didn't really follow, but Seb.26 added some code in fffdshow to actually show on screen the available BTB and WTW dynamically.

it's in the levels section, try Seb's BTB/WTW, and then you got 3 settings, to choose how fast it will react.

then you output in 0-255 RGB32HQ, and you're good to go...and you actually see all the available infos.

First of all graphics cards do *NOT* calculate in 32bit the way you believe they do. When a graphics card goes into 32bit mode, that usually means 8bit per color plus 8bit for alpha channel (for half transparency etc). So the data for RGB color information is really only 8bit per color.

But yes, graphics cards usually to convert everything to RGB 32bit sooner or later, but as explained above color information is only 24bit. So it's 4:4:4 24bit.

I was speaking to one of the senior techs at ATI several months ago and was told that all of their video calculations are done using more than 8-bits per color and I'm fairly sure he said 10-bit effectively per color, worst case. He also said there is a lot of "upgrading" going on to the video bandwidth overall.

Even if you are correct and that only 24-bits are used for the calculations, it is still expanded into a higher bandwidth stream (16-235 -> 0-255), even without the 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 to 4:4:4 expansion (which greatly increases the bandwidth).

Displays should be calibrated so that WTW and BTB are not displayed. However, as I said before, some calibrators calibrate the displays so that the first step of WTW and BTB is still visible (and different from pure black/white). Furthermore, I've read that sometimes movies were intentionally authored with deeper BTB and WTW information to make colors look "right". Sounds strange, but that's what I read. Anyway, I just don't want the graphics card to do any violence to my precious video data. If it cuts off BTB and WTW I'm afraid what else will go wrong...

If you read the summary specs on YCbCr over on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YCbCr), all of the color content is supposed to be between 16-235 (or 16-240 for BT.601 for luma only). Nothing except for timing signals are supposed to be outside this range. If it is, it is out of spec.

I have also seen numerous documents that state 16-235 is the required range for BT.709 such as this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._709

24bit (3 * 8) is a very odd number for a computer. It's like 17.359 for us humans. 32bit (4 * 8) is much more even. It's like 20.000 for us humans. A 32bit CPU can process 32bit data much faster and easier than 24bit data. All the CPU registers are 32bit. All the CPU instructions are optimized for 32bit data. 32bit is just much easier to work with. BUT - 8 of those 32 bits are usually used for the alpha channel and NOT for color information.

I understand that a PC can work with 32-bit more efficiently.

What is "alpha channel" if it doesn't contain any video information?

Can you understand that YCbCr and RGB are not a simple multiply of each other? I don't know the exact formulas for converting one to the other. But in the end there are some funny calculations going on. If you go from 8bit YCbCr 4:2:0 to 8bit RGB rounding has to be done. If you go back from 8bit RGB to 8bit YCbCr, again rounding has to be done. ANY such conversion costs image quality.

The formulas are available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YCbCr

Obviously there will be some rounding going on in the conversion, but if you strictly expand 16-235 to 0-255 rounding the results to integers and then compress back from 0-255 to 16-235 rounding again to integers, you will return to exactly the same numbers. In other words there would be no rounding error at all in the final 16-235 after the expansion and compression. Think of it this way - for every value in the original 16-235 there is only one unique expanded value mapped in the 0-255 range. Going the other way, those mappings will mathematically reverse without any error.

If you run the numbers for the true conversion between 8-bit YCbCr 4:2:2 BT.709 to 8-bit RGB 4:4:4, again you will most likely find a single and unique mapping for every YCbCr value into RGB. Again, this should be reversible without any loss. For certain, you will not be able to "visually" distinguish any error here with normal video. One way to look at this is you are actually mapping lower bandwidth data into a much higher bandwidth and then reversing this calculation. There is plenty of bandwidth in RGB 4:4:4 to provide unique mappings from YCbCr 4:2:2 so there shouldn't be any loss at all if done well.

On the other hand if you were to take original 0-255 content (PC), compress it to 16-235 and then expand that back to 0-255 you would get a round off error here and there. Luckily we are not starting from higher bandwidth PC colors so there is no loss (except for WTW and BTB and this isn't used except for calibration purposes).


First of all a source device shouldn't do *ANY* processing unless it's actually asked to. So ideally a YCbCr 4:2:0 source should just be decoded and sent to the display as it is. Unfortunately HDMI doesn't support YCbCr 4:2:0 transport. But that's not much of a problem. A conversion to YCbCr 4:2:2 is not very complicated and can be done right easily. I believe the hardware decoding chips from Sigma Designs and Broadcom etc output YCbCr 4:2:2, anyway. So ideally the source device should send YCbCr 4:2:2 to the display.

Here I totally disagree with you. If you take high quality, uncompressed video and then using lossy compression, highly compress it into mpeg-2 4:2:0 only to uncompress it back to raw video without any processing, you will end up with literally 1000's of visible artifacts on every single frame.

Instead what is done is the video is always filtered and processed to remove mpeg-2 compression artifacts. This process greatly improves the image quality.

Doing all of this video processing using higher bandwidth RGB 4:4:4 over lower bandwidth YCbCr 4:2:0 should only improve the image quality (if done well).

Now if the source is asked to do some processing, obviously it's an advantage to do it in higher than 4:2:2. So let's go to 8bit YCbCr 4:4:4. That'd still be better than to convert YCbCr to 8bit RGB.

Unfortunately graphics cards usually do everything in RGB. So ok, let the graphics card convert everything to RGB. But still we should try to go as low on processing as possible. That means: Convert YCbCr to 8bit RGB - but without expanding colors to PC levels, please! Because if you convert colors to PC levels and later back to video levels, again you have to round the data two times. This is very likely to introduce banding artifacts.

My feeling is it is best to expand, at least to 4:4:4 as well as perform filtering and processing to remove compression artifacts.

Expanding it further to sRGB (0-255) makes a lot of sense when you consider that we are talking about PCs here and more importantly the latest HDTVs can handle and operate flawlessly with higher bandwidth sRGB vs YCbCr. If the HDTV or monitor can handle sRGB 4:4:4 then there is no reason at all not to "upconvert" to it.

Much more importantly than YCbCr 4:2:0 to sRGB 4:4:4 expansion and potential re-compression (whenever an HDTV not supporting sRGB 4:4:4 is used) is both dealing with all video sources (inputs) and renderers (outputs) using consistent colors as well as having the ability to output in a format that is ideal for the particular monitor/HDTV used. Right now both ATI and Nvidia fail to do these critical jobs in several different ways. At least with ATI we can resort to registry "hacks" to work around most of this, but with Nvidia cards (other than 9000 series) colors and grey levels are inconsistent between different renderers so it is an even bigger mess.

While I greatly appreciate the education by the post discussing GFX card details, I do believe the recent exchange is a bit Off Topic in the ATI HD2*00 owners thread.

Thanks

While I greatly appreciate the education by the post discussing GFX card details, I do believe the recent exchange is a bit Off Topic in the ATI HD2*00 owners thread.

ThanksThe discussion started out to explain the very significant effect the ATI dongle has on the signal output by the 2xxx and 3xxx series cards. For some time there was a lot of confusion over why some seemed to get video levels from their card and others PC levels and why some reports were of YCbCr and others could get nothing but RGB. The reasons for these differences were not understood until a few weeks ago. It then expanded into a discussion on the merits or otherwise of this process. Both of these I think have a place in this thread. I do tend to agree though that the discussion has run its course.

Hi people, I'm having two annoying problems that I hope you can help with.

I have a 2600 Pro, when I go in ccc, I'm unable to adjust the colors, denois, edge enhancement etc in AVIVO settings. Have you guys seen this problem before?

The other issue is when I watch dvd's or any SD, the red is extremely pixalated! I think I may have read that I need to uncheck the 3:2 pulldown detection but I can't because of the first issue. Any help?

Hi people, I'm having two annoying problems that I hope you can help with.

I have a 2600 Pro, when I go in ccc, I'm unable to adjust the colors, denois, edge enhancement etc in AVIVO settings. Have you guys seen this problem before?

The other issue is when I watch dvd's or any SD, the red is extremely pixalated! I think I may have read that I need to uncheck the 3:2 pulldown detection but I can't because of the first issue. Any help?

Uncheck "use application settings" and you will be able to set them yourself.

It's not checked. It's weird, everything is greyed out.

It's not checked. It's weird, everything is greyed out.

Weird! :confused:

The other issue is when I watch dvd's or any SD, the red is extremely pixalated! I think I may have read that I need to uncheck the 3:2 pulldown detection but I can't because of the first issue. Any help?

Is it something like what I had before?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13708327#post13708327

I found my problem! It turns out that it was simply because I had it hooked up on the second DVI port! Once I switched it to the first port, the options worked fine.

I was speaking to one of the senior techs at ATI several months ago and was told that all of their video calculations are done using more than 8-bits per color and I'm fairly sure he said 10-bit effectively per color, worst case.
I can tell you as a fact that there is a specific list of video formats supported between different DirectShow filters and the predefined RGB32 format contains 24bit of color information and 8bit alpha channel. The alpha channel is used for transparency and is virtually useless for movie playback.

If you run the numbers for the true conversion between 8-bit YCbCr 4:2:2 BT.709 to 8-bit RGB 4:4:4, again you will most likely find a single and unique mapping for every YCbCr value into RGB. Again, this should be reversible without any loss.
I find it funny how you construct your own guesses and ignore what experts are saying. Do you think you know better than the technical director of Broadcom? (see link in my last post)

If you take high quality, uncompressed video and then using lossy compression, highly compress it into mpeg-2 4:2:0 only to uncompress it back to raw video without any processing, you will end up with literally 1000's of visible artifacts on every single frame.

Instead what is done is the video is always filtered and processed to remove mpeg-2 compression artifacts. This process greatly improves the image quality.
I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you have no clue about how these things work. A video decoder always ends up with YCbCr data after decoding is completed with all mandatory steps (which includes deblocking for h264). There are additional compression artifact reduction algorithms available like e.g. mosquito noise reduction and block artifact noise reduction. These algorithms are at this time *NOT* available by any graphics card. Furthermore experts strongly suggest to only enable these algorithms if they are really needed cause they help only with really bad sources while they do damage to good sources. Finally, these algorithms are usually done in YCbCr and not in RGB. Also deinterlacing and scaling is done by video processors in YCbCr and not in RGB. The only thing a good video processor (e.g. Lumagen Radiance) does in RGB is color correction. Everything else is done in YCbCr.

This will be my last post about this topic in this thread. Sorry for going slightly OT, guys.

This will be my last post about this topic in this thread. Sorry for going slightly OT, guys.

Thank you for going off topic. I got a lot of valuable information out of it which makes it even more easy to track down certain problems because you get an idea what's going on under the hood.

grubi.

Immer gerne... :D

I apologise for baiting the OT exchange. I had a feeling a few people might object to the over-simplification of the exchange in posts #5223 & 4 but I didn't realise the topic was still quite as emotive and full of different opinions.

