Grey blacks with internal player + EVR (3 Viewers)

[crazyfool]

I'm using the registry hack on my hd3200 and it makes no difference... as everyone else has said all other players are fine... I'm sure its a driver + mp issue as it works fine with 8.12

 

[Dr Tone]

Can anybody confirm the reproducibility of the same wrong black levels from MP
with MPC-HC player by using a "EVR Custom Preset" and selecting "Direct3D Fullscreen (remove tearing)"
with the AVS MP4 test video?

Just tried it (i'm using the latest build) but when i put brightness to the max and enable "D3D Fullscreen" i can only see 17-25 Flash. Pixelformat settings @ Limited RGB, so just the way it needs to be.

Is any of you using the UseBT601CSC registry hack?

If you only use media portal's player, you can bandaid it like I did by backing off the brightness to -28 or so in CCC. I did it system wide not just avivo because the media portal interface is washed out for me as well.

I've turned down Brightness (in ATI Color settings) to -28 and that makes 15-27 visible now. Seems pretty good so far, but i thought that changing the Color setting in ATI CCC only effected the desktop colours. Bringing this down to -28 made the 'fog' go away while watching TV and turned grey into black when watching HD (mkv's) content. But the startup screen (the red theatre background with the stairs on the left) shows a big black image where you should see the stairs, so i'm losing detail.

So are you saying that the media portal interface isn't washed out for you, just video playback?

If so it's easy to bandaid fix it as well, set the brightness to -28 in avivo's color settings instead of the the main color setting.

But that also makes us different, my whole media portal experience is washed out not just video playback.

 

[damaster]

I'm using the registry hack on my hd3200 and it makes no difference... as everyone else has said all other players are fine... I'm sure its a driver + mp issue as it works fine with 8.12

Do this test please:
- Get AVS HD 709 1.3 test patterns MP4 version and AVCHD or PATCHED version: AVS HD 709 - Blu-ray, HD DVD, & MP4 Calibration - AVS Forum
- We'll only be using the "Basic Settings" title, first chapter. It's the Black Clipping Pattern, a very low APL pattern for observing black-level on a digital display.
- For this test turn your TV's brightness up all the way because we are really just trying to determine what output levels we're getting out of the HTPC. You can set it back to the calibrated level once we're done.
- Run the MP4 version of the Black Clipping Pattern in MPC-HC, note the flashing bars you are able see.
- Run the AVCHD/PATCHED version of the Black Clipping Pattern in PowerDVD (mount or burn the ISO first), again note the flashing bars you are able see.
- Run the MP4 version of the Black Clipping Pattern in MediaPortal, again note the flashing bars you are able see.

Please post here the flashing bars you were able to see in each of the scenarios above.

OK, i should be kinda happy, but actually i'm not

I've put the 2600XT back into the system (took me a while to get it working for some strange reason) so after the reinstall of the ATI driver (9.6) i wanted to watch the test pattern in MPC-HC, but that didn't work, codec error. After re-registrating MPCVideoDec.ax i got it working again, and in MPC-HC i can see bars 17-25 flash.

Now inside MediaPortal: Checked Pixelformat settings (Limited RGB), checked input TV (Limited RGB), started MP, played the MP4 file, and.........


Bars 17-25 Flash!!!!

So this proves it's a problem with the Radeon HD 4670! My Radeon HD 2600 Pro and Radeon HD 3470 both work perfectly fine. Also, I set up my brother's HTPC which uses an onboard Radeon HD 3200 GPU and that also works just fine in and out of MediaPortal. I'm not sure why crazyfool is having black level issues with his 3200 though.

 

[HomeY]

So this proves it's a problem with the Radeon HD 4670! My Radeon HD 2600 Pro and Radeon HD 3470 both work perfectly fine. Also, I set up my brother's HTPC which uses an onboard Radeon HD 3200 GPU and that also works just fine in and out of MediaPortal. I'm not sure why crazyfool is having black level issues with his 3200 though.

I was doing that assumption the first time also, but why does it give correct blacklevels everywhere except inside MP?

** EDIT **
Well, another fresh install of Vista + MediaPortal today.

@Dr Tone: Could you please test something for me.

I was playing with the -28 brightness settings in ATI CCC and i noticed a difference between the Color settings and the AVIVO color settings! When i play the MP4 file inside MP, i need to turn down ATI Color settings to about -30/-32 to put the lowest flashing bar on reference black level (16) BUT i only need to pull down AVIVO Color settings to -16 to get the same results!! Since you told me you pulled it down to -28 all over, i'm curious if you also have that difference.

The above difference in settings between ATI Color and AVIVO Color can be very interesting.

ATI Color -32 = reference black
AVIVO Color -16 = reference black

But the contrast is also not correct
ATI Contrast +32 = reference white
AVIVO Contrast +16 = reference white

And 16 levels difference can be the difference between 16-235 or 0-255.
Coincidence??

Another strange thing i've noticed is that when i output Limited RGB from ATI CCC and set my tv input to 'Auto' that it gives the same picture as when i set it to Full RGB input. When i manually set it to Limited RGB it changes. Is ATI outputting incorrect? Limited RGB should be limited, and NOT full RGB (or my panel is detecting it the wrong way, but i doubt that).

