SAF v4.00 ''stable'' (StandAlone Filters) - DXVA ready (H.264 and VC-1). (10 Viewers)

[hulkhaugen]

Ok, looks nice, but i got some questions though:

1. Isn't Vista's EVR better than XP's WMR9?
2. Does FFDShow upscaling disable DXVA?
3. Is FFDShow's upscaling solution the best solution?
4. Is ATI CCC 8.12 the best driver for Vista? Using ATI Radeon HD3650.
5. ATI Avivo/Avivo HD; is that a chapter better left alone? I don't even know how to use it, lol.
6. Should i learn how to use PowerStrip to get the best out of my television? It's a Toshiba 52Z3030D in case anyone already made a driver for it. (Thoshiba should make these drivers themself)

I see that hoborg claims XP to be the best choice for HTPC, but i respectfully disagree. Imo Vista is the better choice if you're equipped with modern hardware, but i'm not here to start a Vista vs XP flamewar, just heard that EVR pwns WMR9's old ass several times before. I do have a XP SP3 with lisence, but i didn't see any advantages with it, so i bought Vista Ultimate x64 after reading several discussions about pros/cons of them. You think i should go back to XP?

 

[Taipan]

OK, here's my opinion, for what it is worth ...

1. Isn't Vista's EVR better than XP's WMR9?

That's what Microsoft want us to believe, but I am using XP / VMR9 and to me it is excellent.

2. Does FFDShow upscaling disable DXVA?

Yes, that's correct

3. Is FFDShow's upscaling solution the best solution?

I suggest you let your HD3650 do the upscaling - I doubt if ffdshow will add any value.

4. Is ATI CCC 8.12 the best driver for Vista? Using ATI Radeon HD3650.

It is the best driver for XP - but you have to apply these registry tweaks to get the most out of your ATI card

5. ATI Avivo/Avivo HD; is that a chapter better left alone? I don't even know how to use it, lol.

This is just ATI marketing speak - everything you need is in the HD3650 card, the 8.12 drivers and the CyberLink decoder.

6. Should i learn how to use PowerStrip to get the best out of my television? It's a Toshiba 52Z3030D in case anyone already made a driver for it. (Thoshiba should make these drivers themself)

You only need PowerStrip to create refresh-rates that are not available in the video driver. I doubt if you will need to use PowerStrip.

HTH ....

 

[Kotik]

Ok, looks nice, but i got some questions though:

1. Isn't Vista's EVR better than XP's WMR9?
2. Does FFDShow upscaling disable DXVA?
3. Is FFDShow's upscaling solution the best solution?
4. Is ATI CCC 8.12 the best driver for Vista? Using ATI Radeon HD3650.
5. ATI Avivo/Avivo HD; is that a chapter better left alone? I don't even know how to use it, lol.
6. Should i learn how to use PowerStrip to get the best out of my television? It's a Toshiba 52Z3030D in case anyone already made a driver for it. (Thoshiba should make these drivers themself)

I see that hoborg claims XP to be the best choice for HTPC, but i respectfully disagree. Imo Vista is the better choice if you're equipped with modern hardware, but i'm not here to start a Vista vs XP flamewar, just heard that EVR pwns WMR9's old ass several times before. I do have a XP SP3 with lisence, but i didn't see any advantages with it, so i bought Vista Ultimate x64 after reading several discussions about pros/cons of them. You think i should go back to XP?

1. Some people claim it is, i personally haven't seen any difference. That being said, if you use Vista you should stick with EVR.
2. Yes FFDShow upscaling disables DXVA since for DXVA to work video codec should be connected directly to renderer.
3. Depends on how experienced you are with it. I personally find PowerDVD 9 SD codec IS doing a fine work (plus you get it with DXVA).
4. Best driver for Vista with ATI is 9.2. I am not going to mention 9.3 atm since it was out yesterday and may have problems that are not yet detected.
5. ATI Avivo/Avivo HD is a codec package coming directly from ATI. It is supposed to offer DXVA, i never tested them since i am happy with either MPC-HC codec or Cyberlink codecs.
6. I am not experienced with Toshiba panels but you should check if your panel supports 24p (24Hz) input over HDMI. Since you are using Vista you are unable to use Reclock which means you will have to play with refresh rates. If your panel supports 24p then your job is easy you just have to create 3 profiles in PowerStrip a)PAL 50HZ (50/2=25HZ for 25 fps material) b) 24HZ for 23.98 fps material and c) 60HZ (60/2=30HZ for 29.97 fps material) in case your panel doesnt support 24p input then you should tweak a bit with PowerStrip to see if you can force 47.96 HZ since this would also be a solution for 23.98 fps material (23.98x2=47.96).