Having said that, like grubi, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments and many will appreciate the information supplied (even if some posts contradict others) ;)

On Topic (mostly), I'd completely missed the discovery that the ATi dongle forced the card to convert it's ouput to YCbCr. This explains a lot. Thanks.

Wo0zy

Which driver set is the latest, VisionTek Catalyst 8.3 or ATI Catalyst CC 8.4. I'm running Vista Ult. with a HD2600 XT and is slowly coming up to speed on playing HD material and the HA issues.

Can someone point me to the summary page with the tweaks and solutions so far?


Thanks

Allo all - just been experimenting some with the 8.4 denoise/detail settings (been meaning to do this for ages).

Detail: as before, this only seems to affect SD (at least on my 2600xt, but I expect newer cards will be the same, as this has a minimal hit on shaders). As someone else pointed out, sharpening at 50 seems to be a good compromise for SD - perhaps even anything less is a negative value? I checked the dlls, and there's no reg setting to force HD sharpening.

Denoise: does work with HD (maybe not on 24xx/34xx models?), but only with interlaced stuff. For SD it's OK, but the default setting 64 is a bit much. Around 30ish seems better - gets rid of irritating dark scene noise and wipes quant noise without much of a hit on detail. For HD it wipes out too much detail even at 30, so I used vforcehddenoise=0 to switch it off.


Basically, with this setup you get only an effect on SD. The exact levels you want, particularly of denoise, depend largely on the quality of content you're watching. If you're upscaling 3mbit mpeg2 broadcast channels, more is probably better :-)

Wow. Now that is interesting. Are you able to test BD playback?

I thought ATi always expanded BD playback to PC levels. If the adapter stops this from happening what exactly do we end up with?

Wo0zy

BD colours look normal to me.

Actually I have another question related to BD, I try to play it in powerdvd 8 ultra, however, the video playback is not smooth, but rather jerky.

I have AVIVO installed, and the playback preformance is the same (jerky) with either hardware acceleration ticked or unticked.

I can tell you as a fact that there is a specific list of video formats supported between different DirectShow filters and the predefined RGB32 format contains 24bit of color information and 8bit alpha channel. The alpha channel is used for transparency and is virtually useless for movie playback.

A quick Google search demonstrates that ATI's own specification for ATI HD AVIVO includes: "Full 30 bit display processing" for all of their HD cards as well as supporting 30 bit displays? I find it difficult to believe they are talking about transparency when it comes to AVIVO, HD and video processing.

http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd2600/specs.html

Either you or ATI is incorrect.

Also, as I mentioned before, I was personally told by a senior tech at ATI that they use 10 bits per color during their image processing (I am certain now that it was 10 bits). Note that ATI's specification states 30 bits and 3 colors X 10 bits = 30 bits.

I find it funny how you construct your own guesses and ignore what experts are saying. Do you think you know better than the technical director of Broadcom? (see link in my last post)

I find it funny that you feel it necessary to turn this into a bashing session, instead of openly discussing the facts. You have not presented a single piece of evidence that ATI's transform functions are flawed. Mathematically there is no requirement that there be any image degradation due to these transforms.

I did read your old link to a reference from the Broadcom Director, but I don't see how that proves anything to do with hardware and software that wasn't even available to the director at the time.

While I can't say for certain that ATI doesn't produce errors in their transform functions, I do know what I have learnt during 15 years working in satellite and military video and night vision imaging systems. I can tell you with absolute certainty that when you take a low bandwidth stream of video and upconvert or encode that data into a higher bandwidth stream of video and then finally compress it back into the original low bandwidth stream that there is absolutely no reason for there to be any loss of accuracy. There is also no reason for there to be any additional error going from a low bandwidth to high bandwidth followed by a medium bandwidth vs simply going from the low straight to the medium. The mathematicians I've worked with have never created video transforms that do. Also, looking at the simple linear equations used to transform between YCbCr and sRGB I am absolutely certain that it would be relatively easy to create transform equations that are not lossy and that can be reversed without any loss of accuracy. Even if you were to perform the calculations using brute force, without any regard for accuracy, it would be very unlikely that there would be any detectable error when watching actual video.

Considering there is discrepancy between your stated 24 bit video processing and ATI's stated 30 bit processing, it is still possible that 30 bits are used and this would make it extremely difficult for any transform errors to occur - even using the simplest, brute force calculations. If you notice, ATI's spec also states that their HD cards support 30 bit filtering, 30 bit dithering, and even 30 bit color displays (all within the AVIVO portion of the spec) - suggesting that the entire pipeline supports 30 bits; only to be downconverted to 24 bits for our final transform from RGB to YCbCr so our lower bandwidth HDTVs can display our movies.

We have also had other members on this forum state that they can't detect any difference between viewing the content in sRGB compared to being reconverted back to YCbCr.

Do you have any actual proof that the video quality is degraded through this process? Do you have any links where someone has taken a digital YCbCr 4:2:0 BT.709 stream, sent it through an ATI HD card and then examined the end result to look for specific errors that can be attributed to the YCbCr 4:2:0 -> RGB 4:4:4 -> YCbCr 4:2:2 conversion?

Keep in mind the bandwidth ratios through the various transforms are effectively 6:14:8; meaning there is much more bandwidth available at the middle (RGB) stage. Mathematically there is no reason for any numerical difference between that and simply going from YCbCr 4:2:0 -> YCbCr 4:2:2 (6:8 bandwidth change). Note that if ATI is indeed using a 10 bit RGB 4:4:4 stage for processing, then the bandwidth ratios become 6:56:8.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you have no clue about how these things work. A video decoder always ends up with YCbCr data after decoding is completed with all mandatory steps (which includes deblocking for h264). There are additional compression artifact reduction algorithms available like e.g. mosquito noise reduction and block artifact noise reduction. These algorithms are at this time *NOT* available by any graphics card. Furthermore experts strongly suggest to only enable these algorithms if they are really needed cause they help only with really bad sources while they do damage to good sources. Finally, these algorithms are usually done in YCbCr and not in RGB. Also deinterlacing and scaling is done by video processors in YCbCr and not in RGB. The only thing a good video processor (e.g. Lumagen Radiance) does in RGB is color correction. Everything else is done in YCbCr.

This will be my last post about this topic in this thread. Sorry for going slightly OT, guys.

Please - don't try to be so belittling and don't be ridiculous.

The video cards that this thread is about all do very significant amounts of noise reduction, by default. Deblocking itself is a noise filter specifically applied to remove compression artifacts and it is most definitely used by our ATI cards. To argue that no denoise algorithms are used to remove compression artifacts is simply wrong. They may not be using "mosquito noise reduction and block artifact noise reduction", but they are most certainly using noise reduction that helps to hide compression artifacts.

In addition to deblocking, evidence of compression artifact reduction through additional filtering can easily be visualized by performing the following experiment:

Take digitally recorded standard definition content that is moderately compressed (relatively low bitrate - such as typical of a Satellite SD broadcast) and play it using an ATI HD 2600XT. Using default settings, it will produce an image with greatly reduced compression artifacts compared to if you play it back after adding the TRDenoise=0 registry setting (add and remove the registry entry while stopping and playing the same scene). I have done this myself - just a few days ago. The image looks much better with the temporal denoise algorithms in place. With TRDenoise=0 applied you will see 1000's (and I do mean 1000's) of visible compression artifacts in the form of blocks.

I've been doing some more research into this and according to my contacts (I don't want to drag any of them into this) and further reading:


Once the compressed video stream is sent to the video card for DXVA processing, the uncompressed video is never sent back to the CPU. iDCT, motion compensation, de-blocking, subsampling format conversion, color space conversion, color correction, deinterlacing, inverse telecine, noise reduction filtering, detail enhancement, scaling, etc. and ultimately rendering are all performed directly by the video card.


Video cards with AVIVO HD perform all of their video processing using 10 bits per color. See the following link and the section on "True-to-life image reproduction"
http://ati.amd.com/technology/Avivo/features.html
The HD 2400 series (also an AVIVO HD card) processes all video using 10 bits per color too (30 bits per pixel):
http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd2400/specs.html


When the output is downconverted for a 24-bit monitor or HDTV hooked up through DVI, RGB 4:4:4 is used. Dithering is also used to increase the effective number of colors from 24-bit to 30-bit.


When the output is sent to an HDTV through HDMI, the 30 bits per pixel are typically output at 24-bit YCbCr 4:4:4.


Assuming there actually is an RGB to YCbCr conversion at #4; Due to the 30 bit processing and the far greater bandwidth available during the 30 bit RGB 4:4:4 processing stage, no round off errors would occur in the double conversion.


Another interesting find is that DirectShow does actually support YCbCr and directshow filters can operate in this mode as opposed to RGB. Also, the VMR7 and VMR9 renderers both support YCbCr directly. Here are some links worth looking at for those interested:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms867704.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788177.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788178(VS.85).aspx


One interesting quote from the following page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530104(VS.85).aspx

"Also, the conversion from RGB to YUV is not lossy"


Here are a couple of links that discuss standard HDMI and DVI video streams (YCbCr vs RGB) and potentially explain why ATI chose to use YCbCr when their dongle is used and RGB when DVI is used (or a non-ATI HDMI dongle):
http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5317

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5427



Also note that there are still quite a few unknowns, including:


How do we know for certain that the colorspace is actually converted from YCbCr to RGB when the output being used is YCbCr. DirectShow supports YCbCr, and I can't think of any reason ATI couldn't choose to do all of their video processing in YCbCr if they wanted to. Using YCbCr throughout would save quite a bit of processing load, especially since it doesn't normally pass video back to DirectShow. Screen captures can easily be converted to RGB on a single frame basis.

I've been doing some more research into this and according to my contacts (I don't want to drag any of them into this) and further reading:


Once the compressed video stream is sent to the video card for DXVA processing, the uncompressed video is never sent back to the CPU. iDCT, motion compensation, de-blocking, subsampling format conversion, color space conversion, color correction, deinterlacing, inverse telecine, noise reduction filtering, detail enhancement, scaling, etc. and ultimately rendering are all performed directly by the video card.


Video cards with AVIVO HD perform all of their video processing using 10 bits per color. See the following link and the section on "True-to-life image reproduction"
http://ati.amd.com/technology/Avivo/features.html
The HD 2400 series (also an AVIVO HD card) processes all video using 10 bits per color too (30 bits per pixel):
http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd2400/specs.html


When the output is downconverted for a 24-bit monitor or HDTV hooked up through DVI, RGB 4:4:4 is used. Dithering is also used to increase the effective number of colors from 24-bit to 30-bit.


When the output is sent to an HDTV through HDMI, the 30 bits per pixel are typically output at 24-bit YCbCr 4:4:4.


Assuming there actually is an RGB to PCbCr conversion at #4; Due to the 30 bit processing and the far greater bandwidth available during the 30 bit RGB 4:4:4 processing stage, no round off errors would occur in the double conversion.


