Intermittent motion blur

[keith_leitch]

I have a problem with images sometimes blurring when in motion, sometimes to a fairly extreme extent. However, at other times (even the same shows from the same channel) there is very little, if any, of this.

I have been noticing the blur for awhile, but I was surprised, when catching up on a series, to find that some episodes were blurry and some were not. I happen to have some of the same episodes on a commercial PVR, where no blur is evident. There was even one that developed the problem halfway through. I have therefore ruled out the playback codecs and renderers, and decided that the problem must be in recording some broadcasts.

I have backtracked carefully to determine what else might have been happening during the "blurry" recordings (e.g. other shows recording, system maintenance tasks), but have not been able to establish any correlation.

A related issue: The problem seems reduced when I watch at 60Hz. (This seems odd, considering that broadcasts are in PAL, at 25 or 50Hz.) However, the a/v sync sometimes (only sometimes) gradually drifts when I watch at 60Hz.

[pBS]

what source are you getting them from? antenna? cable? analog? digital?
sometimes reception can cause this..
have you checked the blurry ones in another player?
[like vlc or mpchc]

[hoborg]

Is the "blurring" like on 2nd picture?

[keith_leitch]

what source are you getting them from? antenna? cable? analog? digital?
sometimes reception can cause this..
have you checked the blurry ones in another player?
[like vlc or mpchc]

Good question. It is free-to-air from a DVBT device, as is standard in australia. They are coming from an antenna, but I don't believe the signal quality varies significantly (if that's what you are thinking).

I'll try a blurry one in MPC now. Edit: Playback seems identical in MPC. Points to either a problem encoded into the recording, or something that triggers a different deinterlacing method.

[keith_leitch]

Is the "blurring" like on 2nd picture?

Much more like the 2nd picture. I have seen the first, but resolved it using different decoders.

Funny you should reply. I was just reading about your codec pack.

[keith_leitch]

It seems that the hardware deinterlacer and the MPV Decoder's deinterlacer are arguing with each other. When both were set to "Auto," I was getting the motion blur on some video. I used CCC to set the hardware to "Automatic", then set MPV's method to "Bob". The motion blur vanished, but any HD recordings became very jerky.

This made a big difference to several of the test videos, although I still wasn't entirely happy with the deinterlacing (another reason to consider the SAF codec pack). Also, HD video becomes unacceptably "jerky" during playback. I then tried "Blend", which blurred SD video the way I have described, and "Weave" which produced the lines evident in Hoborg's first photo (but played perfectly in HD). I finally set MPV's method to "Field Shift". This seems to produce acceptable results, although there is now minor blurring in both HD and SD. It seems I have to compromise with my deinterlacing method.

I will experiment now with other decoders, though they have not served me well in the past.

[keith_leitch]

I think there is a setting in FFDSHOW that I need, unrelated to deinterlacing. When I try to watch HD, I see the upper-left corner of the whole image only.

[pBS]

reset ffdshow settings, then set mpeg2 video codec to libmpeg2, and set rest of output page like pic...
mpv decoder can't deinterlace images properly, it tries to deinterlace everything...
have you tried ati avivo decoder with deinterlacing set to auto?
it's provides dxva and proper deinterlacing..

[keith_leitch]

have you tried ati avivo decoder with deinterlacing set to auto?
it's provides dxva and proper deinterlacing..

Yes. With Avivo set to Auto, HD video does not show at all (no audio and a black screen). However, I am setting this from CCC. The only ATI decoder that identifies itself in GBConfig is "ATI MPEG Decoder"

I am playing with ffdshow now. From your picture, "Set Interlace flag in output media type" option "Auto" doesn't seem to be available. I can choose between "Bob" and "Weave".

[keith_leitch]

reset ffdshow settings, then set mpeg2 video codec to libmpeg2, and set rest of output page like pic...

These settings work with some changes, but not well. Firstly, I have to set the "Resize" on in order for HD video to be fit into the frame. (This is unexpected since the TV is set to 1080p). Secondly, I have to activate a Deinterlacer in that menu, presumably because the "Auto" option is unavailable to me.

All the deinterlacers provided present their own kinds of problem. The closest I could come was TransMoComp with a search of 3, but this produces a visible "jerk" every few seconds in HD.

Nothing so far has come close to the MPV decoder, which is "perfect" in SD set to "Bob", and "perfect" in HD set to "weave".