Video stutter on DVB-T on Win7 Hauppauge HVR4400 & ATI Video card

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Video stutter on DVB-T on Win7 Hauppauge HVR4400 & ATI Video card

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294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#525116 23-Sep-2011 17:07

sbiddle: ATI haven't been able to fix the problems since they were first reported by a number of people (incl myself) in December 2007 when they first started H.264 trials. I'm not sure it's a problem they'll ever solve, despite their GFX cards and chipsets being superior in a lot of ways.

Hmmm. I have no issues in the happy place prior to 11.6 on my system, so it would seem that 2007 is a bit of a stretch. They had good playback up until about mid 2011...

Sure, something seems broken in there now, but it hasn't always been so.

HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, Intel i3, Gigabyte 1050, Corsair 4x1Gb, Hauppauge WinTv, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Yamaha Rx-v6a, Samsung KS8000 4k, Windows 10, Mediaportal 1.30, BLU-RAY: Panasonic UB820

dale77

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#525119 23-Sep-2011 17:12

Pinky83: Hi Everyone!

I'm back.... after many hours watching i have concluded that even when the video is playing smooth it still looks very bad with my ATI graphics (jaggies, blurred, dull, washed-out etc) :(

Wierd. Blu/1080i looks fine on my 10.12 system. In 11.8 it looked just as good, apart from the corruption at the very start of playback.

Mebbe I'll link to this thread on the AMD forums, to poke them a bit for a fix...

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

#525146 23-Sep-2011 18:18

Pinky83: Hi Everyone!

I'm back.... after many hours watching i have concluded that even when the video is playing smooth it still looks very bad with my ATI graphics (jaggies, blurred, dull, washed-out etc) :(

Have you tried disabling most of the "Video" (Avivo) options in CCC?, IE turn off Edge enhancement, De-noise, Dynamic contrast, Whiter Whites etc. I have also read that you should turn off automatic de-interlacing and select "Vector Adaptive". The default Avivo settings result in dull smeary washed out video.

From memory I had selected "Over-ride application settings" for basic colour and everything else turned off except Automatic de-interlacing. Apart from the stutter/pixelation, I was very happy with the image quality.

Regards Allen.

P.S. The equivalent settings in the Nvidia control panel are disabled as well. Improved the Nvidia video no end.

Pinky83

27 posts

Geek

#525235 24-Sep-2011 08:47

Hi dale77,

Thanks for your help and would appreciate if AMD/ATI were made aware (i did also post a comment on their AMD Live forums a while ago but haven't heard anything yet). Blu-rays through PowerDVD9 always look perfect start to finish. Through Media Center 720p (TV1, TV2) and the remaining Standard Def channels (Maori, 4, TVNZ7 etc) look pretty bad with artefacts for the first few seconds, occasional stutter corruption now and again (especially if a show has a lot of white in it or fast movements etc), and the image looks not right as if it is not being upscaled very well with jaggies and unatural motion, quick panning looks particularly bad. Although TV 3 looks much better because of its high definition it still suffers those same nuisances but just not to the same extent as the other channels.

Hi AllenG,

Thanks for your suggestions. I watched FreeviewHD the entire night last night and tried numerous different setting options including all options/enhancements off, only vector adaptive de-interlacing on (which does seem to be the best setting by the way), had the colour options tweaked with override application settings, among many other possible combinations such as smooth motion on/off and de-noise on/off etc to see if they would help. Your suggestions do help somewhat but the image quality is still not very good and seems very unnatural. Often I would just switch to the satelitte channels and even with their low grade bit-rate and definition, they are much smoother and more natural to watch. The xbox 360 as an extender looks significantly better edge wise, smoothwise, jaggie-wise, de-interlace wise, natural wise etc.

I am spending the weekend tinkering before I commit to purchasing an nvidia card, any more suggestions please let me know. Even Reg hacks and dodgy drivers sound right up my alley at this point if it may help.

Thanks guys! :)

sbiddle

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#525236 24-Sep-2011 08:54

dale77:
sbiddle: ATI haven't been able to fix the problems since they were first reported by a number of people (incl myself) in December 2007 when they first started H.264 trials. I'm not sure it's a problem they'll ever solve, despite their GFX cards and chipsets being superior in a lot of ways.

