Strange lines in full EPG (1 Viewer)

VisualDigits

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June 6, 2008
14
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Near Kiel
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TV-Server Version: SVN-Build 2008-10-17
MediaPortal Version: SVN-Build 2008-10-17
MediaPortal Skin: Blue3 wide (leeched from the SVN)
Windows Version: Windows XP pro, SP3 and all latest/greatest patches
CPU Type: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
HDD: WDC WD1600BB-5SGUC0
Memory: 1GB
Motherboard: MSI PM8M3-V
Video Card: MSI NX7600GT
Video Card Driver: Native NVidia 6.14.11.7813
Sound Card: Terratec Aureon 7.1
Sound Card AC3: Terratec Aureon 7.1
Sound Card Driver: Terratec Aureon 7.1 (5.12.1.47)
1. TV Card: AverMedia A700 PCI Hybrid DVB-S
1. TV Card Type: DVB-S
1. TV Card Driver: AverMedia 3.5.0.65
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec:
MPEG2 Audio Codec:
h.264 Video Codec:
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Astra 19.2
HTPC Case: Standard Minitower
Cooling: CPU-Fan + Sys-Fan
Power Supply: 450W
Remote: Microsoft MCE
TV: Toshiba 37X3000P
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI


Hello all,

first of all the mandatory congrats to the MediaPortal Team since this is my first post here after a while of silent reading.
MediaPortal is the absolute best software to watch TV on a PC I could find! And beesides of a *few* problems it is doing very well for me!

:D

But now to my problem. When I switch to views which contains the small TV preview on the bottom left of the screen, I get strange dancing lines. As I tested out, this only occures in fullscreen mode and it does not matter which skin or version of MP I use (I have seen this also in RC2 builds). The intensity of the effect differs and it seems to have something to do with the video content. As one can see in the screenshot below the lines are "between" the rendered objects on the page and I guess this is an issue with the overlay.
Even more strange this does *not* occure in the TV home page (the page with the bigger TV preview on the mid right of the screen)
Of course I also attach my logs (set to debug level). Can anybody confirm this odd behaviour or does anybody know what to do against this?
Many thanks in advance.
 

Attachments

  • StrangeLines.JPG
    StrangeLines.JPG
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Paranoid Delusion

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    There's nothing in logs as this looks like a DX problem\driver issue, make sure you are using the latest DirectX (august 2008) with the latest driver for your card.

    MPConfig\Directshow filters (expert mode top right corner), i'm assuming you are on vmr9 as renderer with exclusive mode enabled.
     

    VisualDigits

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    June 6, 2008
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    Thanks for the quick reply

    At the moment I use the directX from march 2008.
    I'll try to update and report if this works.

    Regards from northern Germany

    Hello Paranoid Delusion,

    thanks for the advice. I now updated my directX to the august version and also my geforce drivers to 178.24 (178.13 before). In the releasenotes of the nvidia drivers is no hint which addresses my issue. Anyway the behaviour still persists on this machine. As a I restart MP I was able to have certain sessions whithout the effect at all. Other session have more or less strange lines. Sometimes instead of the dancing lines also parts of the labels are mirrored and diagonal above the original label (I'll try to reproduce that and attach a screenshot).
    Even if this is a little bit annoying, I can live with this for the moment. Maybe this is a special of my installation (somedays I'll get mad with all this driver stuff...)

    Regards
     

    VisualDigits

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    June 6, 2008
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    In the meantime I tried to verify the behavour on another machine with slightly different configuration:
    - MSI (medion oem) mainboard
    - Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
    - 2GB RAM
    - NVidia 7600 GS (PCI express - in contrast to the AGP version in the reported machine)
    - Windows xp pr, SP 3 latest patches
    - DirectX august 2008
    - latest Nvidiadriver (178.24)

    I'm now able to reproduce the dancing lines on that machine too.
    So I'm stuck now with this and wait what's coming...

    Regards
    VisualDigits
     

    Paranoid Delusion

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    VisualDigits

    Agree with i-loop, there are very few problems in general with nvidia drivers, certainly none i have seen that produce that effect to the extreme you are seeing.

    Suggestion, try using driver sweeper to remove all traces of Nvidia drivers and then reinstall them.

    This is a wild card, have you changed any windows view settings, ie fontsize to anything other than 96dpi, or any others that may spring to mind :)
     

    Paranoid Delusion

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    Ok this has now got freaky, just started getting this whilst playing certain video filetypes and say going back to basichome :confused:

    Changing the Nvidia 3D settings for antiliasing to anything bar "application controlled or none" fixes it straight away.

    VisualDigits, could you try this.

    View attachment 28796

    edit, changed renderer to EVR (have .net 3.0 and 3.50) and problem gone, this is on xp pro, also screens far more responsive, ie video starts straight away with no playing catchup on audio.
    So it looks like this is back to vmr9 not being handled correctly.
    Wow the clarity is superb, don't forget to change the nvidia colour advanced setting to nvidia controlled 0-255.

    it's obviously been a long time since i spent long enough using xp to appreciate some of the changes that have been implemented in MP.
     

    VisualDigits

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    Hi Guys,

    wow what a traffic in this thread :) Sorry for late response, I have not neen here for a while.
    @ParanoidDelusion: I tried your settings with my graphics board. This helped a little since I don`t see those lines on *all* channels but only on HD channels (1024x768 16:9 full PAL).
    Okay next try will be wiping the drivers :(( If this does not help I´ll try EVR - up to now I wanted to avoid those dotnot 35 stuff - but if it helps...
    This will take some time now - I`ll be back and report.
    Thanks for the advice!!

    Okay one hour later - lap report :mad:
    Using driver sweeper and fighting the :mad: dll cache I managed to erase all those old files (also some funny files from an old ai card where found). Now I did a clean reinstallation of the nvidia drivers (same version as before) and applied the suggested settings.
    No success - same strange lines as before.
    While I write this I pick up the redist installer of the notdot 3.5 stuff and try it out.
    Let`s see what happens - maybe I'll use the machine as a toaster afterwards...

    Uff after 30 mins of installing dotnot sp1 I have to say that all this was worth it!

    :D:D:D

    The strange lines are gone with evr! yeah!
    Also as ParanoidDelusion mentioned before all the dialogs appear much quicker. I could notice this much when switching to the compact epg in fullscreen tv. With WMR9 this took about 1-2 (!) seconds until the dialog stabilized and the underlaying video did not freeze anymore. Now the epg appears almost immediat and no picture freeze.
    Switching between videos and live tv now also seems to work better (before I always had a black screen when switching back to live tv.
    This is a eally great community out here - thanks alot!
     

    Paranoid Delusion

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    I'm as amazed as you are, this might be Nvidia specific, but boy what a difference it made to me, everything was instant, without a slight time delay, give us some feedback in a weeks time, hopefully good news.

    Regards
     

    infinite.loop

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    since MediaPortal fully builds upon .net framework, it is a good idea to have "all versions" + ServicePacks and hotfixes installed.
    Especially if you use EVR which requires .net Framework v3.

    Nice that it works for you now! :)
     

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