Nvidia 8500GT + Vista... whats the best mpeg2 decoder for HD?

[mkanet]

Before switching to Vista, I used Purevideo decoders with my older Nvidia based card. I'm curious what the recommend decoder is for Vista and a Nvidia 8500GT.

[lobosrul]

PowerDVD for mpeg-4 h.264. Still Purevideo for mpeg2.

[mkanet]

I can't get the Purevideo video decoder to run in hardware acceleration mode. It runs in software mode only which the video runs too slowly. I just checked Nvidia purevideo decoder website, they dont say anywhere where its Vista compatible/certified.

[GTwannabe]

PureVideo decoders work fine under Vista.

Try disabling Vista's UAC and reinstall PureVideo. What video drivers are you using? You might want to give the latest betas a try.

[mkanet]

I tried all of that and more in the first 20 minutes. It just doesnt like to use hardware acceleration. Only software yuv.

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

PureVideo decoders work fine under Vista.

Try disabling Vista's UAC and reinstall PureVideo. What video drivers are you using? You might want to give the latest betas a try.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I tried all of that and more in the first 20 minutes. It just doesnt like to use hardware acceleration. Only software yuv.

Are you using VMR9 and FSE?

Thanks,
Mike

[mkanet]

Mike no matter what, the results under sageTV + nvidia purevideo OR latest Cyberlink decoder produce the same results. Just for kicks, I tried playing back my HD videos from sageTV directly in PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra.. OH MY GOD! Wow, now I know what people are talking about when they say Purevideo HD looks very good. It looks like PowerDVD was using all the advanced hardware capabilities of my 8500GT. Blu-ray and HD-DVD look both amazing as well in PowerDVD (got me a blu-ray + hd-DVD combo drive)

Sad thing is I cant do any of this in sageTV. My guess is that the Cyberlink decoders DO work under MCE. I have no idea when it will actually work in sageTV.. and no.. VMR9 + FSE does not fix these problems, it actually made things worse with very strange problems like kicking me out of sageTV video and show my corrupted windows desktop while playing the audio still in sageTV with no way to control the screen.

I am convinced there is nobody that has this work under Vista and SageTV... I asked one of the developers to help me with an unrelated problem by VNCing to my machine... he was completely LOST in Windows Vista LOL! Im not holding my breath to have this working anytime soon *sigh*

Originally Posted by mikesm

Are you using VMR9 and FSE?

Thanks,
Mike

[mikesm]

Whoops, I forgot you were running Vista! Yeah, that's a new ballgame. Perhaps others here have experience with that. I know there are some vista threads in the sage software forum.

Purevideo support for MPEG2 was straightforward in XP, but I don't know how that works in Vista. Presumably if you have the cyberlink software loaded you have their MPEG2 codec loaded as well. I have not seen a description of folks using Sage with that MPEG2 codec.

When it works, it works very nicely. :-)

And no, you do not want to do VMR9 and FSE in Vista. It's different there.

Thanks,
mike

[GTwannabe]

I'm running Vista Business, use an 8500GT, use the latest PureVideo decoders, and the latest nVidia beta drivers. I have silky-smooth hardware accelerated video with this combination.

First, forget about FSE. It's not necessary with Vista, because there is no context switching between 2D and 3D modes (everything in Aero is a 3D object). Leave VMR9 and 3D Acceleration enabled.

Second, download the DECCHECK utility from Microsoft and make sure that PureVideo is set as your default decoder. It's likely that the Microsoft decoder is set as default (as you are running Ultimate, which comes with MPEG2 codecs)

Once you've confirmed that PureVideo is your default decoder, set the Sage MPEG2 decoder option to Default. That should show the tasktray icon and let you view the decoder settings.