Refresh rate issues on my Samsung TV fed from a HTPC

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Satch

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Topic # 160390 5-Jan-2015 12:50

Hi all,

I am experiencing refresh rate issues on my reasonably new Samsung TV (model UA55H7000).

I have a HTPC connected to it which services all of my TV and entertainment needs, mostly via Windows Media Center (Win 7). I am using onboard graphics via an Intel Haswell Core i5 4590 3.30Ghz 6MB LGA1150 which should be plenty powerful enough for HD feeds.

I watch Freeview via the HTPC. I have the HTPC refresh rate set to 60Hz (progressive) but often experience a slight jutter when the scene or camera angle changes in whatever I am watching, or at random intervals during the same scene.

I watch Netflix via Windows Media Center too, and normally set the HTPC refresh rate to either 50hz or 24p. The picture is ok but it is still not perfect (more juttering).

And I watch video files both inside and outside of WMC. I mainly have the HTPC refresh rate set to 24p for these files, but still experience an amount of jutter.

Of course I have tried all refresh rates on all content, typically switching between 50hz, 60hz, and 24p (and sometimes even 23p) but things aren't always perfect.

This is all driving my better half up the wall as we never experienced such issues with our previous Sony Bravia TV.

What solutions, if any, are available to me? Is there a setting I should try on the TV, a piece of software for my HTPC, or some other hardware between the HTPC and Samsung TV?

Cheers

richms

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Reply # 1208489 5-Jan-2015 12:54

And this is why PC's suck for video playback. I in general dont believe anyone that says they have a HTPC doing video properly because the hardware basically cant when you dont lock the audio and video clocks together based on the source material.

If you put the TV into game mode where it disables all the processing to look nice, it will not have the artifacts that motion plus makes when the source isnt able to get its frames out at the right time. But it will look bad in every other way.

You can try turning the motion plus sliders down and that may help, but on a PC I was still seeing 2-3 glitches a scent even with the output set to the correct frame rate. Same files played nativly on the tv via USB stick were faultless.

Richard rich.ms

dan

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Reply # 1208511 5-Jan-2015 13:18

lol, rubbish, ive setup dozens of htpcs over the years and all work fantastic in regards to audio/video

have you turned off ALL the picture processing features of the tv that you can to rule that out?

i would probably try a different video card to rule out a driver issue with the intel

if you lower the resolution on the htpc does it make any difference?

Satch

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Reply # 1208514 5-Jan-2015 13:24

dan: lol, rubbish, ive setup dozens of htpcs over the years and all work fantastic in regards to audio/video

have you turned off ALL the picture processing features of the tv that you can to rule that out?

i would probably try a different video card to rule out a driver issue with the intel

if you lower the resolution on the htpc does it make any difference?

Thanks for your reply. Things seemed to work much better on my older Sony so the TV seems to be the source of the issue. Unless you are saying that the driver issue is related to the Samsung?

I'll also try turning off any picture processing on the Samsung to rule that out. I used calibration settings I found on the internet and they provide an otherwise stunning picture. Will also lower the resolution in WMC to see if that stops the juttering picture, although this obviously won't be a long term solution.

richms

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Reply # 1208519 5-Jan-2015 13:28

The TV is exposing the flaws in the output of the PC more than the last one did. Motion interpolation will always have a problem when one frame is there twice, and the one that should follow it is missing, which is what PC's do a lot with their video output, or if you are playing 24FPS content the 3:2 pulldown is a 2:3 for a single pair of frames. Nothing wrong with the TV.

Richard rich.ms

dan

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Reply # 1208526 5-Jan-2015 13:35

i thought that tv was UHD must have clicked on the wrong link, assuming new tv and old one are using same resolution in windows

definitely turn off the different types of picture processing on the tv, as i have seen these many times cause problems with picture quality

i have 2 other recent samsung tvs, 32 and 40 inch in bedroom and kitchen, driven by intel nucs and they do work perfectly, so im sure you will get it working.

Im not using Windows Media Centre tho, i use Mediaportal with LAV Filters for both video and audio.

Satch

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Reply # 1209117 6-Jan-2015 11:54

Turning off Motion Plus on my Sammy panel seemed to eliminate the issue to the point where it is not noticeable enough to bug me now. I'll monitor the situation and see what it is like next time I watch sport on the TV.

Cheers for your help dan.