Freeview DVB-T compatible videocards.

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170 posts

Master Geek

#126415 26-Apr-2008 08:57

Quick initial thoughts on the silent 9600GT - it's a great card. Visual quality is fantastic, it runs hot though at around 60deg on HDTV, apparently that is no sweat. Haven't tried any games but was more concerned with DVB-T. All the issues I had with the ATI card have gone, it's now perfectly stable. Only remaining thing is sound quality on live TV.

sbiddle

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#126418 26-Apr-2008 09:07

ajst2duk: Quick initial thoughts on the silent 9600GT - it's a great card. Visual quality is fantastic, it runs hot though at around 60deg on HDTV, apparently that is no sweat. Haven't tried any games but was more concerned with DVB-T. All the issues I had with the ATI card have gone, it's now perfectly stable. Only remaining thing is sound quality on live TV.

It really is a shame that ATI can't fix their problems. Intel are in the same boat, there are obvious issues with their drivers as Mauricio discovered but they're not really interested in fixing them!

There aspects of the ATI cards that are fantastic, in particular the Catalyst drivers make setting custom resolutions for dealing with overscan a simple task which means you don't have to play around with PowerStrip. It's just a shame they choke when it comes to dealing with H.264 interlaced video..:-(

ventolin

110 posts

Master Geek

#126429 26-Apr-2008 09:37

anyone know if the 7900gt's are capable fo H.264?

smbunn

107 posts

Master Geek

#126435 26-Apr-2008 09:47

I re-installed 0.2.3.0 and the TV-Engine prior to RC1 and got it all going again.

BUT

I can only get TV One, TV Two, TV Three and Freeview HD perfectly running (in Auckland) with C4, Maori, TVNZ6 and 7 just green screen with movement then crash. I watched "So you think you..." and "Rove" with my daughters last night and they agreed we could use my home theatre PC rather than TV. They are intolerant to the slightest glitch so are my best testers of technology.
I swapped to VRM9 instead of EVR (I am running Vista Ultimate 32) and get all channels perfectly, except of course no hardware graphics so CPU goes to 100%. On EVR my CPU runs about 11%.
Looks like I upset something in re-installing drivers.
So I went back to scratch, clean re-build, Sapphire 8.3 drivers, re-installed everything including SQl server and got back to the same position. Good on 1,2 and 3 plus Freeview HD, crap on the others.
I have both PowerDVD 7 and 8 so lots of combinations of filters to try.
Now I spent 6 hours getting back to that position, 6 very frustrating hours on Anzac day.
So now its time to hunt through my settings and find out why hardware decoding works on the most difficult channel, TV3 but wont work on C4!
I cant see why TV1 and TV2 work when TVNZ6 and 7 which use the same transmission standard dont.

openmedia

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#126444 26-Apr-2008 10:45

TV 1 + 2 are using 720p H.264

TVNZ 6 + 7 are 576i interlaced H.264 with spatial direct PAFF encoding.

So they aren't actually the same.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

Nety

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#126512 26-Apr-2008 18:47

ventolin: anyone know if the 7900gt's are capable fo H.264?

Short answer... no. Only the cards listed on the first page have full H.264 decoding. That card will do some decoding but it seems that they do not do the important part which is "H.264 Decode Acceleration with IDCT and CAVLC/CABAC".

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breny

19 posts

Geek

#126513 26-Apr-2008 18:50

ventolin: anyone know if the 7900gt's are capable fo H.264?

None of the 7900GT cards will work. You require an 8400 upwards.
I suggest an 8500GT (if you're not a gamer) as the largest group of people here have had success with this GPU (myself included).
If you are a gamer then go for a 8600GT upwards.

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smbunn

107 posts

Master Geek

#127277 30-Apr-2008 12:09

Got everything going again. Sapphire 8.3 drivers from my HD 2400 AGP card running under Vista Ultimate 32 bit SP1.
Used the registry key hacks already mentioned above and got Media Portal RC1 working under all DVB-T channels.
Biggest change was to set my card output to 1280x720 or 720p for HDMI.
I had changed it too 1280 x 768 which is an option under CCC 8.3 and 8.4 and since my TV was 1366 x 768 this seemed a good idea. It wasn't, I found Media Portal ran fine under VRM, albeit with no hardware decoding or de-interlacing for all channels but only for a few minutes before green lines appeared under EVR, with hardware decoding.
I tried everything, probably spent the best part fo 32 hours in front of that $#^%#! TV before I figured out to change to 1280 x720 and magically everything worked again.
Left it running for about 6 hours and OK on all channels. Left it running overnight on TV3 and this morning my computer rebooted some time during the night so not perfect but usable. Maybe a heat issue? I will check the event log and see if I can figure it out.
My 50" 1080p Panasonic Viera arrives today, lots of fun now getting HDMI to work. I heard that the 2400 HD cannot do 1080p, its doesn't have the grunt, maybe I can just turn de-interlacing off, let it output 1080i since the Panasonic claims to de-interlace signals itself.
Does anyone know if this works?

thebrockoli

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#127282 30-Apr-2008 12:22

smbunn: I heard that the 2400 HD cannot do 1080p, its doesn't have the grunt, maybe I can just turn de-interlacing off, let it output 1080i since the Panasonic claims to de-interlace signals itself.
Does anyone know if this works?

