Which codecs have best mix of quality/reliability?

[reboot_this]

I've been diving through hoops lately searching the forum/web for the answer, I get confused mostly. When I talk of reliability, I'm referencing the FF Nvidia bug. I have read the the Sonic video codecs are the best.

I currently run the Sonic (video)/ Nvidia (audio) setup... just wondering if there is something better out there, whether free or for a fee, doesn't matter.

[stanger89]

You can have my nVidia decoders (1.00.67) when you pry them from my cold dead hands

[dagar]

Cold dead hands pingy right here :P

[sudipto]

Stanger, Dagar (or anyone else using NVIDIA decoders for video and audio): Which version of Sage are you using ?

With beta 2.2.3 and 2.2.4, whenever I tried using the NVIDIA decoders (for both video and audio), Sage eventually crashed and left me with a corrupt Wiz.bin. Not sure if they are related (since I saw the corrupt Wiz.bin problem even when NOT using NVIDIA, though less frequently).

Anyway, since those problems, I have stayed away from the NVIDIA Decoders and stuck with the old and trusty Intervideo ones, but the video quality is not that great.

If both of you are running 2.2.5RC1 and have good luck with NVIDIA, I'll probably give it another shot.

BTW, 2.2.5 has been working great for me so far (I had lots of problems with 2.2.3 and 2.2.4) ! Only one database corruption so far (right after the installation) ... but since then it has been working great.

[stanger89]

I have used them with every version of Sage (since they came out of course) and they've been flawless.

Except I've been too lazy to install 2.2.5.

[robertmcox]

purchased sonic and nvidia, got the powerdvd5 with a new dvd burner.

both are reliable (relative term), but sonic is better on that front. using nvidia, sometimes, the video will just stop, if i change to a different decoder everything works again, change back to nvidia, nothing. have to restart sage -- strange. sonic doesn't do this...

....nvidia picture is so significantly better that I can live with the weirdness.

fwiw, i use 2.2.5, nvidia decoder, vmr9, 800x600, fx5200 svideo. wheemer's quartz.dll, xpsp2, audio decoder = "mpeg default", audio renderer="intel audio". the audio settings are interesting becuase they work perfectly will all the decoders -- if i leave renderer at default or choose a different audio decoder i get some mixture of "lipsyncing" and/or pauses during ff/rew.

oh, about the powerdvd, they playback only in overlay, refusing vmr9. as mentioned in other posts, the overlay is washed out colorwise. i do have to say the powerdvd does an excellent job at dvds, though (but i still use the nvidia decoders for that too).

[robk]

Anybody know why the Nvidia decoder sometimes doesn't show up in the taskbar? DECCHECK shows it as "preferred" decoder, Sage is set up to use "default" decoder for video. Sometimes it's in the taskbar, sometimes it's not. I wonder what decoder I'm really using? Picture looks great on a 15" LCD monitor, so I'm not really that concerned, but the missing icon is a mystery....
Rob

[stanger89]

I think it has something to do with the way Sage loads/uses it. The decoder is working, but the taskbar icon doesn't show.

[robertmcox]

I observe the same thing with the icon. Whenever I want to mess with nvidia decoder settings, I play a Sage recorded .mpg in m$ media player to get the tray icon.

[InTheFlow]

I was having this no icon issue for a while as well.

What fixed it for me was switching from the NVidia Decoder to default within Sage. After I did that, the icon comes up every time.

You could maybe try switching from default to the Nvidia Decoder since you already are on default.

Another thing that happened is whenever I used the Nvidia VPP decoder, I always got the icon. But that icon's properties are different than the other ones.