Decoding Issues:Purevideo, FFDshow and Dscaler 5

[fyodor]

I have been trying unsuccessfully to get video playback working correctly. I have a core duo 6400 system with a nvidia 7600gt, 2gb ram, and 300GB SATA hard drive. I have been using purevideo decoders with overlay. When playing 1080i content I seem to get some missed frames (it's most evident during pans). I am using reclock but it doesn't seem to fix the problem. I don't have any trouble with 720p.

1. I seem to get smooth playback with dscaler 5 set as the decoder. However, I also get a one second delay on the audio? Does anybody know how to fix this? IT seems that the sage settings only allow me to delay the audio further, rather than backshifting it to sync with the video.

2.Someone has mentioned that it is possible to use ffdshow with the purevideo decoders. Since it seems to be a deinterlacing problem, I was thinking that I'd use purevideo for decoding and configure ffdshow to use the some other decoder(dscaler)? I can't seem to figure out how to point ffdshow to use purevideo though. Also, which dscaler filter should I use for deinterlacing HDTV?

3. I get very sluggish playback (stuttering) with VMR9, but I'm told that there may be some 3d settings I need to calibrate on the nvidia to get vmr9 to work. Also, when I use VMR9, I get a grainy picture. What should I change to fix this?

4.Any other general suggestions? Any good resources?