What can I do for video tearing?

[Fuzzy]

I use ffdshow for my audio decoder, and have it set to output 24-bit PCM. I then have ReClock set to output 24-bit padded to 32-bit (since some HDMI receivers cough with 24-bit non-padded audio).

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Do I need to register that DLL? When I attempt to, I get an error about the entry point DllRegisterServer was not found.

Sorry, I should have told you what to do. You need to put that .dll in the codec folder in tmt. Then you can register the filters with dxdiag or some other filter manager.

[Kirby]

Ok, I will give it a shot tonight. I was just trying to regsvr32 that dll file.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I use ffdshow for my audio decoder, and have it set to output 24-bit PCM. I then have ReClock set to output 24-bit padded to 32-bit (since some HDMI receivers cough with 24-bit non-padded audio).

Are you doing this for digital audio, or HD audio, or both?

As I am using your external player mod, TMT5 will be handling all the HD Audio I have, and Sage recordings will only be DD.

Not totally sure what the 'bitstreaming' option in ReClock is doing, but it made my DD streams come through to the AVR. At first glance, I thought it would only affect the HD audio formats until I clicked it and got DD pass through on my HDMI.

I'm not opposed to doing multichannel PCM, just didnt know if I need to do this for DD/DTS as well as HD Audio or just for HD Audio formats, or if I skip it for HD Audio because TMT5 will handle it?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Are you doing this for digital audio, or HD audio, or both?

As I am using your external player mod, TMT5 will be handling all the HD Audio I have, and Sage recordings will only be DD.

Not totally sure what the 'bitstreaming' option in ReClock is doing, but it made my DD streams come through to the AVR. At first glance, I thought it would only affect the HD audio formats until I clicked it and got DD pass through on my HDMI.

I'm not opposed to doing multichannel PCM, just didnt know if I need to do this for DD/DTS as well as HD Audio or just for HD Audio formats, or if I skip it for HD Audio because TMT5 will handle it?

Bitstreaming is sending the encoded stream (DD, DTS, TrueHD, DTS-MA, etc), as it's stored on the disk, out to the receiver, where it is then decoded, amplified, and output to the speaker. You can just as easily decode it on the PC (to multichannel PCM), and output THAT to the reciever. PCM allows the PC to alter the audio (to keep it stutter free, for instance), while bitstream does not. Prior to HDMI, bitstreaming was preferred, because it was the only way to get high quality digital sound to the receiver (prior to this, most sound cards only handles stereo PCM).

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I use ffdshow for my audio decoder, and have it set to output 24-bit PCM.

Would that be "24-bit Integer"? And should I deselect all the Pass-thru options in the top section?

Also, I wasnt sure, but during the install of ffdshow, I setup the Mixer setting to be 5.1 (matching my speaker setup. Should I disable the mixer setting?

When I run in 24 bit integer, and output that padded to 32 bit in reclock, with the Pass-Thru options de-selected, I am losing a lot of volume, probably 10-15db, over bitstreaming. What's the best way to get that back? Dont really want to push my AVR louder.

[Fuzzy]

Yes, 24-bit integer is what I use. Yes, deselect the passthrough (otherwise, it won't decode them, and just pass them through ffdshow untouched).
I run with mixer disabled (so the output from ffdshow is the same as what it decodes). I then have ReClock configured to 'Set to matching speaker configuration'. What this does is change the speaker configuration in windows to match that of the media (2.1, 5.1, 7.1, whatever) and output that to the receiver. I then let the receiver handle mixing that up or down to my actual speaker configuration.

As for the volume, there IS some normalization options in ffdshow (Volume tab) that you could use to boost it.

[Kirby]

Will the volume normalization in ffdshow "alter" the audio any, or just boost it? In other words, is it better to not use it?

Something odd I did notice was that on a FOX network show, ReClock was reporting the resolution as 1280x720i. I know its 720p. And my video output is 1080p. So could this just be a bug in the ReClock screen?

Hopefully I can get this all finalized today so that I can get back to Phoenix with your modded XML for external playback!

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Will the volume normalization in ffdshow "alter" the audio any, or just boost it? In other words, is it better to not use it?

Something odd I did notice was that on a FOX network show, ReClock was reporting the resolution as 1280x720i. I know its 720p. And my video output is 1080p. So could this just be a bug in the ReClock screen?

Hopefully I can get this all finalized today so that I can get back to Phoenix with your modded XML for external playback!

Don't pay too much attention to what reclock says, there's lots of bugs in there that just never got fixed. You can choose to just put in a fixed gain in the volume section of ffdshow, and that is all it will do. Or, you can use a fixed gain and normalization to boost the signal, but it will drop that boost if it is too high and peaks. So yes, volume will 'alter' the sound, but adjusting the levels of a 24-bit signal don't really remove any perceptible quality.

[Kirby]

Ok good to know. I increased the volume through the volume tab of ffdshow and got the desired affects. Actually raised it about 8db which let me turn my AVR down quite a bit from before.

2 weird things have occurred though. First, came home yesterday and the SageTVClient.exe had crashed/closed. And when I left it was just sitting at the main screen. Not sure what was up with that, hopefully just a fluke.

Second, and this is repeatable every time I start SageTVClient now, it loads full screen, and I get a spinning circle (but its big and ugly, like its 640x480 resolution) and the SageTV window will blink a few times, then minimize to the bottom bar. If I click on it, it goes back to full screen and seems fine. I'm going to have to enable logging and check to see what is happening, but all this started after I did some installations and removals of things (Shark007, ffdshow).

Hopefully things will settle down now, and I can get back to installing/configuring Phoenix. Thanks for posting your modded XML by the way. Do you think its going to be included in 410?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Ok good to know. I increased the volume through the volume tab of ffdshow and got the desired affects. Actually raised it about 8db which let me turn my AVR down quite a bit from before.

2 weird things have occurred though. First, came home yesterday and the SageTVClient.exe had crashed/closed. And when I left it was just sitting at the main screen. Not sure what was up with that, hopefully just a fluke.

Second, and this is repeatable every time I start SageTVClient now, it loads full screen, and I get a spinning circle (but its big and ugly, like its 640x480 resolution) and the SageTV window will blink a few times, then minimize to the bottom bar. If I click on it, it goes back to full screen and seems fine. I'm going to have to enable logging and check to see what is happening, but all this started after I did some installations and removals of things (Shark007, ffdshow).

Hopefully things will settle down now, and I can get back to installing/configuring Phoenix. Thanks for posting your modded XML by the way. Do you think its going to be included in 410?

ReClock should have no bearing on the system until a playback graph is built, so I don't see how it could be causing any spinning circle/crash issues when sitting on the main menu or even starting up.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

ReClock should have no bearing on the system until a playback graph is built, so I don't see how it could be causing any spinning circle/crash issues when sitting on the main menu or even starting up.

I agree, I dont think its reclock, I think it has something to do with the removal of Shark007 packs, removal/re-install of various ffdshow builds, or something along those lines. Worse case I just blow up my RAMdisk that has SageTV on it, and re-install a new one, and SageTV client.