Hmmm. I have no issues in the happy place prior to 11.6 on my system, so it would seem that 2007 is a bit of a stretch. They had good playback up until about mid 2011...

Sure, something seems broken in there now, but it hasn't always been so.

I purchased my first ATI card way back in December 2007 when the H.264 trials started in Wellington. If you look back on here you'll see a large number of threads discussing the issue. Freitasm was even visiting AMD and made mention of the issues and there were a number of people that I'm aware of in NZ that at the time supplied AMD with video samples to replicate the issue.

SamF

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#525247 24-Sep-2011 10:02

AllenG: P.S. The equivalent settings in the Nvidia control panel are disabled as well. Improved the Nvidia video no end.

Which settings are you referring to exactly Allen? I've had a look on my system but can't see anything similar to the settings you mentioned.

BTW, how is your system going now?

freitasm

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#525249 24-Sep-2011 10:07

We use three machines here with variants of AMD chipsets and graphics cards (laptop with AMD Fusion, desktop with AMD Vision, desktop with AMD mobile chipset), and watch Freeview|HD in all of them - mostly with no problems.

We get the DVB-T signal via HDHomeRun seeing I wouldn't add TV cards to the small form factor desktop (Dell Zino HD) or the laptops.

I have not read the whole thread, but in my experience we used to get some video noise and pixelation, but all was solved after we had a proper external antenna installed (thanks to cyril7). The quality improved dramatically since then...

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Pinky83

27 posts

Geek

#525254 24-Sep-2011 10:36

Hi freitasm,

Thanks for your comment. This does give me some hope. I live in a Wellington City Apartment and there is a nice big external UHF antenna on the roof. Having said that there has been the odd very occassional time where we have lost the picture due to signal quality but 99% it seems to work very well. I have another computer with an xbox 360 as an extender, and two TVs with freeview built in and the picture qualty has always looks good to great across all platforms. Maybe I will try some different Hauppauge HVR2210 DVB-T drivers and see how I go (if anyone has some stable driver recommendations for 64-bit Windows I will give them a go). I will also transfer some recorded tv from another computer to compare also to try to eliminate tuner issues. The 720p and 576p Freeview HD channels just look a little too squarey/pixelated, but all the DVB-S satelittle channels actually look okay (they do have a lot of blockiness because of the low bit rate they use), but they look more natural and even edges seem better, easier on the eyes on this computer.

With your AMD/ATI systems do you have any pixelation/artefacts that will usually show up upon first play or when skipping through/changing channel just to check?

Hi sbiddle,

Thanks for the comment. I will have a try at everything possible before purchasing an additonal card, but I have read what others have posted regarding H264 video quality and ATI cards and am aware that it may not work out & I may have to purchase an nvidia to achieve better H264 picture quality.

Thanks everyone!! Hope you're having a nice weekend. :)

SamF

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#525255 24-Sep-2011 10:36

Sent off an email to Hauppauge just now. We'll see what they come back with.

dale77

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#525294 24-Sep-2011 12:27

Pinky83: Through Media Center 720p (TV1, TV2) and the remaining Standard Def channels (Maori, 4, TVNZ7 etc) look pretty bad

TV2 and I think TV1 transmit in 1080i these days. But of course the original resolution of the content will be another driver for image quality.

Even back when I used HD3200 onboard video I was very impressed by the visual quality of Freeview HD on ATI. I eventually moved to a 4670 simply because Mediaportal became unable to provide stutter free playback at 1080 resolution (other software was fine, but I wanted to use MP). This was a software issue specific to MP and low spec hardware. BTW, it is possible that MP 1.2 has resolved this issue as video playback has been optimized.

I did have issues between SD and HD content with black levels, which I resolved to my satisfaction using Levels Wizard.

I also have all catalyst image enhancement turned off. No dynamic contrast, edge enhancement or denoise here. The HDTV also may need configuration, where 50Hz refresh and correct image settings may need to be set.

