Frame rate issues for international users / HD300

[astraub]

Hi,

my hope when buying the HD300 was, that it could autodetect the required resolutions and framerates of my media. Unfortunately it fails in many different ways. The biggest problem however stays the framerate selection.

As far as I understand the HD300 idea, it still uses the completely outdated concept of PAL and NTSC and the allowed framerates for those ANALOG standards. Who cares about this analog video on a HD device?

Well, the problem as an international user is that I need all 3 framerates (24/50/60Hz) available all the time. Right now it appears that if the server is set to PAL it only allows to set 24/50 and if it is set to NTSC it allows 24/60.

This is not acceptable, as even when allowing native output resolution switching the system still seems to be restricted to the above combinations.

This means in practice that I have to switch the server to NTSC if I want to watch US podcasts and switch back to PAL when I want to watch european DVDs and podcasts. This is not bearable!

So there are two ways to improve this situation:

1) always allow ALL available resolutions when the output is switched to HDMI and give easy access to those when watching a video (maybe a faster way than going to the settings menu)

2) also always send the original framerate when HDMI output and native output resolution swirching is enabled.

Up to now I have to decide beforehand what kind of media I want to watch, change the setting on the server and then watch my media.

This REALLY needs some improvement! I really hope this can be fixed shortly. I know this basically only effects non-US customers, but it is still a major design flaw of an otherwise quite functinal system.

Greetings
Andreas

[gplasky]

You should be able to set it to both NTSC and PAL. Also make sure you have the latest beta firmware. 20101209-0.

Gerry

[astraub]

Hi Gerry,

can you tell me how to set it to both? Yes, I use the latest beta firmware.

Maybe an addition to make this clearer: I need ALL three framerates available at the same time. It does not really help
to be able to switch to PAL or NTSC - especially as the device requires a restart to switch between both ....

Andreas

[paulbeers]

All you need to do is select all resolutions in the setup that you will need and in extender mode you need to use "native video switching" or whatever the setting is called. Then Sage will use whatever resolution/frame rate is required for each video (or at least the closest one it has available if you used some kind of odd resolution).

[astraub]

Hi Paul(?),

this is exactly, what I tried first. This definitely does not work. If I have set the SageTV to NTSC (and thus enabling only the manual setting for 720/1080 resolution at 24 or 60Hz frame rate, then the native video switching only uses those two frame rates as well and 50Hz frame rate video is showing frame drops and jumps at horizontal movement.

The exact same thing is true when I have set the SageTV to PAL and playback 60Hz US video podcasts. The only thing that works ok in both modes is BluRay as the 24Hz rate is available in both settings.

Greetings
Andreas

PS: the settings for the video output only allow setting of the different supported resolutions, but not the accepted framerates.

[astraub]

Hi,

today I had a look at the FAQ and found an article about adding extra resolutions to the HD100. This required to add an extra lines into the properties file.

I had a look at this file for the HD300 and found that the same line actually existed there as well!!

So I set the device to PAL mode and added the 59.94Hz framerates with the following line:

extender_resolution_extra_modes=1280x720p@59.94|standard=720p60;1920x1080p@59.94|standard=1080p60

Now I can freely select all resolutions and all framerates!

The native resolution switching does not always select the correct framerate, but at least I can easily switch to the setup menu and manually select the right format now. This is just wonderful!

Greetings
Andreas

[Nelbert]

I wonder if the problem is related to the source material and how the rate is being detected.

I have some NTSC dvd's and couldn't find a way to enable all the ntsc and pal modes at the same time.

After messing around with setting the mode to pal and playing back ntsc and setting to ntsc and playing back pal the native switching resolution certainly appeared to be working as my screen blanks on the mode change and everything played back without frame stutters, so I didn't even bother checking the format the amp is receiving. Even playing back freeview/freesat when the output was set to ntsc chose the right mode.

The only reason I mention a possible issue with the source material is I also have a media player which can mode switch. It also has a select PAL/NTSC in the menus which then reduces the output selection. Switch to native only works for some source formats though but not all.

The only issue I have with the mode switching is something keeps getting messed up and stops expanding anamorphic video correctly part way through some of them, but that is a topic for a different thread.

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by astraub

The native resolution switching does not always select the correct framerate, but at least I can easily switch to the setup menu and manually select the right format now. This is just wonderful!

Greetings
Andreas

Let us know if you find which files are not correctly detected.

_Demo_

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by astraub

The native resolution switching does not always select the correct framerate, but at least I can easily switch to the setup menu and manually select the right format now. This is just wonderful!

check out my UI mod plugin VideoOut Tools for the Extender.... it will allow you to see what sage thinks the media format is and what the current output is directly on the OSD and (way more importantly) it modifies the behavior of the video out button on the remote to bring up a selectable list during playback... ie no longer necessary to go to the setup menus...

[astraub]

Hi razrsharpe,

Thanks a lot for this plug-in! It makes life (especially for us international users) a lot easier.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by astraub

It makes life (especially for us international users) a lot easier.

yes it does you're welcome, let me know if you have any issues with it