Hey guys, sorry if there's already a thread dealing with this, but I have some questions regarding HD video via HDMI from PC to TV.

I just got my cables/adapters in yesterday and I'm having some problems outputing HD video from my PC to my Panny 50G10. First, I should mention, I'm using an 8800GT with a DVI to HDMI adapter. Which doesn't output audio (with this card, that I know of) but I already had RCAs running to my receiver from the S-video days. And it's still convenient for streaming Pandora to the living room.

So far, my main issues seem to be 3-4 things.

* It seems like the only Color option to output in the nVidia control panel seems to be RBG, vs. Y Pb Pr or whatever it is.

* With h.264 or x.264 videos (primarily MKVs) it seems like it's doing the decoding in software, basically maxing one of my four (quad) cores. Which leads to hitching in playback, at least with 1080p video. I'm not sure how to change the decoding to hardware properly.

I've tried disabling FFDshow for MPC but then MPC just crashes when I try to use it. And I've read that although Cyberlink's h.264 codec forces some GPU decoding, people prefer FFDshow for quality reasons?

I guess I'm just not sure which route to take with this, or if my video card is sufficient for these purposes?

* With some video I seem to be getting screen tearing. Particularly during motion/action sequences.

* When I was outputing 1080p signal to my TV it got HOT. As in space heater hot. Up until now I've pretty much used THX 95% of the time, and the only HD content it's seen has been 1080i signal from cable (which isn't actually 1080i) and 720p from my 360 and neither has made it nearly that hot. In fact, I'd call the TV quite cool under all circumstances up until now.

I don't have a Blu-Ray yet, so I don't know if true 1080p source just makes the TV work that much harder? Or could it just be due to the TV being on Custom vs. THX?

It really did seem "too hot" though. I could feel it heating the room up rapidly. And it was hottest near the upper corners on the back of the TV. Ironically enough, where it looks like there's space for fans but aren't any.

Could the HD signal I'm sending from my PC be causing the TV to be overworked in some way? I don't want to kill my TV...


A couple more minor things I'm wondering about:

* Should I be using Clone or Dualview for these purposes? I've been using Clone because it seems the least problematic in terms of still being able to see where I'm mousing (PC and TV are in separate rooms).

* With my video card now plugged into my monitor via DVI and into my TV via HDMI, I get no startup screen when I'm starting my PC. No BIOS etc. The first thing I see is the Windows login screen after 10-20 seconds. Any ideas if there's a way to get it to show up again?


Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. And again, apologies if there's already a thread dealing with this. Mods please feel free to move this if it needs to be. Thanks.

As far as the over heating issue I can't help you there. Never had this problem with my panny but its only 720p.

What you want is coreavc. ALong with the newest driver from nvidia. Go to there site and make sure you have the most current one. Coreavc is a codec that has a new feature for nvidia cards called cuda.

It offsets all the video to your graphics card. I have a quad also with an 8500gt and my cpu is at 2-5% while watchng x264. Pretty much idle, it might go a tad higher with 1080p but not much.

The problem is its not free, but I uploaded it for you.

But I'm gonna pm you with a link, I uploaded it for you dont want to get in trouble if I put it here.

For the media player you should use media player classic. Go to the options menu, and then external filters. You need to select coreavc or point it to it if its not there.

Then during playback right click on the video, select filters and it should show up if its being used. You should also see a little green and white circle in your task bar if its working right. Hopefully this makes sense I'm kinda rambling here.

Also if you want to see the bios screen and boot up. I think if you set the TV as your main monitor you'll see it there. Worth a try.

Thanks WB! I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes! :)

Ok cool man, let me know!

Alright, that seemed to do the trick! At least as far as the hitching and (partial) hardware decoding go. I did have to disable FFDshow for MPC before CoreAVC would kick in though. It seems like it uses a bit of one core still, which is why I say partial hardware decoding. Though that may be something peculiar to my system if you're not seeing it. Thanks again WB!

The screen tearing was fixed by changing the Panny to my primary display and the monitor to my secondary. They're two different resolutions, so I guess that makes sense. 1920x1200 vs 1920x1080. But it wasn't changing the aspect ratio, just cropping off the top on the Panny. Regardless, whichever display is the secondary and not at the proper res is the display that has the screen tearing.

It turns out just swapping the DVI connections on my card allowed me to see my BIOS again. So that's cool. Though now I just noticed my blacks are getting horribly crushed. Bleh.

I'm still not sure what's causing the heat. It could be just be due to Custom and Game modes being brighter and using more power. Or possibly because I was feeding it an improper resolution or because of FFDshow or some combination of factors. I'll have to experiment with it more.