Uhoh. I've got a 1080p Pioneer panel, so hopefully things will work out. I still haven't got around to putting the card in yet, so I guess we'll see. Maybe tonight!

thebrockoli

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#127353 30-Apr-2008 18:23

Yeah, so that didn't work. Setting the screen resolution to 720p resulted in flawless video on TV3, but the 2400 Pro hasn't got enough grunt for 1080p. I'll try some more settings later, but looks like I'm building a new rig from scratch.

Let me know how you get on with your 1080p Panasonic!

smbunn

107 posts

Master Geek

#127476 1-May-2008 09:56

My Panasonic 50" plasma is awesome. Got it going quickly and swapped to using a DVI-D to HDMI cable off the Sapphire 2400 HD card. Catalyst Control Centre immediately picked up the Panasonic and listed all available modes including 1080p. However I could only select from a list of modes for the card output that went to 1080i 30 HZ. The 1080p modes aren’t even a greyed out option. Ordinary analog TV looks poor on a monitor that size, you really see the flaws.

My Media Portal at 720p looked fantastic, I watched Terminator 3 which looked good even though TVNZ are not using High-Def.
TV3 looked fantastic, but I would get my TV the only night they weren't broadcasting any HD programs (like CSI).

I switched the card to output 1080i and had no problems seeing that in the plasma. I am sensitive to interlace flickering and noticed the flickering on the plasma, I know some people are not as sensitive. I set it at 30 Hz.
I ran Media Portal on TV3 news at 1080i and was hard pressed to see any difference to the 720p output, while the flickering of course made it worse. The deadly green blocks appeared after a few minutes so I had to stop Media Portal before my computer crashed. Back to 720p and it ran flawlessly all night.

I am going to buy a Terrestrial HD box, the one people on geekzone are talking about brought in by Satellite Man. While this does not allow recording it will at least have the vital Wife Acceptance Factor and my kids wont give me a hard time.

I ran my Canon HV20 HD video camera via HDMI at 1080p, sweet. Even the kids WII looks better as I can use 480p.

AceVPD

137 posts

Master Geek

#127480 1-May-2008 10:03

Guys I need your advise.

Will a 8400GS be good enough or should I spend the extra money & get a 8500? It's for home theatre PC use only. PB Tech have a fanless Gigabyte 8400GS on special for $66 inc GST so might get that.

I have borrowed a 8500GT from a mate as he was selling it cheap. It is working well with the 1080i sample files the Fossie posted but it has a fan & is noisey so I'm not that keen on buying it from him.

Does brand matter much?

thanks

ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#127482 1-May-2008 10:08

smbunn: My Panasonic 50" plasma is awesome. Got it going quickly and swapped to using a DVI-D to HDMI cable off the Sapphire 2400 HD card. Catalyst Control Centre immediately picked up the Panasonic and listed all available modes including 1080p. However I could only select from a list of modes for the card output that went to 1080i 30 HZ. The 1080p modes aren’t even a greyed out option. Ordinary analog TV looks poor on a monitor that size, you really see the flaws.

My Media Portal at 720p looked fantastic, I watched Terminator 3 which looked good even though TVNZ are not using High-Def.
TV3 looked fantastic, but I would get my TV the only night they weren't broadcasting any HD programs (like CSI).

I switched the card to output 1080i and had no problems seeing that in the plasma. I am sensitive to interlace flickering and noticed the flickering on the plasma, I know some people are not as sensitive. I set it at 30 Hz.
I ran Media Portal on TV3 news at 1080i and was hard pressed to see any difference to the 720p output, while the flickering of course made it worse. The deadly green blocks appeared after a few minutes so I had to stop Media Portal before my computer crashed. Back to 720p and it ran flawlessly all night.

I am going to buy a Terrestrial HD box, the one people on geekzone are talking about brought in by Satellite Man. While this does not allow recording it will at least have the vital Wife Acceptance Factor and my kids wont give me a hard time.

I ran my Canon HV20 HD video camera via HDMI at 1080p, sweet. Even the kids WII looks better as I can use 480p.

You might want to consider swapping your ATI card out for an Nvidia one like I did, I've gone from unstable - green blocky & freezes to a completely stable system that wife & kids are happy to use. It wasn't an easy decision, but I'm glad I did it. The ATI was better on games & blu-ray looked a little better, but the instability on HDTV really killed it as an option.

mentalinc

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#127486 1-May-2008 10:13

Try keep it on topic guys (the TV stuff is moving away from whihc GFX cards work)

AceVPD: It has been reported that the 8400 works (search this topic and you will see), but the 8500 is a better option.

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ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#127501 1-May-2008 10:55

AceVPD:
Guys I need your advise.

Will a 8400GS be good enough or should I spend the extra money & get a 8500? It's for home theatre PC use only. PB Tech have a fanless Gigabyte 8400GS on special for $66 inc GST so might get that.

I have borrowed a 8500GT from a mate as he was selling it cheap. It is working well with the 1080i sample files the Fossie posted but it has a fan & is noisey so I'm not that keen on buying it from him.

Does brand matter much?

thanks

Be a bit wary of that card, it looks to be based on the previous version 80nm tech which doesn't support h.264 decoding as well as the newer G98 spec 65nm GPU's do using purevideo HD generation III. If you want the best HDTV performance, look to pay a premium to step up.

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