HD200 regularly drops frames on Bluray playback

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Unfortunately I'll have to put up with the judder until I can afford to buy a 120Hz (or 240Hz.... why?) TV. My Insignia doesn't support a 24Hz input as it's only a 60Hz TV.

FWIW any TV with proper 24p support (i.e. a clean multiple of 24 - 48/72/96/etc) will do; 120/240 Hz are LCD specific applications of this idea.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by babgvant

FWIW any TV with proper 24p support (i.e. a clean multiple of 24 - 48/72/96/etc) will do; 120/240 Hz are LCD specific applications of this idea.

I'm pretty sure mine it not one. I did try 1080p24 and it said it was unsupported when I switched the HD200.

[Deacon Crusher]

That's great.

I'll hang on to this info as it may be useful once I get my clearly different and much more severe problem resolved.

Originally Posted by MrFusion

YAY - FIXED!

Bit of a workaround, but functional.

So, what I did:

• Turn off HD200
• Modify <hd200_mac_address>.properties file in the client subdirectory of the SageTV server install. Set the following: extender_resolution_extra_modes=1920x1080p@24|standard\=HDMI_1080p24
• Restart the HD200 in standalone mode
• Go to display settings, enable all display modes EXCEPT for 1080p. This effectively makes the 1080p24 mode the "best"
• Set 1080i as the startup mode
• Enabled native resolution switching
• (last two steps probably not necessary if using in purely extender mode)
• Reconnected HD200 to server in extender mode
• Go to setup again
• Set the default output resolution to 1080p at 23.976
• Enabled native resolution switching

That's it

HD200 automatically changes mode as necessary, and TV, DVDs, and BDs play back at appropriate resolution, interlace, and refresh mode (my LG plasma display does the de-interlacing for eg PAL DVDs which play back at 576i). Everything plays back very smoothly and is very pleasant to watch.

For Blurays, the HD200 doesn't actually recognise the appropriate mode, so just sets the "best" mode. As per the above, 1080p24 is now the "best", and since this is what blurays 'should' be played back at, everything works perfectly (but fragile -- eg if someone enables 1080p50/60, then 1080p24 is no longer "best", so the p50/60 is selected instead, and problem returns).

Thanks very much St(r)anger89 (and others) for all your excellent help!!

Truly brilliant to have this level of support from the community!


Next steps:

• Make this a sticky? Or maybe write a better summary and make that sticky?
• Request to Sage to make the whole resolution matching easier. Perhaps some sort of tool for setting up rules or pattern matching (ie take a number of input parameters such as horiz res, vert res, i/p, frame rate, fourcc, or similar, and from this determine/lookup output mode?)
• Continue discussion with Stanger89 on how content is encoded / stored / played back (we never really concluded that part of the thread, and I think there is a lot of valuable info which could be shared)? Maybe write an FAQ together? What do you reckon -- up for it?

Thanks again!!

[bill321]

I'm a bit confused by this thread - does this fix just apply to PAL or is it necessary/appropriate for non-PAL (NTSC)? I haven't enabled any custom resolutions and I think Blu Ray playback on the HD200 seems fine (at 1080p), but maybe I'm missing something?

thanks

Billl

[stanger89]

If you care enough to have a 1080p24 capable display, then I'd say it's very useful for even "NTSC" people. Though I think "NTSC" people are more accustomed to the 3:2 cadence judder than PAL people so it's often not thought about.

[MrFusion]

Originally Posted by bill321

I'm a bit confused by this thread - does this fix just apply to PAL or is it necessary/appropriate for non-PAL (NTSC)? I haven't enabled any custom resolutions and I think Blu Ray playback on the HD200 seems fine (at 1080p), but maybe I'm missing something?

Assuming you mean 1080p (30, 50, or 60 hz) instead of 1080p24 (or 72) then, yep, you're probably missing out on the original 'film' experience (unless you've got some fancy kit in amp / processor / tv which is doing inverse telecine or otherwise 'enhancing' the signal coming out of the HD200 & actually playing back at 24hz or 72hz without you noticing).

But this only applies to where the source material is theatrical film (or film analog) originally made to play back in cinemas at 24fps, and where the authoring has been done 'properly' (ie frame-for-frame at 24hz). The experience will be a lot different where the source is, for example, video (ie made-for-tv), film-made-for-TV, etc. Also, things get even more complicated when the people creating the Bluray get "creative" with their production (ie telecine the source material before encoding to disk), or where the source has come via 'questionable' channels before being cut to disk (ie there's no knowing how many times the source has been interlaced, de-interlaced, telecined, and de-telecined, etc).

AFAIK, all 'proper' film -> bluray transfers are done full frame (ie non-interlaced), frame-for-frame, at 24hz (ie film rate). At least, all the ones I've seen so far.

So, if you are in an NTSC region, and if you have a bluray of a film that has been 'properly' encoded, then you will be experiencing the movie with telecine judder whereby the HD200 doubles up frames every few frames in order to stretch out the visual content to match the original film (and so that the audio doesn't sound either like chipmunks or peopletalkingatnormalpitchjustveryveryfast).

Effectively what happens is that rather than seeing film frames:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 (half a second at 24hz)

You're seeing something like:

1 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 8 9 10 11 12 12 (half a second at 30hz)

The experience is sort of like:

----x----x----x----x----x--->

Where the - is smooth pan, the x is a little 'tick' where the visual 'hangs' for a fraction of a second.

