Starting to get grumpy - PV decoder problems

[Erich in AZ]

I am having problems with Sage and using the PV decoder. My hardware is as follows:

XP 2000+
Gigabyte 6200 using component out at 1080i
PVR150
512MB DDR
40GB boot drive
160GB PATA on a Maxtor add-in ATA133 card
XP Pro
Sage v5
Purevideo (dvd-bronze from evga) using the OEM update from NV
using SPIDF for all audio

I have checked the decoders with the Microsoft tool (DDECHECK ?) and it shows that it's the preferred. Sage works OK for TV although the picture quaility isn't what I expected after all the raving about PV.

Now, when I try to play a DVD, I get a "Macrovision or CSS error" on all the decoders except PV. When I select PV directly I get an "Error rendering<audio or video>" error that seems so common. I get that same when I try to use this in the tv setup.

I have tried every combo I can think of, both in Sage and in the PV properties. VMR9, 7, overlay with and without hardware acceleration and not FSE. DVD's play fine in the Roxio player. PV errors seem incredibly common, but I just can't find my answer.

Any ideas? I'm ready to just get a PVR from the calbe company. This is my 2nd Sage build with a different MB, fresh install, etc and it's still not working. I've literally been trying to get Sage to work well for a couple of months. the wife is getting sick of it.

[emok]

Can you play the dvds using windows media player? If so, do you see the nvidia decoder icon (not the display properties for the graphics drivers) in the system tray?

[bcjenkins]

You can't do 1080i component out for DVD on a copy protected DVD disc. You are limited to 480P by the OS. FWIW - google is your friend for ways around this. I think it is taboo to post on such things in the forums here.

B

EDIT: BTW - Great info in your post! Helps answer things quickly.

[PGPfan]

If you download the trial of AnyDVD it WILL solve all your troubles. Imho, it's the single best piece of sofware ever written for the HTPC (excepting SageTV, of course )

Try it out and let us know how it works out.

-PGPfan

[Erich in AZ]

Originally Posted by emok

Can you play the dvds using windows media player? If so, do you see the nvidia decoder icon (not the display properties for the graphics drivers) in the system tray?

No, it's been giving me trouble too, however bcjenkins post might explain that. I used to run at 480P but have cranked it up to 1080i with the new build. I could play movies ripped to the hard drive with DVDcrypter, but they had the copy protection removed.

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

You can't do 1080i component out for DVD on a copy protected DVD disc. You are limited to 480P by the OS. FWIW - google is your friend for ways around this. I think it is taboo to post on such things in the forums here.

B

EDIT: BTW - Great info in your post! Helps answer things quickly.

Thanks a lot for the info. This explains a lot. I assume the Roxio player deals with the copy protection issue and that's why the will play them.

Thanks again for all the info! I've spent some time on tech boards (and as a helpdesk dude for MS) and I hate it when you have to fish for info before even starting to troubleshoot

Originally Posted by PGPfan

If you download the trial of AnyDVD it WILL solve all your troubles. Imho, it's the single best piece of sofware ever written for the HTPC (excepting SageTV, of course )

Try it out and let us know how it works out.

-PGPfan

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. It certainly sounds like it's the ticket.

[Erich in AZ]

OK, I installed AnyDVD and at first it didn't seem to change much. the difference was that I started getting and error with Direct X that told me to reinstall after that. DirectX passed diags and was fully up to date and since VMR9 was working with Live TV, I didn't give it a whole lot of credit.

I did drap back to 480P to test DVD's, but it still didn't seem to make a difference. Even in WMP. I did go to the Advanced DVD options and check the decoder there and it pulled up the NVIDIA audio decoder (properly set to SPIDF). I did not see the PV logo in the taskbar though. Sage would still not play DVD's with PV. When it was selected as the primary, I still got the Error Rendering message and at default just a black screen. This was with and without AnyDVD running.

Out of pure desperation I tried something that seemed to work last time (until the demo ran out) and installed TheaterTek. Suddenly everything worked. No more rendering errors when PV is selected, etc. For giggles I changed the picture ratio settings in the PV properties via RadLight FM and it changed the picture. so I'm pretty sure it is working. One thing it doesn't do is is show any sort of bitrate activity on the bar. I know I have seen that moving with WMP before.

I switched back to 1080i and it still works, so I think AnyDVD is also working. yeah

One problem though. The picture does not stay smooth, especially when there is fast movement and it's jagged around the edges. I notice small, yet noticable jerks in the picture. I have set PV to Smart and Automatic interlacing with no real noticable difference. The problem does not occur when it I switch inputs straight to the TV. The picture is smooth then. It looks a little choppy in 480P also. CPU usage runs around 15-25% but no higher. Memory usage runs around 260Mb of the 512 in the box.

Any ideas? I'm really not liking the picture at this point

Thanks again

[Humanzee]

A 6200 isn't a super powerful card. Try running sage in overlay vs vmr9. I have problems with my 6600 in vmr9 @ 1080p. Also, some of you problems may have been related to the audio decoder. The Pure Video Audio decoder only really works as its designed in Windows Media Player. It could be giving you problems if it is selected in Sage. I am using the AC3 decoder for audio.

[Erich in AZ]

Time for an update.

