Overscan is usually 2-5% and it is done to save money in the designing and factory alignment during assembly. If there are optical distortion like pincusion or keystone and there was no overscanninmg, then the edges of the image would not be straight, like when you have a 4X3 image on a 16X9 display and there is bending on the vertical edges of the smaller image. Even movie theater projectors have overscanning for the same reasons and that is why the theater screen has flat black borders to absorb the light hitting it.

If you had a picture on your computer that had exactly a 1920 by 1080 resolution and your graphic card did not do any resizing, then the output of the computer would be exactly 1920 by 1080 and if the display did not do any resizing then you would see the image with the best quality and no interpolation errors. But the image would have the edges cut off by the overscan. For video playback this is usually not a problem, if using the display to show your desktop and you could not see the task bar, then it would be a problem. So to make the image smaller on the display the graphic card has to resize the image to something 2-5% smaller than the original 1920 by 1080 image. For the desktop and games this not a problem and is desirable. But if you then try to display the 1920 by 1080 picture, the graphic card has to re-create new pixels in order to display the full picture in a display size that is less that the original 1920 by 1080. This re-creating new pixels is where the image losses come from.

So if playing a video file that starts out as 1920X1080 the graphic card would have to interpolate new pixels to resize the image because the output resolution is no longer 1920X1080 on the graphic card. Thus the video quality suffers somewhat depending how good a job the card does in this resizing. There are test signals that will easily show this distortion, and it depends on the video content as to how noticable it is.

Therefore if you use your HDTV as your only computer display and the display has overscan and you have to resize in the computer so you can see the desktop then when you play high quality video images that are created at the full 1920X1080 you will never seem them in the best quality. The quality may be acceptable to you because you are not as picky or maybe you have never seen the full quality to know what is missing. It also takes some experience to know what to look for and since I know what to look for it bothers me more when I see the distortion. Kind of like seeing the rainbows on the DLP, once you see them it is easy to see them again.

Sorry for the long rant, but it is not easy to explain.

Mike T

I have a question to you mtallent. I am using Toshiba RPTV which supports 720p or 1080i. I have two choices. One is using 720p and resize the screen to 1174x664 which I can read desktop very easily. Two is using 1080i and resize the screen to 1798x1020. In case I use 720p, based on what you describes above I will only get 1174x664 resolution out of 1920x1080 when I playing 1920x1080 content, right? So from this point of view, I really should use 1080i which gives me more detail of the HD content despite the difficult in reading desktop.

Further I have following question.

1) It doesn't seem to me that I can see much difference when I play 1920x1080 content in these two timing and resolution. May be my eye is not good at differentiating video quality. However I can see the difference between DVD and HD content no matter at what timing.

2) I can play 1080p content in 1080i timing. So the video card must re-render the content from 1080p to 1080i before outputing to the TV screen. Is this correct understanding?

3) I found that I could configure my system in the way that it runs at 720p (1174x664) when displaying desktop and runs at 1080i (1798x1020) when starting Vista MCE because I configure the TV in MCE to 1080i(1798x1020). Does this mean that the video card receives instruction from application when it produce output to the screen?

Sorry for the long question. But I am new to HTPC and would like to uderstand more.

By the way I am using 32 bit Windows Vista Ultimate and Nvidia 8500GT based video card.

If you don't need hardware decoding, I wouldn't use it.

If you don't want to use any video processing, you could try to use a renderer that does not do any video processing (I imagine Haali Video Render would be one)

I do nearly everything in hardware. If my Intel G33 chipset is doing anything at all beyond scaling, it's not very noticeable...

I have a question to you mtallent. I am using Toshiba RPTV which supports 720p or 1080i. I have two choices. One is using 720p and resize the screen to 1174x664 which I can read desktop very easily. Two is using 1080i and resize the screen to 1798x1020. In case I use 720p, based on what you describes above I will only get 1174x664 resolution out of 1920x1080 when I playing 1920x1080 content, right? So from this point of view, I really should use 1080i which gives me more detail of the HD content despite the difficult in reading desktop.

Further I have following question.

1) It doesn't seem to me that I can see much difference when I play 1920x1080 content in these two timing and resolution. May be my eye is not good at differentiating video quality. However I can see the difference between DVD and HD content no matter at what timing.

2) I can play 1080p content in 1080i timing. So the video card must re-render the content from 1080p to 1080i before outputing to the TV screen. Is this correct understanding?

3) I found that I could configure my system in the way that it runs at 720p (1174x664) when displaying desktop and runs at 1080i (1798x1020) when starting Vista MCE because I configure the TV in MCE to 1080i(1798x1020). Does this mean that the video card receives instruction from application when it produce output to the screen?

Sorry for the long question. But I am new to HTPC and would like to uderstand more.

By the way I am using 32 bit Windows Vista Ultimate and Nvidia 8500GT based video card.


1.- If your TV is a tube type rear projection, then it probably does not have enough resolution to get much better than 720P. Also if you are viewing it to far away you will not see all the detail that is available. For example I set 9 feet away from my 61 inch DLP, any further than that and you will not see all the 1080 resolution available.

2.-Yes, the video card will convert the 1080P to 1080i, for film content this conversion does not usually cause any picture quality reduction.

3.-I don't know, I will never run Vista. But neither setting will give you 1:1 pixel mapping so there will be some loss of detail due to the resizing artifacts inherent in the vidoe card, but if you cannot tell the difference from 720P to 1080i then it probably will not matter.

I use a computer monitor to display the desktop so I can run the computer, since my 1080P DLP HDTV has overscan when running 1:1 pixel mapping. I have my ATI card set to play a video file in a small window on the computer and then automatically play full screen on the DLP second monitor. This is called full-screen-video-mirroring, which is not available with the Nvidia 8500-8600 cards, and is NOT allowed in Vista due to DRM requirements.

Mike T

Thanks for the detail, mtallent.

Forgive me if these questions have been asked, this is a monster of a thread.

I purchased an 8600GTS after my 7900GTX died soon after I moved back to university. I had no time for games and I'll I'm interested in is media. I want to view HD content without stuttering.

This is my machine:
AthlonXP 3000+
A8N-SLI Deluxe
1GB PC3200
GF8600GTS Drivers: ForceWare Release BETA, was one of the beta drivers released on 8/17, with all the Vista patches on NVidia's site
Vista Media Center 32bit

Pretty freakin old, I know. I got the 8600GTS to make up for the crappy processor since I couldn't do playback of high bit rate files in .mkv containers without it being choppy. I put in the card and it seems like there is no difference in playback. I still have stuttering when playing back high bitrate files.

