- July 22, 2006
- 26
- 0
Area: Media Portal Program
MP Version: 0.2.0.2, 0.2, 0.2RC2
Skin: BlueTwo
Windows Version: Windows XP SP2 with all critical patches + dvb and firewire patches
CPU Type: AMD X2 4200+ @ 2450Mhz
Memory: 2GB Corsair PC4000 @ 490Mhz
Motherboard Chipset: Asus A8N-Premium Nforce4, HTT @ 980Mhz
Video Card: XFX Geforce 7600GT @ 650/850Mhz PCI-e
Video Card Driver: Nvidia ForceWare 91.31 (have also tried 84.21)
Video Card Resolution: 1360x768, have also tried 1280x720 and 800x600
Video Render Type: VMR9 Renderless (have tried w/ or w/o exclusive mode)
Video Codec Type & Version: Nvidia Purevideo (have also tried Cyberlink, Intervideo, Dscaler, MPV)
Audio Codec Type & Version: AC3Filter (have tried others)
TV Card: FireDTV-S + FireDTV-T
TV Card Type: DVB
TV Card Driver: 4.2.0
TV: LCD @ 50Hz (live in a PAL country)
Synopsis: Jerky playback in MP but not in other programs using VMR9
I've been using a htpc for a long time but I haven't been using MP for about a year because it was really unstable on my hardware back then. But that seems to have changed and now it feels very stable, I haven't had any kind of crash since installing 0.2 final. I've been testing the new 0.2 release for a few weeks now (and also patch1 and the latest 0.2.0.2) and I'm really impressed with the GUI, fastness and stableness of MP. But I'm having this really big problem with playback, it's just so much worse than in any other program and I'm surprised I can't find more posts about this issue when I did a search since a lot of people surely must be having the same problem (but maybe just nvidia card owners?).
The problem is that no matter what I do (using VMR9) I can't get playback in MP to run as smoothly as I can in other players like dvbviewer or zoomplayer for example. It feels like the playback is at a lower fps than it should be (there is no problem with the deinterlacing). It's mostly obvious when it comes to fast moving sports like tennis, icehockey or football. I have for example recorded a tennis clip from this year's wimbledon which is the easiest to use to see how smooth and sharp the picture is (SDTV PAL 576i). The tennis ball should be a sharp filled white circle during playback. I prefer using the Purevideo decoder with HW acceleration turned on but it's the same symptom with all decoders including the mpv decoder that comes with MP.
In DVBviewer the picture is absolutely perfect without any kind of jerking/ghosting. It supports Overlay mixing, VMR7 and VMR9 Windowless and the picture is perfect using any of those.
Anyway, this made me think that the VMR9 Renderless mode (with or without exclusive mode turned on) that MP uses might be a lot more demanding for the graphic card and that it might be the reason for the less smooth playback. So I decided to try the same clip in Zoomplayer which also supports VMR9 Renderless and the playback is perfect there as well using Nvidia Purevideo for example.
I then found out in the forum that earlier versions of MP supported VMR7, so yesterday I uninstalled 0.2.0.2 completely and then installed 0.2 RC2, and voila, in VMR7 the playback is smooth as silk. I tried VMR9 in the same version and it's the same problem as in 0.2 final. So it's obvious something is not working as it should when using VMR9 in MP since it works fine in every other application that I've tried.
I really can't see how there can be such a big difference between MP and other programs using VMR9 and the same decoders with the same settings. The only difference I can see between MP and the other programs is in graphedit where for example in Zoomplayer I use Haali as source/splitter (I'm using the latest version of Haali which has .ts support), and dvbviewer is using their own dvbsource splitter while MP uses the MPEG2 Demultiplexer from MS. But then again everything works like it should in VMR7 with the same demultiplexer so that shouldn't be the problem.
The post that made me realise I'm probably not the only one with a fast (for a htpc anyway) nvidia card that is having problems with playback was this thread where HappyTalk with a 6800GT writes "I have experimented for days but cannot get as smooth a picture from MediaPortal as other apps like WMP10 or mplayer." and there is also a thread here where user Scoobsheister with a 6600GT is having the same problem.
Could everyone reading this and using MP 0.2 final in which you have to use VMR9, please post what kind of graphic card you have, if it's AGP or PCI-e, driver version and which decoder you use and whether you have perfect playback (that is smooth playback with no ghosting/jerking even on fast moving sports or camera pans left/right or up/down) or if you have problems like I have and then maybe we can find some kind of pattern.
Maybe just as simple as this for a start:
HW: Geforce 7600GT, PCI-e
Driver: Nvidia ForceWare 91.31 (84.21)
Decoder: Nvidia Purevideo 1.02-223 (1.02-196)
Symptom: Jerky playback in MP using VMR9 but it works fine in DVBviewer and Zoomplayer and also in MP using VMR7.
