Poor picture VMR9

[stangdaman]

I had Windows crash on me this weekend and had to do a complete reload of everything. I'm getting GBPVR all set up again and the one thing I'm noticing is that, especially with SD mpeg2s, picture quality is really bad. The HD ones don't seem to be effected quite as much or maybe it's just not as noticabble.

I tried all kinds of different codecs thinking it was a codec problem but each one had the same issue. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Everything has a lot of pixelation and colors look kind opaque It's particularly bad if there's a closeup on anyones face or if the lighting for a particular scene is strange for some reason.

Finally I just started pluggin files into graphstudio and trying every different combination I could. It appears to go away if I use a different renderer then VMR9. In graphstudio that's VMR7 or one that's just labeled "Video Renderer". However in the GBPVR config my only options are VMR9 or Overlay and overlay gives me some srange looking grid on the screen every time I start a file or skip back and forth. My system should be able to hangle VMR9 fine so I'm trying to figure out what I can do to fix this. I would have left some logs as well but as it is actually playing the files I'm not sure it's really going to show much. Any ideas?

System:
Mobo: MSI K9N Platinum
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5200+
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 3870 512
RAM: 3gb Mushkin DDR2 800
OS: XP MCE 2005

I did update the catalyst control center software to try to fix this it's at version 9.1
I'm trying to use the Cyberlink PDVD7 codec with this but I've got ffdshow and some others on here too.

Sorry I almost forgot. This is GBPVR version 1.3.11 as well.

[pBS]

9.1? Catalyst current ver is 8.12 [tho i recommend 8.11]

in CCC, under software info what ver Catalyst does it say? CCC version doesn't matter, it's just a gui for settings...

what does your output tab of ffdshow look like?

tho ati mpeg video decoder [Avivo] is probably your best bet...
[you may have to add it manually]

[johnsonx42]

Catalyst 9.1 came out two weeks ago, unless it's been pulled back. I use it, with no change good or bad from 8.11 or 8.12.

edit: to be clear, I do have various complaints with my HD4550 and any catalyst version that works with it (pBS and I have discussed this before), but none of my issues seem similar to stangdaman's problem(s). I don't have any other suggestions...

[stangdaman]

9.1? Catalyst current ver is 8.12 [tho i recommend 8.11]

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_cataly...adeonx-mce

Yeah as stated it only just came out very recently. I went to the AMD website to update drivers when I reinstalled everything on Friday night that's the only reason I knew it was there.

Also, I had the ATI video decoder prior to Windows crashing on me but haven't been able to find it anywhere since. I kind of just figured that since the cyberlink codec took advantage of the avivo hardware acceleration it was 6 of one half a dozen of the other. Also, since the video looks good with any of the codecs when paired with a different renderer it makes me somewhat hesitant to install more, not that I wouldn't like the ATI one if someone could suggest a place to get it because that was what I was using before and it worked well, I'm just trying to be cautious about installing too many codecs. It seems like no matter what I do I always end up with tons of them on my system and inevitably they cause conflicts with each other.

[pBS]

that's quite a ump from 8.12 to 9.x...lol me thinks it just be a renaming...
i'll try it out and see if it's fixed for mine...

one note, when upgrading, always run the ati driver cleaner/uninstaller from add/remove programs first and reboot so no driver is loaded...it does a good job cleaning out files and settings so no bleed over...

wonder if the promises of hardware assist transcode are true now? [like i'm holding my breath on that one! lol]
they even have a survey now when you go to dl avivo...

ooo, and release notes in a pdf...
absolutely nothing of interest for xp in there...lots of vista video fixes tho...

but the Avivo release notes say this:

The ATI Video Converter transcodes up to 17 times faster2 than with the CPU alone, one hour of video can be converted to a portable player format in about 12 minutes.2 Combined with one of the recent ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 or ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series graphics card offerings, the ATI Video Converter helps deliver video conversion at up to twice the speed of competing solutions at just over half of the suggested retail price.3

so finally they are saying it out in the open now, and looks like only 46xx+ can do it....bah humbug...:mad:

[sub]

that's quite a ump from 8.12 to 9.x...lol me thinks it just be a renaming...

They based on the year and month. 2008, 12 month (8.12)... 2009, 1st month (9.1)...

[johnsonx42]

Also, I had the ATI video decoder prior to Windows crashing on me but haven't been able to find it anywhere since.

Avivo is here:

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_cataly...nxavivo-xp

[pBS]

seems a directx update is needed to fix dxva for mpchc with latest versions...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...layLang=en
and probably any other generic dxva accelleration...
i'd give this a shot, any of those who have problems still...
it's an august dx update, so probably changed how dxva works since august..[hence breaking post august drivers]

or latest update...whole download instead of web installer..
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...laylang=en

[stangdaman]

That looks like an encoder and converter. I don't see the decoder in there. Are you sure it's in that package?

Sorry I didn't see the other reply that was directed at Johnsonx42

[johnsonx42]

The Avivo package includes the decoder, though the site doesn't say so.