I use Media Player Classic with that came with CCCP. Is there some trick to enabling hardware acceleration or whatever it is I need to get ride of the stuttering? I can't seem to find a walkthrough on how to configure my HTPC for optimal use with my 8600GTS.

Thanks.

Can't help with you're issue, but am interested in the final results - currently trying to decide between a 7950GT and a 8600GTS to replace my old 6800GT. Both are available in fanless versions, I like the idea of the 7950GT for games, but really want to be able to support 1080P - have designs on one of the cheaper BD/HD-DVD combo drives...

I'm running an overclocked X2 3800, so have a bit more CPU than you. 720P is fine now, but 1080 pegs one core at 100%.

I use Media Player Classic with that came with CCCP. Is there some trick to enabling hardware acceleration or whatever it is I need to get ride of the stuttering? I can't seem to find a walkthrough on how to configure my HTPC for optimal use with my 8600GTS.
You need a decoder that can make use of hardware acceleration capabilities in the 8600. I think the main one available at the moment is PowerDVD, but it doesn't like the mkv container or x.264 in general I believe and causes problems.

CoreAVC is more efficient than ffdshow for playback of ?.264 encodings, although I don't think it supports hardware acceleration and it's not free.

Hopefully they fix PowerDVD so that it handles all the encoding formats okay, as that would probably be your best bet.

MPC is just a front end player: although it supports a few decoders inbuilt, it mainly uses additional external decoder filters you have to supply. Codec packs are not so great in that you don't know what's doing what. Ffdshow is the most universal decoder and is very configurable, but is not hardware accelerated.

Anyone try to the new 163 beta drivers from nVidia that finally enable hard acceleration under XP for the 8500/8600 cards?

Breaks my heart that I upgraded to Vista *solely* to get that functionality -- and Vista broke my audio, with no solution in sight -- and I could have just waited another month to have my cake and eat it too, with XP.

Anyone try to the new 163 beta drivers from nVidia that finally enable hard acceleration under XP for the 8500/8600 cards?

Breaks my heart that I upgraded to Vista *solely* to get that functionality -- and Vista broke my audio, with no solution in sight -- and I could have just waited another month to have my cake and eat it too, with XP.

I have tried these with a 8600gts. I didn't notice a difference with h.264 (specifically, x264) content played with MPC or VLC.

However, this may not be a valid test. Am I correct that hardware accelerated drivers will not affect ALL h.264(x264 encoded) content? Only h.264 content playable with the newest PowerDVD (and HW acceleration enabled) will be accelerated?

Lastly..I'm still confused how PureVideo HD fits in this equation.

thaks...

Anyone try to the new 163 beta drivers from nVidia that finally enable hard acceleration under XP for the 8500/8600 cards?



I am using 163.67 and my AVC HD DVD movies are playing at 8% and VC-1 is now playing at 30%!!! Its unbelievable. This is with XP, a Gigabyte 8600GTS, and a lowly x2 4400!! Flawless playback in PowerDVD Ultra.

I am going to try the new ones (163.69) tonight!

I am using 163.67 and my AVC HD DVD movies are playing at 8% and VC-1 is now playing at 30%!!! Its unbelievable. This is with XP, a Gigabyte 8600GTS, and a lowly x2 4400!! Flawless playback in PowerDVD Ultra.

I am going to try the new ones (163.69) tonight!

Interesting. Can you clarify when you say "AVC HD DVD"? Are you playing HD DVDs with a xbox HDDVD player? Or, are these h.264 compressed versions of a HDDVD/BluRay movie?

No, these are the real store-bought discs playing in the xBox 36o add-on. AVC is the codec used. I'm actually trying to find a list of HD DVD's that use AVC as opposed to VC-1. Just for test purposes.

I am going to load the new beta drivers right now, but I have to say, as an XP user, 163.67 works GREAT!!!

In one sense, that is GREAT! In another sense, not I gotta decide whether I want to re-install XP.... probably should but it's a pain, for sure.

Damn, is Vista not working for you? I gotta admit, I have all my drivers for all my hardware zipped and in a folder so re-installing XP (I reformat every 6-8 weeks) is so painless.......XP is awesome. We didn't really need a new operating system...M$ just needed more $$...

And when the REAL nVidia driver comes out that supports PureVideo HD, then XP will get even better for HTPC's........

i finally found something interresting with my 8600GT and H264 playing within MKV container.

I use Driver 163.69 and PowerDVD 7.3 3104a Codec and KMplayer on WIndows XP 32bit.

Rendering is set to Haali Renderer.

i have forced all Key about VMR and VMR9 for PowerDVD with Regedit to zero.

Now the Result is fantastic!! Acceleration seem to work correctly as i have with H264 720P upscaled to 1080P screen 42% of CPU used with marvelous colors and it's very smooth at 99%. i think the 1% is a problem with Haali Splitter, i'll try to change to internal MKV parser/splitter to see if i still have 1% stutters.
But the problem is surely fixed now.

I am using 163.67 and my AVC HD DVD movies are playing at 8% and VC-1 is now playing at 30%!!! Its unbelievable. This is with XP, a Gigabyte 8600GTS, and a lowly x2 4400!! Flawless playback in PowerDVD Ultra.

I am going to try the new ones (163.69) tonight!
163.67 still conflict with an 8500GT and crash PowerDVD 7.3.2911 with VC-1 content after a short while. I think PowerDVD 7.3.3104 forces hardware acceleration on, even when you want software decoding.

I should try the latest drivers and PowerDVD, but it's messy upgrading and downgrading and doesn't always go smoothly or cleanly.

IIRC, Shooter HD-DVD uses AVC instead of VC-1.

Latest Beta 163.71 drivers still conflict with an 8500GT and crash PowerDVD 7.3.2911 with VC-1 content in XP after a short while: will they never get this right?

Also with these drivers, evo playback with WMV9 decoder in graphedit is severely bobbed or field reversed: all is well with the official 162.18 drivers and probably up to the 163.67 beta drivers.

When I use my evga 8600gts, hddvd video gets relegated to a small portion of the 1080p screen--it looks like about 256x512, ie about 1/4 of height and 1/4 of width of the 1080p display (top left corner). If I use my evga 7950gt ko with same drivers and everything else same, the hd dvd video fills entire screen and everything plays fine. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be so? I have tried the 162.18 and 163.71 drivers and get same results.

WINXPMCE2005/AMD 62FX/2G RAM/ASUS M2N32SLI MoBo/PowerDVD 7.2911/DVI-HDMI to Optoma VXP/HD81LV FP

Latest Beta 163.71 drivers still conflict with an 8500GT and crash PowerDVD 7.3.2911 with VC-1 content in XP after a short while: will they never get this right?