MP Version: 0.2.0.2, 0.2, 0.2RC2
Skin: BlueTwo
Windows Version: Windows XP SP2 with all critical patches + dvb and firewire patches
CPU Type: AMD X2 4200+ @ 2450Mhz
Memory: 2GB Corsair PC4000 @ 490Mhz
Motherboard Chipset: Asus A8N-Premium Nforce4, HTT @ 980Mhz
Video Card: XFX Geforce 7600GT @ 650/850Mhz PCI-e
Video Card Driver: Nvidia ForceWare 91.31 (have also tried 84.21)
Video Card Resolution: 1360x768, have also tried 1280x720 and 800x600
Video Render Type: VMR9 Renderless (have tried w/ or w/o exclusive mode)
Video Codec Type & Version: Nvidia Purevideo (have also tried Cyberlink, Intervideo, Dscaler, MPV)
Audio Codec Type & Version: AC3Filter (have tried others)
TV Card: FireDTV-S + FireDTV-T
TV Card Type: DVB
TV Card Driver: 4.2.0
TV: LCD @ 50Hz (live in a PAL country)
Synopsis: Jerky playback in MP but not in other programs using VMR9
I've been using a htpc for a long time but I haven't been using MP for about a year because it was really unstable on my hardware back then. But that seems to have changed and now it feels very stable, I haven't had any kind of crash since installing 0.2 final. I've been testing the new 0.2 release for a few weeks now (and also patch1 and the latest 0.2.0.2) and I'm really impressed with the GUI, fastness and stableness of MP. But I'm having this really big problem with playback, it's just so much worse than in any other program and I'm surprised I can't find more posts about this issue when I did a search since a lot of people surely must be having the same problem (but maybe just nvidia card owners?).
The problem is that no matter what I do (using VMR9) I can't get playback in MP to run as smoothly as I can in other players like dvbviewer or zoomplayer for example. It feels like the playback is at a lower fps than it should be (there is no problem with the deinterlacing). It's mostly obvious when it comes to fast moving sports like tennis, icehockey or football. I have for example recorded a tennis clip from this year's wimbledon which is the easiest to use to see how smooth and sharp the picture is (SDTV PAL 576i). The tennis ball should be a sharp filled white circle during playback. I prefer using the Purevideo decoder with HW acceleration turned on but it's the same symptom with all decoders including the mpv decoder that comes with MP.
In DVBviewer the picture is absolutely perfect without any kind of jerking/ghosting. It supports Overlay mixing, VMR7 and VMR9 Windowless and the picture is perfect using any of those.
Anyway, this made me think that the VMR9 Renderless mode (with or without exclusive mode turned on) that MP uses might be a lot more demanding for the graphic card and that it might be the reason for the less smooth playback. So I decided to try the same clip in Zoomplayer which also supports VMR9 Renderless and the playback is perfect there as well using Nvidia Purevideo for example.
I then found out in the forum that earlier versions of MP supported VMR7, so yesterday I uninstalled 0.2.0.2 completely and then installed 0.2 RC2, and voila, in VMR7 the playback is smooth as silk. I tried VMR9 in the same version and it's the same problem as in 0.2 final. So it's obvious something is not working as it should when using VMR9 in MP since it works fine in every other application that I've tried.
I really can't see how there can be such a big difference between MP and other programs using VMR9 and the same decoders with the same settings. The only difference I can see between MP and the other programs is in graphedit where for example in Zoomplayer I use Haali as source/splitter (I'm using the latest version of Haali which has .ts support), and dvbviewer is using their own dvbsource splitter while MP uses the MPEG2 Demultiplexer from MS. But then again everything works like it should in VMR7 with the same demultiplexer so that shouldn't be the problem.
The post that made me realise I'm probably not the only one with a fast (for a htpc anyway) nvidia card that is having problems with playback was this thread where HappyTalk with a 6800GT writes "I have experimented for days but cannot get as smooth a picture from MediaPortal as other apps like WMP10 or mplayer." and there is also a thread here where user Scoobsheister with a 6600GT is having the same problem.
Could everyone reading this and using MP 0.2 final in which you have to use VMR9, please post what kind of graphic card you have, if it's AGP or PCI-e, driver version and which decoder you use and whether you have perfect playback (that is smooth playback with no ghosting/jerking even on fast moving sports or camera pans left/right or up/down) or if you have problems like I have and then maybe we can find some kind of pattern.
Maybe just as simple as this for a start:
HW: Geforce 7600GT, PCI-e
Driver: Nvidia ForceWare 91.31 (84.21)
Decoder: Nvidia Purevideo 1.02-223 (1.02-196)
Symptom: Jerky playback in MP using VMR9 but it works fine in DVBviewer and Zoomplayer and also in MP using VMR7.
Australia