Another interesting find is that DirectShow does actually support YCbCr and directshow filters can operate in this mode as opposed to RGB. Also, the VMR7 and VMR9 renderers both support YCbCr directly. Here are some links worth looking at for those interested:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms867704.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788177.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms788178(VS.85).aspx


One interesting quote from the following page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530104(VS.85).aspx

"Also, the conversion from RGB to YUV is not lossy"



Also note that there are still quite a few unknowns, including:


How do we know for certain that the colorspace is actually converted from YCbCr to RGB when the output being used is YCbCr. DirectShow supports YCbCr, and I can't think of any reason ATI couldn't choose to do all of their video processing in YCbCr if they wanted to. Using YCbCr throughout would save quite a bit of processing load, especially since it doesn't normally pass video back to DirectShow. Screen captures can easily be converted to RGB on a single frame basis.
That all seems about right and pretty much what I said in #5222......... but it seems internal 10-bit processing stops this from causing image degradation.

Regarding how we are sure a double conversion takes place, well we certainly know that if you screengrab an image from HD video video black is "0" not "16", even though it is "16" when it arrives at an HDTV connected using the dongle. I know these are levels rather than colorspace, but it is an indication of conversion going on. The video is clearly expanded losing all blacker than black and whiter than white.

And unless you are using full screen exclusive mode, which PowerDVD/TMT and other current Blu-ray players do not use, Windows needs to be able to mix video with desktop elements, like other applications/start menu/taskbar etc. It is really hard to see how that would work without all sharing the RGB colorspace. As we said earlier, I can imagine it being possible to write a fullscreen custom renderer that works entirely in YUV, but i see no evidence it has been done.

You are right we do not have all the facts but personally I am sure that everything is first converted to RGB 0-255 and then back to YCbCr 16-235.

@HT Slider, if you want to discuss this further you should open a new thread (and PM me the link). I don't think it makes sense to do a full discussion of this topic in this thread. We would only annoy people.

I have my videocard hooked up to my tv with a DVI to HDMI cable.

I Basically want everything to be TV levels, as the tv is obviously only capable of displaying those, what settings do i need to change to turn everything into TV levels and to make sure not double conversion is taking place.

@HT Slider, if you want to discuss this further you should open a new thread (and PM me the link). I don't think it makes sense to do a full discussion of this topic in this thread. We would only annoy people.

If you continue discussing at a different place, please be so kind to PM me the link also.

Thanks a lot.

grubi.

Which driver set is the latest, VisionTek Catalyst 8.3 or ATI Catalyst CC 8.4. I'm running Vista Ult. with a HD2600 XT and is slowly coming up to speed on playing HD material and the HA issues.

Can someone point me to the summary page with the tweaks and solutions so far?


Thanks

Anyone?

I have connected my TV (Pana TH50PZ700) via the ATI DVI/HDMI dongle to a HD2600XT. Due to the discussion here I tried with a 3rd party HMDI/DVI cable, however I can't see any difference. How can it be verified if the card is outputting RGB or YCbCr? Is it possible that display and graphic card negotiate in which mode to operate and YCbCr is choosen as prefered regardless if the ATI dongle is used or not? Does anybody have some insight knowledge if such negotiation is part of the DVI/HDMI protocol spec?

grubi.

I have connected my TV (Pana TH50PZ700) via the ATI DVI/HDMI dongle to a HD2600XT. Due to the discussion here I tried with a 3rd party HMDI/DVI cable, however I can't see any difference. How can it be verified if the card is outputting RGB or YCbCr? Is it possible that display and graphic card negotiate in which mode to operate and YCbCr is choosen as prefered regardless if the ATI dongle is used or not? Does anybody have some insight knowledge if such negotiation is part of the DVI/HDMI protocol spec?

grubi.

I just picked up an HDMI/DVI cable also to see if I can convince my 2600XT to output using YCbCr and TV/video grey levels for my HDTV but haven't had a chance to try it yet. In my case I'll be able to see if PC or TV/video grey levels are used because my HDTV definitely only supports 16-235 and it definitely doesn't negotiate this when DVI -> DVI is used (without an ATI HDMI dongle; I'm going to try the dongle combined with the HDMI/DVI cable).

I don't know any way to verify for certain if YCbCr or RGB is used, nor if RGB 0-255 or RGB 16-235 is used (or if our cards even support RGB 16-235).

One thing for certain is the HDMI and DVI specs do include negotiation. The display and source are supposed to negotiate appropriate communication protocols to use. Based on what I've read, when HDMI is used YCbCr and TV/video grey levels are supposed to be favored. When DVI is used, RGB and PC grey levels are supposed to be favored. In either case, negotiations can force one over the over. The deciding feature for favoring one over the other for our cards appears to be if an ATI HDMI dongle is used.

Also, there are HDTVs that do properly support RGB with PC levels and yours might be one of these. The only thing I can think of is you might see slightly different amounts of banding (possibly improved) when RGB 0-255 is used over YCbCr.

I should have a chance to test mine out this evening (or afternoon; if it rains) and I'll post my results.

Ultimately we need to push ATI to include a 4-way selector for output formats when an HDTV is used:

Automatic
RGB 0-255
RGB 16-235
YCbCr (16-235)


I don't know how well they listen, but suggestions can be sent directly to ATI's "Catalyst Crew" (driver development team) through this link:
http://support.ati.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=486&type=web

Anyone?

arfster is the guy who figured out and published all of the registry settings: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11659897&postcount=2121. In the past (previous driver releases), these registry tweaks were fundamental for using these cards for HTPC use.

If you are running the latest driver (Catalyst 8.4) with a 2600XT and a single display, the only things you probably want to consider for the registry are:

"TrDenoise"="0"

and

"VForceMaxResSize"="2800000" (and only if you are using a very high resolution display; my HDTV running at 1920x1080 using 1080i does not need this, so I assume only higher resolutions need this)

The TrDenoise registry entry is only required when your source video has already been highly "denoised". With digital content, the image quality is considerably better (IMO) without this entry. On the other hand, if you capture through s-video, your STB does a lot of denoise and the TV Tuner used to capture does a lot more, then you probably will need to add TrDenoise=0 in order to ensure you don't get "ghosts" in the image with certain shows (films recorded over cable/satellite in SD are the worst for this in my experience).

I actually don't use any registry tweaks with our setup anymore (but with previous drivers versions needed to use many).

You probably will want to make some adjustments within the Catalyst Control Center though - dependent on the type of display used:


If your HDTV is hooked up using DVI, you might need to change the overall brightness to +15 and contrast to 85% to see appropriate grey levels (without this the image may be too dark in dark scenes and too bright/clipped in bright scenes or bright objects). For an explanation as to why this may be required, read up on YCbCr vs RGB in this thread (essentially many HDTVs only support TV/video grey levels (YCbCr), but the video card outputs using PC grey levels (RGB) through DVI).

If you are using Vista and Media Center, you can use C:\Windows\ehome\Brightness.wmv to help adjust the overall brightness slider (so you can "just" see the moving X) and C:\Windows\ehome\Contrast.wmv to adjust the overall contrast (so the shirt shows fine detail and doesn't look like a solid white). Since we use Media Center regularly, I prefer to make adjustments using Media Center but with Catalyst 8.4 there is no difference at all in grey levels (on my system at least) between Media Center and Media Player so it shouldn't really matter.

If you really want to optimize everything, first crank up the brightness and turn down the contrast on your HDTV; then use the Brightness.wmv and Contrast.wmv files to adjust the video card's output to match your HDTV (you'll find either the default 0/100% or +15%/85% (or possibly +16/86%) are the only options that could be required; depending on your HDTV and the hookup). After that, adjust your HDTV itself so the moving X is just visible and the shirt isn't excessively bright. Then as a final step, if you really want to go all out, use your preferred calibration DVD/Blue-ray to test and tweak your calibration.


If your HDTV is hooked up using HDMI and it requires PC grey levels, you might need to replace the ATI HDMI dongle with a generic HDMI/DVI adapter (without this the image is washed out). This issue isn't very common and only certain HDTVs bring out this issue. The source of the problem is the opposite to #1 above.


Depending on your HDTV, you may prefer to turn down the denoise slider in CCC. In my experience 50% is better for my rear projection Toshiba, but my fathers Olevia produces a better image for SD with it set to 70%.


Depending on your HDTV, you may prefer more or less edge enhancement. I prefer 15% on my rear projection Toshiba, but my father's Olevia 747i produces a better image for SD with it set to 0% and disabled alltogether.


Turn down and disable both colorvibrance and fleshtone correction (I haven't found anyone who prefers the image with these enabled).


EDIT: My comments on not needing the registry tweaks are only true for 2600 series cards, the latest drivers and systems using PCIe video cards. 2400's, systems using AGP video cards and older drivers do require additional registry tweaks.

RGB vs YCbCr is not easy since apart from any rounding/computational errors they should look identical. To know, you need a device which tells you the signal it is receiving. A couple of people with Lumagen Video Processors, which can do this, have confirmed the change from RGB to YCbCr when the dongle is used.

Confirming 0-255 or 16-235 is relatively easy if you are proficient at calibrating. First calibrate to video levels using a known video level source, then attach your HTPC with default driver settings (no brightness or contrast adjustments). If the levels are the same you have 16-235. If you get crushed blacks and blown whites you have 0-255.

These results have now been verified by several people. One thing may be confusing things. There are two versions of the dongle.One for the 2xxx series one for the 3xxx series.

I finally got around to trying the ATI HDMI dongle and my HDMI to DVI cable.

I have to say I'm more confused than ever now...

The instant I installed the cable, I noticed a distinct improvement in color (or at least "more" color - blues and reds are deeper) as well as a desktop where darker objects in the image were much brighter.

So - on the surface it looked like everything was going to work properly and I could resort to using default brightness and contrast levels. Here is where things get weird though...

With my previous DVI to DVI connection (note I have gone back and forth between DVI->DVI and ATI HDMI dongle->HDMI/DVI cable a couple of times tonight to try to confirm what I am seeing):


My HDTV suffered from the expected problems when the display uses video levels (16-235) and it is being driven with PC levels (0-255).


To fix this, in CCC I had to crank up the overall brightness to +15 and lower the overall contrast to 85%. Once this was done, everything as far as wmv, mpeg-2, dvr-ms, DVD, pictures (still a little too dark actually), desktop and video games all displayed using correct grey levels (using Media Center or Media Player for video content). This also makes sense when you consider I was faking the output to make it comply with video levels (16-235).


In order to get PowerDVD Ultra to play correctly though I found I had to set the AVIVO brightness and contrast to +15/85% and this caused Media Center & Media Player to over compress the colors (due to the combined overall +15/85% and the AVIVO +15/85%).


In order to get both PowerDVD Ultra and video content within Media Center/Media Player to play correctly I found I had to actually use only the AVIVO +15/85%, but this breaks the ability to display photographs, desktop & video games correctly.



With the new connection using the ATI HDMI dongle and the HDMI->DVI cable to my HDTV:


Using totally default settings, the first thing I noticed with my desktop is the colors are deeper and brighter.