I haven't noticed this but have only watched a few VC-1 clips and not a whole movie yet. I only recently wiped Vista from my PC, and re-installed XP and the beta drivers. Is this at 50hz or 24hz? I have noticed that after 15 minutes or so, 24hz begins to stutter on 1080p content of other codecs.... but that at 60hz, there is never a problem.

How long does it take for the problem to appear when you are watching something?

Hi guys!
This is my check list:

Have you ever tried to update DX?
DX update (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en)

Have you checked out whether you have these Vista hotfixes that Nvidia advises?
3 and 4 are more important (http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows_vista_hotfixes.html)

I haven't noticed this but have only watched a few VC-1 clips and not a whole movie yet. I only recently wiped Vista from my PC, and re-installed XP and the beta drivers. Is this at 50hz or 24hz? I have noticed that after 15 minutes or so, 24hz begins to stutter on 1080p content of other codecs.... but that at 60hz, there is never a problem.

How long does it take for the problem to appear when you are watching something?
I'm driving a monitor at 72Hz via VGA from the 8500GT with HD-DVD material.

With the latest drivers and HA enabled, I get a PowerDVD freeze after a couple of minutes.

Since no-one with an 8600 has mentioned this problem, I can only assume that the drivers are optimised for the higher level card and are producing a conflict with non-existent hardware/functionality in the lower spec'd 8500GT.

For the period before the freeze, HA seems to be working and CPU utilisation is down to 30%.

Just to make this clear, I wanted to ask:

Does Purevideo HD hw-accelerate mpeg-2?

I'm having serious trouble getting Power DVD to play a few mpeg-2 streams in 1080p that I have saved on my harddrive.

Or is it just h.264 acceleration?

Does the radeon 2400/2600 accelerate mpeg-2?

Best regards,
David

I'm driving a monitor at 72Hz via VGA from the 8500GT with HD-DVD material.

With the latest drivers and HA enabled, I get a PowerDVD freeze after a couple of minutes.

Since no-one with an 8600 has mentioned this problem, I can only assume that the drivers are optimised for the higher level card and are producing a conflict with non-existent hardware/functionality in the lower spec'd 8500GT.

For the period before the freeze, HA seems to be working and CPU utilisation is down to 30%.

Sorry, I played my Blu Ray disc of A Scanner Darkly tonight (VC-1 1080p) fine, using my 8500 GT under XP using the recent Beta nVidia drivers and the latest PowerDVD patch -- at 60hz onto a 1080p TV.

Have you tried lowering your refresh rate? Are you running anything else (re-clock, AC3 filter, AnyDVD, etc?) while playing the disc?

Don't want to derail this thread, but I want to throw this out for comment.

I have an MSI 8500GT that I bought last week for HD viewing only. It looks great with scenes that have little motion, but I get A TON of blocks when there are fast moving scenes if I set it to 'perfomance' or is stutters when I set it to 'Quality'... I am using a USB HD tuner that I also run on my laptop which has a better pic. that this setup w/ the 8500GT. I am confused why the new card performs worse than older laptop w/ Geforce GO 6400.

I have latest drivers and PureVideo decoder.

HTPC hardware (if interested)
CPU: Athlon 64 3800+
MB: Asus A8N-LA
Video: PCIe 8500GT
RAM: 1GB
HDD: 74 GB Raptor SATA

Latest Beta 163.71 drivers still conflict with an 8500GT and crash PowerDVD 7.3.2911 with VC-1 content in XP after a short while: will they never get this right?

Seems to be very difficult. Same here, crashes every time I try to play HD DVD's. Driver 158.22 works properly, without hardware acceleration.

Hi,

I just ordered an MSI NX8600GT-T2D256EZ from newegg. I wanted to get a card that supports HDCP and I assumed all 8600GT's did. Now it seems they don't, there is no mention of HDCP on MSI's website for this card. Does some one have this card that confirm it supports HDCP?

Newegg link to card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127293

Thanks,
Nate

Hi,

I just ordered an MSI NX8600GT-T2D256EZ from newegg. I wanted to get a card that supports HDCP and I assumed all 8600GT's did. Now it seems they don't, there is no mention of HDCP on MSI's website for this card. Does some one have this card that confirm it supports HDCP?

Newegg link to card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127293

Thanks,
Nate

Nate,

It does look bad for out hero :p

NewEgg has a great return policy, Call and you can usually get them to give you a free return shipping label.

- Rich

Seems to be very difficult. Same here, crashes every time I try to play HD DVD's. Driver 158.22 works properly, without hardware acceleration.
Just tried a cheap 8400GS with XP: no crashes with acceleration enabled and 163.71 official drivers, but edges have aliasing as though some form of Bob is going on. Not sure if the aliasing was there in the 8500GT before crash occurred (but I expect it was). Saturation control has no effect in PDVD with acceleration enabled: only brightness/contrast work. Colour control in Nvidia Control Panel seems wrong: 6500K looks too red. NR, EE and IVTC don't seem to work.

How come an 8400GS (64 bit) doesn't crash but an 8500GT (128 bit) does?

Despite Nvidia's assertions, I'm wondering if the 8400GS is closer to the 8600 than the 8500, because anecdotally the 8600 doesn't seem to suffer from the same issues that plague the 8500.

Hi,

I just ordered an MSI NX8600GT-T2D256EZ from newegg. I wanted to get a card that supports HDCP and I assumed all 8600GT's did. Now it seems they don't, there is no mention of HDCP on MSI's website for this card. Does some one have this card that confirm it supports HDCP?

Newegg link to card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127293

Thanks,
Nate

By default, 8600GT doesn't support HDCP. The manufacture needs to add the HDCP chip to the reference board in for HDCP. This card doesn;t support HDCP since it is not mentioned in both newegg web page or manufacture web page.

Fellas, I have a question.Mike T wrote this:

I have my ATI card set to play a video file in a small window on the computer and then automatically play full screen on the DLP second monitor. This is called full-screen-video-mirroring, which is not available with the Nvidia 8500-8600 cards, and is NOT allowed in Vista due to DRM requirements.

Mike T

I just bought a Gateway GM5474 Media PC AMD6000+, 2 gig ram, 8500Gt VC, Vista home Premium
I am trying to mirror DVB Satellite TV to my Panasonic Plasma VIA HDMI. I do not do any gaming OR BD/HDVD, just SD/HD satellite TV and some divx files on occasion. It will not mirror ANYTHING to my plasma tv without setting up the plasma to the the ONLY display, which is a PIA because its 25 feet away, pointing away from the PC.

Does Vista disallow ALL mirroring or just VIA HDMI? Is this a card issue or a Vista issue is what I am trying to ask, I guess. I use DVBDream for satellite TV and windows media player for my divx files.

