Codecs SAF v5.02 *final* (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder) (19 Viewers)

[moviebug]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

When you are dealing with HDTV especially livetv Deinterlacing...nothing beats either CPU grunt or GPU grunt.
The 4350 and Nvidia 9400 cards are really designed to help with playing Blu-ray..ie H264 and VC-1 codecs.
They have limited support for HDTV deinterlacing.

So you need either faster CPU which then supports software de-interlace..ie FFDshow
or more powerful video card..such as 4670, 5570 or NVidia GT220.

You only need to look at all the charts contained in AVS Forums area on Video card capability..to see this
certainly the onboard ATI 3200 has very limited HDTV support...9400 and 4350 both have issues.

So if you are looking to solve your HDTV issues...look at either better GPU(4670 or 5670 or GT220) or faster CPU.

Another issue is if you combine lower power/speed AMD cpu like 2850 with one of the above cards(4350 or 9400 that is) ..
its going to be pot luck if you dont have issues with Live HDTV. Some people are lucky!



This is all...assuming you're starting from a basis...that you are not suffering from poor digital HDTV signal strength/quality
(I asume we are talking Digital not analog)..issues
which can also contribute to this problem.

Win XP with SP3 is another area to look at ...Win 7 is defintely better in this area...
even if only cause it has its own HDTV codec...ie Microsoft codec for H264/HDTV
plus it straight away is using EVR cust renderer..under MPHC..not VMR 9.

Then finally on using PowerDVD 10 ...this only really helps with DVDs(ie upscaling DVD to 1080)
as against PowerDVD 9 ...where it has shown a slight quality improvement
..but it wont really help in HDTV live area..better stick with Microsoft DTV one (if you use Windows 7).

 

[niels37]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

Question : when i want to play .mkv and .avi ( sofar) i get : unable to play video codec error: AVC error on the .mkv and a DX50 error on the .avi file. I didn't installed any other codec just saf 5 .

What am i doing wrong , or is it saf 5 ? Do i have to reinstall saf?? unlocked version ( don't want to get all broken if u know what i mean).

thx in advance

niels7

deinstalled saf , installed latest version , unlocked and did exactly as i should........still same problem
In graph it use the correct codecs i also can play the .avi and .mkv
In Mediaportal i can't play these files..........anyone a solution or tips and tricks?

 

[doskabouter]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

When you are dealing with HDTV especially livetv Deinterlacing...nothing beats either CPU grunt or GPU grunt.
The 4350 and Nvidia 9400 cards are really designed to help with playing Blu-ray..ie H264 and VC-1 codecs.
They have limited support for HDTV deinterlacing.

So you need either faster CPU which then supports software de-interlace..ie FFDshow
or more powerful video card..such as 4670, 5570 or NVidia GT220.

You only need to look at all the charts contained in AVS Forums area on Video card capability..to see this
certainly the onboard ATI 3200 has very limited HDTV support...9400 and 4350 both have issues.

So if you are looking to solve your HDTV issues...look at either better GPU(4670 or 5670 or GT220) or faster CPU.

Another issue is if you combine lower power/speed AMD cpu like 2850 with one of the above cards(4350 or 9400 that is) ..
its going to be pot luck if you dont have issues with Live HDTV. Some people are lucky!



This is all...assuming you're starting from a basis...that you are not suffering from poor digital HDTV signal strength/quality
(I asume we are talking Digital not analog)..issues
which can also contribute to this problem.

Win XP with SP3 is another area to look at ...Win 7 is defintely better in this area...
even if only cause it has its own HDTV codec...ie Microsoft codec for H264/HDTV
plus it straight away is using EVR cust renderer..under MPHC..not VMR 9.

Then finally on using PowerDVD 10 ...this only really helps with DVDs(ie upscaling DVD to 1080)
as against PowerDVD 9 ...where it has shown a slight quality improvement
..but it wont really help in HDTV live area..better stick with Microsoft DTV one (if you use Windows 7).

Perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should be:
The tv i'm watching isn't hd, most of it are plain old analog channels, and there are 4 that are digital, but by no means hd.
I know that my cpu/gpu aren't the top of the bill, but i was designing a system which was "good enough", mostly to keep the heat/noise as low as it can be, but with MP 1.0.2 this setup played live tv flawlessly, so I think my problems can't be blamed on the hardware.

Also: I'm using EVR under Vista 32bit. And I'm using PDVD10 because that's the one included in the last SAF build...

 

[moviebug]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

Doskabouter.....You dont include a system specs in your own profile..
so that would help if you gave us all the details shown in that configuration.
Then we would have some idea of what you have.. and dont have.

This especially applies in what your TV is capable of displaying well.

You say you have 4 digital channels...do you get a good signal strength/ quality?
If you are not sure..that may well be a source of problems.

You either have HDTV channels or not...this is also not helped by your TV.
If you dont have a TV that is HD ..then you wont be able to display HDTV.
So again this comes back to your hardware specs..and programs/codecs used.
If you have a HDTV tuner and are trying to display a HDTV channel on a SDTV screen..there will be problems.
You are then best to stay clear of HDTV output...ie trying for 720p or 1080i.

