[Videos] VMR9 video playback screws up some texts (1 Viewer)

[zeflash]

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.0.0 SVN build 23663
MediaPortal Skin: StreamedMP
Windows Version: Windows 7 x64
CPU Type: Intel Q6600, 3.2Ghz
HDD: 2TB stripped
Memory: 4 GB DDR2
Motherboard: Abit p5b-e
Video Card: Nvidia 8600GT 512MB
Video Card Driver: Forceware 190.38
Sound Card: Terratec Aureon 7.1 PCI
Sound Card AC3: optical out
Sound Card Driver: 5.12.01.0008.15.06
1. TV Card: DigitalEverywhere FireDTV DVB-C
1. TV Card Type: DVB-C
1. TV Card Driver: 4.8.0.0
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: FFDShow tryout rev 3065
MPEG2 Audio Codec: FFDShow tryout rev 3065
h.264 Video Codec: coreavc 1.9
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote:
TV:
TV - HTPC Connection:

I know this problem has been there for ages, yet I haven't been able to find a related thread anywhere yet, so I'm starting a new one.
My system is set up to use VMR9 - exclusive mode.
When using VMR9 and after playing a video, after the facade refreshes, some texts (maybe all texts?) are misaligned. Multiple lines texts show up only on one line (no line wrap anymore), most texts have offset issues.
Another user of the same skin experienced the exact same things in this post, with screen shots: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...ts-mp-1-1-0-beta-69712/index7.html#post505929

What I can tell about all this is that this only happens with VMR - EVR doesn't have a problem. I would use EVR if the playback was judder-free as it is in mediaplayer classic, but that's not the case. EVR judders pretty much all the time from beginning to end playback.

After playback, in StreamedMP skin, going back up to the basic home screen shows the texts offset to the right, and the RSS scroller isn't scrolling anymore. going back in the video or TVSeries plugin fixes everything of course, but I assume that's because everything gets reloaded at that time.

To figure if this was a skin-only issue (which would be weird as it involves video playback) I also tested out the blue3wide skin.
When playback back a video from my video, coming back on the main (default, not basic) menu shows the date offset to the right, it overlays the item list. doing a menu up or going in a module and back fixes it (reloads the text control maybe?).

I cannot tell if that's new to 1.1 or if it's because I've moved to windows 7, because I did both at the same time. In vista with 1.0.2, I didn't have those text offsets in the UI, but I did have issues in the playback info overlay, paused was offset down, and the remaining time was doubled, displayed side by side.
I might try 1.0.2 again on seven with UAC off, but I'm already at my WAF limit.

 

[tourettes]

VMR9 is not supported on Vista / Windows 7 (by MediaPortal). There is no current development activity that is targeted to improve that situation. It would be actually really good idea to even remove that option from Windows 7 & Vista based installs as we know it is broken and there aren't any plans to fix it.

EVR renderer will have soon few improvements that hopefully solve the juddering issue you are seeing.

 

[zeflash]

Wow. VMR9 isn't supported on vista & 7. Obviously I cannot speak for everyone, but everytime I tried EVR on multiple systems with different drivers or graphical hardware, it had judder where VMR9 had not. I always assumed EVR was experimental given the poor playback quality.

So I guess now I can only hope EVR gets those improvements soon as I'm a bit stuck between proper playback or proper UI. Or I could use an external player but it shouldn't be that way IMHO. For a mediacenter application, playback should be pretty high on the things to do right, shouldn't it?

 

[Sillycrap101]

Well I hope they don't remove that option for windows 7. I'm running Win7 64 and using EVR crashes everytime I pause a video. It screws up so bad that closing mediaportal and reopening it won't even play the video. I need a full restart.

Using VMR is the only thing that works for me.

 

[mackey]

I have exactly the same experiences as zeflash regarding VMR9 playback messing with GUI layout and judder using EVR. I've tested with both Black Glass and X-Factor skins, and the use of VMR9 messes GUI alignment up pretty badly. However, the on and off judder using EVR makes it really no option to use EVR in my system as things are right now. I know tourettes and Scythe42 among others are making some progress these days, so hopefully EVR will improve so much that VMR9 will be unneccessary for all users. However a lot of people cannot run EVR with satisfactory result, so it will natural be a very unwise decision to exclude it completely for now.

Likewise I didn't had any problems with GUI alignment in MP 1.0.0.2. However I cannot put my fingers on the specific change between 1.1.0.0 beta and 1.0.0.2 which might have caused the problem. I still use Vista and considered to switch to W7 in hope for better EVR performance but your report doesn't give me high hopes. I would happily be willing to test the improved code and have already tested a new version of dshowhelper.dll which i suspect decreased the number of dropped frames substantially. But when I still get a lot of judder and glitches in fast changing camera angles. If needed I will even install Visual Studio on my dedicated HTPC and debug things, allthough I'm not that familiar to debug non-managed code, so would need some instructions.

