Whats the best video/audio codec for Windows 7

[Elmo Putney]

Slightly OT but there is a very interesting/informative article on transcoding and decoding recently posted on Tomshardware, the conclusion is rather inconclusive except that there is no one set of encoders/decoders that fits all:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vide...,2839.html

[BigMoose]

I've never tried the Arcsoft audio decoder for UK HD channels so will give it a go. I've never had problems with ffdshow or ac3filter switching from DD2.0 to 5.1 mind you. I have seen bad skipping issues but not sure if I still have them or not - need to find some time when I'm not at work and no one is watching telly to have a good look at it.

Good to know that the PDVD10 radio buttons dont stick for you either but seems to be working none the less.

[BigMoose]

This is annoying, but using PDVD10 for SD, I get perfect pans and deinterlacing, but it stutters (like 3 frames a second) every now and then for a few seconds, then sorts itself out for a good while. I noticed it do it after half an hour or so of viewing and it's done it a few times since. The MS decoder didn't do that....

[goldberg]

My Post has started a life of its own BTW, my PC is ONLY used for NPVR so its very clean. The CPU util is very low as well.
So after I changed the deinterlacing per johnson42x, I have great performance now. I did install the AMD video driver package and that also corrected another issue for me. I will try the AMD Media Codec package and see what happens.
My last objective is to perfect the color of the screen. Its a bit "dark" and I'd like to liven it up a bit. ]
Originally this was suppose to just be a little hobby/toy thing for me but with all the features and great functions, this has become one of those "must haves" for me.
Great work to all who work on the software and support it !!

[BigMoose]

I updated my ATI drivers and CCC etc yesterday to 11.1 and it has options to liven up the colours a bit and is now less dark. Which CCC are you on?

[pBS]

that sample clip posted has incorrect interlacing done...i'm noticing this also on my directv receiver in 1080i mode..
it seems they aren't passing the deinterlacing flags on after they convert it internally...it's just interlaced 'dumbly' meaning not checked and adjusted for telecine properly..
if they had a better resizer built into the hardware of the stb, it would all look perfect..it has to adjust for telecine and the changing framerates of the video...
i just set stb to output only 720p,480p, no 1080i,480i...no problems, looks great..usually only 480i content looked really really bad on 1080i..[major weave look]

was that recorded off antenna or stb box? what kind of capture device?

nothing but bob will work for improperly interlaced material....but only because it duplicates the lines to make the missing ones..thereby halving the resolution in real life..
look at the finest details and you'll notice a blocky effect..
motion vector or other advanced deinterlacing looks at the line given *and* the one next to it and 'tweens' what should be between them...and looks much much better and smoother..
bob just makes an exact duplicate and places it next to it.....leading to the sawtooth aliasing on diagonal lines.. look at sd video and you'll see it much more pronounced..

720p,480p resolutions won't suffer from this and should look perfect...only 1080i and 480i need deinterlacing..
if they do, there's something seriously wrong with the transmission or capture..

[SickBoy]

Is there any way of verifying that one's codec combo is using DXVA?

Or more pointed - do the MS DTV-DVD decoders use DXVA automatically if your hardware supports it? I had to throttle back the deinterlacing settings on my onboard Radeon HD 4200 (as suggested earlier in the thread) to get smooth playback on Live TV H.264/AVC from my HDPVR.

I just want to be sure I am using the most optimal codec combo and settings to get the most out of the hardware I've got - because I am unlikely to be able to use an add-in card for better video performance.