DO I need to get a new card with a component dongle HD out instead of HDMI? I used an old 7600 GT AGP via component (on XP, though) without problems ( well except being dog slow and jittery on high bitrate feeds, which is why I bought a new PC in the first place) in my old pc. My sound will be 2.1 VIA RCA cables so sound is not an issue. Would the new ATI 2600 XP maybe suit my needs better? :confused:

Thanks for all the help y'all might be able to offer. I can tell you this, after reading all 26 pages of this thread my brain hurts, I had NO idea this was so technical. :)

With Nvidia 163.71 whql drivers XP and acceleration enabled, PowerDVD 7.3.2911 crashes if the Advanced Video button is activated. Consequently I can't get to the de-interlacing settings.

I can only open the Advanced Video panel, without crashing PowerDVD, if a movie is playing: but then the de-interlacing settings are greyed-out.

This happens with both 8500GT and 8400GS.

I don't think the XP drivers are right yet for the entry level cards and it is so annoying.

Why don't you try to change the settings on Properties Page of h264 filter after you opened GraphEdit?

Fellas, I have a question.Mike T wrote this:



I just bought a Gateway GM5474 Media PC AMD6000+, 2 gig ram, 8500Gt VC, Vista home Premium
I am trying to mirror DVB Satellite TV to my Panasonic Plasma VIA HDMI. I do not do any gaming OR BD/HDVD, just SD/HD satellite TV and some divx files on occasion. It will not mirror ANYTHING to my plasma tv without setting up the plasma to the the ONLY display, which is a PIA because its 25 feet away, pointing away from the PC.

Does Vista disallow ALL mirroring or just VIA HDMI? Is this a card issue or a Vista issue is what I am trying to ask, I guess. I use DVBDream for satellite TV and windows media player for my divx files.

DO I need to get a new card with a component dongle HD out instead of HDMI? I used an old 7600 GT AGP via component (on XP, though) without problems ( well except being dog slow and jittery on high bitrate feeds, which is why I bought a new PC in the first place) in my old pc. My sound will be 2.1 VIA RCA cables so sound is not an issue. Would the new ATI 2600 XP maybe suit my needs better? :confused:

Thanks for all the help y'all might be able to offer. I can tell you this, after reading all 26 pages of this thread my brain hurts, I had NO idea this was so technical. :)


I don't use Vista, never will, and this is one of the reasons. I have read on several forums that one of the limitations for more DRM stuff in Vista is that video mirroring on the second monitor is NOT allowed in Vista. Also the 8500-8600 cards do not offer video mirroring in XP. I don't know if it is a hardware issue or a driver issue, but when I installed my 7300 GT card video mirroring was again available using the same video driver that did not allow it with my 8600 card. I only tried it using the DVI output, but I don't think component output will matter in Vista.

So now I have XP running with a ATI X1950 Pro with HDCP, using DVI at 1080P to my 61 inch 1080P DLP HDTV with 1:1 pixel mapping and it looks amazing. I use a 19 LCD monitor for the computer desktop and it makes it very easy to select files to play rather than trying to use the 61 inch as the desktop. I play only HD files from my own recordings and HD-DVD using the X-Box external drive and upconverted DVD's using Zoom player and FFDShow processing.

I don't know if the new ATI cards support mirroring or theater mode as it is called with ATI drivers, my home built computer is fast enough to play any video files without needing the newer graphic cards, so I don't heed them.

Mike T

For those of us using dual monitor setups with a computer monitor on one DVI output and a HT projector on the other, this sounds like a really serious Vista limitation. Are you saying that you get NOTHING at all on one monitor, or that you don't get video playback? On XP with my 8600 GT, I have to switch between the projector and the PC monitor (via the nVidia control panel icon in the taskbar) to get video to display, but the desktop is available on both at all times.

All I get is my desktop PICTURE, but not any icons or anything like that. When I tried to play a divx video in WMP or play DVB Dream over the connection, my Plasma TV went black. Turn the player off, desktop picture came back up. If'yall wanna see it I can take some pics...

Sounds like you're not set up to mirror, but to extend your desktop across two monitors. A mirror arrangement would have identical desktops on both monitors, but video typically would display on only one.

Sounds like you're not set up to mirror, but to extend your desktop across two monitors. A mirror arrangement would have identical desktops on both monitors, but video typically would display on only one.

I tried BOTH ways, clone and dualview. Clone is what gives me the black screen on the Plasma. Thats why I believe it is the card and not vista, but I am NOT knowledgebale enough to know the difference. :) I understood Vista to only be a hindrance when playing BD/HDVD material, and maybe some HD broadcast material. But like I said, I am just a hack at all this, I have no idea of the nuts a bolts of it. I just know my old 3300+ XP system with a 7600GT AGP card would not play high bitrate HD from satellite jitter free, so I need a faster computer. I got the faster computer with a (supposedly) better GC and its worse than what I had.:(

I was using XP with a 6600 nvidia card and video mirroring worked fine, the computer monitor had the desktop with icons and the HDTV had just the desktop picture. When I played a media file with Zoom player I got the player svreen with a small picture on the computer monitor and the HDTV was playing the video full screen with 1:1 pixel mapping, but when I tried to play any 1080P media files I got a 720P output from the 6600. I then upgraded to a 8600 Nvidia card and it would ONLY play full screen when I dragged the player screen over to the HDTV display and selected to play full screen, which has several problems that I don't like. If you read the release notes for the Nvidia drivers they note that mirroring is not available on the 8500-8600 cards. I tried a 7300GT and it also played 720P when I started to play a 1080P file, haven't tried any driver from Nvidia in about 3 months as I have gone back to ATI which has NONE of these problems.

About 3 months ago when I was trying to solve this problem I ran across several forums where there was raging about the limitation in Vista not allowing ANY video mirroring to a second monitor, and I guess Nvidia thought that was such a good idea that they also included this crippling into XP.

Mike T

I have just installed Vista Home Premium 32 bit and the NVIDIA drivers for my MSI 8600 GTS. CPU is Core Duo 6700 with 2 gb RAM. Motherboard is ASUS P5B Deluxe WIFI. Other than Internet Explorer and motherboard BIOS update, I have not installed anything else on this computer. I am getting a green checkerboard pattern all over the screen. This is very visible over dark backgrounds. The checkerboard goes away when I uninstall the NVIDIA drivers. I have tried all the Microsoft hot fixes mentioned by NVIDIA with no results.

Would appreciate any advice / suggestions.

Thanks!

