Problem with 90 series Nvidia drivers

[polen]

I have been having problems with all the 90 series drivers ever since they came out. I've updated them evertime they come out with a new version, currently at 91.47. I have a seperate Client and Server setup. When I uncheck PureVideo's Hardware Accell, it clears up but, this kills HD video.

The problem looks like some kind of a deinterlacing problem. You can see it in the Scienc Channel logo and in the video, like the man's eyeglasses and in the other pic with the helicoptor blades and strips on the paint job.

Here is a list of specs I've been testing on the Client.

----Client----
MLB: MSI Nforce4 Pro Deluxe
Video: eVGA 7800GT CO with driver 91.47
Ram: 2 Gigs
PureVideo: 1.0.2.223
SageTV 5.0.4 set to VMR9 FSE with decoder set to Default

I've attached some pics of the problem. This happens on SD video, I have not seen it on any HD video.

I've tried many different things, but all of yall's help and suggestion are welcome.

-Polen

[polen]

Oh, I forgot to add that with the Nvidia 80 series drivers I don't see these problems, but the 90 series drivers look much better than the 80 series on HD video.

Thanks,

-Polen

[stanger89]

Have you tried checking the "Use Inverse Telecine" option on the Video Color Settings, Enhancements tab?

What do you have set for deinterlace control and mode in the decoder settings?

[polen]

Thanks for the Help Stanger.

I just tried Inverse Telecine and I saw no change. For testing I turned off FSE and running in a windows so we can see more info.

I attached 2 more pics, one viewing with SageTV and the other with Media Player. Media Player does not show the problem, but the CPU was used much more as you will see in the pics. The other info you wanted is in the pics too.

[blade]

You have deinterlacing control set to automatic. To get proper deinterlacing on captured SD you need to use Smart. If you use Automatic everything will be deinterlaced as if it were video when some of the content may be film.

If you look in the decoder control panel you can see how the content is being treated in the Video Format box. Some shows will have a mix of film and video content and it may switch back and forth a good bit.

No idea why the difference in quality.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by polen

Thanks for the Help Stanger.

I just tried Inverse Telecine and I saw no change. For testing I turned off FSE and running in a windows so we can see more info.

I attached 2 more pics, one viewing with SageTV and the other with Media Player. Media Player does not show the problem, but the CPU was used much more as you will see in the pics. The other info you wanted is in the pics too.

Assuming those are from the same PC, it looks like Sage is using a different nVidia decoder than WMP. Do you have an old version of nVDVD installed on that PC?

The screenshot from WMP looks like the nVidia control panel I see with 1.02-223, the one from Sage looks like an older version. I'm not sure if that's all the way back to 2.x or if it's just an early 4.x (ie 1.x) version).

Regardless, looks like you've got some funky stuff going on with your nVidia codecs.

-edit

Scratch that, I see the same thing, Sage seems to cause a different skin to be used.

[polen]

You have deinterlacing control set to automatic. To get proper deinterlacing on captured SD you need to use Smart. If you use Automatic everything will be deinterlaced as if it were video when some of the content may be film.

I have tried Smart and saw no improvement with this problem. The pics are showing video from my firewire TS stream, but I also see this problem on SD that I've captured on my analog channels.

Assuming those are from the same PC, it looks like Sage is using a different nVidia decoder than WMP. Do you have an old version of nVDVD installed on that PC?

The are the same PC, and yes I do have NDVD installed with update 2.55 then PureVideo installed. The NDVD sound decoder works great with PureVideo. I thought this could be a problem too, So I tried uninstalling it and PurerVideo and reinstalling PureVideo with out NDVD and I still saw the problem. I wonder if there's something left over, even after uninstalling NDVD.

Thanks for your help guys.

-Polen

[polen]

I looked hard at the 2 last pics I posted and noticed that SageTV has (DirectX) under the Decoder Format section and Media Player does not. Humm.

[blade]

Originally Posted by polen

I looked hard at the 2 last pics I posted and noticed that SageTV has (DirectX) under the Decoder Format section and Media Player does not. Humm.

I had noticed that, but I checked and saw the same thing on my system.

[polen]

Stranger got me to thinking about the NVDVD. I uninstalled PureVid and left NVDVD installed and the picture looks the same with the problem. I'm starting to think that NVDVD uninstall is leaving something that PureVid is using.

I need a tool that will look at all my decoders and then I need to figure out all the files and reg entries NVDVD uses and make sure they are gone. Then see if this does it.

