VMR9 Tearing

[LowTech]

Thanks for the explanation stanger. I guess I goofed and voted an affirmative on the tearing issue when in fact this has never occurred to me. I've had less than optimal results when using overlay as well as using VMR9, but not tearing as described.

In my case however I am certain that the most serious problem I face is the fact the LowTech doesn't know what the heck he is doing.

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by stanger89

First the 9500 is indeed a DX9 card, it was one of the first. Essentially it's half a Radeon 9700.

Personally I think there's something horribly wrong with either the drivers or hardware for my Radeon 9500. My understanding is that between the Force Vsync enabled, and from what Jeff has said (he mentioned a reg tweak that would force vsync) my card should not tear. Now whether it has enough horsepower to do VMR9 without studder is another issue. However the other issue here is that in general Tearing/studdering should be resolution dependant, ie at lower resolutions slower cards can do VMR9 w/o tearing, however my card (no matter which drivers) tears at any resolution.

FWIW, here's a very informative thread on the inner workings of PC video playback:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...t=vmr9+tearing

Stanger89, have you tried to force VSync in the ATI drivers themselves? When I was running my 9600 with newer drivers the setting in Sage did nothing as well. But doing it in the drivers did. Or maybe I have it backwards . Overall I would agree the ATI drivers in the area are poor.

[stanger89]

Yeah, like I said above, I enabled Vsync everywhere I could find.

Oh well, I'm finally done with my Radeon, picked up a Geforce 6800 yesterday. Haven't had it in my HTPC yet (need a VGA breakout cable), but in my other system, no tearing at all with 2xQ AA, 16x Anisotropic filtering, Vsync set to "Application Controlled", and that's at 1280x1024@75Hz.

I do get a little studder here and there but I think thats the system's fault. It's a Athlon XP 1800+ running Windows XP SP2. It's running on a POS MSI K7T266 Pro2 (VIA KT266) that can only see half the 256Mb stick of PC 2700, so net I have XP running on 128Mb of RAM. I've got an Abit NF7-S2G (GigE) 512MB of Corsair XMS 3200 and a Antec Phantom 350 comming for this system though.

[wexsmith]

I changed to the Sonic Decoders, from Hauppauge, last night and love the quality. With VMR9 I get a little bit of tearing at the top of my screen. Tonight I'll be playing around with it to see if I can remove it. Hopefully it'll be a fix as easy as enabled vsync or something.

[sub]

Wexsmith, what Hauppauge product ships with the sonic decoders?

[salsbst]

I think he means that he switched from the Hauppauge/Intervideo decoders to the Sonic decoders. No Hauppauge products include the Sonic decoders AFAIK.

[McTurok]

I have a Geforce FX 5200 (el'cheap'o) card.

And I've only started to use VMR9 over the last month.

I like it alot, but not the blurring or tearing I get. I can
live with the little tearing I get (not much at all really)
because my TV is only 27 in which you can't really notice
it that bad. I'm sure some would hate it though. I'm not
a perfectionist though.

I would really like to try and get the fdshow filter (whatever
it's called) working on my system but it's a bit too slow right
now for that to be running. I'm only at 1.4 GHz and 256 meg
of ram. I need to update everything soon then try it out.

[sub]

lol - right you are...My excuse is I've just woken, and cant read a sentence properly yet.

I've got to find me a source of the sonic and nvdvd decoders. Everyone raves about them, but I've never actually seen them in use. I'm currently trying the Intervideo decoder on my Radeon 9200 DVI to plamsa, and it looks a little soft to my eyes.

[LowTech]

I've got to find me a source of the sonic and nvdvd decoders.

Sonic sells the decoder only on their website...if that's the sort of "source" you're looking for.

[sub]

Dont take me the wrong way, I actually did believe there might be a Hauppauge product that ships with the Sonic decoder. I know they ship the Intervideo MPEG2 decoder with the PVRx50 cards, and the Mainconcept MPEG video decoder with the MVP, so I thought it was possible they shipped sonic with something else.

With all the capture devices I buy, its bound to pop up in one of the bundled software packages sooner or later...

I didn't really want to buy the sonic it if its no good, and as I understand it the latest nvdvd are only in the possession of a select few.

[wexsmith]

After reading about the superb performance of the Sonic decoders on many forums for the past 6 months I decided to buy it. I must say I do not regret the decision in the slightest. It definitely performs as well as people say.