I have just installed Vista Home Premium 32 bit and the NVIDIA drivers for my MSI 8600 GTS. CPU is Core Duo 6700 with 2 gb RAM. Motherboard is ASUS P5B Deluxe WIFI. Other than Internet Explorer and motherboard BIOS update, I have not installed anything else on this computer. I am getting a green checkerboard pattern all over the screen. This is very visible over dark backgrounds. The checkerboard goes away when I uninstall the NVIDIA drivers. I have tried all the Microsoft hot fixes mentioned by NVIDIA with no results.

Would appreciate any advice / suggestions.

Thanks!

your video card might be fried... is it new?

your video card might be fried... is it new?

Yes. Just installed. I will try contacting MSI.

Thanks!!!

I'm running Vista 32 and 163.44 drivers on a mobile 8600M GS and trying to fill the screen on an SD TV with the S-Video connection. The TV output current fills only 90-95% of the screen with black borders on all sides.

My old notebook's mobile 6800 has a setting in the nvidia control panel to increase the size of the screen, so the desktop (or video) image fills the TV screen to the edges. It also had a TV-Out flicker setting.

I can't seem to find either of these settings in the advanced view of the 8600 control panel.

Is there a way to access settings to properly fill the screen with S-Video output? Or if not, which version of the drivers might have the option? Or is there a regedit setting or third-party utility to fill the screen on the TV-out?

Thanks for your help.

okay..what's going on? Is nvidia getting better or is it just some weird combination of settings on this machine of mine??

This is a P5N32 board with 2GB RAM, an e6600 (stock, not even overclocked), and an XFX 7950GT (not even an 8 series...) running Vista 32 bit.

And I'm playing King Kong (one of the toughest VC1 disks) and look at the CPU usage..Does this look right? I don't recall VC1 acceleration working this well on the 7 series before..

http://bimmerboard.com/members/kapone/original/nvidiaVC1.PNG

That's about what I'd expect, as my old 7300 and 7600 cards did about the same. It doesn't vary much between the 7xxx and the 8xxx for VC1 really - none of them can do much more than half the CPU hit of video decoding (and there's audio/splitting/decryption/interactive pdvd overhead as well)

Newbie question

I primarily watch DVD's, but got a evga 8600gts from a buddy.

when i rip dvd's with dvdshrink, does the hardware acceleration work on the encoding of the DVDs? If so, how is it turned on?

Thanks in advance.

Newbie question

I primarily watch DVD's, but got a evga 8600gts from a buddy.

when i rip dvd's with dvdshrink, does the hardware acceleration work on the encoding of the DVDs? If so, how is it turned on?

Thanks in advance.
No.

I've tried four different graphics adaptors that claim HDCP Compliance. Two of the cards were based on the 8500GT (one made by MSI, one by ASUS). None of the cards are actually HDCP Compliant, according to Cyberlink Advisor; therefore, I cannot play HD-DVD or bD without a software workaround, and that software workaround is not viable on new releases.

Are there any truly HDCP Compliant 8500 or 8600 cards?

I recently purchased an MSI NX8600GT T2D256EZ video card. The features listed on the box include NVIDIA PureVideo technology. What exactly does this mean? Are the PureVideo decoders included with this card? Or do the NVIDIA drivers include this decoder?

Or does it just mean this card supports PureVideo technology when used with a PureVideo decoder, which you must purchase separately?

If that's the case, can't you use the PureVideo decoders with any graphics card, so what's the advantage with this one?

Hi Folks,

Once again, I turn to the avsforum knowledge pool. I recently attempted to install an MSI 8600 GT T2D256EZ into my MCE2005 machine but the display (Sony GWIII) goes black after showing the Windows splash. I'm clueless as to how to resolve this issue. Here are the facts:
- the display operates properly in Safe Mode.
- the machine previously displayed properly via the onboard 6150 graphics (MSI board).
- i tried both the driver that came with the card and the latest from MSI.
- the board appears to auto detect the presence of the card in the PCI-E slot and enables it.
- in the control panel, both the 6150 and 8600 are listed as display adapters (do I need to uninstall the 6150?).
I thought that the issue may be due to my monitors lack of HDCP compliance, but based on previous posts it appears that HDCP is not enabled on this card?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

David

Hi Folks,

Once again, I turn to the avsforum knowledge pool. I recently attempted to install an MSI 8600 GT T2D256EZ into my MCE2005 machine but the display (Sony GWIII) goes black after showing the Windows splash. I'm clueless as to how to resolve this issue. Here are the facts:
- the display operates properly in Safe Mode.
- the machine previously displayed properly via the onboard 6150 graphics (MSI board).
- i tried both the driver that came with the card and the latest from MSI.
- the board appears to auto detect the presence of the card in the PCI-E slot and enables it.
- in the control panel, both the 6150 and 8600 are listed as display adapters (do I need to uninstall the 6150?).
I thought that the issue may be due to my monitors lack of HDCP compliance, but based on previous posts it appears that HDCP is not enabled on this card?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

David

I think you may need to disable the onboard 6150. When you reboot your machine, press whatever it says to change system settings in the bios and then disable onboard video.

Now, if only someone would answer my PureVideo question... please, pretty please?

That did it. Thanks Nor22.

I've tried four different graphics adaptors that claim HDCP Compliance. Two of the cards were based on the 8500GT (one made by MSI, one by ASUS). None of the cards are actually HDCP Compliant, according to Cyberlink Advisor; therefore, I cannot play HD-DVD or bD without a software workaround, and that software workaround is not viable on new releases.

Are there any truly HDCP Compliant 8500 or 8600 cards?
Do the card specifications actually say HDCP enabled? I know the earlier MSI ones didn't even mention it in the specs, but I'm not sure about ASUS. I have also noticed that some manufacturers don't spell HDCP out clearly, but many mention HDMI capability (often via an optional dongle attached to the DVI port). Note that HDMI capability (via dongle) doesn't necessarily mean HDCP is enabled: the product does need to clearly state HDCP enabled in the specifications.

I'm using Gigabyte and Galaxy 8x00 series cards which do mention HDCP on the manufacturer product pages and in the case of Gigabyte, state it clearly on the box. However, I don't have equipment to test out the HDCP compatibility and it's not a concern for me as I use VGA.

If you told me that all the cards you tested were HDCP enabled, according to the manufacturer specs, and you were still having HDCP issues with PowerDVD, then I would be inclined to think it might be your display that was borderline in its HDCP compliance, rather than the graphics cards. That's not to say that there aren't compatibility issues with many graphics cards, but a weight of evidence generally points in the right direction.

With this much grief over HDMI, I think VGA is worth a shot (if supported by the display).

I had a MSI 8600GT until a month ago and HDCP was not enabled!