Are there any specific settings within MP configuration that you should be aware in EVR mode? I cannot find any details in the MP manual and also haven't been able to find a proper setup which makes EVR playback judder-free. My system should have no problems playing mpeg-2 files and does so in VMR9 mode and with VLC etc. (See my system on the left)

I've uploaded the mediaportal and evr log after playing a mpeg-2 video with EVR enabled.

thanks

 

[zeflash]

To anyone having issues with EVR, the most amazing thing happened to me today.
I read another post about the ideal settings for playback, and it stated to uncheck everything but RGB32 in ffdshow output. I did, and guess what! EVR is judder-free now!
Here's the original post: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-1-1-0-beta-1-windows-vista-70107/#post505925

I'm guessing it's the final filter that has to output RGB32 into the EVR renderer. In my case, ffdshow is there all the time (I have it process even raw video coming from coreAVC so that I can apply some corrections of my own) so it's easy to set there. For other people not always using ffdshow, either you find an option to output RGB32 in your filter, or you switch to ffdshow.

Man, I'm happy that this is fixed! Mackey, try it out, it's probably going to fix your issue too.

 

[tourettes]

To anyone having issues with EVR, the most amazing thing happened to me today.
I read another post about the ideal settings for playback, and it stated to uncheck everything but RGB32 in ffdshow output. I did, and guess what! EVR is judder-free now!
Here's the original post: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-1-1-0-beta-1-windows-vista-70107/#post505925

I'm guessing it's the final filter that has to output RGB32 into the EVR renderer. In my case, ffdshow is there all the time (I have it process even raw video coming from coreAVC so that I can apply some corrections of my own) so it's easy to set there. For other people not always using ffdshow, either you find an option to output RGB32 in your filter, or you switch to ffdshow.

Man, I'm happy that this is fixed! Mackey, try it out, it's probably going to fix your issue too.

ffdshow is not a nice option as it disabled HW acceleration.

 

[zeflash]

ffdshow is not a nice option as it disabled HW acceleration.

HW acceleration is overrated. FFDshow enables me to resize a SD video to HD, sharpen it, clear it a bit with post processing, add the exact amount of noise needed to overcome my HDTV LCD hardware that processes color only on 18 bits, giving truely ugly gradients.
FFDshow shows up subtitles as I want them too, give me precise control over everything. Maybe too much control, given how I just finally figured out that RGB is the best output format for EVR in my case, but still.

Using HW accelerated codecs just gives me a fuzzy image, with many compression artefacts and fuzzy subs given the output resolution stays the same. I'll pass on that, I have a buffy enough hardware.

I'm just trying to give everyone in my case a semblant of solution. Even though ffdshow might not be ideal for everyone, there is definitely something up with EVR + either YUV or NV12 output. That's juddery. RGB isn't.

 

[mackey]

To anyone having issues with EVR, the most amazing thing happened to me today.
I read another post about the ideal settings for playback, and it stated to uncheck everything but RGB32 in ffdshow output. I did, and guess what! EVR is judder-free now!
Here's the original post: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-1-1-0-beta-1-windows-vista-70107/#post505925

I'm guessing it's the final filter that has to output RGB32 into the EVR renderer. In my case, ffdshow is there all the time (I have it process even raw video coming from coreAVC so that I can apply some corrections of my own) so it's easy to set there. For other people not always using ffdshow, either you find an option to output RGB32 in your filter, or you switch to ffdshow.

Man, I'm happy that this is fixed! Mackey, try it out, it's probably going to fix your issue too.

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately it didn't worked for me. I have read the post by technick and tried to set the exact same settings as he, but I still get the flicker in even medium fast scenes with EVR enabled.

Just for the sake of it I post two configuration screens. Please tell me if you suspect that I have selected wrongly based on these.

thanks

 

[zeflash]

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately it didn't worked for me. I have read the post by technick and tried to set the exact same settings as he, but I still get the flicker in even medium fast scenes with EVR enabled.

Just for the sake of it I post two configuration screens. Please tell me if you suspect that I have selected wrongly based on these.

thanks

Be sure to check that in the codecs page (all the way to the top) of ffdshow has "all formats" selected so that it can process the uncompressed stream of your setup.
Also, you can test with VMR9 / exclusive first to see if you see judder or not; it could also be a CPU issue if your system isn't powerful enough. You can show the ffdshow output which can give you more information on CPU usage while decoding.

If everything fails, well then I guess my problem wasn't the same than yours, and you're on your own. I'd recommend ultimately that you use an external player (mediaplayer classic) which has none of those issues until it gets fixed in MP.