Disappointing MPEG2 decoding

[jbodin]

Comparing with the twinhan's supplied DigitalTV, which gives me "perfect" picture, it will possible to do it through pvrx2 as well...

I was having similar issues -- using my Technisat Air2PC ATSC tuner card with the DVBViewer application gave me a "perfect" HD picture (live TV, timeshifted, and recordings were all fine), but I couldn't manage to get GBPVR/PVRX2 configured properly, it seemed. Live HD TV and timeshifted shows all were jerky, previously-recorded shows (which WOULD play fine in other apps) would NOT play back in PVRX2 without jerky video, etc.

I did some digging around and finally found the solution for me -- check out this post for the details on what ultimately worked for me:

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post257074

According to Sub's post after mine, I shouldn't have had to fiddle around "under the hood" to get it to work, but when all else fails, I say get familiar with the config.xml file, get familiar with the muxes and demultiplexers you have installed, and then make sure GBPVR/PVRX2 is configured the same as any apps that DO work. That's what did it for me.

One additional tweak that helped a lot, too -- I used the LtcyCfg utility (do a Google search to find it) to set my video card's latency to a lower level. I think the latency for my video card was originally set to 256, and when I reduced it down to a lower level (I think I set it the same as my Technisat Air2PC card . . . 018 or so?), my video became EVEN smoother. Good little utility -- recommended to help resolve quirky problems such as these.

[BerkA]

I wanted to give a long-overdue update on my earlier post:
I had narrowed my problem down with GraphEdit to the Video Mixing Renderer (VMR9) dropping a lot of frames. Since VMR is all about the graphics card, I went and upgraded to an nVidia Geforce 7600GS card. VMR is no longer a bottleneck. The video plays well (most of the time). I still have some problems with mux/demuxers causing intermittent problems -- like an occasional unwatchable recordings. I haven't had the desire or energy to dig in to that problem...

Someone had also asked about where to get the lastgraph.grf file. It is in the GBPVR directory: C:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr by default. If you poke around in the GBPVR directory, you will also find other .grf files for last recordings, DVD playback etc.

[wtg]

Re: the downgrade to 9.0b quartz.dll, with this downgrade Windows Update consistently wants to apply "Security Update for Windows XP (KB941568)". If you apply this patch, it replaces the quartz.dll file with a 9.0c version dated 10-27-2007, which immediately gives me stuttering during playback after skipping or pausing. This may not be the only patch that upgrades quartz.dll, but it's the most recent one.

I've had to re-apply the 9.0b downgrade several times now. Does anyone know if a person can configure Windows to stop trying to apply a specific patch once and for all, but continue to look for others?

[martint123]

Into Windows Update,
Press Custom button
List of updates pops up with tick box and + sign. Click on the +
At the bottom of the description is a "Don't show this update again" and if ticked won't install the update.

I'm not 100% sure this works for unattended updates, but for manual ones it sure does.

Martin

[BigAlUK]

If you end up with the same combination of render and decoders, then the performance will be exactly the same as other applications (because it will the exact same components doing the playback).

Sorry, Sub - it was this quote of yours that I was referring to in that other thread about quartz. Quartz supplies a selection of splitters, video decoders and audio decoders (AVI and MPEG) - and my point was merely that if another program (such as WMP) was not having problems with them, then quartz itself is unlikely to be the cause of problems in PVRX2. Its more likely to be the other items that are selectable in GB-Config. Its sort of the reverse side of the same coin, I'd have thought.

[Markg]

I've been having a play with GBPVR for a little while now trying to get it to work properly...

Up until recently, I was able to get SD content to play fine, but not HD content - no matter which decoder/renderer combination I tried, I couldn't get smooth playback for HD content.

Although not the latest, my system is still capable of playing HD content - taking a recording that wouldn't play properly in GBPVR, I could play it back fine in DNTV Live!, Windows Media Player and PowerDVD. DNTV Live! allows you to select which renderer to use as well - HD content played fine with either Overlay or VMR7, but not with VMR9. Using Overlay or VMR7 in GBPVR however didn't play smoothly.

A couple of days ago, I tried installing the .Net 3.0 framework to get EVR support and surprise suprise, it actually gave me smooth HD playback in GBPVR.

Unfortunately, however, I'm not getting any OSD appearing when using the EVR renderer. Is this normal, or is there something going wrong?

Having no OSD is a killer, so if it can't be solved, I'll have to stick with DNTV Live! for viewing TV...


My relevant system specifications are:
AMD Sempron 3000 - Socket 754
1GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9550SE AGP
PowerDVD6 decoder with DXVA enabled.
1366 x 768 LCD running at 1360x768 resolution over DVI.
Windows XP Pro

[sub]

Unfortunately, however, I'm not getting any OSD appearing when using the EVR renderer. Is this normal, or is there something going wrong?

No, its not normal. If you reproduce the problem then post the pvrx2.exe.log and pvrx2.exe-native.log I'll take a look.

[Markg]

No, its not normal. If you reproduce the problem then post the pvrx2.exe.log and pvrx2.exe-native.log I'll take a look.

OK, attached.

Thanks for the quick response!!

[sub]

I think this is because you're trying to use an old version of the Cyberlink decoder which is incompatible with VMR/EVR, so it ends up adding a second renderer (an Overlay renderer) in the graph. So the video you're seeing is on the Overlay renderer, but the OSD is being displayed on the EVR renderer which is behind the overlay renderer.

You'll need to switch to a different video decoder.

[Markg]

I think this is because you're trying to use an old version of the Cyberlink decoder which is incompatible with VMR/EVR, so it ends up adding a second renderer (an Overlay renderer) in the graph. So the video you're seeing is on the Overlay renderer, but the OSD is being displayed on the EVR renderer which is behind the overlay renderer.

You'll need to switch to a different video decoder.

Ah - OK, thanks - I'll give it a shot.

It's strange that it's giving smooth playback in this case if it's using an overlay renderer, but doesn't give smooth playback when I explicitly select the overlay renderer in the configuration - any ideas why that might be?