HDTV & VMR9 Success?

[Humanzee]

Is anybody having any success with HDTV at high resolutions in VMR9? Ie. 1080p, 1080i. If so what hardware configuration, software settings, and video decoders are you using? Did you have to do any overclocking of GPU or CPU to get it to work?

[Lucas]

With the official release of 4.1 I had 720p and 1080i playing very well with VMR9 on my humble ATI9600XT. With the latest betas only overlay works well. With VMR9 I get constant stuttering.....

[Polypro]

I need FSE to prevent tearing, but I don't know if that's Sage related. Passive 6600GT from Gigabyte. 3000+ Venice CPU, no OC. Utilization isn't high. Decoders are all Default with NVIDIA set to preferred through DECCHECK.

P

[DFA]

Lucas:

I also have ATI 9600XT. Would the successful Sage version be 4.1.3.67 to be exact?

I gave up on VMR9 with HD STB firewire capture a long time ago but your comment gives hope.

DFA

[jlindborg]

Hey Polypro-

I'm also running a passive 6600GT from Gigabyte but was not able to get VMR9 to run well with or without FSE - I'm running a 3200+ on a 939 socket so I can't imagine it's horsepower related. I'm using the PureVideo stuff from NVidia - sounds like you're not. I'm not sure what you mean, though, by "...with NVIDIA set to preferred through DECCHECK." - can you explain this?

Also, what resolution are you set to use?

thanks

-JL

[Polypro]

Yes, I'm using Pure Video. 1920x1080 DVI To HDMI on a Sceptre 37"

As far as decoders, try this:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...46&postcount=6

Wish I could sticky it

P

[blade]

I only have SDTV, but I've found the 6600 cards handle 720p much better than they do 1080i (upscaled SDTV). They pretty much need FSE if you plan to run VMR9 @ 1080i. Mine has no trouble without FSE at 720p. One thing to check is to make sure you're using automatic instead of smart. On certain content and channels using smart deinterlacing can cause jittery playback and other artifacts.

[jlindborg]

whew! Thanks guys - looks like I have another exciting weekend of video tweeking and testing ahead of me...

I'm using a Panasonic EDTV (native 480p ) plasma so doing 480p would make the most sense but their manual acually says it's best to do 720p and let it down scale on it's own. Not sure I understand that or buy it, though.

Personally I think the component looks better than the DVI to HDMI, but that could just be my wonky eye. Either way, I'll be testing all resolutions, transport formats and sources this weekend and seeing how things fly. Beats working in the yard, and baseball doesn't start for a few days so hey... why not?

[jlindborg]

Hey Polypro:

I followed your link and set it up as instructed - This worked great! The VMR9 with FSE worked like a champ and the CPU usage was less (HDMI looks fabulous, by the way - definitely my best choice for transport). However (isn't there always a "however"?), audio only works for SD recordings and my MP3s - playing DVDs and HD content back has no sound (great looking picture though).

I've tried fiddling with the audio playback options in Sage and nothing fixes it. During playback if I go into the NVidia monitor app from the tray the audio tab shows a bit stream and if I test via the calibration the speakers work but the audio is not getting from the DVD/HD content out.

Even rolling my sage configuration back to what I had has no effect - not sure what to do at this point... any suggestions?

thanks

[jlindborg]

ah... nevermind... I clearly have no idea what I'm doing...

Selected A3C audio output and it seems to be flying right. Kicking around on it, though, the FSE stuff seems to be a bit twitchy - the playback gets wedged up if you're flipping in and out of full screen mode and such. I'll keep testing on it and make sure it's stable under normal operations.

thanks much for the link - the video output looks very nice now...

[blade]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

Kicking around on it, though, the FSE stuff seems to be a bit twitchy - the playback gets wedged up if you're flipping in and out of full screen mode and such. I'll keep testing on it and make sure it's stable under normal operations.

I have the same problem when using the Nvidia decoder. Luckily my HTPC is used almost exclusively for TV viewing so Sage stays fullscreen almost all the time. If I use a different decoder I don't have the problem, but since the Nvidia decoder looks so much better I just live with it.

[Polypro]

Yes, FSE is twitchy. Like blade, I'm usually full screen, or I just exit The Sage UI to work on the desk top. You can toggle FSE off to go windowed...can't recall if that requires a Sage shutdown/re-start to get it to kick in though. Glad the link helped.

P

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by DFA

I also have ATI 9600XT. Would the successful Sage version be 4.1.3.67 to be exact?

I gave up on VMR9 with HD STB firewire capture a long time ago but your comment gives hope.

DFA

To be perfectly honest I can't be sure but it sounds about right.

I am tempted to install that version and see if it is so or maybe the version change of ATI drivers was the culprit. At around the same time I changed from catalyst 5.9 to 6.2.

[jptaz]

I decided to try and get VMR9 working this weekend...the last time I had issues with it, but this time around it seems pretty solid. I am only running 1280x720 so not really the same as 1080i or 1080p, but it is working now and has not been in the past. I am on SageTV Beta 4.1.11.

I have a PNY 6600GT AGP card
NVidia Drivers beta 84.12
NVidia Pure Video 1.0.2.196

SageTV Settings:
VMR9 and FSE - All Decoders set to Default

Pure Video Settings:
Raw/Anamorphic
Automatic
Prefer VMR9
VMR Pixel Adapative

John