TheaterTek Renderless VMR9 vs SageTV's "Renderless VMR9"

[kny3twalker]

Just been trying out TheaterTek's new renderless mode and still cannot believe SageTV uses renderless VMR9

Sorry to bring this up again
but VMR9 will SageTV is just horrible, it does not act or display any behavior like any other renderless Application I have used

Every application that I have used that uses renderless mode VMR9, plays back smooth and I mean smoother than overlay in SageTV, and the image quality is incredible

I played back a few files created by SageTV in Theatertek and
they looked beautiful and played back smooth
no choppiness, no pauses, perfect

Just Perfect

I mean I do not want to be treated like Brett got treated here about Studio
But Frey is not giving us the whole story about renderless mode being used in SageTV

I have used too many apps that use Renderless VMR9, and SageTV is not one of them

if they add exclusive mode and playback becomes like these other apps
I will take this all back and apoligize.

and still feel that if SageTV takes this time to catch up with MCE and leave BeyondTV behind
They could have the best PVR on the market
it seems like many of you have simply given up and choose hardware decoding
cause of SageTV's lack of interest in using Direct3D for playback
but I still hope they will add this
I do not want to rent another DirecTV box or sell my second pvr 250 so I can use MCE

but this is just dissappointing that they passed up a good opportunity to move from a good scheduling and recording app to a full High quality PVR

I know TheaterTek decided they would not be left behind
I am just not sure why SageTV has
or maybe they have just decided to leave behind us
that bought a HTPC solution for the software decoding capabilities
cause if I just wanted hardware decoding
I might as well bought a DirecTiVo
the recordings would be a better source even if playback was still only ok

But whatever I am sure I will just be told
I am full of it
or SageTV said they are using Renderless
or whatever else
I will get for responses

Well I can just say
here are the apps that use Renderless VMR9
nstant media
mediator
MCE 2005
TheaterTek 2.1
Zoomplayer AVS only beta

try any of these apps and tell me SageTV acts the same way

just let me know
I am just really dissappointed in how SageTV can call there VMR9 renderless when it acts like Windowed
and every other app that uses windowed VMR9

cause renderless is completely different and playback is exactly better than with overlay or VMR7

[nielm]

I think the difference, as you mention, is in whether Sage is using 'Exclusive full screen' Direct3d mode with renderless VMR9...

These 2 modes are probably confused with each other, because it seems that with VMR9 both exclusive mode and renderless mode require the application to provide a custom allocator-presenter.

This appears to mean that exclusive fullscreen mode requires renderless VMR9, but renderless VMR9 does not require exclusive fullscreen mode. (MSDN info: VMR modes, VMR Exclusive mode and Renderless)

I guess a lot of the applications you mention when they refer to renderless, actually mean exclusive+renderless..

In exclusive mode, the VMR9 is the ONLY thing that can access the graphics card, everything else is blocked, which means nothing else can be displayed on the screen -- not even the mouse pointer -- unless the app draws it (eg in ZP, even the native windows right-click popup menu cannot work).
Task-switching from an exclusive mode D3d app results in the app being minimised. This is similar to the default behaviour of DirectX games...

It is pretty obvious that Sage does not use exclusive full screen mode: when it is in full-screen, you can always have other windows on display with Sage in the background...

This may be the difference that you are looking for, but it is likely to be a non-trivial feature: switching Sage from fullscreen to a window would probably require a complete teardown and rebuild of the DirectX display and playback graph in order to disable exclusive mode, and it would also mean that Sage would not 'play nice' with other apps in fullscreen mode. (If I remember correctly, when Snapstream PVS was started in fullscreen mode, you are stuck in that mode until you stop and restart the app into windowed mode -- is this the same in BTV and TT?)

At least Sage does not have Blight's (ZP) problem of using native Win32 widgets for things like dialogs and popup menus...

[gplasky]

nielm is correct. The apps that you have listed are using Exclusive Full Screen. Not a simple feat to incorporate in an existing application. Look at some of the issues Blight is having with Zoomplayer and he has been working on this for awhile. I think it is even more complicated for Frey because of their app being java-based. So a total reqrite of the application would probably be in order.

Gerry

[nielm]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I think it is even more complicated for Frey because of their app being java-based.

I am not so sure that is the problem -- after all the user interface has to be rendered through the VMR9 at the moment for the video background menus to work, so they already have a Direct3d user interface...

The problems may come with mouse support and switching to/from fullscreen...

[Wheemer]

Since they already have the current version for those who need multiple windows open and mouse support, it seems reasonable to expect an option to turn this feature on. I am sure there are many users who would accept these mentioned limitations if it offered amazing PQ. On the theatertek forum they even mention the image is sharper when using exclusive mode.

There are a lot of people who use Sage via a remote and only have there TV hooked up, so they would experience no limitting changes, only benifits.