Using my AVIA calibration DVD, played with Media Center, shows that my system is perfectly calibrated for DVD playback (as far as brightness and contrast is concerned) using default CCC settings. At this point I was very pleased!...


Playing Microsoft's wmv test clips in Media Player or Media Center, my brightness is correct (at 0/default), but my contrast needs to be dropped down to 85% to prevent clipping of the whites. This can be either in the overall settings or in AVIVO. Retesting the AVIA DVD with the new setting, it now shows that the contrast is too low (and once again, bringing the contrast back to the default 100% is correct).


Playing an HD dvr-ms recording in Media Center, it too shows that contrast levels are way to high and I need to use a contrast of 85% to prevent clipping with certain shows (in particular CBC news in 1080i and the news announcer's white shirt). Still, a brightness of 0 (default) is still correct (trying +15 for brightness causes black objects to be a grey and not black)!


If I take a Blueray movie (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in this case) and play it using PowerDVD Ultra, it once again suffers from the entire PC level issue. To make it display correctly I have to set both the brightness to +15 and the contrast to 85% again and these have to both be set within the AVIVO panel (PowerDVD somehow ignores the overall brightness and contrast settings).


If I take my test "photograph" ranging from 0-255 grey levels, I have to configure the overall brightness and contrast to +15/85% to see the full 0-255 grey levels without clipping.


Essentially everything is totally messed up whether I use or don't use the HDMI dongle. In the past I thought everything was working (without the dongle), except for the "glowing" issue in PowerDVD, but tonight I discovered that this was actually because PowerDVD requires the AVIVO settings configured for +15/85% no matter if I use the ATI HDMI dongle or not.

Without the HDMI dongle I can get either everything to do with video working correctly, or Media Center combined with pictures, desktop and games; but not both.

With the HDMI dongle I haven't found a way to get PowerDVD to produce correct grey levels without messing up Media Center.

Does anyone have their Vista Media Center PC, with an ATI HD video card and an HDTV, truly producing correct grey levels accross all media (pictures, wmv, dvr-ms, DVD, Blue-ray, HD-DVD, etc.)?

Does anyone have their Vista Media Center PC, with an ATI HD video card and an HDTV, truly producing correct grey levels accross all media (pictures, wmv, dvr-ms, DVD, Blue-ray, HD-DVD, etc.)?

No! Even with the UseBT601CSC registry tweak I get all sorts of grey levels with diff applications and diff media.

Really starting to piss me off.

HT Slider: if possible, could you do an ATI bug report with your post above? Sums up the absurdities of forced video expansion.


ps a sarcastic comment about the need for usebt601csc=1 registry tweak to get SD levels the same woudln't go amiss either :-)

>>Using my AVIA calibration DVD, played with Media Center, shows that my
>>system is perfectly calibrated for DVD playback (as far as brightness and
>>contrast is concerned) using default CCC settings. At this point I was very
>>pleased!...

This is the same with my setup however I use MediaPortal for playback. I also have to apply the UseBT601CSC registry switch.

>>Playing Microsoft's wmv test clips in Media Player or Media Center, my
>>brightness is correct (at 0/default), but my contrast needs to be dropped
>>down to 85% to prevent clipping of the whites. This can be either in the
>>overall settings or in AVIVO. Retesting the AVIA DVD with the new setting, it
>>now shows that the contrast is too low (and once again, bringing the
>>contrast back to the default 100% is correct).

Can you post links for the testfiles then I will be able to test it on my system.

grubi.

Because of the problems reported here I have done a little more testing myself and it adds yet another twist to this convoluted tale!

On my XP system all is good -with the dongle and UseBT601 tweak all definitely correctly calibrated with default settings in CCC - pictures, SD video and HD video, uisng Directshow players and PowerDVD7 or 8 (SD and HD).

In testing I found one new thing. All my previous testing had been using VMR9. If I use OVERLAY I get perfect levels but without clipping BTB and WTW. It seems that overlay is able to pass 16-235 levels strgiht through without double conversion. I do not have the equipment to say if it is passing YCbCr or RGB, but my guess would be YCbCr. I will try to get this checked by someone with a Lumagen.

NB: I only tested this with SD (DVE). I do not have an HD test pattern with BTB. If anyone has one they can link to then I will test that too.

NB: I only tested this with SD (DVE). I do not have an HD test pattern with BTB. If anyone has one they can link to then I will test that too.

There's one at http://w6rz.net/ , the 1-255 ramp.

As an aside, in XP it's possible to break expansion a few ways (never tested overlay though), but the colours generally get screwed up instead. If you measure the values from the 75% smpte pattern at the above site it's really obvious when this happens.

I'll give it a go. Thanks. Interesting though that the levels were right without expansion leading to clipping.

You are right, colors are wrong :(. How many different ways can a driver behave? They must have worked pretty hard to mess things up this badly.

You are right, colors are wrong :(. How many different ways can a driver behave? They must have worked pretty hard to mess things up this badly.

Both with VRM9 and overlay?

grubi.

Can't remember if I noticed this before: if you use ffdshow to feed RGB32HQ to EVR then levels aren't expanded. Maybe not that useful to a lot of people because it kills acceleration, but at least it tells us that ATI driver expansion is (probably) happening in the RGB conversion, rather than being some deliberate act of postprocessing. I wonder if it's possible to hack the BIOS and alter the matrix........


Note if you're doing this remember to use different ffdshow profiles for above and below 1024 horizontal resolution to select bt601 and bt709 respectively (cos the ATI auto-select will no longer work, as you're bypassing the card's RGB routines). Also note hardware deinterlacing won't work with this, as it only accepts nv12.

Can't remember if I noticed this before: if you use ffdshow to feed RGB32HQ to EVR then levels aren't expanded.

......

Also note hardware deinterlacing won't work with this, as it only accepts nv12.


Presumably for the same reason, sharpening/denoising are disabled also. The drivers seem to have no processing effect whatsoever on the whole video process when you do the ffdshow yuy>RGB, other than in scaling routines (and you can ffdshow there if you want).

HT Slider: if possible, could you do an ATI bug report with your post above? Sums up the absurdities of forced video expansion.


ps a sarcastic comment about the need for usebt601csc=1 registry tweak to get SD levels the same woudln't go amiss either :-)

(Havent logged in for ages, but this very issue was itching at my mind).

Not saying this to bash ATI, but would the "easy fix" to the above solution be going with an nvidia card? A quick peek into the recent "Avivo vs. Pure.." thread makes me think "not quite".

I'm worried about the color levels on my TV though. I'm guessing they're off, as I've set them so that SD MPEG2 through my VMC box looks ok (so TV, DVD, VMC calibration videos look ok). That means everything else like pictures, WMV, any HD source is going to be off, right?

(I think) it gets worse though, since the TV is actually being fed by HDMI via my receiver. So, if I were looking at a standalone Blu-ray player in my future, its video levels would be off too, right? As would any of the game consoles I have feeding into the receiver and then out to the TV via HDMI.


For reference, I haven't done any registry tweaks for the 2600pro I have with regards to the video levels. I had simply calibrated my TV's settings to show decent color for SD mpeg2 playback. Now that I'm growing (and planning on growing) what's being connected to the receiver, I thought maybe I needed to use the registry tweaks to bring MPEG2 video in line, but it looks like there's no 100% solution?

Oh. PowerDVD is not a concern, yet.

Sorry for the rambling :)

Both with VRM9 and overlay?

grubi.No, just with Overlay.

Can't remember if I noticed this before: if you use ffdshow to feed RGB32HQ to EVR then levels aren't expanded. Maybe not that useful to a lot of people because it kills acceleration, but at least it tells us that ATI driver expansion is (probably) happening in the RGB conversion, rather than being some deliberate act of postprocessing. I wonder if it's possible to hack the BIOS and alter the matrix........


Note if you're doing this remember to use different ffdshow profiles for above and below 1024 horizontal resolution to select bt601 and bt709 respectively (cos the ATI auto-select will no longer work, as you're bypassing the card's RGB routines). Also note hardware deinterlacing won't work with this, as it only accepts nv12.That is odd. Expansion still happens with XP/VMR9 and RGB32HQ conversion.

By the way, although you need different profiles for HD and below, you can also specify different output colorspaces for each profile. So in my case I use YV12 for HD and RGB for upscaled SD.

No! Even with the UseBT601CSC registry tweak I get all sorts of grey levels with diff applications and diff media.

Really starting to piss me off.

This is annoying, but after lots of messing around I think I have the best compromise for my Toshiba 51H83. BTW, the UseBT601CSC registry tweak doesn't seem to do anything at all since I installed Catalyst 8.4 on my system (I haven't checked since I switched to the HDMI dongle, but it definitely doesn't do anything without the dongle being used).

I discovered that if I leave the AVIVO brightness and contrast at default (configured by application), that I can use PowerDVD Ultra's advanced video configuration to set the AVIVO brightness and contrast. Unfortunately the scales on the sliders do not correspond to the same values within CCC, but they do work (for Blue-ray anyway). Flipping back and forth between using AVIVO settings and PowerDVD Ultra settings I think I have a reasonably close setup.

Here is what I am currently using:


ATI HDMI dongle + HDMI->DVI cable


Overall brightness/contrast in CCC: +4/85%


AVIVO brightness/contrast in CCC: default and controlled by application


Brightness/contrast in PDVDU: +20/-5


With the above settings I get:


Close to correct brightness/contrast in PowerDVD Ultra (note I do not own a Blue-ray calibration DVD and the settings seem to only affect Blue-ray playback)


Playback of wmv, dvr-ms and other video types within either Media Center or Media Player produces very slightly too much brightness (using +4 and it really should be 0). It isn't bright enough to really make blacks turn into grey when watching movies & TV, but I can fairly easily see the moving BTB bars and moving X in various test patterns.


Playback of DVDs within Media Center or Media Player produces very slightly too much brightness and nowhere near enough contrast. BTB test patterns do show moving bars and X's, but it isn't enough to make blacks really turn grey. WTW test patterns show that I am way down on the white end of the grey scale. To pass the tests, I really need to use brightness at 0 and contrast at 100 (default settings). The end result when watching DVDs is movies are a little dull, but still look good.

Playback of Blue-ray movies within PowerDVD Ultra produces what looks like accurate grey levels, but I am only using black scenes and objects to calibrate brightness and very bright white objects to calibrate contrast. If I pick up a calibration Blue-ray I can fine tune PowerDVD to make it spot on (since PowerDVD can take control of the AVIVO settings).

Viewing of photographs, desktop (PC applications), and video games the grey levels are still too dark on the brightness side of things. Dark objects are black and all grey levels below 10 (on the 0-255 scale) are completely black. On the white side, I can see white variations all the way up to 255 without any clipping.


I think this is the best I've actually ever had it (now that I realized out that PowerDVD wasn't displaying correctly with my previous DVI/DVI cabling).

