HTPC - video issues

[Craig-Rogers]

OK...just got my very first PC built. Two days of trying to get my X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card to work, we finally ripped it out, and are running optical directly off the mb (Intel D975X BX2) into the receiver. Sounds GREAT.

With great anticipation, I put in my very first Blu-Ray disc ('Kingdom of Heaven'). The big red FBI warning was the biggest, sharpest, clearest I've ever seen! Wow. Then the "play", "setup", and various other menu buttons came up, but they were almost translucent with the same red FBI background. ??? Rather strange bug, but regardless, we charged forward, and clicked 'play'.

The 20th Century Fox logo comes up, again, big and bright - impressive, but I did notice obvious aliasing on the edge of the logo. Is that normal? I was hoping for virtually alias free images with 1080p Blu-Ray. Is that expecting too much? (<- legit question, I'm not being sarcastic)

Then the movie starts...again wow. The falling snow looked almost three dimensional. Very, very impressive! But (yeah, another 'but'), whenever the image pans or moves the image stutters. Not horribly, but it's noticable, and rather distracting. It's not ghosting, but rather seems to be almost skipping frames.

I spared few expenses when building this machine, so I'm wondering why I'm having trouble playing back Blu-Ray.

Here's my specs...any ideas what I can do to resolve these issues? I'm guessing it's something easy, that I just don't know about.

Thanks in advance.

motherboard: Intel D975X-BX2
cpu: Intel Core2Duo E6600
RAM: 2GB Corsair XMS DDR2
HD: Western Digital 500GB
Video: EVGA Nvidia 8800 GTS
TV: Sony KDS-60A2000

DVI to HDMI cable connection between video card and TV
Playing back Blu-Ray with the PowerDVD 6.6 BD (came with the blu-ray drive). Is it worth the $99 to step up to version 7.0? Is there something better than PowerDVD?

Thanks!

[jorg]

what prosesor do you have?

[Craig-Rogers]

oops. edited.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by spiffnme

The 20th Century Fox logo comes up, again, big and bright - impressive, but I did notice obvious aliasing on the edge of the logo. Is that normal? I was hoping for virtually alias free images with 1080p Blu-Ray. Is that expecting too much? (<- legit question, I'm not being sarcastic)

The logo is so razor sharp I have seen some stairsteps on the diagonal on the logo on a 1080p direct view. They probably have to blur (antialias) the logo a little on the diagonals?

Originally Posted by spiffnme

Then the movie starts...again wow. The falling snow looked almost three dimensional. Very, very impressive! But (yeah, another 'but'), whenever the image pans or moves the image stutters. Not horribly, but it's noticable, and rather distracting. It's not ghosting, but rather seems to be almost skipping frames.

Ok there are two issues here.
1- Movies' 24 fps frame rate
2- Movie 24 fps frame rate --> 60 Hz display.


1- Movies are shot at 24 frames per second. 24 fps is enough to trick the eye into seeing fluid motion for most motion, but there are some rates of motion that show it's not enough for everything. Slow pans is a classic example, where you usually see a double image strobing from the 2-bladed shutter projection (48Hz) on a theater. (It also makes wheels look as their going backwards at certain speeds). In the 50's they tried going up to 30 fps (Oklahoma! Todd-A0 version) to minimize this and various others 70mm formats have tried (IMAX 48 fps, Showscan 60 fps) but 24 fps has stuck around. So that's a film tech issue.

2- 24 fps movies being played back on 60Hz displays. Well to play back 24 frames in 60Hz you have to repeat them in an alternating 3:2 pattern (one frame is repeated twice one frame is repeated thrice) So you get a start stop motion happening 12 times a second. (That's one of two reasons why 24p Blu-ray players and displays are better than regular 60Hz ones) (for 24fps film material only, of course). This is more noticeable in slow steady motion. Like pans. So this is a video tech issue.

30fps film (frames repeated twice all the time) and 60i video will look more fluid than 24fps film on a 60Hz display.

On regular 480i video on 480i displays these things may have been less noticeable before, as the images are blurrier (interlacing blurs motion on progressive images)

I just mention these things so you are aware of these issues that have nothing to do with 1080p video and observe your set up carefully and rule out any other external (hardware) issues, like the HTPC sending weird frame rates, conflicting with your TV, etc.

(We might get visual perfection when we have 12 bit 60fps 2160p x 5k on 10,000:1 120Hz displays one day you know )

Originally Posted by spiffnme

Video: EVGA Nvidia 8800 GTS
TV: Sony KDS-60A2000

DVI to HDMI cable connection between video card and TV
Playing back Blu-Ray with the PowerDVD 6.6 BD (came with the blu-ray drive). Is it worth the $99 to step up to version 7.0? Is there something better than PowerDVD?