 

[djphatic]

for the record, I have an ATI 4850 and have the grey level problems. So is not just related to ATI 4670 cards.

 

[Dr Tone]

So this proves it's a problem with the Radeon HD 4670! My Radeon HD 2600 Pro and Radeon HD 3470 both work perfectly fine. Also, I set up my brother's HTPC which uses an onboard Radeon HD 3200 GPU and that also works just fine in and out of MediaPortal. I'm not sure why crazyfool is having black level issues with his 3200 though.

I was doing that assumption the first time also, but why does it give correct blacklevels everywhere except inside MP?

** EDIT **
Well, another fresh install of Vista + MediaPortal today.

@Dr Tone: Could you please test something for me.

I was playing with the -28 brightness settings in ATI CCC and i noticed a difference between the Color settings and the AVIVO color settings! When i play the MP4 file inside MP, i need to turn down ATI Color settings to about -30/-32 to put the lowest flashing bar on reference black level (16) BUT i only need to pull down AVIVO Color settings to -16 to get the same results!! Since you told me you pulled it down to -28 all over, i'm curious if you also have that difference.

The above difference in settings between ATI Color and AVIVO Color can be very interesting.

ATI Color -32 = reference black
AVIVO Color -16 = reference black

But the contrast is also not correct
ATI Contrast +32 = reference white
AVIVO Contrast +16 = reference white

And 16 levels difference can be the difference between 16-235 or 0-255.
Coincidence??

Sorry, I assumed avivo color would need to be adjusted by the same value. I tested my machine, and you are correct avivo video adjustments only needs to be adjusted by half as much as the main color adjustments.

As far as why you need to go to -32 and I only need -28 is probably just a difference in environment and how/when our TVs were calibrated to it. As for the numbers being close to 16 in the avio video area, there might be a relation there.

 

[HomeY]

Sorry, I assumed avivo color would need to be adjusted by the same value. I tested my machine, and you are correct avivo video adjustments only needs to be adjusted by half as much as the main color adjustments.

As far as why you need to go to -32 and I only need -28 is probably just a difference in environment and how/when our TVs were calibrated to it. As for the numbers being close to 16 in the avio video area, there might be a relation there.

Good to hear to experience the same difference as i am.
-28 is good enough for me but since i was kinda looking for a multiplier of 16, i tried -32 and that was pretty spot on (during daylight).
I've adjusted my brightnes with -16 and contrast with +16 under AVIVO Color and that shows me reference black & white (MP4 file, 2nd pattern). Whites look even whiter now, but that i need to change those settings kinda feels like there is a level expansion from 16-235 to 0-255 (done by????), and 'corrected' after changing ATI AVIVO Color settings.

 

[globaldonkey]

Can anybody confirm the reproducibility of the same wrong black levels from MP
with MPC-HC player by using a "EVR Custom Preset" and selecting "Direct3D Fullscreen (remove tearing)"
with the AVS MP4 test video?

+1 here (4670, Vista, EVR)

I was building a Vista system (the only Vista system I've ever built) for a mate last week - using the 4670 as well. Same problem with black levels. As I was reading through this thread, I thought, hang on, I am sure I could see the same thing in MPC-HC, and I could. I was trying to setup MPC-HC to behave exactly the same way as MP, and had checked that option.

 

[damaster]

for the record, I have an ATI 4850 and have the grey level problems. So is not just related to ATI 4670 cards.

Yes it would seem this is a problem related to the ATI 4000 series cards. There must be something in MP's EVR code that causes these cards to compress the video levels.

The 2000 and 3000 series cards work just fine.

See this thread which discusses a similar issue in Media Center: The Green Button - Video Quality: When will Media Center get serious ? and from that thread this seems to be the fix:

1,) Add nominalrange=1 (dword) to registry. 2.) In ATI CCC under avivo video then "all settings" for color UNCHECK "Use Application settings". 3.) Set HDMI mode to RGB Limited or 4:4:4. 4.) Enjoy consistent black levels accross ALL applications.....

But that fix seems specific to Media Center. However, part of the fix is to disable the "Use Application Settings" parameter in CCC. Have any of you tried that, i.e. set Pixel Format to RGB Limited and uncheck "Use Application Settings"?

 

[rak]

I had the same effect on HD3200, so I do not think that this is related to HD 4xxx cards only. And more, i had the same effect in XP using VMR9.... This was also the reason, why I stayed with vista, because we have at least CCC 9.1, which is properly working for SD/HD DxVA and blacks are really black.

Setting it to limited means that the output levels will be 16-235. This is however what I do not want ... I tried it before (without touching the "Use application settings" checkbox) and the effect was, that all blacks (even in other applications) were grey and the video in MP was even more whiter.

I'm in vista so I can live with older driver version, but it would be nice to fix this, so we can update drivers ...

My TV is connected over HDMI cable. It is SAMSUNG, which likes full range - e.g 0-255. (anyway it is possible to switch it to something like 15-255, which means it fixes the blacks in videos, but whites does not use the whole range of the TV)