With this setup I have the following problems:


I am missing the bottom 0-10 grey levels (out of 0-255) for photographs, PC applications and video games (if I manually increase the overall brightness to +15 I can see all 0-255, but then brightness is too high for video playback)
I am able to see BTB within the range 10-16 for DVDs, wmv, dvr-ms, and other video formats within both Media Center and Media Player.
DVDs (only) are not making use of full brightness so the whitest whites are not as bright as they should be.
PowerDVD Ultra does not have exactly the correct grey levels, but only because I don't own a Blue-ray calibration DVD.


I have to say this situation really is silly when you consider that Media Center PCs are being sold as high end all around Media display devices - yet grey levels are actually impossible to get correct for different types of media simultaneously. I can get grey levels 100% accurate for any type of media - just not without making adjustments every time I switch between different types of media.

I have borrowed an Nvidia 8500GT and am right now going to install it. Unfortunately it doesn't have an HDMI dongle so I suspect by default it will output using RGB and PC levels. It will be interesting if I can tweak and tune to get accurate grey levels throughout with this video card...

Ultimately I am planning to replace my HD 2600XT since it keeps crashing when playing HD content within Media Center (some sort of DXVA initialization glitch). I'm planning to either go with an ATI 3870 or an Nvidia 8800 GT. Whichever one is able to drive my Toshiba HDTV is the one I will be going with.

Note that not only are grey levels important, but automatically dealing with overscan when all PC resolutions are used and being able to output spec compliant 720p and 1080i/p (complete with overscan) - without requiring me to go into the video card control panel each time. In other words I want to be able to watch TV/Blue-ray/HD-DVD/etc. with the best image quality (1:1 pixel mapping) and simply launch a game from within Media Center, pick up my XBox game controller and play supported Vista video games using any PC resolution (without any overscan).

OK, this is getting even more bizarre...

When the ATI HDMI dongle is used, the UseBT601CSC=1 registry setting DOES change grey levels when watching DVDs and video within Media Center as well as Media Player.

Even stranger than that, to actually pass the BTB and WTW tests I have to crank up the overall CCC brightness not to just +15 or +16, but all the way to +31 and turn down the overall contrast to 74%.

To make things even more bizarre, with UseBT601CSC=1 set, no matter where I move the overall brightness and contrast I cannot pass Microsoft's grey level test patterns (wmv files within ehome directory). I can pass brightness (BTB) by cranking the brightness all the way to 61, but even with the contrast at 0 there is still clipping of bright objects (the shirt in the test).

The good news is using +31 for brightness and 74 for contrast makes my DVDs play perfectly as well as photographs, PC applications, desktop and video games all display perfectly.

When watching HD recordings in Media Center with +31/74, there still seems to be correct grey levels. I found some of the darkest material (blank frames, black material around credits, etc.) and brightest material and can't see any evidence of blacks showing up as grey or whites clipping.

When I use PowerDVD to watch Blue-ray, as long as I use the defaults for the AVIVO brightness and contrast and tweak the brightness and contrast within PowerDVD, it is still able to produce correct grey levels.

Ultimately, by using the ATI HDMI dongle, UseBT601CSC=1, +31/74% for overall brightness and contrast, default for AVIVO brightness and contrast, PowerDVD's advanced video settings for brightness/contrast to +20/-5 I get:


Photographs, PC applications and video games all with correct grey levels (0-255 visible grey levels)


DVD, SD & HD recorded TV with correct grey levels (16-235 visible)


PowerDVD Ultra with Blue-ray movies with correct grey levels (16-235 visible - note I can still fine tune this further if I had a Blueray calibration DVD)


The only thing that doesn't work (so far) is wmv playback (specifically Microsoft's brightness and contrast calibration clips) are completely out of whack with both far to little brightness and far to much contrast.


Since we don't watch much wmv content, so far this seems like the best calibration for our HTPC.

What a nightmare that was...

I installed the Nvidia 8500 GT and posted my experience here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13904784#post13904784

Unless someone can show me what I have done wrong, my next video card will DEFINITELY be an ATI again.

What a nightmare that was...

I installed the Nvidia 8500 GT and posted my experience here:


I used to have one of those, and can safely say NVidia's drivers are just as atrocious as ATI's. As you found, they've also recently started doing expansion by default - inevitable in a sense, given most video playback will be on on PC monitors, which by default are roughly calibrated to 0-255.

What a nightmare that was...

I installed the Nvidia 8500 GT and posted my experience here:

Unless someone can show me what I have done wrong, my next video card will DEFINITELY be an ATI again.

Wow, thanks. Actually reminds me a bit of when I was using my GF2 440mx to my 19" CRT in college. :D

I don't know whether you did something wrong or not, but it also made me realize I'm taking a lot for granted with my ATI card. Maybe I'll stick with it a little longer.

Thanks for posting.

I used to have one of those, and can safely say NVidia's drivers are just as atrocious as ATI's. As you found, they've also recently started doing expansion by default - inevitable in a sense, given most video playback will be on on PC monitors, which by default are roughly calibrated to 0-255.

I really don't mind expansion - in fact I would prefer it if I could see all of the appropriate grey levels between Media Center and PC applications (photographs, TV, Blue-ray, HD-DVD, games, etc.).

The key is I still want top image quality regardless of if the output is compressed to video levels or expanded to PC levels. With 10 bit per color processing there shouldn't be any quality loss so I say go for it - expand video and make everything view appropriately on any display.

For Blu-ray calibration just use this:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496

It worked great for me. In PowerDVD I can't see the WTWs but I didn't try tweaking PowerDVD's controls, just the ones on my projector. I was leary of playing with the PowerDVD settings because I thought they may have more adverse affects then the CCC settings. But it seems that you've had luck so maybe I'll try tonight.

Great post, by the way.

For Blu-ray calibration just use this:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496

It worked great for me. In PowerDVD I can't see the WTWs but I didn't try tweaking PowerDVD's controls, just the ones on my projector. I was leary of playing with the PowerDVD settings because I thought they may have more adverse affects then the CCC settings. But it seems that you've had luck so maybe I'll try tonight.

Great post, by the way.

One thing to note is PowerDVD Ultra can only take over control of brightness and contrast if you keep the "let application decide" checkbox checked within CCC's AVIVO panel. If you alter the brightness or contrast in the AVIVO panel within CCC, the sliders do nothing within PowerDVD Ultra.

Thanks for the link. I'll see if I can create myself a couple of calibration DVDs that utilize the Blue-ray and HD-DVD playback engines within PowerDVD Ultra. (deleted my question after reading the link in more detail...)

Did a little test of screenshots to try various renderers, and the effect of expansion. Underlined two sentences that are essentially the results.

The frame used here is at minute 1:01:19 of the Bluray PotC2, which is AVC 1920*1080. This is displayed 1:1 on a 1920*1200 screen, and screenshot at the same in lossless PNG. In other words, no scaling at any point. As this is HD progressive, there is also no driver-based denoising/sharpening.

Setup: Sapphire 2600XT, Vista32, Cat8.4, latest ffdshow clsid build

Four screenshots:

A) ffdshow RGB32HQ > EVR
B) ffdshow RGB32HQ > EVR custom (3d/bilinear ps2)
C) ffdshow RGB32HQ > Haali renderer
D) ffdshow YUY2 > EVR, brightness 16/86 in CCC <-----ie standard drivers expansion, corrected back to video levels by CCC


With RGB32HQ done in ffdshow (A/B/C), you get no expansion at all, as long as you remember to set fullrange luma under RGB conversion (the default setting maps luma16 to rgb0, aka expands levels, see the sourceforge help page). Levels expansion appears to be always done at the RGB stage.


Some sample pixels:
X-Y

300-500 (dreadlocks) A/B/C 51/41/22, D 52/41/22 (same)
700-700: (overcoat) A/B/C 158/121/81, D 157/121/83 (D is -1 red, +2 blue)
700-300: (blue sky) A/B/C 148/180/205,D 149/180/204 (D is +1 red, -1 blue)
1600-400: (parrot body) A/B/C 240/180/43, D 239/180/47 (D is -1 red, +4 blue)


The various renderers produce literally 100% identical results (verified by image comparer util). As no scaling is happening, this is as it should be - they appear to be passing the decoder output through unmolested.


Comparing A/B/C with D, which has been expanded then contracted, I can't see any difference - good news. There are some minor differences when you look at actual pixels, mainly in the blue, but they're unnoticeable in practice even if you flick between the screenshots. They appear to be more the result of different RGB conversion than the expansion+contraction, because if you do a SD test (using usebt601csc to control expansion) then the differences are even more minimal, 1 rgb value at most.


Also did a test with the PDVD decoder, with and without acceleration, and both were 100% the same as D above - ie pdvd/ffdshow h264 decoders are producing the same output, whether hardware accelerated or not.


Zipped download here: http://rapidshare.com/files/116536001/screenshots.zip.html


More tests to come, perhaps some scaling/sharpening issues?

HTSlider: I tested the PowerDVD controls and as soon as I touched the contrast the WTWs showed up, even at +1. In the end it was already calibrated properly because the optimal setting was contrast at zero, but I couldn't see the WTWs before by simply adjusting the projector's contrast. Thanks for the tip.

8.5's just released.

Heres an overview of the the release note, some are relevent for here:

We have just released Catalyst 8.5 for Windows Vista, Windows XP and Linux platforms on http://www.amd.com


Highlights of the Catalyst 8.5 Windows release include:

Performance improvements
• Call of Juarez DX10 – Performance increases up to 12% on the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series of products
• Lost Planet DX10 – Performance increases from 5 to 35% on the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series of products.
• World in Conflict DX10 – Performance increases up to 25% on the ATI Radeon HD 3600 and ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of products. Even greater gains are seen on the ATI Radeon HD 3870X2.
• Stalker DX9 – Performance increases by 20-50% when HDR is enabled in the game; across the ATI Radeon 3800 Series of products.
• Halo – Performance increases by 10-30% across all ATI Radeon graphics products.

New features

New display mode support

• This release of Catalyst™ introduces a number of display mode enhancements for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products (configuration of these settings are adjusted in the Catalyst Control Center):
o SECAM TV-out support
o 1080p24 mode support
o 1080p Custom mode support for HDTVs (that support 60 Hz display modes) – users can configure their own custom 1080p modes to best fit their display.


Adaptive Anti-Aliasing – OpenGL support
• This release of Catalyst™ introduces Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support for OpenGL applications for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products. Adaptive Anti-Aliasing substantially improves image quality by anti-aliasing transparent textures.

HDMI Audio for non-standard TV modes
• This release of Catalyst™ introduces support for HDMI Audio for all TV timing modes and non-standard (CEA 861b) TV modes. A dialog box will be shown to users when a non-standard TV mode is selected, asking if they would like to use HDMI Audio (in certain situations HDMI audio can get out of sync when running on a non-standard TV mode).

Windows XP Service Pack 3 support
• This release of Catalyst™ introduces WHQL certified support for Microsoft’s Windows XP Service Pack 3 update for all ATI Radeon Series products.

