mpeg2 decoding - quality issues

[ccihon]

I've got the SAF6 set up correctly, NPVR on Windows 8. I'm doing AC3 passthrough to AV receiver for audio - that works great. I'm using the Cyberlink decoder as suggested, but for my setup, an AMD 6210/Hudson M1 integrated processor, the video quality for live off-air DTV and recordings seems to suffer just a bit - there is a noticable "dancing noise
" effect in the darker areas of video, and the noise seems to change every second or so. Net effect is that it often appears the shadows are changing brightness slightly every second or so. It's a subtle but bothersome effect.

With LAV decoder for MPEG2, it goes away, as does it in XBMC - but each limit what I can do. the LAV decoder seems to introduce audio sync issues, and the XBMC solution seems imperfect for live TV.

I've tinkered with the AMD Catalyst settings etc...no help so far. the content is from a clean signal HDHomeRun - 720p ABC and 1080i others.

[Graham]

With LAV decoder for MPEG2, it goes away

Apologies if I am stating the bleedin' obvious ... did you try the LAV audio decoder with the LAV video decoder?

[ccihon]

Yes.. Used that to do pass through for both video decoders.. Good video quality in a way.. But as mentioned audio out of sync and some stutter.

[Reddwarf]

Yes.. Used that to do pass through for both video decoders.. Good video quality in a way.. But as mentioned audio out of sync and some stutter.

The LAV decoders are pretty cpu demanding, I don't know for sure but it does not seem to support DXVA.

[johnsonx42]

I can certainly see that the loss of the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder in Windows 8 is going to be a major pain for many users, and a support headache here.

@ccihon: have you tried the ATI MPEG-2 decoder? It's never been my first choice as Microsoft DTV-DVD always seemed to work so perfectly, but it's always worked well when I tried it.

[ccihon]

Interesting you mentioned the ATI decoder. I had it available and tried it briefly- under Windows 8, but for some reason it no longer shows up in the NPVR Gui as a option. I think it disappeared after installing the SAF6 pack. I tried to re-register it using some Directshow utilities, but can't find it anymore? Wondering if I should re-install catalyst or something to get it back.

My take on Cyberlink is that it looks quite "sharp" - maybe even grainy, on my hardware, but that noise/grain creates the "black pumping" effect. My server is a Win 7 machine and I can report I see it there too using Cyberlink decoder, but not on other decoders for mpeg2.

Agree on the Win8 issue - I think in order to offer their OS at lower prices they had to eliminate or charge extra for anything that required licensing cost - the MC and codecs included. I upgraded the htpc from 7 to 8, and lost WMC and the use of the windows codecs in the process.

BTW, real reason was that Netflix Win8 "modern" app plays HD using DXVA2, the Silverlight-based browser plugin does not support that, and I'm running a little Brazos unit that stutters badly without it.

[hoborg]

Hi.
Maybe you have problem with DXVA decoding? Try to disable DXVA in Cyberlink decoder - START - SAF - PDVD - disable DXVA.