memory bandwidth, overlay mode, decoder, and filter graphs that I haven't been able to suss out.

I thought I had a pretty speedy system too (Athlon 64 x2 4200+, 2GB, 6600 vidcard) but it still stutters a tiny bit when I'm watching SD video sent over an HD stream. Surprisingly, it almost never stutters watching full HD video, even 1080i from NBC or CBS.

I have to stick with my 6600 card if I want to keep a 1080p connection to my TV via VGA connector. If I upgrade the vidcard I'll probably have to switch to DVI or HDMI connectors, in which case my TV is limited to 1080i. So I feel your pain.

[frankmcg]

Well the plot thickens. Just tried out overlay only to discover it doesn't work at all now! Get the sound but no picture? All I changed was the purevideo option to overlay and the same in GB-PVR config, now livetv doesn't give me a picture. Shouldn't the same codecs etc be used for overlay or VMR9?

[frankmcg]

Is 60-70% CPU usage during playback considered high? Could this be causing my picture tearing problems in the top half or top third of the screen?

Interestingly, turning off hardware acceleration in the purevideo control panel only reduces CPU usage by about 5%. Does that seem right?

[Braklet]

Well the plot thickens. Just tried out overlay only to discover it doesn't work at all now! Get the sound but no picture? All I changed was the purevideo option to overlay and the same in GB-PVR config, now livetv doesn't give me a picture. Shouldn't the same codecs etc be used for overlay or VMR9?

I have seen that behavior in the past but unfortunately the only suggestion I can make is try "system default" for video and audio decoding.

[Braklet]

Is 60-70% CPU usage during playback considered high? Could this be causing my picture tearing problems in the top half or top third of the screen?

Interestingly, turning off hardware acceleration in the purevideo control panel only reduces CPU usage by about 5%. Does that seem right?

I don't have any reference point for your 60-70% CPU, that all depends on your vidcard and CPU. It seems a bit high to me.

Turning off hardware acceleration should increase CPU, not decrease it. 5% seems like a reasonable guess.

My Athlon 64 x2 CPU usage dropped about 11% when I switched to nVidia PureVideo decoder and set up all the hardware accel I could find.

PureVideo had much better video quality than my previous Cyberlink decoder, too; deinterlacing support and color balance were the biggest differences.