Resolved Issue highlights
• Clive Barker's Jericho: Corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ HD 38x0 series of product and running the Windows Vista operating system.
• Crysis: Flickering shadow corruption no longer occurs in hallways of the ship when CrossFire™ is enabled.
• Gears of War: Launching the game under the 64 bit version of Windows Vista no longer results in momentary corruption of the desktop.
• Enemy Territory Quake Wars: Launch the game demo on a system containing an ATI Radeon™ X11x0 series of product and running the Windows Vista operating system no longer results in the operating system failing to respond.
• Hellgate: London: Flickering is no longer noticed when quitting and then relaunching the game when the in-game setting are set to their maximum levels.
• Stranglehold: The game no longer fails to load on systems running the Windows Vista operating system with default values enabled.
• Tabula Rasa: Setting the graphics option to enable Deferred Lighting and Dynamic Shadows no longer results in corruption being displayed.
• Team Fortress 2: Enabling CrossFire™ and playing the game on a system running Windows Vista no longer results in corruption being noticed.
• Tomb Raider Anniversary: Performance improvement is now noticed when playing the game with CrossFire™ enabled.


Highlights of the Linux Catalyst 8.5 release include:

New features

Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition – new 3D settings

• This release of the ATI Catalyst™ Linux driver introduces new Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition 3D settings for the ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series and ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series users. Linux users can now adjust the following 3D settings:
o Catalyst AI
o Mipmap detail level
o Custom AA filters


Resolved Issues
• Support for video playback on the second head in dual head mode is now available.
• Unresolved symbols in Xorg log under RHEL 4u6 32 and 64 bit no longer occur.
• The desktop background color is no longer displayed incorrectly when using xcommgr.
• Change VT no longer fails when kernel module is not loaded.
• Switching to the virtual terminal multiple times no longer results in X displaying corruption.
• Catalyst Control Center: The Preference page is now localized for all supported languages.
• The Linux kernel module is no longer installed to wrong location if the Linux kernel is updated.
• Random system hangs no longer occur when calls to the ATI driver are made from Ring3.
• X window no longer fails to respond when GoogleEarth is maximized.
• A segmentation fault no longer occurs when running SPECViewperf on systems containing an ATI FireGL V5100 series product and running SUSE 10.3 x86.
• Enabling Composite extension no longer displays 8x AA for graphic cards that do not support 8x AA under the Ubuntu 7.10 operating system.
• Display corruption is no longer noticed at logon when compiz is enabled.
• Launching the glxgears application no longer results in segmentation faults.
• GoogleEarth: Launching the application in horizontal mode on a system running X no longer results in corruption being noticed.
• Specviewperf 8.1 64 bit version: Segmentation faults no longer occurs on IGP systems.
• Maya 2008: Moving the render window no longer results in the operating system failing.
• Glxgears corruption is no longer noticed in big desktop mode.

For more information on Catalyst 8.5 (for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the Catalyst 8.5 release notes found in driver download section.

Anyone able to explain why 1080p via HDMI is considered new? Is it just because it is a pre-built mode now? Any chance 1080p over component is doable now?? That I would love (since my sharp takes 1080p via component).

Heres an overview of the the release note, some are relevent for here:
Dave, thanks for the heads up! Reading the announcement this could be a step into the right direction for HTPC users... :)

Hi,

i did an update to XPs SP3, Realtek driver and updated CCC from 8.3 to 8.5 all at once.

I cant say that iam pleased with this sort of drivers. I get a lot of jaggies around the edges on SD content - with or without the Reg Hacks. Iam not sure where it comes from, but i will install 8.3 again.

BTW: Where can i download official 8.4 driver?

do we finally get a pstrip-like in the drivers ?

I read that they offer custom resolutions creation ? :eek:

catalyst 8.5 UVD playback quality is poor than 8.2

Hi,

i did an update to XPs SP3, Realtek driver and updated CCC from 8.3 to 8.5 all at once.

I cant say that iam pleased with this sort of drivers. I get a lot of jaggies around the edges on SD content - with or without the Reg Hacks. Iam not sure where it comes from, but i will install 8.3 again.

BTW: Where can i download official 8.4 driver?

Be aware. I found that with 8.5 in contrast to all previous versions denoise / detail-enhance and all other postprocessing options are switch off by default.

grubi.

@Grubi: And how is your SD content quality?

@Grubi: And how is your SD content quality?

Still evaluating. Hard to say at the moment. With default settings SD seems to be a bit pixelated, however as I had denoise activated previously I cannot be compared.

Could problems people are having be down to 8.4's broken uninstall? I had to manually clean it out because it left bits all over (even more than usual).

Anyway, I'll do some screenshot comparisons between different drivers (thinking pre-sliders in particular). However, does anyone know how to make rollover comparisons? Or where can host them?

By the way, your image quality probs with coreavc are probably down to it using different levels (config, select pc or video/tv levels). It shouldn't look any different other than that.

Today I had to use CoreAVC for a 1080p file that just didn't work with MPC-HC decoder. Even configuring the input-output levels, the picture quality was disappointing (black levels seemed fine, but the picture was very pixelated). Later on I tried with other files with which I compared coreavc with mpc hardware decoder, the result was clear: With coreavc there is a lot of pixelation in faces and same color surfaces (like walls). When I use MPC decoder I get less pixelization, less bothering, closer to film grain. I had "standard deblocking" selected on coreavc and I'm using version 1.7.

With MPC decoder and 8.4 ati drivers I can see almost everything with excellent quality. Amazing how a freeware program works way better than the paid decoder from CoreAVC or even mammoth Cyberlink. :) Thanks to the MPC-HC team!!!!!! :D

arfster : the drivers "enhancements" don't show up on screenshots, as they are processed after the mixer.

FWIW, I installed 8.5 last night using my normal routine of ATI uninstall util=>safe mode=>driver cleaner=>reboot=>install normal. I had no problems installing. CCC came up just fine. All of my deinterlacing options were there. I set to VA, checked the pulldown, and tested on HQV SD disk. I see no functional difference from 8.4. The flag scene looked fine - no stepped edges, no pixelization. The film detail (racetrack with bleachers) deinterlaced fine. Noise reduction seems to be working well too, according to the HQV test.

Anyway, I am one who has no problem with these drivers.

XP SP3
2600XT PCIe
P35 chipset

arfster : the drivers "enhancements" don't show up on screenshots, as they are processed after the mixer.


Are you meaning the driver-based sharpening? (ie CCC sliders). That's definitely captured by screenshots.

If Haali vs driver/EVR, I tried two ways to look for uncaptured differences: play simultaneously and alt-tab between them on the same screen, and simulanteously on two screens (my "workstation" has two of the same 1920*1200 screens). Other than minor colour differences (bt709 differences presumably), they were identical - definitely no postprocessing going on there.

Of course, that's just my setup. As with anything else related to HTPC, what you actually end up with is down to your individual hardware/software setup+ the phase of the moon + a few other random factors.


ps upscaling might (and probably is) show more considerably differences, but the above tests were intended to bypass all scaling by displaying at 1:1.

Did a little test of screenshots to try various renderers, and the effect of expansion. Underlined two sentences that are essentially the results.

Setup: Sapphire 2600XT, Vista32, Cat8.4, latest ffdshow clsid build

Four screenshots:

A) ffdshow RGB32HQ > EVR
B) ffdshow RGB32HQ > EVR custom (3d/bilinear ps2)
C) ffdshow RGB32HQ > Haali renderer
D) ffdshow YUY2 > EVR, brightness 16/86 in CCC <-----ie standard drivers expansion, corrected back to video levels by CCC


With RGB32HQ done in ffdshow (A/B/C), you get no expansion at all, as long as you remember to set fullrange luma under RGB conversion (the default setting maps luma16 to rgb0, aka expands levels, see the sourceforge help page). Levels expansion appears to be always done at the RGB stage.
Thanks for your diligent efforts in getting the best out of the ATI cards. IN what way do these findings change the playback chain? Is the ffdshow RGB32HQ > EVR a suggestion to use ffdshow as decoder or in post processing OR was this just for the test putposes?

Thanks for any help. Just got a MSI HD3650 and want to try the 8.4 drivers with this new card with built in HDMI connector.

Is the ffdshow RGB32HQ > EVR a suggestion to use ffdshow as decoder or in post processing OR was this just for the test putposes?


You can do either for this test - I did it with ffdshow as a decoder cos it's simpler.

Anyway, the purpose of the test was to find the ideal setup for displaying TV levels. At present, that means recontracting (brightness16/contrast86) after the default expansion ...... messy! I'd done this a while back with SD, but HD has some differences (bt709 for one). The ffdshow approach I used does the YV12>RGB32 conversion in software, rather than the standard setup of the renderer doing it in hardware, and thus avoids levels expansion completely.

Anyway, the conclusion is basically that for TV levels, expansion+contraction is not 100% lossless, but it's only minutely off. Blindtesting, I don't think anyone could see the difference, except perhaps on a specially picked and very artficial test pattern (and it would be minimal even then).

The ffdshow approach I used does the YV12>RGB32 conversion in software, rather than the standard setup of the renderer doing it in hardware, and thus avoids levels expansion completely.I don't think this is true. On my set up - 3850 Cat.5.4 on XP with dongle - doing RGB conversion fixes the BT.601/BT.709 problem and I get video levels but I still have clipped BTB and WTW. So it seems I am still getting expansion and contraction. Needless to say I am not doing any level adjustment in ffdshow.

Anyway, the conclusion is basically that for TV levels, expansion+contraction is not 100% lossless, but it's only minutely off. Blindtesting, I don't think anyone could see the difference, except perhaps on a specially picked and very artficial test pattern (and it would be minimal even then).

Keep in mind FFDShow probably only uses 8 bit colors.

If you let ATI do the video processing in hardware, it uses 10 bits per color plus there is no handoff between directshow filters. Compressed video is sent to the card and it takes it all the way to displaying the final result on the screen. In reality it doesn't even need to convert between YCbCr and RGB (depending on how the software is written).

Do you find the image quality is better with FFDShow? Unless it is doing a better job of processing the video, why wouldn't you simply take advantage of the hardware processing on your 2600?

The problem is that unless you use ffdshow to do the conversion you get the wrong colorspace conversion from the driver if you have upscaled the video in ffdshow.

The driver assumes that all video 720p and above is BT.709. SD (e.g. DVD) is BT.601. But if SD has been pre-upscaled the driver does not know to use this.

The colorspace errors are far worse than any errors due to 8-bit rounding. ffdshow HQ RGB32 conversion is very good (if slow!).

The problem is that unless you use ffdshow to do the conversion you get the wrong colorspace conversion from the driver if you have upscaled the video in ffdshow.

The driver assumes that all video 720p and above is BT.709. SD (e.g. DVD) is BT.601. But if SD has been pre-upscaled the driver does not know to use this.

The colorspace errors are far worse than any errors due to 8-bit rounding. ffdshow HQ RGB32 conversion is very good (if slow!).

I must be missing something.