Standard definition Digital stations are much easier to display..than HDTV channels...
but again if you dont have good quality digital TV... signal strength...AND quality ..you will get issues .
Digital TV has these two signal components..unlike Analog.

A good start is to update all your systems profile details
with as much information as you can give us...then when you ask questions
people will have some idea what you have and where problems might occur.
Its for your beneifit to fill in that area.

 

[doskabouter]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

Doskabouter.....You dont include a system specs in your own profile..
so that would help if you gave us all the details shown in that configuration.
Then we would have some idea of what you have.. and dont have.

Sorry about that, It did show up when I was posting bugs, so I thought that was enough.
Changed settings to visible.

I have 4 digital channels, which are sd, with good signal, and no problems viewing (besides the bug I posted about having framedrops after zapping from an analog channel), my tv is a hd-tv.

 

[moviebug]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

Okay so you have a motherboard with onboard ATI 3200...

Missing Remote

the link above shows that the combination of your AMD cpu
and the onboard ATI 3200 has a few problems with deinterlacing....especially HDTV
Whilst sure it provides a less power hungry combination...
an AMD Phenom is indicated as being minimum required to achieve the HT3 for a start
to get best throughput of data...
and then to allow advanced de-interlacing especially in HDTV.

So I would say if you are switching from Analog to Digital TV ..
this maybe whay its not able to handle totally succcessfully the HDTV stream.

The ATI 3200 and your cpu provide limited handling in the HDTV area..
especially HDTV de-interlacing!..this will cause flickering etc.
An ATI 5550 or above may well solve your issue.

Of course the question also has to be asked if this problem occured
with and if you used an early version of SAF...ie 4XX

I assume you have selected PowerDVD 10 for the video decoder?

The earlier version of PowerDVD ..ie 9 maybe less problematic.

But the Hardware is probably the key here.

I notice you have two tuner cards.
Are they both Hybrid? ie can both receive Analog and digital stations?
or is one a Digital TV card and the other Analog?

 

[doskabouter]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

I did get proper playback under mp 1.0.2 so i think my hardware is capable.
My DVB-T isn't HD, the resolution is 704x576, it could be that the 3200 has problems with HD-deinterlacing (although it plays 1080i videos fine, with high cpu but no hickups) as long as it's doing its job with live tv SD deinterlacing, and playing 1080i correctly it's ok with me.
The only problems I have now are those framedrops after zapping, and an occasional audio out of sync (probably caused by the framedrops), and they occured both with saf 4 stable and the 2 saf 5 versions I tried (now running SVN100811). The codecs I selected are exactly what is recommended in the start post, for tv I did it as the second choice (if you have digital TV source).

As for my tuners:
The Saber HB-220 is a dual hybrid, connected to my cable provider (just analog-tv), so with that I can receive 2 analog channels simultaneously, and the PCTV PicoStick is only digital (SD, with antenna) and with that I can receive one of 4 unscrambled channels.

 

[moviebug]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

So are you saying you didnt get thes dropout issues when you were using Mediaportal version 1.02?

...and now you updated to Mediaportal 1.1.0 ..
these dropouts(and consequent loss of synch in audio) started occuring
when changing from analog cable to digital external tuner?

Are the dropouts only occurring when you change to the Digital stations?

or does it occurr when you change to analog cable as well?

when these dropouts occurr ..does it fix itself after a short time?
ie does the audio synch problem fix itself ??

 

[doskabouter]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

Good to know that my problem is becoming more clear to you, sorry that it took so long...
Indeed I didn't have dropouts/low fps-counts/sync issues in mp 1.0.2, but after updating they started.
The problem is that prior to the mp-update i did a complete reinstall, so (probably) more is changed besides the mediaportal version.
The dropouts/low fps occur after zapping from a channel on one tuner to a channel on the other tuner (zap from a digital channel to an analog and vice versa). In those cases I do see a rise in cpu (analog normal:15-25%, after zapping from digital: 30-40%), it don't fix itself, although the fps sometimes reaches 50, mostly it's 40-45.
Zapping between channels on the same tuner doesn't degrade fps-counts.

btw: Isn't this a discussion that fits better in the mp1.1 forums? Because I really don't think it's a codec issue in basis.

 

[moviebug]

Re: SAF v5.00 experimental (based on FFDShow DXVA decoder)

Thats why I am asking the questions...cause it didnt sound like the problem
was necessarily Mediaportal ...or codecs...but could be your digital tuner
set-up.
Assuming your digital signal strength is high...and the quality of the signal
is also good?...

and one way to check that is to install
the TV app that comes with your Tuner...and see if it has the same issues?
...and at the same time see if it shows your signal is good as well.
Then you might know if it is Mediaportal or something else...

The other thing is to make sure there arent newer drivers available
for the tuner card...
and/or try re-installing the existing or newer driver.

Digital tuner cards can be picky sometimes..and something like this may help
to fix/narrow the issue.
This is especially as it worked fine in Mediaportal 1.02.

Sometimes updating software ..for newer versions
if it already works ...isnt a great leap forward.