pvr150 picture quality

[csy]

Cheers

(didn't expect it would provide any improvement on pre-existing studdering)

[stefan]

It might have been something else, but hadn't you posted that info, then I wouldn't have fiddled my settings, so...

[daza67]

I noticed nothing in this thread about setting SDTV output resolution correctly on nvidia cards. This can be done via avanced video timings section on geforce 4MX and later cards that use the nvidia integrated TV encoder.

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

Using this method I have no absolutely no issues with overscan. I also set the overscan settings to 1.0 in the config.xml file, the horizontal zoom is set to 1.05 by default I think.

<!-- overscan control (zoom is floating point: 1.0 is fullsize), offset is integer (pixels)) -->
<HorizontalZoom>1.00</HorizontalZoom>
<HorizontalOffset>0</HorizontalOffset>
<VerticalZoom>1.00</VerticalZoom>
<VerticalOffset>0</VerticalOffset>

Csy,

I'm interested about your studdering issues, I suffered this for a long time with VMR9. In my case it was related to VMR9 droping frames during high cpu usage from a parallel LCD display plugin. Try taking a look at the task manager cpu usage under video playback. There is also the well documented jumpy playback issue caused by the dx9c version of quartz.

[csy]

Thanks for your input daza67, and thanks for your suggestions regarding my jumpy video playback on my 6600GT. My CPU load ranges between 20-50%, and I have tried DX9b quartz.dll.

I have RMA'ed the card and awaiting a replacement incase the problem is hardware related.

This is the fault report I sent to Legend technical support:

Fault symptom:
Playing MPEG2 video via a software player using DirectX, I see intermittent and irregular jumpy scene movements when the camera pans in the video. This is seen when playing-back DVD’s and recorded TV on Windows Media Player 10 (WMP10) and also GBPVR (PVR application). This problem is most apparent when using DXVA hardware acceleration with VMR Pixel-adaptive de-interlacing, but improved (not fixed) by disabling hardware acceleration.

I have a dedicated Home Theater PC (HTPC) as follows:
Hardware:
AMD Sempron 3000+ CPU
Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M (Rev 2.0) Motherboard with latest “FD” BIOS and latest VIA drivers (VIA HyperionPro V508A)
Hynix 2x512MB DDR400 RAM
Samsung DH160JJ SATA2 160GB Harddrive
Sony DWQ30AB2B Dual Layer DVD +/-RW
TUL/Powercolor ATI Theater 550 Pro TV-card with onboard MPEG2 hardware encoder
Legend NV6600GT video card with ForceWare 84.21, using TV-out to a PAL SD-TV (no monitor connected)
240W PSU
Software:
Microsoft WinXP SP2 with all Windows updates applied
Microsoft .Net1.1 with SP1 and critical hotfix applied
Microsoft .Net2.0
Microsoft DirectX 9c with April’06 update applied
Nvidia PureVideo decoder 1.02-196
Windows Media Player 10 (WMP10) with DRM and WMV-DXVA hotfixes applied
GBPVR application (PVR software) version 0.96.08
Cyberlink PowerDVD 6.0 full version

Video Card Configuration:
Single display mode to TV (no monitor connected)
TV-out configured to Component 576i
Resolution: 720x576
Refresh: 50Hz
TV-out device settings: Anti-flicker reduced to zero
All other parameters are default

PureVideo Configuration:
Display Type: Anamorphic/Raw Aspect
Hardware Acceleration: ticked (enabled)
De-interlace Control: Automatic
De-interlace Mode: VMR Pixel Adaptive
TV Overscan Correction: 0
Enhanced nView Support: Prefer VMR9

Microsoft Directshow “merit” Configuration:
Nvidia Video Decoder has highest video decoder merit
Nvidia Audio Decoder has highest audio decoder merit
“Video Mixing Render 9” has highest video renderer merit
“Default Directsound Device” has highest audio render merit

WMP10 Video and Audio Configuration:
Video Acceleration:
“Use video mixing render” ticked (enabled)
“Use overlays” unticked (disabled)
“Use high quality mode” ticked (enabled)
DVD Video:
“Use video mixing render” ticked (enabled)
“Use overlays” unticked (disabled)
“Enable full-screen mode switch” ticked (enabled)
Audio:
The audio configuration displays the PrueVideo audio properties
When playing a video or DVD, the PureVideo icon appears in the taskbar, and double-clicking the icon displays both the video and audio property tabs proving that it is being used as the video and audio decoders.