So far I'm blaming my ATI 9200 card for my small tearing at the top of the screen. As with McTurok it's not too noticeable, but I am a bit of a perfectionist.

[remmy925]

OK....please dont talk about the NVDVD 4 deocders again. Your just making me jealous that I cant get a hold of em. I liked the way the 2.55 worked but would like to try to 4 to see if it stopps the sputter after FF and RW. I'm tired of getting jealous (Bet that 6800 sure would work nice with the NVDVD 4 codecs......Darn I need a new puter!)

[kny3twalker]

I do get a little studder here and there but I think thats the system's fault. It's a Athlon XP 1800+ running Windows XP SP2. It's running on a POS MSI K7T266 Pro2 (VIA KT266) that can only see half the 256Mb stick of PC 2700, so net I have XP running on 128Mb of RAM. I've got an Abit NF7-S2G (GigE) 512MB of Corsair XMS 3200 and a Antec Phantom 350 comming for this system though.

what happen to the 2.4 Intel you had stanger?

and nice pick up of the 6800
have you bought TT 2 then ?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by kny3twalker

what happen to the 2.4 Intel you had stanger?

and nice pick up of the 6800
have you bought TT 2 then ?

It's still my main HTPC, but I need to get a VGA breakout cable before I can hook the 6800 to the TV, so it's in my other system right now. Currently I'm still trying to figure out what breakout cable to get (Bettercables/Bluejeans Cable/Ram Electronics), and if I want to put a Zalman heatpipe on the 6800 I have or return it and get the Gigabyte model that has one already.

And no I haven't picked up TT2. I was about to, but then I saw that post that nVidia may be releasing the codecs tomorrow (not that I really believe it), but it's an excuse not to spend any more money yet (I've already spent way too much this month).

FWIW, I did a little more testing, and the 6800 doesn't tear even with 8xQ (or is it 8xS) AA, and 16x aniso @ 1280x1024@75Hz. I just want to see it on my HDTV where it should really shine, instead of on my pidly 19" LCD.

[McTurok]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's still my main HTPC, but I need to get a VGA breakout cable before I can hook the 6800 to the TV, so it's in my other system right now. Currently I'm still trying to figure out what breakout cable to get (Bettercables/Bluejeans Cable/Ram Electronics), and if I want to put a Zalman heatpipe on the 6800 I have or return it and get the Gigabyte model that has one already.

And no I haven't picked up TT2. I was about to, but then I saw that post that nVidia may be releasing the codecs tomorrow (not that I really believe it), but it's an excuse not to spend any more money yet (I've already spent way too much this month).

FWIW, I did a little more testing, and the 6800 doesn't tear even with 8xQ (or is it 8xS) AA, and 16x aniso @ 1280x1024@75Hz. I just want to see it on my HDTV where it should really shine, instead of on my pidly 19" LCD.

Does unsing, AA and 16x aniso affect the PQ in Sage.tv? If show does both ATI and Nividia cards work that way too?

This is interesting to me and I might upgrade for this ability.

FYI - I don't game, just PVR & DVD for me.

[stanger89]

You should take a look at this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=441351

At best it's a subtle difference. Not sure if it works on ATI as well, nothing worked right with my Radeon.

[spaceghost]

wexsmith-
Did you get anything figured out? I have the same problem and using an ATI9200...small tear at the top. Only in higher resolutions..can't see it in 640x480. Am going to try the other options listed in the forums(overlay, dxva tweak, etc).

Edit-Overlay works, but looks generic. Default works for tearing, but adds a little studdering.

[mayamaniac]

For me, tearing only happens in fast motion videos like a basketball game. If my TV viewings were mainly drama shows like soaps or any shows with very few fast motion scenes, I would've voted "No Tearing."

But since I watch a lot of sports shows, the tearing is unacceptable to me. Thats why I went the PVR-350 TV-Out way, I have to put up with the instability issues and sacrifice other media functionality of SageTV (Music, DVD, AVI playbacks), but with absolutely no tearing through the 350 TV-out and overall better picture quality, its all worth it.

[griffindodd]

I got rid of all my VMR9 tearing issues by making my projector the primary monitor instead of the secondary one on my 9700pro and making sure vertical sync was enabled. The projector is hooked up via a dvi-component dongle.

Now I get the video tearing on my computer monitor and no tearing at all on the projector where I actually watch my movies. Seems that the video card gives horsepower priority to the primary monitor.

Doesn't matter what decoders I use - I have my overlay in my cat control panel set to 'same on all'.

Hope this helps.

Joel