New HTPC based on Core i3 - Questions about the case and components (2 Viewers)

[drealit]

Sorry I took so long to respond. Yes the unlocked version of SAF will install PDVD for you... being able to use Arcsoft's decoder is a whole other animal though. There's several threads at the AVS forums explaining the very "involved" process of making the decoder available. Stop over there and a quick search should yield the processes involved.

HOWEVER, the good news is that I found out that Intel is fully aware of the PQ issue and both them and the MPC dev's are searching for a solution: Core i3 Intel HD Graphics - DXVA Issues - Doom9's Forum. My only fear is that I will have moved onto a different setup by the time they release drivers resolving the problem .

 

[pgroe]

Np, thanks for answering A small silver lining on the horizon Hope it won't take too much time to get the drivers work properly

 

[AberDino]

The recommended usage is listed in "My System" area which is to use the PowerDVD10 decoders for AVC material (h264, x264, etc.) and Arcsoft's video decoder for VC-1 material.

drealit, just out of interest, I also have a Core i3 processor and I'm trying to get the best picture quality out of it. You mention you use arcsoft's decoder for vc-1 material and pdvd10 for avc material. How do you make that happen? MP only allows you to set the h264 codec, so how do you make sure MP picks the right decoder? I currently have the pdvd10 and arcsoft video decoders installed from hd pack 2.4, and separately installed the latest ffdshow decoder (via x264.nl). Do you have any specifics set on the ffdshow video decoder, like upscaling etc?

 

[drealit]

Manually set the Arcsoft video decoder to have a higher merit than PDVD (use the RadLight Filter Manager to do this)... then in the MP config set the AVC materials to be handled by PDVD. When you playback an AVC title (x264 etc.), PDVD should handle it, when you playback a VC-1 title Arcsoft should handle it. You can verify this with Graphstudio.

One of the major trade offs to not using MPC/FFdshow (other than ease of use) is that seeking is much much worse with PDVD/Arcsoft... but I'd rather have the better PQ and full hardware acceleration.

 

[sixgun]

I have a i3 based setup (refer to my up-to-date "My System" information to the left under my name).

The only issues with i3 currently is the ongoing lack of true 23.976hz (24p) support (every 40 seconds or so there will be a duplicate frame) and the terrible PQ when using a MPC HC/FFDshow dxva based decoder for AVC material (x264 etc.) as I have demonstrated in these 2 comparison screenshots Index of /hosting/i3 (my i3 vs. my HD 4890 discrete gpu), and the fact that you can't use MPC/FFDShow for VC-1 material with hardware acceleration (at least I and many others have found this).

These are 2 very significant flaws and have almost pushed me into the purchasing an add-in card for video output. I need to use Arcsoft's decoder for VC-1 and PDVD10's for AVC material which I'd rather not since I'm not comfortable with the processes required to use them. Basically my ideal setup will allow me to install SAF 4 or 5 and then be completely done with it.

Intel came so close to making me completely happy but fell short with these 2 significant issues... the PQ issues with MPC based decoders being my primary flaw against this setup.

nooooooooo!

I am currently specing up a new client PC for my multi-seat setup.

Current thinking is ...

Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 mini-itx motherboard
Core i3 530
Corsair DDR3 1333 4GB RAM (2x2GB)
Low profile Akasa Cpu cooler
Corsair Force 40GB SSD
PicoPSU 150-XT

I currently have a HD3200 based motherboard which plays back everything flawlessly, but only manages standard DTS/DD. I need another client, but figured if I could upgrade the main one to support the HD audio formats then all the better.

I was kinda looking for some kind of confirmation that others have similar setups working with media portal.

oh well, back to the drawing board. Perhaps I'd be better off with a mini-itx HD3200 or HD4200 based motherboard.

 

[jonm]

Hi all, just found this thread whilst researching new hardware... can I just confirm that a P7H55 with an i3 is beefy enough to do HD TV ie full 1080i with EVR in MP with no dropped frames?

It seems like the jittery video I have may be down to my (apparently) underpowered G45 graphics (although it copes outside of MP.) Thanks... Jon.

 

[pgroe]

Hello!

I have been using my HTPC for nearly half a year now and I wanted to give a short report (including answering jonm's question):

The biggest problems are now solved and the system is running nearly well now.

For everyone having the same de-interlacing problems as described in some posts above:
The problem was rooted in the Intel graphic drivers. There is an option for automatic movie detection (in order to set the fitting de-interlace settings). But this didn't work properly. By disabling the option it worked fine and I never had problems with scenes not beeing de-interlaced.

The codec config wich worked best for me was just SAF 5 unlocked. (PDVD 10)
The picture quality as such is very good! But it seems that there are still some issues with the field order showing up in some "tremblement" of slow moves in the picture. Maybe that could be solved, too, but this is not a big problem for me because my Philips 37PFL9603D smoothes every moving so that it is nearly only visible when disabling this option.

The power of the GPU seems to suffice for 1080i50 as there are only very few dropped frames (about 0.2 to 1 percent).

Some remaining issues still are in recording(=watching) HDTV while recording some other program. The result in this case is quite bad. About 50% packet drop. Such a recording is no use.
I am still not sure where the problem is, but I hope it will be solved in MP 1.2.0 when my TV Card (DigitalDevices) is officially supported. (It was not before.)

PAL is working perfectly - in both aspects: Recording and Playing!

The TV-Server is running in Windows known stability. Maybe around one crash per week - I then restart the computer and it is working fine afterwards.


About the functionality of MP I can just can speak highly about it. I really enjoy working with MP because of the rich variety of features which simple stand-alone device never can offer.

Such features as TV-Series are very comfortable! It is very nice having the series well organized and pretty presented. (But I am sure the MP website is more adequate for describe its features).


Concluding I will list the software I have installed:

Win 7 x64 (maybe some source of issues because 64-bit software is not as professionalized as 32-bit software is)

All current drivers (drivers for chipset and graphics not from MSI but directly from Intel)

SAF 5 unlocked
MP 1.1.0 final
ComSkip
TSDoctor (for cutting out the commercials, reading data from the comskip txts)


I hope these infos are useful for you!

Greetings, pgroe

 

[jonm]

pgroe, a very belated thank you for your response.

The power of the GPU seems to suffice for 1080i50 as there are only very few dropped frames (about 0.2 to 1 percent).

That worries me slightly, as it's a fairly high amount of dropped frames - probably more than I have with my current setup, in fact.
I want no dropped frames! Do you still have this issue?

 

[pgroe]

There are five persons using this HTPC - none of them (including me) noticed stuttering of HDTV (except from reading the debug infos ).

But surely that differs from person to person.

 

[Komerad]

I just destroyed my motherboard. It has been an apocalyptic afternoon with a monitor that got fried and all kind of stuff breaking a part. And the performance of my htpc was working on my nerves for a long time now. So all together enough to snap.

So you guys don't experience any stutters, audio or subtitles out of sync, framedrops or crap like that with the intel i cores and this asus mobo's onboard video at all?

Running windows 7 64? (wasnt this a requirement for tha latest mepo?)