GBPVR Video and Audio Configuration:
Video decoder: Default (Directshow)
Audio decoder: Default (Directshow)
Audio renderer: Default (Directshow)
Video display mode: VMR9
When playing a video or DVD, the PureVideo icon appears in the taskbar, and double-clicking the icon displays both the video and audio property tabs proving that it is being used as the video and audio decoders.

Actual Directshow filters being used:
Both WMP10 and GBPVR use the default directshow filters, therefore you can use Microsoft GraphEdit to “render media file” to show the default filters as shown below.

<not attached>

Diagnostics:
1) Measured power supply rails using digital voltmeter and currents using digital clamp-on ammeter with peak-hold while DVD was playing and harddrive active. The currents shown below are the summed totals of all the individual loads:
+12V rail measured: +12.0v @5.3A load (PSU rated 16A)
+5V rail measured: +5.0v @3.8A load (PSU rated 19A)
+3.3V rail measured: +3.3v @6.7A load (PSU rated 18A)
I therefore conclude the PSU rails are satisfactory.
2) Checked AGP configuration using RivaTuner utility:
8xAGP, sideband-addressing enabled, fast-writes enabled
I tried disabling fast-writes but this made no improvement.
I tried lowering to 4xAGP but this made no improvement.
3) Suspected it may be related to the motherboard VIA chipset, so tried transferring the NV6600GT card to another PC which has a motherboard with SIS chipset and mirrored the software and configuration, but the fault still existed on that PC with the NV6600GT card. That PC consisted of AMD Athlon XP2000+ CPU, ASROCK K7S41 motherboard, 320W PSU, no expansion cards.
4) On the HTPC, I tried installing an ASUS (ATI) 9550SE card. This works perfectly without fault (no jumpy motion) using all the same software and configuration as previously used with the NV6600GT card. This included using the PureVideo decoders (video and audio).
5) Swapped the 9550SE for the NV6600GT and the jumpy motion fault reappeared.
6) Upgraded the Forceware driver to 84.43 Beta version but no improvement.
7) Playing the same DVD or recorded TV via Cyberlink PowerDVD6 (with DXVA enabled) has perfectly smooth motion. PowerDVD6 does use DirectX filters however I suspect it has its own rendering method which is different from the VMR9 renderer used by WMP10 and GBPVR.
8) The DirectX9c quartz.dll is known to cause studder problems with the common fix being to replace it with the DirectX9b quartz.dll which I tried, however this had no effect on the jumpy motion problem.
9) Using GraphEdit to play video also display the jumpy motion. I used this to display the PureVideo statistics and VMR9 statistics while the video was playing. Both stats showed zero dropped frames over a 15min period even though jumpy motion was occurring.
10) Changing the TV-card MPEG2 encoding from 15GOP,2B,1P to 12GOP,1B,1P on a recording, then playing it back did show noticeably less jumpy motion but did not eliminate it, therefore indicating the problem may possibly be related to MPEG2 motion compensation.
11) Experimented with the ForceWare DirectX settings using RivaTuner and enabled:
“Enable wait after blit when DDBLT_WAIT flag is specified”
This significantly reduced the jumpy motion effect but didn’t resolve it completely.

Conclusions:
1) The fault is directly related to the NV6600GT card because swapping it for the ASUS 9550SE card completely resolves the fault symptom
2) The fault appears to be related to DXVA VMR9 rendering on the NV6600GT.
3) The jumpy motion is not caused by dropped frames.
4) The fault may possibly be related to how the NV6600GT handles MPEG2 motion compensation as per diagnostic point 10 above.

[daza67]

Csy,

You mentioned powerdvd6 plays the same files without jumpiness. I also have this app and from what I can tell it's using overlay or vmr7 and not vmr9. I use VNC a lot for remote control of my HTPC and whenever VMR9 is in use you actually see video on the remote vnc console. This definately does not occur when using overlay or VMR7 renderers hence my reasoning.

I have also used ATI card (9550) with the pure video decoder in the past and noticed much lower cpu usage when using vmr9 compared with a nvidia 6600 cards. In fact I was initially alarmed at the highish CPU usage when first changing to nvidia 6600 using the pure video decoder and VMR9.

