Poor 1080i playback with Radeon HD 2400 Pro

[jchiso]

I have a system with a PCI-e Radeon HD 2400 Pro graphics card on which I cannot get smooth playback of 1080i material. This is a system with WindowsXP, a dual-core processor, 2GB RAM, etc, so the hardware specs are more than adequate. I recently upgraded the Catalyst Control Center to the current (8.9) version. I generally use Cyberlink decoders, and am able to play back 720p content without problems.

I should also mention that this is via component video out, if that matters at all, to a 1280x720 desktop.

Over the last couple of days I have experimented with various decoders; ArcSoft, CoreAVC, InterVideo, and various settings using VMR9 and Overlay, with and without 3D acceleration and FSE enabled. No combination produces satisfactory results. I have other clients (which are all single-core, 1GB RAM, AGP-based systems) that play 1080i content flawlessly using the same decoders that I have tried on the problematic system.

There appears to be some problem with enabling hardware acceleration either for the component video out or for 1080i content, but I don't know how to isolate and eliminate the problem. Is there something that I am missing with this video card?

[kevine]

First, make sure it is not the video file that is the problem. Somehow move it off the machine and try to play it back elsewhere if you can to rule out the video file.

Next, are you using 64k clusters? This is important.

Last, have you tried these tweaks:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=872538

[jchiso]

It's not a specific file; all 1080i content suffers this affliction, including live viewing. I'm not sure about the 64K clusters. I assume you mean the partition on which the SageTV application resides, and not necessarily where the captures or operating system reside, since I am able to get flawless playback of these files on other systems.

[Clift]

Try the tweaks. Also note that the HD2400 Pro may not play the H.264 stream smoothly. I had one and it was jittery. Could never isolate whether it was the arcsoft decoder or the card, but I do know that Cyberlink is working well with the GeForce 8600GT. Also, what cyberlink decoder are you using? PowerDVD 8 decoder is a little better than the PowerDVD 7.x (7.3) decoder in my opinion.

[jchiso]

I tried the tweaks and the system performed worse than it had before, so I undid them. I'm using PowerDVD 8 codecs on this system, but have also used 7.x and 5.x. I should also mention that on four other systems my clients can play this content using Cyberlink decoders as low as 5.X. These other systems are all single-core Athlon or Celeron systems with 1GB RAM.

[phelme]

I've got a 2400 in one client, but it's a PCI (not PCI-E) based card (it's in an Asus Pundit, so not much will fit). It does OK on most 1080i material paired with an Athlon 3800+ X2 using CyberLink codecs. BUT I ultimately don't use it because it can't handle HD-PVR H.264 files as well as the NVidia 6150 chipset on the motherboard. A shame because the ATI has better video quality than the 6150.

I'm pretty much convinced that you need at least a 3xxx series card if you want to go ATI. Especially if you want to playback HD-PVR source files. I have a 3450 that plays back everything great and with very little CPU load. Problem is the card starts to go all jittery after about 2 minutes. I probably got a bad sample since others out there seem to have no issues. I only paid like $18 bucks for it so I never exchanged it. :/

[jchiso]

I got this working by following the notes posted here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=148

[mickdaly]

I'm joining this thread because I have a 128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO card in my Dell Inspiron 530.
I have a fully working Sagetv system, but on my Dell Sagetv client I get a playback error on everything I try to watch.
I'm probably missing something, but I've tried all different combos of video rendering, etc.

Mick
HP Mediasmart EX-470 server with 4.5tb storage, running SageTv; 2 Hauppauge HD-PVRs; 2 Directv Receivers (channel changing by usb/serial/usb cables); 4 SageTv HD-200s; Pioneer KRP-500M Kuro plasma; Pioneer Elite SC-07 receiver; Panasonic TH-50PH9UK plasma; Sharp Aquos LC-C4067U LCD.

[fyodor]

Originally Posted by mickdaly

I'm joining this thread because I have a 128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO card in my Dell Inspiron 530.
I have a fully working Sagetv system, but on my Dell Sagetv client I get a playback error on everything I try to watch.
I'm probably missing something, but I've tried all different combos of video rendering, etc.

Mick
HP Mediasmart EX-470 server with 4.5tb storage, running SageTv; 2 Hauppauge HD-PVRs; 2 Directv Receivers (channel changing by usb/serial/usb cables); 4 SageTv HD-200s; Pioneer KRP-500M Kuro plasma; Pioneer Elite SC-07 receiver; Panasonic TH-50PH9UK plasma; Sharp Aquos LC-C4067U LCD.

It's my (vague) understanding that the 2400 cannot do hardware deinterlacing of 1080i material, even if it lets you enable the feature. If you have $50 to throw at the problem, it might be worth trying out a 9500GT card to see if you get better results.

[Savage1701]

FWIW, I have tried an ATI 2400 series and not had good luck either. 2600XT was minimum for me, and I've gone to 3650 series. I don't game, so I don't buy any higher-end than I need to for viewing HD and H.264. Just an FWIW.

[Savage1701]

Originally Posted by jchiso

It's not a specific file; all 1080i content suffers this affliction, including live viewing. I'm not sure about the 64K clusters. I assume you mean the partition on which the SageTV application resides, and not necessarily where the captures or operating system reside, since I am able to get flawless playback of these files on other systems.

No, that should refer to the drives where you are storing Sage recordings. Don't partition your system drive like that. If you can only have a single drive in your system, you may want to logically partition off storage area for Sage recordings and go to 64K clusters there. Everyone is different. I can't tell any difference with 64K vs. default 4K cluster sizes on my storage drives, either under a RAID controller or on my MB ports, but that's just me. 64K may matter in some cases. But I can't think anyone should do that on their c: drive, and you certainly NEVER should do that on a c: drive if it's a solid state drive. I'm assuming SageTV and your OS are on the c: drive, by the way.

You could also try sampling some codecs from Core, Main Concepts and such. Or google "HD Pack". It also may be a friend to you in your time of need...