Just to be sure, are both the card and TV HDCP, and HDCP handshaking through the HDMI-DVI connection? In other words are you getting true 1080p? Or 1080i or other?

[Craig-Rogers]

It's definately NOT a 24fps to 60hz issue. I understand all of that (I in fact work at IMAX in post production)

Both the video card and TV are HDCP compliant. I found a newer driver for the video card, and will also purchase the latest version of PowerDVD. Hopefully those two things will solve the issue(s).

[Craig-Rogers]

Downloaded and installed the latest driver for my 8800 card, as well as the latest version of PowerDVD. It looks worse than ever now. There's no way that's an 1080p image I'm seeing. Also, the 2.35:1 image from Kingdom of Heaven rests at the bottom of the screen rather than being centered. I put in a standared def dvd to see what that looked like, and it too was awful. Clearly no deinterlacing was being done...it was a complete mess.

On another note...my desktop is too large for the screen. I have cut off both top/bottom as well as right/left. The Nvidia driver has a utility to resize your desktop. Though no matter what setting I adjust it to, the desktop doesn't resize.

I knew there'd be some growing pains involved, but this is starting to get frustrating. I've had the machine built for a week, and I still don't have either video or sound working as they should. bleck.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

[jorg]

for the edges and realy fine detail it is the video card i think because i know that not one even the gtx and gts nivada cards can do this shadow/lighting and anti-atilisising (i think its called that) at the same time but high end ati cards can(but no dx10 until aprial) but these events should not be noticeable unless your eyes is like 1 " away from screen


please don`t tell me your using vista

is your monitor wide screen

and go to quick time trailers and download a 1080p trailer and compare

what resolution to you have your card set at? it is in a 16x slot right?

[Craig-Rogers]

I'm running XP Pro
I'm using my Sony KDS-60A2000 sxrd television
resolution is set to 1920x1080 (this is the native resolution of my tv)

[jorg]

did you try 720p?

[Craig-Rogers]

I did, and the desktop is still too large.

Though that's not an acceptable solution, even if it did work. I bought a 1080p tv, and blu-ray in order to view at 1080p.

If you scroll up and look at the specs of what I put together, I shouldn't have any trouble at all playing back Blu-Ray at full 1080p.

Thanks for the help...keep the suggestions coming! I sold my Rotel equipment, and put all my eggs into the htpc basket. If I can't get this working properly I'm going to have to find the nearest bridge to jump off.

[iceman]

Watching 1080p on a PC is very cpu intensive and when you said that the snow stutters, I was almost sure it was cpu lag, however, since you had problems with regular DVDs as well, I'm guessing it's not the cpu. I don't think it's the TV or cables either, I think it's the video card/software. Try to get regular DVDs to work first, then move on to BDs.

Edit: Nice setup btw

[Craig-Rogers]

Numerous tests have been done regarding playing back blu-ray on a PC and the E6600 card paired with the 8800 GTS never had an issue. (Until that is of course I bought one!)

I've scoured though the Nvidia control panel, as well as the configuration settings of PowerDVD, but don't see anything that seems to directly relate to the actual playing back of dvd's. Interlacing settings, cache settings, nothing of the sort. Is Nvidia's "PureVideo HD" simply firmware built into their cards? Are there no settings available?

Any thoughts on the desktop sizing? That bug alone makes me wonder if I don't have some driver issue with the card, or at least some sort of settings are out of whack.

[jorg]

don`t knwo if this will help
http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7...1.html?tag=txt

could you list all your problems and go into as much detail as posiable for me plz i am very sorry to hear what your going threw

for your shuttering problem maybe try tweaking your video card increasing fps to as high as tv advises make sure all your connectors from your bd drive to mother board are tight and not lose(what bd drive are you using?)

close almost all programs as seen in pic.

download a 1080p trailer try this one(if u need quick time pro just pm and ill send you it)
http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/thenumber23/

[Craig-Rogers]

desktop: No matter what resolution I set my video card to, I have cut off on all sides of my desktop. It makes things as large pain in the butt, as the edge of windows are off screen, making them hard to move/open/close etc. The menu bar at the bottom of the screen is cut in half, with the bottom half not accessible, etc. The Nvidia driver package has a utility which allows you to resize your desktop. It has no effect. When you select "resize desktop" an image comes up on the screen with large arrows pinpointing each corner, and white borders all around. You can resize this to fit within your screen. Regardless of how I set this, it doesn't take effect on my desktop. I can resize to an obsurdly small size, and apply, and my desktop doesn't change at all.