Yah your not gonna use ffdshow with this. Its one or the other. Do you have your black levels set to dark? That could cause the black issue.

Your always going to see some activity from the cpu. I mean your decoding 1080p. Thats what you got a quad for right so it can handle it.

Nah my black levels are set to light, except for SD DVDs on my 360. I can't say for sure it's with every video yet either as I've only tested a few. But in one in particular, it was losing alot of detail in the shadows.

Oddly enough, CoreAVC was using a bit of all four cores prior to turning on Cuda acceleration. Now it uses 30-50% of one.

It seems in my experience with a quad core. Al types of different software use different cores. Some will just slam one core, some can use a tiny bit of each.

So I have a question. Are you trying to run your computer with the cpu constantly at 0%??

I mean whatever you do its gonna use cpu power. Its not gonna hurt your computer, just cause you have a quad your system is still going to utilize cpu, I mean I know you no this but it seems like you want your cpu to be at idle.

FFDshow is supposed to give a tiny bit better picture quality but your going to put most of the decoding on the cpu.

Nah I'm fine with CPU usage. Just so long as it doesn't max out one core and cause hitching like FFDshow was. Though my friend was saying disabling libavcodec for FFDshow fixed that.

I was just expecting there to be less CPU usage given that CUDA is advertised as hardware decoding. But I was just told it's actually still software decoding that uses hardware, as opposed to being exclusively in hardware. So I guess that makes sense. In any case, no big deal. Especially if it never approaches maxing the one core it uses.

Honestly I may just end up going the ATI route as I hear they're much better for this type of thing. The card I was looking at had an HDMI out already built in so it's obviously meant for it. Plus its HDMI outputs sound as well.

Oh so your 8800gt has no hdmi out? My 8500gt has hdmi out with sound. This is the best thing for using your gfx card do decode video at this time as far as I know.

Not sure who told you to switch to ATI but I doubt you will see much difference if any.

I just watched a clip of a 1080p movie. With cuda it added maybe 1-3% load to my cpu. Thats pretty damn impressive, dont think int gonna get much better then that.

Whats your total cpu load when watching a movie.

And mine is a q6600 which is a somewhat weak quad now.

Or maybe its cause you have AMD:p j/k

.......I'm having some problems outputing HD video from my PC to my Panny 50G10. First, I should mention, I'm using an 8800GT with a DVI to HDMI adapter. Which doesn't output audio (with this card, that I know of) but I already had RCAs running to my receiver from the S-video days. And it's still convenient for streaming Pandora to the living room.I just wanted to mention (in case you don't already know) that there is a really good Home Theater PC forum here with a lot of really knowledgeable HTPC geeks :)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

I just wanted to mention (in case you don't already know) that there is a really good Home Theater PC forum here with a lot of really knowledgeable HTPC geeks :)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

ack, sorry! I actually didn't know. Thanks for the heads up! And mods please feel free to move this thread there if it makes sense to.

Oh so your 8800gt has no hdmi out? My 8500gt has hdmi out with sound. This is the best thing for using your gfx card do decode video at this time as far as I know.

Not sure who told you to switch to ATI but I doubt you will see much difference if any.

I just watched a clip of a 1080p movie. With cuda it added maybe 1-3% load to my cpu. Thats pretty damn impressive, dont think int gonna get much better then that.

Whats your total cpu load when watching a movie.

And mine is a q6600 which is a somewhat weak quad now.

Or maybe its cause you have AMD:p j/k

Nah my 8800GT has an S-Video out and two DVIs. I'm using a DVI to HDMI adapter to the TV though.

My friend was saying he was getting crushed blacks until he switched to ATI.

I'm getting about 20-30% CPU load on one core for 720p content, and 25-50% for 1080p. My CPU's a q6600 as well. But this XP install is about two years old now, and it's pretty darn cluttered up and buggy. Tons of software installed.

Yah something is not right if your cpu is that high. I have a ton of software too but I'm running vista64 for what its worth.

And yes like Randy said there is an HTPC section here. Good luck.

This is just an update, and apologies if it's old news.

First off, I did buy a 4870 with a native HDMI out and the problem with blacks getting crushed went away. However, I'm not convinced that just tweaking an appropriate software setting in either FFDshow, Core AVC, or MPC wouldn't have fixed this problem.

Also, it turns out CCCP hasn't released a new codec pack for about a year, and FFDshow hasn't had an "official" release in about 5 years!! Things have progressed, and people have released builds of FFDshow that ARE hyper-threaded and that have other advantages as well. I downloaded the SSE version from here. Not sure if the standard version is easier on the CPUs or not, but it is mosdef hyper-threaded. No more hitching, and the best quality IMO.

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDshow.htm

~cheers!