I recently purchased an MSI NX8600GT T2D256EZ video card. The features listed on the box include NVIDIA PureVideo technology. What exactly does this mean? Are the PureVideo decoders included with this card? Or do the NVIDIA drivers include this decoder?

Or does it just mean this card supports PureVideo technology when used with a PureVideo decoder, which you must purchase separately?

If that's the case, can't you use the PureVideo decoders with any graphics card, so what's the advantage with this one?
Nvidia Purevideo Technology is basically performing advanced processing of video data in hardware on the GPU instead of in software on the CPU. The technology is accessed via the drivers.

Nvidia Purevideo Decoder leverages Nvidia Purevideo Technology. However, there are other players or decoders that also can use Nvidia Purevideo Technology via the drivers (eg PowerDVD): you are not forced to use Nvidia's decoder to access the hardware acceleration capabilities of the graphics cards.

The Nvidia drivers provide access to the Purevideo Technology, but don't include the Purevideo Decoder functionality or any decoder functionality for that matter: that requires a 3rd party software application.

Nvidia charges separately for its Purevideo Decoder. I'm not sure whether it is included on the CDROM with Nvidia graphics cards, but I doubt it.

Nvidia charges separately for its Purevideo Decoder. I'm not sure whether it is included on the CDROM with Nvidia graphics cards, but I doubt it.

It is not included on the CDROM coming with nVidiagraphics cards,
it is sold separately by nVidia.
But it supports just PureVideo(first generation PV) not PureVideo HD.
The only decoder which is able to activate PV HD is Cyberlink's 7.3 (and later) decoder.

It is not included on the CDROM coming with nVidiagraphics cards,
it is sold separately by nVidia.
But it supports just PureVideo(first generation PV) not PureVideo HD.
The only decoder which is able to activate PV HD is Cyberlink's 7.3 (and later) decoder.

Do you know if Microsoft's decoder fully supports purevideoHD hardware acceleration in Vista with the latest Nvidia drivers? If what features are supported? There is some conflicting info out there, I read on some posts that the Microsoft decoder will support hardware decoding and that Cyberlinks decoder is not needed.

Note: Fully featured means the 3 codecs, VC1, MPEG2 and H264 with all the special de-interlacing, deblocking, etc, etc...

Based on what you've said, the ONLY way to take advantage of Nvidia's purevideoHD hardware acceleration in VMC is to buy and install the latest version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD and use the VMCD.EXE utility to change the video decoder to cyberlink's. That sucks, all this avertising for HD decoding but to take advantage of it I have to buy extra $100 software (cyberlink) and jump through hoops (VMCD tool) to get it to work with Vista Media Center.

I've tried four different graphics adaptors that claim HDCP Compliance. Two of the cards were based on the 8500GT (one made by MSI, one by ASUS). None of the cards are actually HDCP Compliant, according to Cyberlink Advisor; therefore, I cannot play HD-DVD or bD without a software workaround, and that software workaround is not viable on new releases.

Are there any truly HDCP Compliant 8500 or 8600 cards?


I am currently building a PC and bought THIS CARD (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814127301) because it said it is HDCP compliant, on MSI's info page HERE (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=NX8500GT-MTD256EH&class=vga).

Also there is a customer review on newegg, Titled "HDCP..Ready.Forshow" that specifically mentions that both BR and HD-DVD work with it (using the LG combo drive that I plan on getting).

That card also has an SPDIF input that I plugged into the abit IP35 Pro SPDIF out on the motherboard, so that an HDMI cable will carry the Audio and video.

I haven't tried it yet, waiting on the last piece of the build, the CPU.

IanD...i have the asus en8500gt and i can tell you hdcp is enabled and working using both bd (bd rom)and hd dvd (360 add on) works very well after updating my power dvd 7.3 v connected to my 40' sony klv2500 lcd dvi>hdmi...good luck

Do you know if Microsoft's decoder fully supports purevideoHD hardware acceleration in Vista with the latest Nvidia drivers? If what features are supported? There is some conflicting info out there, I read on some posts that the Microsoft decoder will support hardware decoding and that Cyberlinks decoder is not needed.

Note: Fully featured means the 3 codecs, VC1, MPEG2 and H264 with all the special de-interlacing, deblocking, etc, etc...

Based on what you've said, the ONLY way to take advantage of Nvidia's purevideoHD hardware acceleration in VMC is to buy and install the latest version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD and use the VMCD.EXE utility to change the video decoder to cyberlink's. That sucks, all this avertising for HD decoding but to take advantage of it I have to buy extra $100 software (cyberlink) and jump through hoops (VMCD tool) to get it to work with Vista Media Center.
Microsoft's only decoder is WMV9 and that only handles VC-1 and prior WMV codecs. Although it is free, it's basically just a decoder and doesn't have any advanced de-interlacing, deblocking etc features: this is okay if you are playing progressive VC-1, but not for interlaced. Whilst it does support hardware acceleration, I'm not sure exactly what PurevideoHD elements it supports, or how that differs between XP and Vista. I can tell you that playing a VC-1 evo with DXVA enabled in the WMV9 decoder under XP results in approx the same CPU usage with an 8600GT as PowerDVD in HA mode.

The sad reality is that I think there are no other free decoders to handle VC-1, mpeg2 or H.264 which leverage PurevideoHD.

If you went to ATI, I think AVIVO is free and IIRC that does handle hardware accelerated mpeg2, but not sure about VC-1 or H.264.

PowerDVD does it all, but with varying degrees of success and it is still very buggy.

Note that Nvidia doesn't accelerate VC-1 much compared to H.264 and so loads the CPU up more. If you want 100% CPU offload, you need to go to ATI, but I wish you luck with that currently buggy implementation too.

Do you know if Microsoft's decoder fully supports purevideoHD hardware acceleration in Vista with the latest Nvidia drivers? If what features are supported? There is some conflicting info out there, I read on some posts that the Microsoft decoder will support hardware decoding and that Cyberlinks decoder is not needed.

Note: Fully featured means the 3 codecs, VC1, MPEG2 and H264 with all the special de-interlacing, deblocking, etc, etc...

Based on what you've said, the ONLY way to take advantage of Nvidia's purevideoHD hardware acceleration in VMC is to buy and install the latest version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD and use the VMCD.EXE utility to change the video decoder to cyberlink's. That sucks, all this avertising for HD decoding but to take advantage of it I have to buy extra $100 software (cyberlink) and jump through hoops (VMCD tool) to get it to work with Vista Media Center.