standard def dvd: image isn't sharp or clear, very bad aliasing is evident. It just looks overall like poop. This was playing back the just release Lowry Digital restored version of 'Die Another Day'. Image quality on that disc is superb, so the issue is NOT the disc.

blu-ray dvd: image is not sharp, noisey image, stuttery playback, aliasing on sharp edges. Overall image quality is just as bad as standard def dvd. It just doesn't alias as much. Image is not centered on screen. A 2.35:1 image rests at the bottom of the screen, leaving all the empty space on my 16:9 tv at the top, rather than evenly split top and bottom.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks again.

[Craig-Rogers]

fyi...using Lite-On blu-ray drive. Purchase from Newegg.com

[iceman]

Have you gotten it to work on a regular monitor?

[jorg]

Originally Posted by spiffnme

desktop: No matter what resolution I set my video card to, I have cut off on all sides of my desktop. It makes things as large pain in the butt, as the edge of windows are off screen, making them hard to move/open/close etc. The menu bar at the bottom of the screen is cut in half, with the bottom half not accessible, etc. The Nvidia driver package has a utility which allows you to resize your desktop. It has no effect. When you select "resize desktop" an image comes up on the screen with large arrows pinpointing each corner, and white borders all around. You can resize this to fit within your screen. Regardless of how I set this, it doesn't take effect on my desktop. I can resize to an obsurdly small size, and apply, and my desktop doesn't change at all.

standard def dvd: image isn't sharp or clear, very bad aliasing if evident. It just looks overall like poop. This was playing back the just release Lowry Digital restored version of 'Die Another Day'. Image quality on that disc is superb, so the issue is NOT the disc.

blu-ray dvd: image is not sharp, lots of digital noise in image, stuttery playback, aliasing on sharp edges. Overall image quality is just as bad as standard def dvd. It just doesn't alias as much. Image is not centered on screen. A 2.35:1 image rests at the bottom of the screen, leaving all the empty space on my 16:9 tv at the top, rather than evenly split top and bottom.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks again.

i think u can set your card to anti-alias this might help are you feeding your tv with 1080p or 1080i?

right click on desktop
go to properties
then settings tab
then advanced
should bring u to video card stuff spend lots of time tinkering there i do know gts setup so i can`t go into further detail
on my card there is a 3d tab and that is were i can change stuff it dose no directly say anti-alias or stuff like that but it dose have ( ) for them


i just cheack out system reqierments from new egg and this is what they said
for video card
Features
System Requirements Pentium 4 2.0GHz or faster CPU and 512MB or higher RAM are required
> 30GB HDD available capacity.

For High Definition BD Playback & Authoring: (Only Windows XP SP2)
Pentium D 3.4GHz or faster CUP and 1GB or higher RAM are required.
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT / 7600GT / 7800GTX512 / 7900GX2 / 7900GTX / 7950GX2 and ATI X1600 / X1800 / X1900 series are recommended.
>60GB HDD available capacity.

HDCP capable graphics card with 256MB RAM, PCI Express x16, 1920x1200 resolution, 32bit color. HDCP capable Monitor or TV for High Definition digital output.

don`t know if the 88000 series or whet ever will work maybe ask around

[Craig-Rogers]

Originally Posted by Iceman

Have you gotten it to work on a regular monitor?

My monitor is not HDCP compliant, nor is it 1080p capable. Having said that, I could get blu-ray to playback, though likely at a reduced resolution due to the HDCP restrictions and the limits of the monitor's resolution.

My tv on the other hand is HDCP compliant, and capable of 1080p.

[Craig-Rogers]

Originally Posted by Iceman

Watching 1080p on a PC is very cpu intensive and when you said that the snow stutters, I was almost sure it was cpu lag, however, since you had problems with regular DVDs as well, I'm guessing it's not the cpu. I don't think it's the TV or cables either, I think it's the video card/software. Try to get regular DVDs to work first, then move on to BDs.

Edit: Nice setup btw

After reading this article, I seems I shouldn't have any issues (hardware wise).

[guidosarduche]

Perhaps there was some setting overlooked on the TV side of things? Like wide/zoom/full mode, noise filters, and such.

I know that happens to me quite often when I build a PC...I always forget to see if there are settings on the monitor itself that is causing the problems, and concentrate strictly on the system itself.