Unfortunately it seems that the problems are different for each combination of software and hardware.

Pinky83

27 posts

Geek

#525315 24-Sep-2011 12:58

Hi dale77,

I too have another AMD computer using onbaord HD3200 video and the picture seemed much more vivid and clear (I haven't used it for some time and it is running much older Catalyst drivers) for the Freeview HD channels than the A8-3850 (with 6550D GPU) PC I have built. It is a shame that the 6550D cannot use drivers older than 11.6 as many people have stated than their ATI graphics perform really well with H264 video up to 11.4, i think.

By the way. I have transferred some recordings from another computer (which look good on that PC) and they still look a little jaggy for straight lines and outlines of people and just a little pixelated on this 6550D computer. I will try more tinkering with display settings also on the HDTV and Dell screen to see if that may help.

Thanks :)

AllenG

441 posts

Ultimate Geek

#525384 24-Sep-2011 18:04

SamF:
AllenG: P.S. The equivalent settings in the Nvidia control panel are disabled as well. Improved the Nvidia video no end.

Which settings are you referring to exactly Allen? I've had a look on my system but can't see anything similar to the settings you mentioned.

BTW, how is your system going now?

Nvidia Control Panel V3.8.812 with GTX260 card has

As for my system now.... It's not perfect but I can just about retire the satellite Topfield.

I have other issues with multiple superfluous channel entries in the channel list and recordings being fragmented. These are not related to video quality so I've started another thread for those.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=84&topicid=90588

Regards Allen.

mm1352000

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#525393 24-Sep-2011 18:34

@sbiddle

I purchased my first ATI card way back in December 2007 when the H.264 trials started in Wellington. If you look back on here you'll see a large number of threads discussing the issue. Freitasm was even visiting AMD and made mention of the issues and there were a number of people that I'm aware of in NZ that at the time supplied AMD with video samples to replicate the issue.

It is true that there have been a few ATI driver "hickups" since 2007, however generally speaking I consider things *much* improved. The blanket statement that you made is more than a little inaccurate in my opinion. I don't deny that there were issues at the time that you were trying ATI cards. I also experienced issues, however my card is now working very nicely with Freeview HD, sat, and anything else I throw at it. To NVidia's credit, they do seem to have provided stable drivers for some time, however they have had other issues (bumpgate anyone?). Further, the GPU that Pinky83 is using is brand-spanking new - its hardly unusual for any hardware manufacturer including ATI to have teething issues with new parts. Give them a fair chance. At least they're providing regular driver updates...

Pinky83

27 posts

Geek

#525555 25-Sep-2011 14:06

Hi everyone!

I have been comparing and tweaking the ATI card as much as possible and it simply doesn't produce a very good picture for Freeview HD or even DVD & Blu-ray playback. I have since also tried my HP mini with nvidia ion graphics and the picture quality looks loads better for Freeview HD than the 6550D ATI graphics. Thanks everyone for your suggestions but the picture continued to look like mush and with corruption during starting of video to boot :(

So I will purchase an nvidia card but would just like to know if people experience any other issues with the nvidia cards for Freeview HD and/or Blu-ray/DVD playback such as stuttering, frame rates, corruption during playback etc? Also what nvidia cards do others own that are working well and you would recommend, preferably passively cooled but capable of running dual 1920x1080 monitors?

Thanks. :)

Pinky83

27 posts

Geek

#525877 26-Sep-2011 16:05

Hi everyone,

I am considering getting the Gigabyte GV-N450-1GI graphics card. I have read and heard from some that a lot of you have had success with the Nvidia 220 and 430 models so figure that the 450 should be fine also for Freeview HD etc through Media Center. Currently some stores have the 450 relatively cheap (~$135 depending on the store) for a refurbished version of the Gigabyte card with a six month warranty. It has 1GB of DDR5 ram and should be plenty grunty to power two monitors, heavy media center use and more. It seems a good deal for the increase in specs this model has over other nvidia models (210, 220, 240, 430, 440 etc).

What do you guys think? Otherwise there is an Asus 430 passive model for around the same price and 220 models for under $100.

Thanks :)

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