HW acceleration not working correctly for HD content (in RC1)

[Spooky]

jump to RC1 issue

See signature for system specs.

I got my FloppyDTV S2 card to work with the recent nightly build of the TV Server and I am also using the latest build of Mediaportal. I configured Mediaportal to use the "CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7.x)" from PowerDVD for h.264 content. However, when I try to watch ASTRA HD+ or ANIXE HD for example, I only get flashing pink or white frames, where I can sort of see some movement of the real content in every flash, or it simply stays black. I also tried the "MainConcept AVC/H.264 Video Decoder" which comes with the floppy module of the FloppyDTV card, but it shows the same result.

I also configured the FireDTV Viewer to use the codec from Cyberlink for h.264 content. FireDTV Viewer shows those HD channels perfectly, so it doesn't seem to be a codec problem, at least not directly. Normal non-HD channels work fine in Mediaportal.

Any thoughts on where the problem might be?

[Spooky]

Hm, no suggestions on this? I really would like to get the HD channels to work in MediaPortal :|

[The_Stig]

Generally speaking its in such cases always necessary to provide complete logs. Do so and you increase your chance for getting help dramatically.

[Spooky]

Oh, of course, here they are

[Spooky]

I added screenshots of the graphs in MediaPortal and FireDTV Viewer when viewing an HD channel. The MediaPortal graph looks fine to me. I also added a screenshot of what it looks like when I view an HD channel in MediaPortal.

[Paranoid Delusion]

Try another audio decoder, have a problem atm with the cyberlink one stopping video, if i choose mpa or ac3 no such prob exists.

[Spooky]

Hmm, interesting. While trying out some different combinations of Audio decoder, Video decoder and Audio renderer, I found out, that I am unable to change the Audio decoder. No matter what I set in the MediaPortal configuration under Television, it always stays at CyberLink Audio Decoder (PDVD7).

For instance, I tried to activate the MainConcept AVC/H.264 Video Decoder and MainConcept Layer II Audio Decoder. GraphEdit shows, that the CyberLink Audio Decoder is still used (see attachment). However, I suddenly got slightly better results with the MainConcept decoder (even though the results where always the same with both Video Decoders, when I first tested it, as described in my first post). I finally saw the video with the right colors, but audio and video stuttered all the time.

So the question is, why am I unable to set a different Audio Decoder... and why does the same combination work in the FireDTV Viewer, but not in MediaPortal?

[Spooky]

Any other suggestions? The next thing I'll try is to uninstall PowerDVD completely to sort out that Audio decoder issue and try the MainConcept decoder only. I hope nothing goes wrong with the uninstallation (like... codecs of CyberLink being left behind).

[Paranoid Delusion]

Use filmerit to check codecs after uninstall and reboot.

Do not have HD, so my help is limited with this.

[Spooky]

I had no luck with uninstalling PDVD and only using the Mainconcept decoder... well it works, but just as before, the (colored) video was garbled and the audio too. The decoder also didn't use any Hardware acceleration (I don't know how to activate it for this codec, if possible at all).

Maybe it's an issue with the hardware acceleration. Both FireDTV Viewer and MediaPortal use VMR9 but what differences could there be?