VMR9 seems extremely sensitive to cpu usage with the nvidia cards in full screen mode. In my case cpu usage was similar to yours and way below 100% yet I was still getting dropped frames. Just try moving a mouse around the screen and observing the dropped frame counter on the vmr9 quality tab. Also be aware this increments differently compared to the nvidia video decoder's statistics frame drop counter. It must be counting renderer frame drops and not video decoder frame drops.

I found scrolling banners ie. something like the bloomberg channel was good for spotting the jumpiness.

Some other questions.

I also noticed from your other posts you use a imon VFD is it parallel or USB connected ?

What VFD plugins are you using ?

Are you running any sort of motherboard monitor program or similar ?

Does the jumpiness occur in gbpvr when using overlay renderer ?

Daza

[csy]

Hi Daza

VMR9 seems extremely sensitive to cpu usage with the nvidia cards in full screen mode. In my case cpu usage was similar to yours and way below 100% yet I was still getting dropped frames. Just try moving a mouse around the screen and observing the dropped frame counter on the vmr9 quality tab. Also be aware this increments differently compared to the nvidia video decoder's statistics frame drop counter. It must be counting renderer frame drops and not video decoder frame drops.

Point taken, however the decoder and renderer show no dropped frames, even when the jumping is occuring. I therefore conclude the jumping is not resulting from dropped frames.

I found scrolling banners ie. something like the bloomberg channel was good for spotting the jumpiness.

Good point, and I have been using similiar scrolling banners myself. However this jumping only occurs when the whole scene moves (camera panning). If the scene is static, the scrolling bannner is constantly smooth.

Does the jumpiness occur in gbpvr when using overlay renderer ?

No. The problem is specific to DXVA+VMR7/9. I do not wish to use Overlay because the picture quality is not as good as VMR9.

Are you running any sort of motherboard monitor program or similar ?

No, I'm not running any motherboard monitor program.

I'm waiting for my RMA replacement 6600GT, to see if I had a faulty board.

I also noticed from your other posts you use a imon VFD is it parallel or USB connected ?
What VFD plugins are you using ?

It is USB. I've installed the iMON VFD driver but not the iMON application, and installed LCDSmartie application with the iMON plugin. And obviously the GBPVR LCD plugin for LCDSmartie.

[daza67]

Csy,

What quartz.dll version are you actually running ?

I have a couple of machines with nvidia cards and get a jumpiness problem with the original sp2 dx9c 6.05.2600.2508 version as well as the updated 6.05.2600.2749 but not with dx9b version 6.05.01.0902.

The SFC function and/or windows update tend to overwrite the dx9b version from time to time with the later version and a jumpiness problem returns again !

Daza

[csy]

I've been carefully controlling which quartz.dll is truely residing in the 'System32' directory. The problem occurs across all 3 quartz.dll's (902, 2508, 2749) with the Nvidia 6600GT, and does not exist on the ATI 9550 using the same 3 quartz.dll's.

I'm not going to investigate any further untill I have tried the replacement 6600GT in case this is a hardware fault.

[nitrogen_widget]

This is just the thread I needed.
I pulled my older rig out of retirement for a playback only (750mhz & managed to get a geforce fx5200 agp to work in it) & I was sticking to overlay with OK results.
VMR7 was giving me dropped frames even though the cpu wasn't tanking.
I was surprised that VMR9 + purevideo + fx5200 combo worked so well.
DVD's & avi files play perfectly on the monitor (I need a svideo to rca adaptor before I try it on the older TV in the bedroom)
For my recordings the ones I record at half DVD work beautifully.
For the one I record at full DVD at around 3800 I get some tearing at scene cuts (but I gotta be looking for it) & a little slowdown when credits zoom from large to small but since i'm the only one that is going to be watching my own recordings & since I can allways transcode them to avi it isn't a problem.

Thanks.
I don't think I would of even pondered using VMR9 because in the past this machine with a radeon 7000 couldn't handle it.

[Zato]

So did anyone every find a good solution to the original post?

I'm having the same issue. Replaced my 4200ti with a 6200 but the "fuzzy" picture persists. Especially on faces.

This is pretty much a deal breaker for my wife unless I can get this issue fixed.