Hi,
Yes with DX10's MS mpeg2 decoder(on Vista) supports PV1 and IMO it is the best one for SD/HD mpeg2 acceleration.
For h264, no alternative except from Cyberlink's h264 decoder(V7.3 and later)
If you click on my nick you can find out how to watch recorded files with MCE.
(EVR is default renderer anymore)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=900747

I've tried four different graphics adaptors that claim HDCP Compliance. Two of the cards were based on the 8500GT (one made by MSI, one by ASUS). None of the cards are actually HDCP Compliant, according to Cyberlink Advisor; therefore, I cannot play HD-DVD or bD without a software workaround, and that software workaround is not viable on new releases.

Are there any truly HDCP Compliant 8500 or 8600 cards?

I have an ATI X1959PRO that works fine with HD-DVD movies. I found the Cyberlink advisor to NOT be very accurate and so you should not use it as the final answer. Also every monitor you have connected to a digital output from your video card must be HDCP compliant, I had to switch my LCD computer monitor to the analog VGA connector in order to play HD-DVD movies on my X-Box drive onto my 61 inch DLP HDTV.

I also have an PNY 8600GT that also worked with HDCP, but it does not do video mirroring onto the second monitor, I have to drag the video player software onto the second monitor and then select full screen and I don't like this way to play files so the 8600 is now setting on the shelf.

Mike T

I was reading elsewhere that the nvidia 8x00 drivers don't handle two monitors well. Is that right?

I was reading elsewhere that the nvidia 8x00 drivers don't handle two monitors well. Is that right?

It is not true.

I have a HTPC using two monitors, my 19 inch LCD for the desktop and a 61 inch 1080P DLP for playing HDTV files. I use the mode called Video Mirroring by Nvidia. That is when I open player software like Media player calssic or Zoom player on the computer I then navigate to the media file I want to play, play the file in a small window on the computer monitor and it automatically play full screen on the second monitor.

I use 2 monitors because I want the better picture quality of 1:1 Pixel mapping and the overscan on the DLP makes using it for the Desktop very difficult.

My results about 5 months ago with a 8600 card and the latest drivers at that time was that the Video Mirroring mode was NOT available for the 8500-8600 cards. I read on some forums that this mode was not allowed in Vista due to DRM. I use XP SP2 and it also did not work with the 8500-8600 card. I switched back to a Nvidia 6600 card and video mirroring was available using the same Nvidia driver, but that card had issues playing some HD files.

I installed an ATI X1950PRO and have NO issues playing media files full screen on the second monitor, ATI calls this "Theater" mode.

I call this as having "issues" with the new Nvidia cards with 2 monitors.

Are you saying that Nvidia have FIXED this function in newer drivers?????

Mike T

I use 2 monitors because I want the better picture quality of 1:1 Pixel mapping and the overscan on the DLP makes using it for the Desktop very difficult.If your 1080p display has any overscan at all, then you are not getting 1:1 pixel mapping. The 1920x1080 image is cropped by a few percent and then the cropped image is scaled back up to 1920x1080 for display.

I keep reading that it's possible to adjust noise reduction for hardware video decoding however I cannt find the option anywhere in the Nvidia Control pannel. I searched google and the manual for the latest reference drivers but nothing... Is there someone out there who knows where this setting is?

(Using Vista with Asus 8600GT)

If your 1080p display has any overscan at all, then you are not getting 1:1 pixel mapping. The 1920x1080 image is cropped by a few percent and then the cropped image is scaled back up to 1920x1080 for display.


This is incorrect. Overscan generally has nothing to do with achieving 1:1 pixel mapping. It is just with a monitor that is DESIGNED to have some overscan, then when you have it set for 1:1 pixel mapping then you WILL have that overscan. I will explain how this works with my rear projection DLP and applies to rear projection LCD HDTV sets.

Rear projection HDTV set are designed for some amount of overscan, I can explain in detail, but it is done generally to make the set cheaper to manufacture and align.

My Samsung 1080P DLP has a mode called "Just Scan", and with this mode there is NO resizing done to the image if it is input into the HDTV as a 1080P signal. Since the optical magnifaction is designed to cause the 1080P image from the DLP device to be slightly larger than the screen size, we have some overscan when the set is NOT doing any resizing. If you change the image size in the DLP set to cause the overscan to change, then the set is DOING resizing and their will be artifacts created by this resizing, thus the best image display is done when there is NO resizing being applied to the image.

My video card, now an ATI X1950PRO because of the problems with the 8500-8600 cards when using 2 monitors.

I have the video card set for 1920X1080P 60 Hz output by the DVI connector. The card is NOT doing any resizing on the image if I play a 1920X1080 video file. To verify all these settings I play 1080 test signals from this site http://www.w6rz.net/

I use a pattern that is alternating black and white vertical stripes 1 pixel wide. From a normal viewing distance this pattern should look like a uniform grey screen when you have 1:1 pixel mapping. When viewing closer you should see the alternating black and white vertical lines. If you change either the HDTV or the video card to do ANY resizing, then the pattern will change into much wider vertical bands of balck and white that change spacing with the amount of resizing being set. These wide black and white vertical bands are ARTIFACTS caused by the resizing software. This would be the same as changing a computer LCD monitor from its native resolution to another resolution and noticing that text is much softer and distorted, again artifacts due to the resizing software.

So, if you are using a rear project HDTV as your computer monitor, then you cannot have 1:1 pixel mapping without overscan unless you can eliminate the overscan by changing the optical path in the HDTV set. I do not know if direct view HDTV sets like LCD or Plasma have these issues with overscan, I do not see why they would have any overscan, but I have not tried any to see.

Mike T retired video design engineer

XP/Vista Media Center also adds some overscan which eliminates 1:1 mapping. If you truley had 1:1 you would see lots of edge artifacts on HD and SD shows. Lots of HDTV programming from the NBC/CBS/Etc. has green lines on the edges and squgglies on the top. Overscan is good in this case because it removes annoying artifacts but it will mean you are not getting 1:1.

I keep reading that it's possible to adjust noise reduction for hardware video decoding however I cannt find the option anywhere in the Nvidia Control pannel. I searched google and the manual for the latest reference drivers but nothing... Is there someone out there who knows where this setting is?

(Using Vista with Asus 8600GT)

Hi there

Not sure about Vista drivers, but on XP drivers, you have to select "Advanced Settings", not the "Standard settings". Then it's "Video & Television", "Adjust Video color settings", and the "Enhancements" tab is on the far right. If you don't see 4 tabs (and just see 5 sliders), then you're probably in "Standard Settings".

Regards

This is incorrect. Overscan generally has nothing to do with achieving 1:1 pixel mapping. It is just with a monitor that is DESIGNED to have some overscan, then when you have it set for 1:1 pixel mapping then you WILL have that overscan. I will explain how this works with my rear projection DLP and applies to rear projection LCD HDTV sets.

