ATI HD3650, a great video card

[9rpp]

A bit off topic... but it'a ATI related, so hope someone can help me here.

I have a x1250 based mobo and would like to enable AVIVO for GBPVR. So what is it that I need to do to make the decoder available? Here's what I know and what to know:

1. obviously the decoder from ATI, but from where, all that I can find is the complete AVIVO package, but it doesn't list the decoder as being part of the package (only the encoder). but i have installed the package anyway...

2. Assuming I got the decoder installed, will it just appear as an option in the config playback menu of GBPVR? If so.. i don't see anything that explicitly labelled as AVIVO but only the ATI MPEG decoder, and when chosen it gives me worse quality than the intervideo decoder... (can someone send me a screenshot of their decoder list if possible?). Do I need to mess with DCCHECK to get the codec/decoder properly setup, or can it all be handled from within GBPVR's config?

3. What's the best way to verify that hardware acceleration (AVIVO) is indeed being utilized? The only way I know of is open up task manager and monitor the CPU utilization or with XP's built in performance log to keep track of CPU usage... any better ideas?

sorry for such noob questions, but i really wish to fully utilize the hardware capabilities of this mobo of mine. Since you guys have had success with ur discrete video cards, I thought I'd give it a try here.

Thanks!

[Deusxmachina]

2. Assuming I got the decoder installed, will it just appear as an option in the config playback menu of GBPVR? If so.. i don't see anything that explicitly labelled as AVIVO but only the ATI MPEG decoder, and when chosen it gives me worse quality than the intervideo decoder...

From the wiki:

"Compared to NVIDIA PureVideo, AVIVO does not offer any actual decoding software like the PureVideo MPEG-2 decoder. It only allows decoder developers to utilize the DXVA API."

That ATI MPEG decoder should be it. People on Doom9 have said they verified it's just an older version of PDVD decoder. I get stuttering with ATI MPEG so don't bother with it, and PureVideo has its problems, so I stopped bothering with that (again). I'm surprised they get so much hype on computer forums since they both seem fairly crappy to me.

If you want hardware acceleration, PDVD7 should function similarly, and with probably less problems. You may be able to keep it after a trial version of PowerDVD runs out, but I'm not sure. I'm liking PDVD7, Gabest MPV, and Dscaler5 as decoders, with Dscaler5 arguably being the best for software IVTC for film, MPV being the least troublesome and has an extra deinterlacing option, and PDVD7 having hardware accleration if you can get it to work with your card but also more troublesome. They all look good.

There may be other reasons someone wants to use AVIVO decoding or PureVideo, but imo they're nothing special and in some ways downright bad.

Bitcontrol is another nice decoder with hardware acceleration, but it's $15.

I probably should clarify. AVIVO comes with that iffy decoder, but AVIVO is what allows hardware acceleration and so the acceleration should/may work with other decoders that are actually good, with PDVD7 probably being the best bet.

[stustunz]

yeah well i guess everyone gets different results as for ati having better drivers than nvidia thats just crap they are both as crap and flakey as each other

[9rpp]

I guess sticking with the InterVideo decoder that came with my PVR150 installation is the best choice rather than trying to get AVIVO working huh?

In that case, I have more questions (Sorry guys!)
1. how come the same intervideo decoder option is not showing up under the DVD playback config menu?
2. using the intervideo decoder, on high movement scenes, it gives me some odd 'visual effects', it's kinda like stuttering, very minor, kind of like ghosting in older LCD screens... any ideas? maybe my refresh rate or something I have it connected via s-video to a CRT, desktop resolution is 800x600 at 60Hz and I am from Canada.

[dark_half]

kind of like ghosting in older LCD screens

Don't know if this is it but ATI has/had a problem with a denoise issue that caused ghosting/smearing for some users. I know when I applied the registry changes it made a big difference in pitcure quality.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthrea...ost8525849

[Deusxmachina]

Yeah, part of it comes down to personal experience and opinion. I'm probably bashing PureVideo a little too harshly, but they do charge for it, so I hold it to a higher standard.

If you like Intervideo enough, it probably doesn't hurt to keep using it. You can always experiment with other ones and know you can go back to Intervideo if need be. I don't think I've ever tried it so don't have an opinion on its quality or features.

Stuttering is one thing, ghosting or blurriness is another. If it's ghosting/blurry, I'm guessing it's doing it on interlaced material. Seems like that's usually from the decoder doing a Blend deinterlace, but could be from something else, too. I'd see if you can change the deinterlacing on the decoder and see if it helps and then go from there.

[9rpp]

Thanks for the registry fix, I'll give it a try.

Yeah I guess it all boils down to trying all different combination of decoders/MUXes... I'll play with it some more and see what happens. Thank you all for your help/comments.

[linene]

Just wanted to let people know that the cat 8.3s may have fixed the problems folks are having with syncing with their hdmi connected devices (issue was changing tv inputs or turning tv off then resulted in a blank screen, which seemed to be a loss of sync over hdmi)...at least it appears to have worked for me with my Sapphire HD3650! Also, if you want to do audio over hdmi with HD3000 series cards, you need the grey ati dvi-hdmi adapter (also known as revb) not the black ati dvi-hdim adapter (also known as reva), which is specific to HD2000 series cards.

[HairyHaggis]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but where do you get the grey ati dvi-hdmi adapter from?

[Satori]

http://www.visiontek.com/store/catalog/p...cts_id=175

I am not sure this is specific to all manufacturers, but the one for my card is here.