I fell back to 480P and switched to overlay and it seemed to clear up a bit. The picture is much smoother than it was, but I have still not been happy with the PQ. It seems the same in 1080i or 480P so I'm going to stick with 480P. The funny thing is DVD movies ripped to the HD play fine in VMR9, just not live TV. Oh well.

Well, while I was at work the wife decided to try to play a DVD. It was one of the pilates or whatever ones you get free from McD's with a salad or whatever. Needless to say, it was a pain and she finally gave up. This just reminded me of what a PITB it is to try to use Sage to run DVD's. So many DVD's have crap on them that wants to install when put in a PC that it's driving me nuts. Even with autoplay off, I've had menu issues, etc. I love the way everything works when they are ripped to the HDD though. It's a shame. Well, I was sick of messing with it so I went down that night and traded my HD convertor for an SD DVR. I didn't ever watch the HD channels anyways as I am always messing with Sage. LOL.

When I hooked up the DVR I noticed something astounding. The picture looked horrible. It was very grainy. The menus were good, but the actually picture = doggy doo. I ran the cable straight in to the TV and the picture still looked bad. I ran the s-video line to the sage box, then back to the tv, and the picture actually looked decent. Wow. Sage was really cleaning up the picture. I ended up having the cable guy come out and check the signal and it appears we had a problem so he installed an amp, and that improved the picture considerably.

I have the Sage box down right now as I found that Battlefield 2 plays poorly on my machine without the extra 512mb I took out of it to test the new config. Once I can get it running again I think I will put it back in as a DVR only and buy a cheap standalone DVD player and call it a day. <sigh> Oh well, I don't blame it on Sage, it's more of a DRM thing than a Sage one. I will have to see what happens to the PV decoder once the TheaterTek demo expires :\

[camus]

I feel your pain on this. I have been able to get the Nvidia Decoder to work either.

Yesterday I went to the point of I reinstalling Windows XP Pro, installed all updates, including the most recent version of WMP, updated the graphics driver, etc.
So essentially I had no software installed beyond Windows, the chipset drivers, graphics drivers and WMP. I then installed and updated the Nvidia PV Decoder. Tried to play a DVD first I got audio without picture, I tried setting the decoder to VRM9, Overlay, nothing worked. On my last attempt I recieved an error "not done graphing file" and now the decoder will no longer load, doesn't show in the system tray any longer.

To confirm this I loaded an old version of Sonic Cineplayer, it plays DVD's without a problem, so does WMP now. So I think this is definately an issue with the decoder. One thing I did notice is there may be a conflict with the AC'97 Audio. Not sure.

I contacted nvida on this and they have jumping through hoops to try and get it working, I will give you an update when/if it gets resolved.

The sonic decoder playback is pretty good in Sage. The only problem now is after I reinstalled everything Sage is no longer changing channels properly via the DTV serial control, the picture blinks as if the channel has changed, it shows the number as if the channel has changed, but the channel doesn't change. I think I will just set it up again, reinstall, because it worked perfectly before.

I will just say that the nvidia decoder is a PITA.

[Erich in AZ]

Originally Posted by camus

I feel your pain on this. I have been able to get the Nvidia Decoder to work either.

Yesterday I went to the point of I reinstalling Windows XP Pro, installed all updates, including the most recent version of WMP, updated the graphics driver, etc.
So essentially I had no software installed beyond Windows, the chipset drivers, graphics drivers and WMP. I then installed and updated the Nvidia PV Decoder. Tried to play a DVD first I got audio without picture, I tried setting the decoder to VRM9, Overlay, nothing worked. On my last attempt I recieved an error "not done graphing file" and now the decoder will no longer load, doesn't show in the system tray any longer.

To confirm this I loaded an old version of Sonic Cineplayer, it plays DVD's without a problem, so does WMP now. So I think this is definately an issue with the decoder. One thing I did notice is there may be a conflict with the AC'97 Audio. Not sure.

I contacted nvida on this and they have jumping through hoops to try and get it working, I will give you an update when/if it gets resolved.

The sonic decoder playback is pretty good in Sage. The only problem now is after I reinstalled everything Sage is no longer changing channels properly via the DTV serial control, the picture blinks as if the channel has changed, it shows the number as if the channel has changed, but the channel doesn't change. I think I will just set it up again, reinstall, because it worked perfectly before.

I will just say that the nvidia decoder is a PITA.

Sounds familiar. I pretty much tried it with a clean install and it didn't work too. Installing TheaterTek made everything work. You might see if it helps you too before you reload. It's an interesting experiment.

FWIW, I'm using a chaintech card so no AC97 for me.

[camus]

I was able to get it to work finally.

My PureVideo came as part of a bundle, dvd-bronze OEM as well.

Finally I downloaded the OEM kit for version 1.02-185 here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_dec...2-185-oem.html

Previously I had installed the same version from a disk, on a side note this install required all caps to register the other did not. Weird. Anyway it works for me now.

Steps I took:

1. reloaded the DirectX updates. (I had done this before, but thought I would include it)

2. Installed the above driver.

3. It worked after 2 weeks of headaches.

Picture is so much better, almost worth jumping through hoops with nvidia tech support, who really didn't solve, a pure whim drove me to try it.

Hope it helps you as well.