[WTA] How to disable VMR9 on Media Portal (1 Viewer)

[Matty]

Stutter help required.

I am in the process of attempting to get MP to run without stuttering.

I have just returned a GigaByte GA N66256DP (GF6600, 256 MB with silent pipe) as it was stuttering when using VMR9 rendering for HDTV resolutions.

My PC is an ASUS P4C800 2.8 GHz with 2 G ram. This hardly gets above 35%.
I am using a LeadTek DTV1000 T tuner card.
When using the software that came with the card you can choose the type of rendering (VMR, VMR9, Overlay).
When set to VMR9 and output as HDTV, the video stutters.
When not using VMR9, no stuttering ocurred.

When using MP, the stuttering is worse, and more often. The strange part (to me) is that if I pause live TV, the stuttering disappears for some time.

Having said all that and returned the Gigabyte 6600 card, I am now lost as to what I should get as a replacement card. I am very limited in choice due to the AGP interface, HDTV and fanless requirement.

The choices that I know about are:
1). ASUS N7600GS SILENT/HTD/256M (800MHz memory clock)
2). Gigabyte GV-N76G256D-RH

Can anybody suggest any other cards or recommend either of these cards as a good solution?

Many

 

[Taipan]

I don't think the stutter problem was with your GF6600 card - I have an ATI 9550 and I get perfect stutter-free HDTV ... . I am using the CyberLink decoder and outputting at 720p.

What video decoders did you try in MediaPortal? Did you get the same result with all of them?

What output resolution are sending to your display?

Did you get stutter on all HDTV channels? Remember that only 9 & 10 are 1080i, 2 is 720p and SBS & 7 are just 576p.

 

[Matty]

I tried both 720p and 1080i. Both caused stuttering with all decoders including the Cyberlink decoder.

HDTV output config was typically set to 1080i.

MP version is 0.2.2.0

 

[Taipan]

HDTV output config was typically set to 1080i.

Does your display support 1080i natively?

If it doesn't, then it is better to set the output of the card to match the best (native) resolution of the display.

 

[Matty]

The display I'm using is a Sony WEGA 50" LCD rear projection TV.

It documents that it is supported and appears to detect the HD connection from the PC.

 

[Taipan]

The display I'm using is a Sony WEGA 50" LCD rear projection TV.

It documents that it is supported and appears to detect the HD connection from the PC.

You really need to know what the native display resolution of the Sony WEGA 50" LCD rear projection TV is?

My guess is that it is 576p? That information should be in the user manual specifications. The fact that it will handle a 1080i signal does not mean that you are actually viewing a 1080i image.

There is no point sending 1080i to it in that case, as it then just scales the signal back down to 567p - it is better to send a signal that matches the native resolution and avoid any scaling. That would also fix your "stutter" problem.

 

[Taipan]

If your TV is a Sony Grand Wega KFE50A10, then the native resolution is 1366x768, so you would be best sending it a 720p signal at 50 or 75 Hz.

 

[Matty]

The model is KFWE50S1. Native resolution is not exactly spelled out in the manual.

 

[Taipan]

According to the information on Sony's web site:-

"3 LCD Technology Grand WEGA incorporates three wide XGA high-resolution LCD panels"

which implies that the native resolution is 1280x720 - WXGA.

In that case, setting the output of the video card to 720p would be ideal.

As I said earlier, I get perfect stutter-free HDTV pictures at 720p with a less powerfull video card than the GF6600, 256 MB that you tried. So, I would suggest that the problem you had was caused by something odd in your setup - and changing the video card will not cure the problem?

Have you checked the PCI latency of the video card ?