Newbie questions

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rlevis

347 posts

Ultimate Geek

#26178 14-Sep-2008 21:53

Hi everyone! My first post here.

Firstly, I'm wondering what I should have my Windows resolution set to. The TV is a Sony Bravia 32" with a native resolution of 1366 x 768. The TV supports 1080p. The graphics card supports 1360 x 768 @ 60hz and up to 1080p @ 50 or 60hz. I believe the ideal is to run at 1:1 resolution, so 1360 x 768 is close to this. But the picture doesn't look as clear at this setting as 1080p. I suspect that is because the TV recognises that a PC is connected and the TV doesn't provide the ability to set the colour and some other picture settings, which it does at 1080p. The colour is too high and it generally looks dull. I can perhaps adjust this in the Catylist Control Center. I've not tried as yet.

But I'm having a major problem with all the SD channels (TVNZ 6,7 etc) regardless of resolution. It will do some very bad jittering every few seconds for a few seconds. It may be fine for 20 seconds and then it is very jerky for about 5 seconds and then comes right again. I would say it's only displaying about 5 or 6 frames a second during this jerky state. It's quite noticeable on TVNZ 7 with the news scrolling at the bottom. It will jump across the screen several centimeters, and then it's fairly smooth for a while. This is a major concern. Could it be the tv card?

I notice also that every channel including HD channels have some minor jittering. I was watching the TV3's V8 supercars this evening and the current positions scrolling at the bottom jerk a bit along the screen. It's not nice.

Details of hardware are below. Any advice much appreciated.

Cheers,
Ross.

Antec Veris Fusion v2 Case, Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H w/ 1080p HDMI, AMD Phenom™ X3 Triple-Core 2.1Ghz, Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2200, WD Caviar 750 Green, Asustek BC-1205PT Blu-ray, Logitech Harmony 525 remote, Windows Vista, Media Portal RC2.

andrewdixon1000

76 posts

Master Geek

#164495 15-Sep-2008 12:35

Your problem is most likely that your ATI graphics does not handle interlaced content very well (ie the SD channels and TV3). I have the some motherboard chipset as you and had to get a nVidia videocard to get things working properly. If you search the forums you will find that this is a very common issue, unfortunately.

Andy

kiwijunglist

2981 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#164496 15-Sep-2008 12:47

my brother had similar results to you. even though his 32" lcd tv is not 1080P he found it looked best if he set the PC to 1080P resolution. If you decide to get a 8600GT you can buy my asus 8600gt 512mb ddr3 pci-e silent card for $100. It is brand new, unused, warranty till sept 2009 if you want it. note this card takes up 2xPCI slots because it is silent with large heatsink and vent.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

rlevis

347 posts

Ultimate Geek

#164521 15-Sep-2008 13:48

Thanks for your replies. I found I was using an old ATI driver from earlier this year. Just updated to the latest drivers for the onboard HD3200 and the major problem on the SD channels appears to be resolved.

I now just have the minor jitter during panning on all channels including the progressive ones, TV1, TV2, and HD Demo. It's very noticeable on the HD Demo when showing the landcsape scenes with a lot of panning. It's like it's only displaying 25 frames per second, although I have loaded the Fraps utility someone metioned in another thread, which shows the fps rate in the top corner and it shows 50 on all channels.

Is this also an issue with the onboard HD3200 that cannot be resolved?

According to this thread http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=84&TopicId=24384 the HD3200 runs smooth. But I see a reference to updating PowerDVD 8 which I will need to try later today. I'm hoping I don't have to fork out even more money on this project.

Cheers,
Ross.

Quidam

291 posts

Ultimate Geek

#164528 15-Sep-2008 14:33

Just a small comment. You don't need fraps. Try pressing "SHIFT !" and MediaPortal will tell you the frames; jitter; dropped frames etc -all in real time. When running properly, it should be close to 50fps and everything should look very smooth.

"There is no way to Peace -Peace is the Way" (A. J. Muste)

kiwijunglist

2981 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#164547 15-Sep-2008 16:19

FYI IN CASE YOU ARE USING VISTA EVR

Pressing "SHIFT" + "!" only gives you FPS if you are using VRM9
If using Vista, then for H.A. you need EVR, and under EVR the information with SHIFT+! is incorrect

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#164594 15-Sep-2008 19:19

Firstly, Welcome to Geekzone.

A couple of things. You don't state how you are connecting the HTPC to the LCDTV? HDMI or VGA? -sorry: just saw the sig reference. But what model Bravia do you have? There is also a big difference between a TV being 1080p ready & natively supporting this resolution.

The reason: some LCDTVs don't pass 1:1 pixel mapping correctly over HDMI. I would be surpised if a new Sony had this issue, but if it's a lower specced model, it may?????

I may be wrong, but I would think for 1:1PM to work, that a perfect resolution match would be necessary. You may want to try creating a custom resolution. My Samsung 32" model, for example, uses 1360x768x60hz. What resolutions do the other Bravia -model specific- users have?

Secondly, I don't see how a non-1:1PM resolution would cause the video judder you seem to be experiencing. As stated, it may be the ATI integrated graphics which is the cause. What is the CPU useage during TV playback? Seeing how you have a Blu-ray drive, what H.264 codec is used? I would assume PowerDVD7. Same codec as I use.

To check if it is actually connecting, you could use Graphedit to check which codecs are being used for this process. There are a number of threads here telling how to do this. Do a search.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector

kiwijunglist

2981 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#164601 15-Sep-2008 19:35

the jittering may be related to hardware acceleration on the ATI chip. You can buy my 8600GT silent if you like, it is the same card others are using. I decided not to upgrade after i bought it. you can have it for $100, cheapest on pricespy is about $125+postage. Warranty till sept 09. Sorry for plugging that, but the 8500GT/8600GT route is what i lot of people with 780G have done. I'm thinking of using the 780G as a desktop and building a more powerful htpc.

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

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rlevis

347 posts

Ultimate Geek

#164625 15-Sep-2008 21:22

I'm beginning to think the slight jitter I see is natural with HD digital. If someone else could watch the HD Demo channel for a while and when it's showing the "ride" over the snow topped mountains, if you look at the mountain as it moves across the screen, do you see it moving completely smoothly?

Ross.