Picture freeze in TVE Preview and sometimes in MP client - decoders combm. related

[maarty]

TV-Server Version: 1.0 RC1 and any SVN
MediaPortal Version: 1.0 RC1 and any SVN
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo Wide
Windows Version: Win XP SP3
CPU Type: AMD 64 X2 4600+
HDD: Hitachi HDT25050VLA360
Memory: 2x 1GB DDR2 800MHz
Motherboard: GA-MA78GM-S2H
Video Card: ATI X3200 icluded in chipset
Video Card Driver: Catalyst 8.5
Sound Card: integrated on MB
1. TV Card: FloppyDTV S2
1. TV Card Type: SAT
1. TV Card Driver: 4.5.D
MPEG2 Video Codec: PowerDVD 8
MPEG2 Audio Codec: MainConcept Sudio decoder
h.264 Video Codec: PowerDVD 8
Satelite/CableTV Provider: CS Link
HTPC Case: Antec
Cooling: Zalman
Power Supply: Antec
Remote: FloppyDTV
TV: Panasonic Viera LCD
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI to HDMI cable

Hi.

I have a problem probably related on decoders and video reendering.
In some combinations of decoders TV video freeze in MP client and Windows go directly down. In other combinations everithing goes well in MP client and only Preview in TVE freeze.

PowerDVD Video + PowerDVD audio - picture freezes in MP and in TVE Preview. If I cancel a preview and have to end a TVE configuration (it didn't answer), Windows goes down at about 1 minute.

PowerDVD Video + MPA or MainConcept audio - everithing OK in MP, TVE Preview channel freeze, If I cancel a preview and have to end a TVE configuration, Windows goes down at about 1 minute.

FFDShow Tryouts beta 4 stable - Freezes and Windows crashs in MP even in TVE.

Windows crashes are very quick without BSOD, it goes to the restart or hangs with no picture. After restart I cannot find any related news in system logs, only one info, that ATI has no description about some problem with ati2mag.
Watchdog didn't display in these situations so sometimes I was able to start MPTestTool2 before Windows crash, sometimes it goes down directlz and I was able onlz to copy logs after restart.

I hads similar problem before RC1 mayby 5 moths ago, but after some SVN it was OK. Now it has been bad since RC1 with any new SVN.

There are some logs in attachement with some situations described above.

Thanks a lot for any advice.
Martin

[KevL]

I have the same MB and it is easy to set it up so that it crashes left right and centre - I initially thought MP was buggy :-).

Getting it working well was more troublesome.

My fixes include the following.

XP MCE2005 all patches inc SP3.

Set aside 256MB or 512MB of graphics Ram in the bios (try both). If set to auto it sets 64MB which is not quite enough - effect random crashes.

Power DVD7 (dont know about 8) will not work reliably with Hardware acceleration on (BSODs, crashes, lockups, misery galore). - So turn it off in the decoder and in MP codec settings. With HA on picture is very good - very fluid - but not for very long.

I use coreAVC for HD decode and it works well.


I found Catalyts 8.4 to be more stable than 8.5.

I'm using the latest F4 bios. - If you need to flash the bios do it from the bios - dont use the crappy gigabyte windows app to do it. The windows app can crash and the board will then not boot (trust me on this one :-) )

I also found that the AMD dual core optimiser helped stability a great deal.

I can now use MP RC1 + last SVN with only the occasional crash - milkdrop related in music - I think.

For best picture quality when playing MPEG I found that VRM9 exclusive was needed (set it in MP) - gives a nice fluid picture - otherwise lots of stuttering and tearing - and I switched off quad bilinear filtering in the VMR9 settings - not sure what it is supposed to do but my pioneer plasma gives me a better picture (more detail) with filtering disabled. Effect of having it filtered is that faces look smooth - like someone airbrushed them.

I also set my display res to 1280 x 720p @50Hz (for PAL) and connected to plasma via HDMI lead. Picture is really quite nice now. Not 100% fluid on slow pans but only rarely is it a problem. Also set the ATI ccc to always wait for vsync - seemed to make playback smoother.

Hope this helps.

Kev



.

[maarty]

Hi.

Thank you for answer.
I realized main problem was in Catalyst 8.6 which has an error with overlay in some situations specialy in full screen video which cause black screen.
I returned to 8.5 and now it is better. So I forgot to find new BIOS so now I have downloaded F4 and applied it and stability semms to be much better.

Only problem with picture freezes in Prewiew in TVServer configuration and crashing Windows stays, I will try to downgrade Catalyst to 8.4 and see. But it looks like TVServer configuration uses other decoder bundle, because FFDshow Audio Tray is viewed and normally I use MainConcept Audio Decoder.

Thank you once again.
Martin