I hope that will cover your questions.

 

[hulkhaugen]

2. I meant postprocessing, thought/hoped that it didn't affect DXVA. I heard that PDVD9 had built-in upscaling options, but these only works with the PDVD software, and it something similar to that i'm aiming for.
5. Ok, the less the better i say
6. about my tv

"... the 52Z3030D's features is its Active Vision M100 image processing engine. The M100 part of this rather lengthy title is quite important, for it signifies that the 52Z3030D has 100Hz processing onboard. In case you're not clear why this matters, 100Hz is there to tackle the common LCD problem of blurred motion caused by a combination of the technology's relatively slow response time and static backlight illumination..."

"...it features a special ‘5:5 Pulldown' mode designed specifically with 1080p/24fps playback in mind. In layman's terms, this repeats each frame of a 1080p/24 source five times in a bid to make any movement in the image..."

I guess "1080p/24fps" is what you were aiming at with "24p (24Hz)"? I've also heard that other people ended up with a slightly different resolution than what's regular, like 1918x1078 or something (that example i made up, but i think it's close to what i've heard earlier).

And you talk about making three profiles, that really scares me, hehe. Does that mean that i have to manually switch profile depending on the fps of the movie, or will MediaPortal automatically select the best profile for me?

Thank you Taipan and Kotik for good answers, and sorry for my stupid noob questions.

BTW! If you think i should convert from Vista Ultimate x64 to XP Pro x86, i got a license so that's no problem if it's easier/better to setup. Just that i won't be able to enjoy all my memory...

 

[Kotik]

2. For DXVA to work your graph should look like this: Source-->Splitter-->Video Codec-->Renderer, if you are going to use FFDshow for post processing it will look like that Source-->Splitter-->Video Codec-->FFDshow-->Renderer which will automatically disable any type of DXVA except from CUDA DXVA which is a completely different story.

6. I would not recommend using the 100hz feature of your panel since you can end up having a motion that will look more like TV news channel rather than a movie.

There are 2 ways of switching refresh rates, one is to use the ATI CCC built in feature the other one is PowerStrip.
The first one requires a hardware reset (VGA will reset refresh rate), which means your panel will go blank for some seconds (1-2 most of the time) and this is where PowerStrip comes in, see it doesn't reset your device so no blank screens with it. Blank screen beside the fact being annoying (at least for me) also has been reported for creating sync issues while MP is active. Now MP in it's last SVNs has already a built in feature for auto detecting the fps of the source file and can switch the refresh rate by either using ATI CCC profiles or by using PowerStrip profiles.

You can find great info regarding your panel and PowerStrip here

 

[hoborg]

Ok, looks nice, but i got some questions though:

1. Isn't Vista's EVR better than XP's WMR9?
2. Does FFDShow upscaling disable DXVA?
3. Is FFDShow's upscaling solution the best solution?
4. Is ATI CCC 8.12 the best driver for Vista? Using ATI Radeon HD3650.
5. ATI Avivo/Avivo HD; is that a chapter better left alone? I don't even know how to use it, lol.
6. Should i learn how to use PowerStrip to get the best out of my television? It's a Toshiba 52Z3030D in case anyone already made a driver for it. (Thoshiba should make these drivers themself)

I see that hoborg claims XP to be the best choice for HTPC, but i respectfully disagree. Imo Vista is the better choice if you're equipped with modern hardware, but i'm not here to start a Vista vs XP flamewar, just heard that EVR pwns WMR9's old ass several times before. I do have a XP SP3 with lisence, but i didn't see any advantages with it, so i bought Vista Ultimate x64 after reading several discussions about pros/cons of them. You think i should go back to XP?

1)no, i didnt notice any difference, and DVD playback/navigation was broken (freezes,etc...) under EVR
2)FFDShow is no DXVA compatible
3)upscaling - if you have any video with lower resolution than you TV, this video is upscaled. It it done by your graphic card. Question is if hardware upscalin is beter then software one.
4)i personaly hate vista, you need to ask elsewhere
5)yes, left it alone
6) you have any problem with your TV? Did it have any digital input (HDMI/DVI?)