Rear projection HDTV set are designed for some amount of overscan, I can explain in detail, but it is done generally to make the set cheaper to manufacture and align.

My Samsung 1080P DLP has a mode called "Just Scan", and with this mode there is NO resizing done to the image if it is input into the HDTV as a 1080P signal. Since the optical magnifaction is designed to cause the 1080P image from the DLP device to be slightly larger than the screen size, we have some overscan when the set is NOT doing any resizing. If you change the image size in the DLP set to cause the overscan to change, then the set is DOING resizing and their will be artifacts created by this resizing, thus the best image display is done when there is NO resizing being applied to the image.

My video card, now an ATI X1950PRO because of the problems with the 8500-8600 cards when using 2 monitors.

I have the video card set for 1920X1080P 60 Hz output by the DVI connector. The card is NOT doing any resizing on the image if I play a 1920X1080 video file. To verify all these settings I play 1080 test signals from this site http://www.w6rz.net/

I use a pattern that is alternating black and white vertical stripes 1 pixel wide. From a normal viewing distance this pattern should look like a uniform grey screen when you have 1:1 pixel mapping. When viewing closer you should see the alternating black and white vertical lines. If you change either the HDTV or the video card to do ANY resizing, then the pattern will change into much wider vertical bands of balck and white that change spacing with the amount of resizing being set. These wide black and white vertical bands are ARTIFACTS caused by the resizing software. This would be the same as changing a computer LCD monitor from its native resolution to another resolution and noticing that text is much softer and distorted, again artifacts due to the resizing software.

So, if you are using a rear project HDTV as your computer monitor, then you cannot have 1:1 pixel mapping without overscan unless you can eliminate the overscan by changing the optical path in the HDTV set. I do not know if direct view HDTV sets like LCD or Plasma have these issues with overscan, I do not see why they would have any overscan, but I have not tried any to see.

Mike T retired video design engineerI have no experience with DLP rear projection TVs, but on flat panel 1080p displays, the visible pixels are exactly 1920x1080. Therefore, to achieve any overscan the image must be digitally magnified (scaled). Are you saying that rear projection DLPs create overscan by optically magnifying image? If that's true then I see how you could get overscan with 1:1 pixel mapping.

I have a Dell 24" computer monitor (no overscan) and a Sharp 20000 DLP front projector. Output from my video cards do 1:1 pixel mapping to both. I have to adjust my Sharp monitor so that it just fills the screen when I want to be able to see all the Windows desktop. This, of course, can create some problems for channels with garbage at the top or bottom of the display (mainly SD material, but HD sometimes has garbage, too).

Rear projection DLP's generally create an image that has a bit of overscan, and the edges of the image are chopped off. This creates problems, for instance, in that the Windows Start Menu and taskbar get clipped. The solution for such displays can be to scale the 1920x1080 back to a lower resolution so that the edges become visible again.

I have no experience with DLP rear projection TVs, but on flat panel 1080p displays, the visible pixels are exactly 1920x1080. Therefore, to achieve any overscan the image must be digitally magnified (scaled). Are you saying that rear projection DLPs create overscan by optically magnifying image? If that's true then I see how you could get overscan with 1:1 pixel mapping.


Yes, all the projection HDTV I have seen have overscan by design. If they tried to just make it the exact size, then the lens would have to have some way of setting the size (zoom) so the factory could adjust the size exactly and this adds a lot of cost to the optics and the factory alignment, so they just design 3-5% overscan so they don't have to adjust it. If the HDTV underscanned then their would be complaints about seeing the text data on line 21 of the vertical balnking on SDTV broadcasts and other crud that the broadcasters let through.

Mike T

Hello,

I apologize in advance if this issue have been addressed earlier, I just couldn't find it. So here is my question:
- Is an nVidia 8600 GTS based graphic card running the latest drivers on a Vista Ultimate platform able to output a 1080/24p signal?
- If yes then how? (the lowest refresh rate available in the control interface is 25Hz)

Thanks:)

hope i'll get some help. i'm having a hard time deciding between the 2600xt, 8600gt, and 8600gts. i will be watching 35% 720p/1080i/1080p, 50% DVD, 15% avi files. i would like to know the best overall card for image quality, upconversion, and performance (no stuttering/choppiness). i will never game. my budget is $100, but i could go to $125. i don't know all the best sites, but the following are the 2 best articles i could find.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047&p=1

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/index.html

what makes it confusing is that the more recent article doesn't test the 8600gt (i have no idea if it performs the same as the gts) and both recommend a different card for a non-gamer. btw here are some of my specs:

sony KD30XS955
q6600
2gb ram
vista

Delpis,

I've read on other areas of AVS forum that computers using a Sony XBR4 as their monitor while running at least some nVidia cards will not boot when connected via DVI/HDMI. The posters reported getting around this problem by hooking both outputs to the XBR4, one output being DVI>VGA while the second is DVI>HDMI. They boot up using the VGA connection and then switch to the HDMI connection after bootup.

Since you have a Sony monitor which is not an XBR4, I don't know if this will be problem for you or not. I plan to purchase an XBR4 as a second moniro and I don't want to deal with this issue. Therefore, I'm going with an ATI 2600xt. I don't know if the ATI card has this problem or not, but at least I haven't read of any similar problems with the 2600xt.

I've order the new Origen Ae S10V htpc case with this configuration...

Asus P5E-VM HDMI
2x1024Mb DDr2 PC 6400
E4400
2x500gb Western Digital Green Power
Alim. 330W Seasonic
DVD Slim Slot In



I want to buy a better video solution ...the new 8600GT Low profile ( Galaxy , MSI , Point of View ) is the better solution ?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=968033

I have a Gigabyte GV-NX85T256H GF8500 R in my HTPC. I am using the LG HD multi-player and the PowerDVD Ultra that came with the drive. My understanding is that Purevideo HD should be working on that system. Is that correct? I get about 80% CPU utilization while playing HD-DVD or Blue Ray (AMD X2 4800+). How can I be sure the Purevideo HD processing is in fact taking place? I also had purchased the Purevideo Platinum decoder. While watching SD DVD, the CPU usage is about 3%. I keep wondering if the HD content is properly optimized for hardware acceleration. BTW, using Windows XP, fully updated.

I am trying to find someone who has an 8600 GT working with Purevideo HD and Windows XP. I have a Gigabyte on order with an 8600 GT and per their web site, Purevideo HD. I will be using XP SP2 and Power DVD Ultra. I cannot determine if Nvidia's drivers support the 8600 under XP. There is very little current information on the subject out there.