If I don't use FFDShow at all, don't even have it installed, use Media Center for my HD recordings and PowerDVD Ultra for my HD-DVD/Blueray, use an ATI HDMI dongle on the card output plus separately fine tune both the ATI brightness/contrast and PowerDVD brightness/contrast to dial grey levels right in - am I not getting an image at least comparable to using FFDShow?

How do you use FFDShow for protected Blueray and HD-DVD anyway? Can PowerDVD use it if AnyDVD HD is installed?

I totally agree colorspace errors are far worse than rounding errors. I am trying to understand what the advantage to FFDShow is over DXVA AVIVO.

I don't think this is true. On my set up - 3850 Cat.5.4 on XP with dongle - doing RGB conversion fixes the BT.601/BT.709 problem and I get video levels but I still have clipped BTB and WTW. So it seems I am still getting expansion and contraction. Needless to say I am not doing any level adjustment in ffdshow.


Not using the dongle, but there's no clipping going on for me, see full 0-255 here:

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1939/rampus1.th.png (http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rampus1.png)

Have you set ffdshow rgb input to fullrange? The default setting expands, and perhaps then the dongle is causing recontraction?

Not using the dongle, but there's no clipping going on for me, see full 0-255 here:

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1939/rampus1.th.png (http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rampus1.png)

Have you set ffdshow rgb input to fullrange? The default setting expands, and perhaps then the dongle is causing recontraction?Just trying to make sure I understand you here:

At the start you are saying that you are not using the dongle, right?

What is this about rgb input? ffdshow is getting YV12 from Nvidia MPEG-2 filter and is then outputing RGB. Only filters are blur and resize.

Do you find the image quality is better with FFDShow? Unless it is doing a better job of processing the video, why wouldn't you simply take advantage of the hardware processing on your 2600?

The idea was to avoid expansion+contraction to get TV levels, thus skipping an unnecessary stage and keeping btb/wtw. That worked, but it turned out the extra stage was visually lossless.

I don't use ffdshow upscaling so bt601/709 issues there aren't a factor, although I do have to for the occasional 720p mkv that is encoded without bars (thus is approx 550ish pixels high), and isn't flagged as bt709 - the drivers then assume it's SD, and use bt601.

I must be missing something.

If I don't use FFDShow at all, don't even have it installed, use Media Center for my HD recordings and PowerDVD Ultra for my HD-DVD/Blueray, use an ATI HDMI dongle on the card output plus separately fine tune both the ATI brightness/contrast and PowerDVD brightness/contrast to dial grey levels right in - am I not getting an image at least comparable to using FFDShow?

How do you use FFDShow for protected Blueray and HD-DVD anyway? Can PowerDVD use it if AnyDVD HD is installed?

I totally agree colorspace errors are far worse than rounding errors. I am trying to understand what the advantage to FFDShow is over DXVA AVIVO.None of this applies to Blu-ray or even high def (except the case of 2.35:1/2.4:1 720p video encoded without the black bars as arfster explained) . I am talking about using ffdshow to upscale SD. ffdshow can still produce a subjectively better (sharper, without artifacts) upscaled image than DXVA AVIVO, at least in the opinion of many observers(!). But upscaling confuses the driver and if you pass it YUV causes the wrong colorspace conversion. So purely in the case of pre-upscaled SD you need to do RGB conversion in ffdshow.

Just trying to make sure I understand you here:

At the start you are saying that you are not using the dongle, right?

What is this about rgb input?

Sorry, edited it too fast, meant RGB conversion (the tab, under output). Under contrast section defaults to standard, which expands.


Not using the dongle, no.

Sorry, edited it too fast, meant RGB conversion (the tab, under output). Under contrast section defaults to standard, which expands.


Not using the dongle, no.??? "Standard" in my copy of ffdshow says 16-235 luma, 16-240 chroma (latest stable beta4).

There is another option below for "full-range" 0-255.

Mine is set to "standard".

Resultant image is clearly clipped as a result of expansion (presumably by the ATI driver), although the levels are right due to the dongle.

??? "Standard" in my copy of ffdshow says 16-235 luma, 16-240 chroma.

There is another option below for "full-range" 0-255.

Mine is set to "standard".


That's expanding. It's confusingly named, but those are actually input luma ranges. It always maps output to RGB0-255, so if you select standard/16-235 you get expansion.

Try flicking between them when playing something, standard is darker than fullrange.

That's expanding. It's confusingly named, but those are actually input luma ranges. It always maps output to RGB0-255, so if you select standard/16-235 you get expansion.

Try flicking between them when playing something, standard is darker than fullrange.
Oh! OK. That's clear!:confused::)

I'll have a go. Anyway, it is fine, because I want video levels and the dongle is doing it's contraction thing, so I need expansion first, but it is good to know what is doing it. Thanks!

I'll have a go.You are right. It was ffdshow doing expansion to "0-255" due the the "standard" "luma 16-235" setting :rolleyes::)

Yeah, stupidly named isn't it :-) That had me tearing my hair out for a bit.....

Anyway, nice to know the dongle contracts in that situation, whereas brightness/contrast in CCC doesn't affect video when you feed the renderer RGB.

As an aside, I wonder if dongle-contraction avoids chroma problems (ie does it have the equivalent of the modify-only-luminance tickbox in ffdshow's levels?).


Edit: I guess it does when you use ffdshow for rgb conversion, but how about normal decoders outputting yuy2/yv12? Urrrgh, I'm hungover, this is making my head hurt.

Yeah, stupidly named isn't it :-) That had me tearing my hair out for a bit.....

Anyway, nice to know the dongle contracts in that situation, whereas brightness/contrast in CCC doesn't affect video when you feed the renderer RGB.

As an aside, I wonder if dongle-contraction avoids chroma problems (ie does it have the equivalent of the modify-only-luminance tickbox in ffdshow's levels?).


Edit: I guess it does when you use ffdshow for rgb conversion, but how about normal decoders outputting yuy2/yv12? Urrrgh, I'm hungover, this is making my head hurt.I believe it does the right thing. Hard to be sure unless you capture images on the far side of the HDMI cable. But, subjectively, when I was doing these tests:

http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=67600&postcount=67
http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=67601&postcount=68

there was no difference in RGB vs DXVA YV12 (live video of course, not the screenshots which would all be the same). The chroma problems of BT.601/Bt.709 stood out a mile.

I obviously cannot tell if ALL have a subtle chroma problem without removing the dongle and re-calibrating, my eye is not that good, but I doubt it.

Makes sense I think.

Thinking backwards, the only way you can have chroma problems here is if it does the contraction on the YUY2/YV12 before RGB conversion (cos if it's done afterwards, it's operating on RGB and there's no separate luma).

Easy to test: feed the renderer yuy2, check for clipping. If there is any, dongle-contraction is happening after the expansion in RGB conversion (cos contraction before expansion would maintain btb/wtw), and thus there's no potential problem.

Setup:
- HD 2600 xt connect to Onkyo via HDMI
- Onkyo 805 receiver
- Playing blu ray on Dell PC
- Using Cyberlink Powerdvd Ultra to play blu ray disk
- Windows XP SP 3


The video looks great and I get sound, but I'm not getting the Dolby TRUHD that's on this Blu ray disk passing to the receiver via HDMI....I'm just getting 2 channel stereo(the 805 is still in Dolby PLII mode when the blu ray disk is playing). In my "Sounds and audio device properties" in XP, under the "audio" tab, I have "ATI HD Audio rear output" set. In Powerdvd ultra,under the "audio" tab, I have "use s/pdif" set under speaker environment. Under "output mode", I have "only primary audio" set...the only 2 other options here are AC3 mixing and Dts mixing. Tryed both and still don't get the truehd passed to my receiver. Tryed a few other blu rays I own and still no surround modes are passed to my Onkyo(yes I selected them).

I'm positive this blu ray has TrueHD for I when I play this disk on my PS3, it decodes the TrueHD perfectly. The other blu rays I've tried have 5.1 uncompressed, 5.1 dolby digital, etc., and can't get these disks to pass the surround audio via HDMI either using the 2600 HD XT.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

If I recall, we have previously established that the 2400 and 2600 can only pass 2 channel pcm via hdmi, along with bit reduced formats like regular dolby digital or dts.

This is a 2400 and 2600 design limit, not a hdmi limit.

I thought I'd post one final update to my grey level struggle, final grey level success and my trial with the Nvidia 8500GT.

If any of you read through the 8500GT trial post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13904784), you'd see that I found absolutely no way at all to get consistent grey levels using the 8500GT. To get the Nvidia to produce a decent image I had to literally tweak the Nvidia control panel before switching applications absolutely all the time. This included switching between Media Center, PowerDVD, Media Player and Desktop/Video games. Nvidia doesn't even provide hotkey capability for Vista so I literally had to exit my application, pull out my mouse and keyboard, start the control panel and manually make all the changes. The Nvidia card also did a terrible job of upconverting 480i content into 1080i, while the ATI card does a great job of this.

Last night I reinstalled the 2600XT along with Catalyst 8.5 and have to say even with all of the hassles of setting it up, I am SO much happier with the 2600XT vs the 8500GT. I have now, finally got absolutely ALL grey levels working correctly (for the applications I use) and automatically. I can simply start PowerDVD from within Media Center, start a video game from within Media Center, exit to the desktop, view photographs, etc. Everything works and I can do everything simply using the remote control (and, of course, plugging in the XBox 360 game controllers into the front of the HTPC for gaming)!

On top of that interlaced video output (1080i) is much better with the ATI. The Nvidia did a great job at 720p, but for some reason 1080i flickered much worse than the ATI. With the Nvidia, the desktop wasn't even legible at 1080i, but with the ATI is is (although still clearly interlaced).

Here are the settings and configuration that work with my particular HDTV, the Toshiba 51H83, and my HD 2600XT video card (note that I suspect my HDTV does something strange with the video card and requires different settings than typical):

Note that I also took advantage of JimmyFace's Blu-ray/HD-DVD calibration link (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496) and both the Blu-ray (AVCHD) and HD-DVD calibration DVDs worked flawlessly with PowerDVD Ultra.


HDTV hooked up using the ATI HDMI dongle (this is critical - actually each and every one of these points is critical).
ATI Catalyst 8.5 installed (over 8.4, suddenly wmv playback became compliant when using these settings here).
UseBT601CSC=1 added to the DXVA portion of the Catalyst video driver.
Overall brightness and contrast set to +31 and 74% respectively.
AVIVO brightness and contrast set to default with the check-box selected to let applications take control.
PowerDVD Ultra's advanced video settings for brightness and contrast set to +19 and -5 respectively (calibrated using the calibration disks mentioned above).


Even though there is absolutely no way this level of tweaking should be required to get compliant video output, I am still very pleased to FINALLY have correct grey levels for everything I use.