You are absolutely wrong There is no one reason to use Vista for HTPC, especialy 64bit version. There are no 64bit build of MP, that mean MP run under 64 OS in emulated mode = can be slower comparing to 32bit OS.
I am tninking about create video how my HTPC starting/resuming under XP - there are no one sign of Windows, no windows logo, no win messege,no cursor, no taskbar, ... I think this is not possible on vista/win7.
I tryed Vista, Vista64 and end on XP SP3 (release from 2009).It is stable, fast, best

 

[Snader]

I think this is not possible on vista/

It actually is possible!

The one problem of XP I found is that if the OS, or better, the program (MP) 'hangs' I often could not get out of it without a powerbutton restart... CTRL-ALT-DEL is always working in Vista. (just my 2 cents ) to get into taskmanager.. In Vista my HTPC is working almost perfectly, specially due to SAF! The only problem I have is the 24hz frequency out of sync issue.

SAF rocks btw. Now for me to try catalyst 9.3

 

[Owlsroost]

Since you are using Vista you are unable to use Reclock which means you will have to play with refresh rates.

Recent versions of ReClock (currently it's at rev 1.8.4.0) fully support Vista32 - with EVR, DXVA, WASAPI & AC3 encoding support.

2
And you talk about making three profiles, that really scares me, hehe. Does that mean that i have to manually switch profile depending on the fps of the movie, or will MediaPortal automatically select the best profile for me?

Thank you Taipan and Kotik for good answers, and sorry for my stupid noob questions.

BTW! If you think i should convert from Vista Ultimate x64 to XP Pro x86, i got a license so that's no problem if it's easier/better to setup. Just that i won't be able to enjoy all my memory...

The latest MP SVNs can automatically change refresh rate to match the movie fps.

You might think about moving to Vista 32.....

Tony

 

[steve760]

If you can get or if you have a Vista 32 Install disk, the license key for Vista is usable for both, either 64 or 32 bit, even though it was included with your 64 bit disk, MS alows you to reinstall with a 32 bit and will activate over the internet just fine. Also a little heads up if you have an extra HDD just install the 32 bit on it and leave the 64 intact as they will both be activated

 

[akajester]

2. I meant postprocessing, thought/hoped that it didn't affect DXVA. I heard that PDVD9 had built-in upscaling options, but these only works with the PDVD software, and it something similar to that i'm aiming for.
5. Ok, the less the better i say
6. about my tv

"... the 52Z3030D's features is its Active Vision M100 image processing engine. The M100 part of this rather lengthy title is quite important, for it signifies that the 52Z3030D has 100Hz processing onboard. In case you're not clear why this matters, 100Hz is there to tackle the common LCD problem of blurred motion caused by a combination of the technology's relatively slow response time and static backlight illumination..."

"...it features a special ‘5:5 Pulldown' mode designed specifically with 1080p/24fps playback in mind. In layman's terms, this repeats each frame of a 1080p/24 source five times in a bid to make any movement in the image..."

I guess "1080p/24fps" is what you were aiming at with "24p (24Hz)"? I've also heard that other people ended up with a slightly different resolution than what's regular, like 1918x1078 or something (that example i made up, but i think it's close to what i've heard earlier).

And you talk about making three profiles, that really scares me, hehe. Does that mean that i have to manually switch profile depending on the fps of the movie, or will MediaPortal automatically select the best profile for me?

Thank you Taipan and Kotik for good answers, and sorry for my stupid noob questions.

BTW! If you think i should convert from Vista Ultimate x64 to XP Pro x86, i got a license so that's no problem if it's easier/better to setup. Just that i won't be able to enjoy all my memory...

Set your refresh to be something divisible by 24, so 72hz would be a good place to start, then 96hz after that. I run a secondary display, it's an old dell lcd and 72hz is the highest it goes. The key is that it's divisible by 24. At 72hz you shouldn't see motion judder, unless the movie is encoded badly.

I think this is not possible on vista/

It actually is possible!

The one problem of XP I found is that if the OS, or better, the program (MP) 'hangs' I often could not get out of it without a powerbutton restart... CTRL-ALT-DEL is always working in Vista. (just my 2 cents ) to get into taskmanager.. In Vista my HTPC is working almost perfectly, specially due to SAF! The only problem I have is the 24hz frequency out of sync issue.

SAF rocks btw. Now for me to try catalyst 9.3

If MP every screws up on me Alt-F4 kills it just fine in XP.