Using NVidia PureVideo with GB-PVR

[seldomshaven]

I've just got NVidia's PureVideo and installed it on my PVR for GB-PVR to use, but I'm having nasty problems with it. Previously I had some InterVideo DVD-capable decoders which mostly worked but I can't for the life of me work out which software they came with...

If I set TV to use PureVideo then things are basically fine, until I try to pause live TV, at which point I just get a blank screen and no sound. So I've reverted back to some InterVideo non-CSS decoders which seem to work fine for TV.

Now that I have PureVideo set for DVD playback, I'm finding that DVDs play the video back fine but don't have any audio.

PureVideo seems to work fine playing DVDs with Windows Media Player 11 on the same system.

Has anyone else had this combination working?

[Braklet]

PureVideo seems to work fine playing DVDs with Windows Media Player 11 on the same system.

Has anyone else had this combination working?

Works for me, but only after a lot of tweaking. It was worth it in my case because I get the best video/audio quality with PureVideo.

I'll bet money that it has something to do with the way all the codecs on your system are registered. For whatever reason, PureVideo doesn't seem to register all of its stuff so that Windoze DirectShow pulls it up without complaint. Even now, when I open a regular MPEG2 file in WMP, it complains that it doesn't have the right codecs even though it falls back to using PureVideo as I want.

I'm not going to try to debug your specific problems, but this general technique was useful for me:

1. Unregister ALL codecs found in your system. I did this by uninstalling all packages that I knew included codecs, but you can also find instructions to manually unregister by Googling the GB-PVR Wiki.

2. Register only those codecs you want to try. If you want to experiment with PureVideo, only register PureVideo. Once you have that working, at least you'll get a baseline for future tweaks.

GB-PVR also installs its own utility filters which muddys up the mix.

I recommend downloading the GSpot Codec Utility. It is way too complicated for me to understand everything it pukes out, but it lets you analyze media files and see how the system plans to render. It was the only way I could find to display (and edit!) all the codec merit values and see how multiple codec packages interfered with each other.

That oughta be enough to get you pulling your own hair out...

[Slice]

Now that I have PureVideo set for DVD playback, I'm finding that DVDs play the video back fine but don't have any audio

I have this problem too and never solved it but I now use the AC3 codec for audio on DVD's with excellent results!

I agree totally with the previous post I had lots of problems at the start but removing ALL codecs and putting one by one back on only the ones I needed (using G-spot) I now have a perfect results!

Have a loot at this tool also

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tips/...coderTweak

[SickBoy]

Are the nvidia PureVideo decoders freely downloadable? Do they require certain hardware?

[McBainUK]

They arnt free but there is a trial version I believe.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html

[agidius]

Are the nvidia PureVideo decoders freely downloadable? Do they require certain hardware?

not free, and doesnt "require" certian hardware, but with a GeForce video card greater than 6000, it will use the hardware to help decode it, and work alot better.

that being said, whenever I use purevideo, it will work fine until it tries to skip the first commercial, or I hit ffw.
after that the only way to continue is to hit reset.

[Torque]

I used to use Intervideo with GBPVR and am just about to go back to it. Purevideo is a real PITA. I've tried nearly every combination under the sun and still have some quirk I can't work out. I uninstalled the Intervideo decoder so that only Purevideo shows up in the choices in GBPVR config.

Initial issue with basic install was overscan was massive... setting display type to Anamorphic/Raw fixed that.

A ghosting affect every 5-10 seconds where it looks like a frame from a few seconds ago is laid on top of the current video for a split second. Someone suggested using Automatic deinterlacer instead of Smart to fix that and it did.

But then terrible stuttering started after using skip forward/back buttons. Hitting pause, play, pause, play would sometimes fix it till I need to skip again. Other times, it was unwatchable. Gotta be some issue with GBPVR as I can play the same file with WMP no problem. I decided I can deal with the ghosting every few seconds rather than this stuttering.

So back to Smart deinterlacer and ghosting but found that when I skip forward/back the overlay with the progress bar and such doesn't show up on the screen anymore. To see the progress bar, I can hit volume up/down and it'll show up, but not using skip forward/back. Have tried VMR9 and VMR9 custom render, but with custom render, when I pause, the screen goes black. It'll also sometimes go black for a split second when messing with the volume or skipping for/aft.

Waiting for one more piece of hardware for the new PVR, and then when it gets built, Intervideo decoder is getting installed. I'd rather take a tiny hit in video quality than deal with Purevideo... I can't believe they actually sell that POS.

[SickBoy]

I just installed PureVideo on my system... I don't know how much I stand to gain from it (given that I'm running a Ti4600 video card, which predates the cards that PureVideo claims to support), but it actually seems like a step down when watching live TV using that codec.

Right after the Super Bowl was over I installed it and swapped back and forth a few times between the codecs I have installed on my system, while watching SportsCenter SB highlights.... and the Purevideo codec seems really "jumpy/jittery" while watching live tv. Action shots (like clips from the game) look to be really bad video quality, and the scrolling bottom line news/scores look like absolute crap. I switched back to my ancient Intervideo codec...

[fuzzweed]

have you tried the PV reg patch (mentioned below) on th wiki? mine ran beutifully afterwards...

[jksmurf]

I'm having a little vent here, as I purchased the NvidiaPureVideo decoder and I must categorically state that Nvidia's integration of their own Audio Codec with their quite good Video Codec leaves much to be desired, at least in GBPVR, despite claiming that it can do AC3.

Numerous threads abound on this topic, but the general solution seems to be either:
(a) Use AC3Filter and Select that as your Audio codec. This worked for me, once selected in GBPVR config. Here's one example from Slice.

I use the Purevideo codec for video and the AC3 for audio. I can't get any audio when I select the purevideo codec from the config.

(b) In Nvidia Purevideo Audio Settings Tab, send the Audio to the Receiver and then through the SPDIF as documented by stubright. This did not work for me. His advice (paraphrased) is:

1. Play an mpeg/dvr-ms file in media player and you will get the pure video icon next to the clock (in the Tray)
   
2. Right click on it and select decoder properties.
   
3. In the audio tab select speaker setup and check the boxes marked connected to a receiver and via an spdif cable.
   
4. This then passes the audio through pure video to the sound card which then decodes it. No cables required as it's an internal thing.
   
5. So the sound card settings control your speakers, whether they are 5.1 or 2.0 etc setups and not pure video.
   
6. Make sure your spdif-in is not muted in the sound card volume control.

The weird thing was when I played the lastgraph.grf (or lastDVDgraph.grf if playing directly from the DVD), there is audio and the yellow "DirectSound Device" button came on in grf viewer. Why on earth would it work in the graph and not in GBPVR (lots of folks ask)?

dark half had exactly the same issue with the graphs. I am not using MCE btw.

Sub noted:

Some people have had to install a filter like AC3Filter to get AC3 sound working.

As Braklet noted (emphasis by me)

Thing is, the nVidia PureVideo codec should be able to decode AC3

Why on earth doesn't it, the lily-livered warthog software from sorrysoft.

Grrr... I feel better now.

k.