Any Ideas on a tool for showing installed decoders?

-Polen

[GbrNole]

Originally Posted by polen

Stranger got me to thinking about the NVDVD. I uninstalled PureVid and left NVDVD installed and the picture looks the same with the problem. I'm starting to think that NVDVD uninstall is leaving something that PureVid is using.

I need a tool that will look at all my decoders and then I need to figure out all the files and reg entries NVDVD uses and make sure they are gone. Then see if this does it.

Any Ideas on a tool for showing installed decoders?

-Polen

use radlight filter manager. spot them on the list and disable them.

[polen]

Using radlight I unregistered the NVDVD DirectX video decoder and saw no change.

I uninstalled NVDVD, PureVid and the Nvidia 91.47 driver, then rebooted and installed Nvidia driver 91.47 and rebooted, then installed PureVid 1.0.2.223 and rebooted for good measure. Radlight shows that the NVDVD decoder is not there. Still have problem.

I have also noticed that sometimes for a second or 2 that it will clear up, but then go back to problem. This happens every once and awhile.

-Polen

[kricker]

If you apply this patch do you then see the direct x in the control panel with WMP?

[blade]

Originally Posted by kricker

If you apply this patch do you then see the direct x in the control panel with WMP?

I thought that patch was only for .wmv files.

[kricker]

Looks like it is, sorry I forgot. I am suffering the same issues and I have been in mulitple forums and even more threads. My head is spinning.

[polen]

Well, I haven't been able to fix my deinterlace problem and I don't think it has to do with my install of NVDVD, but I did discover something we saw different between Media Player and SageTV.

Remember the last two pics I posted, where we saw in the PureVid properties that SageTV has (DirectX) under the Decoder Format section and Media Player does not. Well if you set Video Renderer under SageTV Setup to Default, instead of Overlay or VMR9, and PureVid is set as your preferred decoder, then SageTV will use PureVid in a non-DirectX Video Mixer mode and my deinterlacing problem goes away, but more CPU is used just like in the Media Player pic I posted earlier.

True this fixes the problem, but it causes other problems, like high CPU utilization, which didn't affect video quality on my test machine which is an AMD64 3800+ with a 7800GT, but on my client with a Sempron 3000+ with a 6600GT it causes stuttering. Also, you don't get transparent Info dialogs in SageTV and I couldn't run in FSE mode.

So, I did find away to configure SageTV to duplicate the way Media Player plays video, but this configuration does not take full advantage of Hardware Acceleration.

-Polen

[kricker]

I am right there with you Polen. I am running an an AMD X2 3800+ with onboard Nvidia 6150. there is a thread over at HTPC news about drivers and purevideo version which are supposed to clear things up for the 6150. I do not know if it would hold tru in your case as well. I hope to try things out by the weekend.

[blade]

Ok, I did some checking on one of my clients and this is what I saw. With WMP the Nvidia decoder shows VMR is being used (I have the advanced statistics enabled and it shows the renderer as VMR).

When playing back video with VMR in WMP if you have "use overlays" selected you should get VMR playback without the option to use per pixel adaptive. If you check use high quality mode the option for per pixel adaptive becomes available in the decoder again.

On the Sage client when selecting VMR9 the advanced statistics show the renderer as VMR9. If I select Default renderer in Sage it only shows up as VMR. Both have per pixel adaptive available. I also lose the transparent menus, but didn't check for FSE or not.

Maybe WMP and the Default renderer in Sage is using VMR7 instead of 9?

[blade]

After a little searching I ran across this old thread where stanger said the default renderer for XP was VMR7.

That explains why your cpu usage is higher when using the default renderer in Sage and if WMP is in fact using VMR7 why it's higher. Since both only show up as VMR instead of VMR9 that's what it looks like to me.

I don't believe VMR7 uses all of the "purevideo" features, which is why you're seeing differences in deinterlacing. You'd expect better results with VMR9, but it explains the differences you're seeing. It would also explain the differences other people have seen when comparing Sage and WMP.

I'm far from an expert and could be way off here, but that's my uneducated guess.

[kricker]

I think that you are right about XP defaulting to VMR7.
I tried all the 80s series drives I could find. They all gave me some strange flickering poping up form time to time. Looked like video corruption. The 90s series do not do this. I am now running the latest Beta drivers from Nvidia, but I got different wierdness with Sage set to VMR9. The image looks black and white and washed out. FSE is not enabled.

EDIT
the washed out appearance has now turned into a black grid over the image......weird.