Live TV and DVD flickering (1 Viewer)

[allanw]

Hi Everyone

I am getting very close to having my new HTPC completely setup and working (will post in completed projects soon) and just have one issue to resolve. I find that when I am watching TV or DVD's (does happen in my videos but don't care so much) I get some flickering particularly in horizontal pans. When watching TV or DVD I am using a 50hz refresh rate at 1920 x 1080 resolution (native resolution of TV). When I watch a news ticker the movement is extremely smooth so im not getting judder or stutters its really just flickering in horizontal and to a smaller extent vertical pans. I am using EVR with the default mpeg2 decoder that comes with vista as I find it provides very good image quality. My specs are as follow:

AMD 4850e
ASUS M3N78-VM
XFX 9500 GT
2GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM
DNTV S3 tuner card

I would like to here if anyone has had this problem and if so what was required to resolve it. I have tried a number of codecs and the one im currently using is the best so far but could be better. If I can fix this issue my HTPC will be complete....for now

 

[tourettes]

Make sure AERO is enabled.

 

[allanw]

Hello thanks for the quick reply, I forgot to mention in my original post that I do have aero enabled.

 

[hoborg]

There are realy simple solution - use WinXP

 

[tourettes]

There are realy simple solution - use WinXP

Ah, indeed didn't notice that the used GPU is ATI. ATI has broken drivers for Vista, so either you need to use XP or throw away the ATI and buy NVidia GPU instead.

0001192: Flickering Tv-guide and other overlays with EVR enabled - MediaPortal Bugtracker

 

[allanw]

It's an NVIDIA GPU, I used to have a 4350 which I binned and now have the 9500GT. So the only real solution for this particular problem is back to XP?

 

[tourettes]

It's an NVIDIA GPU, I used to have a 4350 which I binned and now have the 9500GT. So the only real solution for this particular problem is back to XP?

No, the flickering bug hoborg is talking about is affecting only EVR + Vista + ATI + HW acceleration combo. The bug you are seeing is something else.

 

[Owlsroost]

Allanw,

Are you running 1080p or 1080i (interlaced) ?

How is the TV connected ?

Do you get the problem when playing video/DVD in other players e.g. MPC-HC ?

Does it happen at other screen sizes e.g. 720p ?

I have a very similar system to yours - Vista32 Home Basic, EVR, XFX 9500GT (181.22 driver), 1920 x 1080p @ 50Hz - but I don't see the problem you are getting. My version of Vista doesn't have the MS codec available so I can't try it (I use PDVD7 normally).

Tony

 

[petrovice]

Hi Allanw,
I know what you mean and I have the same problem. Is your TV connected via HDMI?
In the past it was very annoying, because sometimes the horizontal flickering starts very gentle with a short flash per minute. After some time the flashing is getting faster and doesn´t stop until the HDMI connection is interrupted. In my case the newest ATI driver helped a little bit and reduces the flickering. One workaround is to restart the TV and reestablish the connection to the HTPC.

Peter

 

[allanw]

Hi guys here are the answers to the questions that have been asked. If it matter all of the following testing was done while watching live TV with a SD and HD channel to see if there was any difference:

Are you running 1080p or 1080i (interlaced) ? I have tried setting no deinterlacing and auto in the television settings in MP if thats what you mean. If you are talking content I think all of our TV here is interlaced.

How is the TV connected ? The tv is connected using a DVI to HDMI adapter on the PC end then HDMI cable into the tv.

Do you get the problem when playing video/DVD in other players e.g. MPC-HC ? I will have to try this out tomorrow night when I get a chance.

Does it happen at other screen sizes e.g. 720p ? I changed my desktop resolution to 1280 x 720 and I do still have the problem.

Some other things I tested out tonight was using ffdshow for postprocessing to do the deinterlacing in case it made any difference but did not appear to. I also tried out the power DVD 9 directshow filter but it does not provide an as smooth display as the standard vista filter and did not fix the flickering either.

Petrovice I think the issue you might be having is the ATI flicker as described by tourettes, mine is constant but really only happens on horizontal/vertical pans.

Another thing I tried out tonight was the 100hz motionflow feature on my tv (series 6 samsung) and this certainly makes movement smooth and appears to remove motion blur but the same flickering still occurs in horizontal pans.