Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!) (3 Viewers)

[kiwijunglist]

I have compressed more than 50 C4 recordings using custom handbrake settings in the past and C4 uses AAC, but I left the audio as AAC, can your device not handle AAC audio? I'm not sure if I ever tried recording it as an mp3. Have you tried avidemux as an alternative, not sure if it can read .ts files, but i'm sure it could handle a handbrake mkv in a 2 step transcode.

 

[rlevis]

Hmmm. I just tried it again today and sure enough Handbrake is encoding a TV1 program. Last time I used Handbrake, it said the audio track was an unknowm format and it didn't work. With a newer version I've installed from svn, it now says it's a LATM AAC track. So looks like Handbrake is the solution, at least with a pre-release version.

 

[rlevis]

Freeview TV1 & 2 1080i

I noticed today when using the MP OSD for checking lost frames etc, that TV1 & 2 are now 1080i instead of 720p. When did this happen?

 

[kiwijunglist]

at least a couple of weeks ago.

I actually have a better picture on 1080i than i do with 720p, having said that with a normal tv that doesn't have fancy deinterlacing etc i think 720p looks better. also its not good as you need better hardware for 1080i.

 

[rlevis]

Yeah, I have been experimenting at 1080i resolution to the TV, and the TV is doing the deinterlacing very well instead of the PC, but this TV is 32", about 3 years old with native resolution of 1366 x 768, and I have found 720p is definately better. My next TV will be true 1080 resolution.

 

[kiwijunglist]

my tv is 2 years old, 46" was $4000 and the HTPC's deinterlacing looks way better. A TV will never deinterlace as well as a proper HTPC.

 

[rlevis]

My issue wasn't deinterlacing. I tested with 1080p and that was definately worse than 720p for my TV. The TV doesn't appear to downsize very well from 1080 to fit the number of available pixels. It handles upsizing 720p to 768 much better. I noticed the wording in the weather on TV1 was not as solid when the TV was being fed 1080p. The top horzontal portion of a T for example was washed out and almost transparent whereas under 720p it was a solid white.

With the new TV's with built-in FreeView tuners, I would image the delinterlacing must now be very good. Now that all channels in NZ are interlaced, it makes sense to switch the HTPC to output interlaced and let the TV do all the work. I just need a true 1080 pixel TV. Planned for middle of next year!

On a different subject, I don't know if there are any ffdshow experts here, but thought I would try.

For a couple of years I've used ffdshow raw video filter in my DVD Post processing settings in MP. I use the Resize settings to resize 576 to 720p. This can make DVD's look closer to HD.

I've always wanted to do the same to the SD freeview channels. I have it set to only resize when the video dimensions are less than 800 x 600 so HD video won't be touched. But even with no filters ticked at all, the CPU goes to 80% while viewing HD channels, 50% for SD channels. Something in ffdshow is taking a lot of CPU while set to do absolutely nothing.

It is actually doing something, as I can see the Act: fps setting in MP drop to 25 when the filter is in place, and 50fps when it is removed.

I also tried the Auto-Load Preset feature for the "Default" preset. This can select a different preset based on the dimensions of the input source. When HD is playing, it should be doing nothing to the video, but it is.

Any ideas? Should I perhaps go to the ffdshow forum?

 

[kiwijunglist]

totally disagree here, better to output the 1080i image as 1080p @24/50/60hz. TV's can not deinterlace as well as a PC.

 

[rlevis]

Are you saying that all TV's implemnent only Bob or Weave? I would have hoped a chip capable of vector adapative deinterlacing would be in most TV's by now.

 

[kiwijunglist]

I'm not saying that there are no tvs that can do vector adaptive, I don't know.
However a top of the line htpc will always be more powerful than top of the line TV, so will always be able to run more powerful/complex deinterlacing algorithms.

The price difference between a crap gpu and a good gpu is about $50-$100 extra, the difference between a tv that has a bad chip and a good chip might be $2000-4000 extra. I don't think changing your tv so you can deinterlace is necessarily the best upgrade path. However a 1080p TV (vs your 720P TV) will make Freeview 1080i channels look better because you are not scaling down the image, provided your GPU can cope with outputting and deinterlacing at 1920x1080, which the onboard hd3200 struggles with.