[gplasky]

neilm-true enough. My thought though was based on some conversations Blight was having that this stuff isn't easy in an existing application that alreadt uses renderless VMR9. And even though the existing UI is rendered thru VMR9, all of this was written prior to the popularity of the Exclusive Full screen mode. I'm not sure what is entailed to reprogram it but because of the addition of it being a java-based app this might make it more difficult to rewrite and take advantage of it. Just my thoughts. I could be way off base here.

Gerry

[GbrNole]

exclusive is what we need and the benefits are huge. with exclusive full screen mode using mediator i can resize with ffdshow to a much higher degree plus the overall picture is just better let alone much more smooth.

kny, as a side note why would you have to dump your second pvr250 if you went mce?

mce 2005 allows two analog tuners plus a basic hdtv tuner. the other nice thing about mce 2005 is native cd playback.

there would be no need to change sage if exclusive full screen mode and cd playback were provided as it would be fairly equal to mce 2005.

if exclusive full screen or cd playback isn't planned to be added any time soon though then i'll really have to consider switching.

[Wheemer]

I don't think it is a matter of if Sage is going to impliment it, it more of a when. There only so long a software product can last when it's serverely limitted when compaired to the competition.

It seems to me that developing effort where sidelined from This functionality to develope the linux project. Something that will little to no benifit for the common user.

I don't know about everyone else, but quality improvements were high on my list of expected features coming with 3.0. Not to mention HDTV support and a better user interface.

[mlbdude]

It is also interresting that not all implementation of FS renderless are the same either. For example, Mediator produces a much better image than MCE or TT 2.1. I see screencaps of the next release of TT 2.1.1 that seem to be improvements though. MCE image quality is probably the worst of the bunch. So I think it gets even more difficult as you dig deeper into it.

As a side question, anyone know of a good nVidia driver yet that works with all players (MCE gives me the most trouble)? I get such bad VMR9 performance from my nVidia compared to my old ATI 9600. I must be missing something.

[GbrNole]

the 71.81 drivers work just fine for me. with these i can decent vmr9 playback in sage even provided i use vga/transcoder or component dongle (with a 6600gt agp) dvi still works crappy in sage but works perfectly in mediator.

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

the 71.81 drivers work just fine for me. with these i can decent vmr9 playback in sage even provided i use vga/transcoder or component dongle (with a 6600gt agp) dvi still works crappy in sage but works perfectly in mediator.

Just tried those and the 75.x drivers that are running around this morning. MCE locks hard on both. I guess I know why they have seperate downloads at times for that OS .

BTW, have you tried DVI? I bought an XFX 6600gt at a steal (guy did not have a DVI port on his TV) but have not had much luck with it.

[GbrNole]

component is my current connection method. i was hooked up via vga transcoder but you lose the ability to over/underscan the picture via that method with the nvidia drivers. the desktop picture quality was better via vga transcoder though.

dvi works well for me but only with mediator and nstant media every other program (standard zoom player, sage etc) is like a slide show at 1920x1080i.

[mlbdude]

I guess it is a waiting game now. Either all players will support FS renderless mode or nVidia will do something with their drivers. I sure hope it is not some limitation with DVI and will be that way forever .

the desktop picture quality was better via vga transcoder though.

This is kind of encouraging. I suppose I could get one of those for now. Maybe I did not get such a good deal after all . Although, if it looks better than the nVidia component out maybe it is worth it (I guess back to PowerStrip though).

Thanks!

[turak]

It would be nice if they told us if they were planning on adding FS Exclusive in the near future. I really miss the days when Jeff would regularly post on these forums. It was one of the reasons I liked Sage so much. Now all we get is the occational vague post from Dan that usually doesn't tell us much.

[mlbdude]

I think they will have to at some point. Even if it is a bug in the nVidia drivers that they are not going to bother fixing, nVidia is at least 50% of the user market. Not much choice but for Frey to support it at some time. Boy, nVidia is getting like Microsoft now .

[turak]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

component is my current connection method. i was hooked up via vga transcoder but you lose the ability to over/underscan the picture via that method with the nvidia drivers. the desktop picture quality was better via vga transcoder though.

dvi works well for me but only with mediator and nstant media every other program (standard zoom player, sage etc) is like a slide show at 1920x1080i.

Where can I find mediator? I'd like to see what playback should/could look like through DVI at 1080i. I did a few google searches for mediator, but didn't find it.

[mlbdude]

Meediator.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...light=mediator

Author came and went just leaving us the tease

[turak]

After watching about 30 seconds of a DVD with mediator, I now know why kny3twalker has been screaming about lack of FS Exclusive in SageTV. It was stunning on my 61" Samsung DLP. It had no problem at all doing 1080i through DVI with my 6600GT. Too bad mediator is very early alpha. It would make a great DVD playing app.