The above is a bit over-simplified (and ignores all the other fun and games that happens when inverse telecine, line doubler, deinterlace etc processes get in the way), but you get the idea...

This is especially noticeable on panning shots (ie intro car race in Indianna Jones / Crystal Skull -- especially on vertical pan behind atomic cafe sign and next scene with static landscape and cars/trucks driving up to checkpoint -- the cars visibly jump).

Check out the link at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine for more info --> "Telecine judder... The “2:3 pulldown” telecine process creates a slight error in the video signal compared to the original film frames... This is one reason why films viewed on typical NTSC home equipment may not appear as smooth as when viewed in a cinema. The phenomenon is particularly apparent during slow, steady camera movements which appear slightly jerky when telecined. This process is commonly referred to as telecine judder".


Applying the 'fix' (and assuming your display supports 24/72/200hz) gives you back the frame-for-frame playback, and panning shots etc are super smooth.

If I were you, I'd give it a try. Took about 5 minutes from go to whoa to apply the 'fix' (once I'd worked out what to do), and made a significant difference for me.

Bottom line, original source material, how it was captured, how it was processed and stored, plus a number of post-processing factors (such as in the amp / processor / TV) all interact to give you the final picture. In some cases it doesn't work out, and things look terrible, sometimes it doesn't look too bad, sometimes it looks great.

And sometimes the viewer doesn't notice or care.

So... it depends.

Try a couple of different combinations, see if they make a difference, and settle for what makes you happy

Hope this helps, cheers!

[bill321]

Thanks for the excellent and detailed explanation.

I enabled the fix as described earlier in this thread, and it looks like my tv (a samsung plasma) supports 1080/24p - which is good. When watching a blu-ray rip, I have to say the difference is subtle but noticeable, especially when the camera pans.

Of course, now I have a related question. Is there any advantage/disadvantage to leaving the extender in this mode when watching a standard DVD movie (film based) rip? A little bit of testing I've done, but I really can't see anything wrong with the video when playing standard DVD files using this output format. Again, am I missing something?

thanks again

Bill

[stanger89]

Unless you've got a very nice video processor (which seems rather rare), it's probably not going to do anything for you with DVDs. The problem with them is they're "encoded as" 480i60, or put it another way, they're encoded for 480i60 playback, so that's how the extender recognizes/detects them.

That's assuming you've got 480i output enabled. If you don't then it's probably OK for most DVDs, but for video/mixed DVDs, the result will be quite bad.

[MrFusion]

Originally Posted by bill321

Thanks for the excellent and detailed explanation.

You're welcome

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to leaving the extender in this mode when watching a standard DVD movie (film based) rip? A little bit of testing I've done, but I really can't see anything wrong with the video when playing standard DVD files using this output format. Again, am I missing something?

Here in the PAL universe I certainly notice a significant (to me) negative impact watching DVDs when I have the 24fps mode enabled. Same sort of issue, just much worse.

So I did the following:

• In HD200 setup, disabled all interlaced modes (just for fun to play around with making the sage box de-interlace), disabled all 1080 modes, and just left 576p and 720p
• In <hd200_mac_address>.properties set:
  

  extender_resolution_extra_modes=720x576i@50 Deinterlaced|standard\=HDMI_576p50;1920x1080i@50 Deinterlaced|standard\=HDMI_1080p50;1920x1080p@23.976 Movie|standard\=HDMI_1080p24

  The "Deinterlaced" and "Movie" tags are just comments I put in to make the config menu display more understandable... oh, and you'll probably need to change the resolutions & frequencies to match your part of the world.

So now it works nicely for me -- HD200 picks appropriate resolution by source, de-interlaces TV and DVD for me, and gives me lovely 24fps Bluray.

Give it a go & see what you think.

Cheers!

[impro]

I am about to give up on the 24p playback with hd100 or HD200.
I have an open support ticket with SageTV.
I wonder if the hardware is just a bit older.
Just got an Asus O!Play from frys with the intention to return it.
It has in the menu and plays 24P perfect. Not as good as my PS3 but close enough.
I wonder if the asus has better hardware then the sagetv???
If so we need a HD300 soon!!!!!

[jdas]

Originally Posted by MrFusion

extender_resolution_extra_modes=720x576i@50 Deinterlaced|standard\=HDMI_576p50;1920x1080i@50 Deinterlaced|standard\=HDMI_1080p50;1920x1080p@23.976 Movie|standard\=HDMI_1080p24

MrFusion, I noticed you switched your custom resolution to 23.976 per the code above, versus what you initially were using (@24). I also notice you paired that with 1080p24 instead of 1080p23. why and why? just curious if you noticed any differences.

[jdas]

For what it's worth, I did some unscientific testing, comparing the 1080p24 vs 1080p23 setting... and I'm getting better results in scenes with motion and pan with 1080p23.

This is viewing 23.976 fps material on a Panasonic plasma at 96k refresh.

And I have no idea why.

[impro]

Originally Posted by jdas

For what it's worth, I did some unscientific testing, comparing the 1080p24 vs 1080p23 setting... and I'm getting better results in scenes with motion and pan with 1080p23.

This is viewing 23.976 fps material on a Panasonic plasma at 96k refresh.

And I have no idea why.

Hey is your pana V10?
let talk.
I have not had any luck with 24p with my v10