Problems with DVD playback - jitters & tearing

[stustunz]

turn off all extra crap on video deivce setting apart from vertical sync
if you can set screen refresh rate 50hz 75hz or 100hz
turn off treat screen as high def tv if you can (well at least try it)
i use nvidia pure video decoder
i tried descaler5 it didnt give me good results
but in saying that what works well on one machine does not work well on the next so its a matter of trying them all
sorry probably not much help

[r3d]

Many thanks stustunz. Maybe a dumb question, but, how do I turn off all the extra stuff on the video card. Also, because I'm connecting via HDMI I'm not sure it the refresh rate plays any part as it's pure digital video signals that get sent to the tv (correct me if I'm wrong). Also, please tell me how I could switch off the "treat screen as high def tv".

Please bear in mind that I'm using the MSI K9AGM2-FIH motherboard with AMD 690 chipset. So don't have a seperate video card per say. I have installed the latest ATI drivers for the motherboard which I downloaded from the MSI support site.

[stustunz]

im just saying in general
im not sure on your system if it will have the settings or not
but does it have video properties advanced or similar
alot of the stuff on video cards is set up for video game smoothing which seems to stuff up how a video plays back (anitlaising)
the only advanced thing i use is wait for vertical sync
i know when i use hdmi on my projector you can change the refresh rate

[r3d]

stustunz,

I do have the advanced video properties which brings up the Catalyst Centre. I'm guessing you are asking me to turn off all the additional stuff under 3D. As far as I'm aware I cannot turn it off, I can however, set most of it to "Use Application Settings". The only other thing that I can probably try is to uncheck "Use Application settings" for all the 3D elements and set them to minimum and give that a go. I will also change the refresh rate to 50, 75, 100 and check if that helps.

I agree with you, DScaler5 does not give me good playback as well. I found MPV decoder gives me decent playback, quite comparable to what NVidia produces. But I gave up on NVidia since when I use it's Audio decoder I do not get any sound in my tele.

In any case, youv'e given me a couple of things to try. I will try it out this afternoon once I get back from work and report back. Many thanks.

[petewxm]

The refresh rate does have a big part to play (on LCD screens)
see this thread

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...light=60hz

If you check what refresh rate you have under, display properites/settings/advanced settings/moniter. I bet its set at 60hz if so try setting it to 50hz.
If you can`t select 50hz try changing the screen resolution to 1280x720 and then try selecting 50hz and then try pxr2


Lets us know if thats any better

Cheers

Pete

[stustunz]

i have never had any trouble getting sound from it
you may need to just change a audio setting for nvidia decoder but you can only change the audio on it while playing the video should be an icon in your task bar down by the clock

and what pete said above is real important but to do this you may need to trick your video card into doing it (thats why i was saying if there is a setting a that says treat my screen as a hdtv to turn that off so that you may be able to change the refresh rate)

[r3d]

First of all, thank you stustunz and pete for lending me a helping hand. I must confess, this is the first time I'm building an HTPC and am feeling a bit lost and frustrated at times.

I will try and change the refresh rate to 50 and see if it makes a difference. Just one thing on that, The Catalyst Control Centre reports the connected display as "Panasonic Tv" with 60Hz refresh rate. I cannot change the refresh rate under the HDTV settings, but I can under the Display settings. When I do that though, my screen resolution changes to 1280x720. Then when I apply this change, I find that the display stretches a little beyond my screen i.e. looking at the windows desktop on my tv, I can see only the top edge of the bottom taskbar for example. I know this because I did play with different resolutions in the past. Is this normal?? Just to let you know I'm using a 37" Panasonic Vierra PLASMA tele (i.e. not an LCD screen).

I will try these suggestions this afternoon when I get home and report back.

i have never had any trouble getting sound from it
you may need to just change a audio setting for nvidia decoder but you can only change the audio on it while playing the video should be an icon in your task bar down by the clock

I have tried changing the audio settings from the audio tab just as you mentioned but could not figure out how to get it to work. I tried all kinds of settings with no luck. I need the audio to be sent via HDMI to my tele. Also the strange thing is that when I use the nvidia player (nStantMedia.exe) that comes with the decoder pack and play back a dvd i do get sound perfectly. So any help here would also be appreciated as I did find that the video had much nicer colours/sharpness to it with nVidea decoder as compared to the MPV Decoder. However, it still exhibited the tearing of the video that I'm trying to fix.

[r3d]

As promised, I'm reporting back my results after trying various suggestions.

First I turned of all the extra 3D stuff in Ati Catalyst Centre -this seemed to make some difference, but did not get rid of the tearing completely. Next I changed the resolution to 1280x720@50Hz - the tearing still did not go away. next I installed the trial NVidia decoder and configured it to be used - this time the tearing reduced considerably but unfortunately did not completely go away.:mad: :mad:

But one thing that I must say, I switched back to the MPV decoder, overlay and fired up GBPVR - the video quality is just so much better. It's such a shame, I really like the menus, etc in PVRX2 but prefer the video GBPVR I would so much like to make PVRX2 work. Any other suggestions welcome.

[stustunz]

try the fse exclusive now
you need to add this to a shortcut to pvrx2.exe and start it from there

heres a pic easier than explaining

in the blue see the -fse at the end add that it made a big difference for me

[hzwaal]

Then when I apply this change, I find that the display stretches a little beyond my screen i.e. looking at the windows desktop on my tv, I can see only the top edge of the bottom taskbar for example. I know this because I did play with different resolutions in the past. Is this normal?? Just to let you know I'm using a 37" Panasonic Vierra PLASMA tele (i.e. not an LCD screen).

That sounds like overscan to me, which is normal for CRT TVs. I don't have any experience with plasma or LCD TVs, nor with HDMI. My common sense tells me that it should not happen for HDMI (only for SVHS, composite and component), but I could be mistaking.

Anyway, you can probably compensate for the overscan; either in your TV, in your graphics card settings or using GBPVR. Doing it in the TV is probably too general, unless you can do it for each input separately. The graphics card would be the best option in my opinion. If that doesn;t work, you can add a black border around GBPVR, by manually editing the <OverScanBorder...> properties in the config.xml.