DVD video scrambled?

[elaw]

Okay I'm dying a slow death of software issues here! Like so many others I'm trying to get one app to do everything, and I'm that close.

Running Sage (3.0 beta right now, but had same problem with 2.2.8) on my dedicated HTPC, everything works well except DVD playback. Audio is fine, but the picture is "chopped up". It's a little hard to describe but it's like looking thru a kaleidoscope. The picture is recognizable but severely corrupted. The audio is fine.

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling Sage. All settings are the defaults, except I've tried overlay/VMR9, and different MPEG decoders (Sage, NVidia, ffdShow). I've got an ATI Radeon 9550 card and have tried two versions of the Catalyst drivers (5.2 and 5.6), same results with both.

All of Sage's other functions work fine - TV recording/viewing, playing MPEG/DIVX/etc. files off HD. And I can play DVD's fine using other software (Zoom player and Meedio).

My system configuration is below... anyone got any ideas for other things I can try?

Thanks!

System:

Homebuilt P4-2.4 system, Intel 865PERL motherboard
1GB RAM
WinXP Pro w/SP2 and all current updates
Single DVD-ROM drive
Radeon 9550 with the non-.NET Catalyst drivers
WinTV PVR-150MCE
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (connected to receiver via S/PDIF)
Almost every codec known to humanity, all recent versions

[sleonard]

I've had a similar problem since 2.2.4 on only some DVD's. Some play fine and others are scrambled. The screen looks like parts of the Sage UI and the DVD are scrambled together via the forementioned Kaleidescope. Similar to another problem that the Cayar's STV had at one time. Lots of colored triangles and other geometric shapes.

I recently did a fresh install of Sage 3.05 beta but haven't tried any DVD's yet to see if there was any change.

[dagar]

On Cayars I notice that too if you have menu-skipping enabled on DVD play. Causes other things too, lock-ups. Not nice and inconsistent across DVDs (with autoplay disabled in tweakui).

[elaw]

Hmmm... that's interesting. I was using Cayars for a long time, but only recently tried using Sage for DVD's so it's tough to say.

When I upgraded to 3.05 I did a complete uninstall, including deleting the application directories. So presumably (hopefully?) Cayars is not currently a factor.

[salsbst]

I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling Sage. All settings are the defaults, except I've tried overlay/VMR9, and different MPEG decoders (Sage, NVidia, ffdShow). I've got an ATI Radeon 9550 card and have tried two versions of the Catalyst drivers (5.2 and 5.6), same results with both.

When last I checked, SageTV had a different setting the decoders used for TV viewing than those used for DVD playback. Have you been trying the different decoders by altering the DVD setting or the "Video" setting?

[elaw]

Nope, definitely the "DVD" setting!

[elaw]

Here's an image illustrating the problem. The scene is inside an office building in a city looking out the window - as you can see it's broken up into large "blocks". When watching a DVD the "blocks" are constantly appearing/disappearing and moving around. Interestingly, it looks exactly like DirecTV when the signal is degraded by a thunderstorm or something. So far I've tried several DVDs and the problem occurs with all...


Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks!

Eric Law

[gplasky]

Take your ffdshow out and just use the nVidia codec.

Gerry

[Ted@TNT]

Did anyone find a solution for this? I just set up a new SageMC system, and though I've done this a dozen times before, this is the first time that I've seen that DVD problem.

This is a clean and new build on Windows XP MCE using the latest SageTV and SageMC and using nVidia pure video decoder. My graphics card feeds a plasma over DVI at 1280x768. Other that a clean windows install and drive rearrangement, its the same system I've been using but I've never seen this before. Please help!!

I've attached a screenshot so you can see what I'm seeing.

[Ted@TNT]

Further update...

I have found that DVD playback is exactly as bad in Windows Media Player. however, in VLC playback is perfect.

Also, I am using AC3filter - don't know if that could affect anything, but maybe.

Ah, one other point that might be worth mentioning - I did not activate Windows until this evening - if it has to do with licensing I thought that might be significant.

Please help!!!

[gplasky]

It sounds more decoder related. Are you sure your nVidia is a paid version and not a trial? The decoders that come with Sage won't decode commercial DVDs-do you have any other decoders you can try? In the Sage settings for DVD you have chosen nVidia and not left it at default? Make sure you actually choose it in the DVD options menu in Sage.

Gerry

[Ted@TNT]

Gerry,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it is the licensed, full version (platinum, I think). I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling it with no success. I've even tried removing the AC3 filter - but that affected nothing.

Since the problem was affecting Windows Media Center as well, I have uninstalled Media Center, performed all of the available MCE updates (there were several) and installed Media Center 11. Still no change.

I have tried each of the decoders in the DVD section of the Detailed settings. This includes the bundled Sage one, the nVidia one, and the Intervideo one (bundled PC software).

If I select the either the Sage one or the nVida Post Processor instead of the nVideo decoder, I get the CSS/Macrovision error. The Intervideo codec is now playing back, but not as clean as PureVideo was before. I've been using the nVidia PureVideo decoder for over a year and I want to get it to work again - no clue what the sudden problem is.

[Ted@TNT]

Further troubleshooting...

Last, I had the Intervideo decoder selected in SageTV (and playing back). I closed SageTV, uninstalled the Intervideo package, and re-launched SageTV. The Intervideo decoder was still selected, but the video looked like the picture above. I stepped through the decoder options, and after unselecting the Intervideo decoder, it no longer showed up as an option, as it shouldn't since it was uninstalled.

Next, I selected the nVidia decoder again - but with the same garbled result.

So, I'm thinking, if the Intervideo decoder was selected and not installed and SageTV was trying to use it and I get that garbled picture, then perhaps my problem with the nVidia decoder which displays the same junk is that it is not really installing correctly. I've uninstalled and redownloaded and reinstalled several times, so I'm not sure what this tells me, but I'm grasping at straws here.

Unless, of course, since the selected decoder didn't exist, SageTV just selected the next in the list (nVidia) and it is installed correctly but there is some other glitch that I haven't identified.

I love computers.

[gplasky]

One last shot. Make sure you have installed the latest DirectX redist. update. I think Aug 2007 was the latest.

DirectX 9.0c

After that-I don't know. Something just got hosed on your PC if it affects multiple apps. You might have to nuke and reload the PC. Sorry.
Gerry

[Ted@TNT]

I have fixed it - in case anyone else has this problem, here is what the problem was...

Apparantly, windows auto update was up and running prior to my installing my graphics card driver this time around. Windows installed the incorrect driver for my card. Being an EVGA nVidia card, nVidia doesn't even offer it. It was necessary to obtain it from EVGA directly.

Anyway, after installing the driver (which had an older number than the one that had been installed), I rebooted and both SageTV and Windows Media Player could playback DVD's using the nVidia PureVideo decoder.

All is well. Thanks, Gerry, for your assistance. Hope this helps someone else.

[lohmein]

Hi Ted,
Wanted to thank you for taking the time to come back and post your solution. I had the same problem you did, and rolling back the drivers worked like a charm. I'd upgraded my nvidia drivers to Forceware 160-something about 6 weeks ago, but just noticed the problem with dvds recently. Uninstalled that version, went back to whatever was on the driver cd and voila - working dvds.

Again, just saying thanks for doing the legwork and letting me reap the benefits ; ) Much obliged.

-Lance