In addition to that, in order to get the best image quality I also (adjusted while using calibration disks where possible):


Created "custom resolutions" in the HDTV control panel within CCC that perfectly fill the screen for both 720p and 1080i (ATI also uses these overscan compensated resolution for all PC resolutions, but still outputs spec compliant 720p and 1080i when using 1280x720 or 1920x1080).
Calibrated my HDTV after calibrating the video card. Note that while calibrating the video card I cranked the brightness way up and contrast way down to ensure the HDTV wasn't limiting any of the grey levels being visible (this way I will have the greatest number of grey levels available, or no unnecessary grey level compression). I also discovered that as a final test my DVD calibration disk played back using the hardware DVD player confirms that my HDTV is also now calibrated for it too (also note that I adjusted the brightness and contrast using the service menu so the default setting of 50 is now correct in the user menu for brightness and contrast). I also have flesh-tone correction turned off and auto contrast off.
Turned down the sharpness on the HDTV to 30 (default is 50 - I didn't look for sharpness in the service menu).
Turned off ATI's flesh-tone and color vibrance using the control panel.
Set the AVIVO deinterlacing to automatic with pulldown detection enabled (default).
Set the AVIVO noise filter at 40 (note since decreasing the sharpness on the HDTV I have found new settings I consider best for the noise filter and edge enhancement; I used to use 50/15 with default sharpness and now prefer 40/20).
Set the AVIVO edge sharpening at 20.


I now have the following grey levels visible as well as excellent image quality:

Photographs using Media Center: 0-255 visible
Photographs using Vista's photo viewer: 0-255 visible
Video games: 0-255 visible
Desktop: 0-255 visible
DVD in Media Center: 16-235 visible
DVD in Media Player: 16-235 visible
Recorded SD & HD TV in Media Center: 16-235 visible
Recorded SD & HD TV in Media Player: 16-235 visible
Blu-ray in PowerDVD Ultra: 16-235 visible
HD-DVD in PowerDVD Ultra: 16-235 visible
WMV in Media Center: 16-235 visible
WMV in Media Player: 16-235 visible


Absolutely every single piece of content I want to display and piece of software I want to use is now producing both correct grey levels and excellent image quality. On top of that, the HDTV's overscan is perfectly compensated for automatically when I use any standard PC resolution or my custom resolutions; yet still spec compliant 720p and 1080i (including overscan) is output when 1280x720 or 1920x1080 is used. Nvidia doesn't support anywhere near this level of overscan compensation either.

Also, due to the fact that ATI uses 10 bit color accuracy for all of their processing, I am convinced there is effectively no degradation due to potential expansion and contraction of grey levels.

I am sure many will appreciate your detailed post on your experiences.

But I am baffled by the need to tweak brightness/contrast at all either in CCC or PDVD. It sounds like your TV's calibration is not to video levels.

All the other steps I concur with and produce perfect video levels and chroma in all apps with my TV & a 3850 (still on Cat 8.4). I am currently using TheaterTek, PDVD7, PDVD8, MPC-HC + photos. Someone else with a 2600 has also got perfect results with the same.

I would suggest others start with the tweaks, minus brightness adjustments, and get into those if needed.

I am sure many will appreciate your detailed post on your experiences.

But I am baffled by the need to tweak brightness/contrast at all either in CCC or PDVD. It sounds like your TV's calibration is not to video levels.

All the other steps I concur with and produce perfect video levels and chroma in all apps with my TV & a 3850 (still on Cat 8.4). I am currently using TheaterTek, PDVD7, PDVD8, MPC-HC + photos. Someone else with a 2600 has also got perfect results with the same.

I would suggest others start with the tweaks, minus brightness adjustments, and get into those if needed.

HT needs to add in support for the MS decoder in VMC. He will no doubt explain but my guess is that, as there are no controls for this decoder and CCC is set to "Application control", he needs to calibrate for VMC playback then use PowerDVD's settings to adjust for HD content.

there's one thing I don't understand. I thought that PDVD settings didn't take effect with CCC set to "application controlled". Is this not the case?

Wo0zy

I am sure many will appreciate your detailed post on your experiences.

But I am baffled by the need to tweak brightness/contrast at all either in CCC or PDVD. It sounds like your TV's calibration is not to video levels.

All the other steps I concur with and produce perfect video levels and chroma in all apps with my TV & a 3850 (still on Cat 8.4). I am currently using TheaterTek, PDVD7, PDVD8, MPC-HC + photos. Someone else with a 2600 has also got perfect results with the same.

I would suggest others start with the tweaks, minus brightness adjustments, and get into those if needed.

I don't get it either. My HDTV passed all of the grey level tests using a hardware DVD player both prior and after doing all of this calibration with the ATI 2600.

If I don't touch anything at all (install CCC and use default settings), DVD, WMV and SD Recorded TV playback is 100% correct when using either Media Center or Media Player. Unfortunately that is where things end.

Photographs, desktop, video games, PowerDVD, HD Recorded TV, etc. is totally screwed up. With photographs, desktop and video I can only visibly see grey levels from 16-235. With HD Recorded TV, I can see something like 30-220. With PowerDVD I can only see something like 30-220 also.

Once I add the UseBT601CSC=1, it changes all SD content, including DVD, WMV and SD Recorded TV. At that point it takes the overall brightness cranked up to +31 and overall contrast turned down to 74% before DVD, WMV, and SD Recorded TV is back to spec. Luckily this also fixes Photographs, desktop, and video games (0-255 is now visible).

PowerDVD Ultra is strange in that it somehow ignores the overall CCC brightness and contrast settings. I can crank up/down the AVIVO brightness and contrast to +15/85% to get PowerDVD to spec, but this breaks video playback grey levels in Media Center and Media Player.

Luckily, instead of adjusting the AVIVO settings in CCC, I found I can use PowerDVD's settings instead. Using +19 and -5 gets me bang on with perfect 16-235 grey levels (16 being black, 235 being white).

Actually, let me make one correction to my above explanation.

If I add the UseBT601CSC=1 and instead use AVIVO's brightness/contrast at +15/85 I can fix DVD, SD Recorded TV, WMV as well as PowerDVD Ultra's grey levels. Unfortunately this leaves my desktop, photographs and video games with only 16-235 visible.

Using the complete method outlined in my "big post" above, I can get absolutely everything to provide correct grey levels (in other words 16-235 visible for all video and 0-255 visible for desktop, photographs and video games).

UseBT601CSC=1 was already used in your first post. Do you mean UseBT601CSC=0?

Wo0zy

All the other steps I concur with and produce perfect video levels and chroma in all apps with my TV & a 3850 (still on Cat 8.4). I am currently using TheaterTek, PDVD7, PDVD8, MPC-HC + photos. Someone else with a 2600 has also got perfect results with the same.


When you say + photos, what do you mean?

Are you saying that pictures at the desktop are shown with the full 0-255 grey levels visible? What about photos within Media Center and video games (should be the same - at least it is on mine)?

Are you certain you have correct grey levels everywhere while using totally default settings in CCC and without using any registry hacks?

I have managed to assemble quite an assortment of calibration source content throughout all of this. Maybe I'll try to post links to everything so everyone can confirm they are actually seeing 16-235 for all video content and 0-255 for all PC type applications, video games and photographs.

Based on what others have said it does seem possible that somehow my HDTV produces different grey levels between different applications when compared to other systems. I'm not sure if my HDTV somehow uses different grey levels between RGB and YCbCr sources, if other enthusiasts are not calibrating all of the sources, or if there is a difference between our calibration sources.

At this point I am quite confident that I do finally have the right grey levels visible everywhere - for the first time ever.

UseBT601CSC=1 was already used in your first post. Do you mean UseBT601CSC=0?

Wo0zy

No, I do mean UseBT601CSC=1.

I'll start again...

Default settings using the HDMI dongle:


DVD, SD Recorded TV, WMV - all correct with 16-235 visible.
Everything else wrong (including HD TV, photographs, PowerDVD Ultra and video games).


Adding UseBT601CSC=1:


Everything wrong, with video far too dark with too much contrast.


If I now adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast to +15/85%:


Most, if not all video is now correctly calibrated for 16-235 (including PowerDVD)
Unfortunately photographs, desktop and video games also only have 16-235 visible at this point


If I instead adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast back to default and check "application controlled" + crank up the overall brightness to +31 and overall contrast to 74% in CCC:


Photographs, desktop, and video games all have 0-255 visible (good)
DVD, SD Recorded TV, HD Recorded TV, and WMV all have 16-235 visible (even better)
Unfortunately PowerDVD Ultra is wrong (bad)


If I now crank up the brightness to +19 and contrast down to -5 in PowerDVD Ultra (advanced video settings), I now get absolutely everything working.

Does this make sense?

How does this compare to what others are seeing with your HDTVs?

I understood your first post perfectally. It was the use of the word "instead" in the follow-up that seemed odd. I guess you meant "also".

Sorry.

Nice work BTW!

Wo0zy

I understood your first post perfectally. It was the use of the word "instead" in the follow-up that seemed odd. I guess you meant "also".

Sorry.

Nice work BTW!

Wo0zy

Is my experience in-line with what you are seeing? (assuming your display is an HDTV - if it a PC monitor, this probably changes everything)

I'm wondering if the values I converged on are specific to my Toshiba 51H83 or if they work for all displays?

HT needs to add in support for the MS decoder in VMC. He will no doubt explain but my guess is that, as there are no controls for this decoder and CCC is set to "Application control", he needs to calibrate for VMC playback then use PowerDVD's settings to adjust for HD content.

there's one thing I don't understand. I thought that PDVD settings didn't take effect with CCC set to "application controlled". Is this not the case?

Wo0zy

BTW, your guess was 100% correct.

PDVD settings do work with CCC AVIVO brightness/contrast set to "application controlled". They don't work when the AVIVO brightness is specifically set in CCC.

One thing I discovered is if an Nvidia card is used (Nvidia drivers), PDVD can't control the brightness or contrast no matter what. The sliders "slide", but they don't do anything. This is also how PDVD behaves when the AVIVO "application controlled' check box is not selected.

I am using PDVD 3730a OEM.

BTW, your guess was 100% correct.

PDVD settings do work with CCC AVIVO brightness/contrast set to "application controlled". They don't work when the AVIVO brightness is specifically set in CCC.

One thing I discovered is if an Nvidia card is used (Nvidia drivers), PDVD can't control the brightness or contrast no matter what. The sliders "slide", but they don't do anything. This is also how PDVD behaves when the AVIVO "application controlled' check box is not selected.

I am using PDVD 3730a OEM.

Thanks for clarifying HT.

It must have been the NVIDIA results I was thinking of :o

Makes sense that the PDVD settings would work if set to "application controlled" in CCC.

I'll do some testing on my systems over the next day or two and let you know if my results match yours.

Again, great work !!

Wo0zy

When you say + photos, what do you mean?

Are you saying that pictures at the desktop are shown with the full 0-255 grey levels visible? What about photos within Media Center and video games (should be the same - at least it is on mine)?

Are you certain you have correct grey levels everywhere while using totally default settings in CCC and without using any registry hacks?

I have managed to assemble quite an assortment of calibration source content throughout all of this. Maybe I'll try to post links to everything so everyone can confirm they are actually seeing 16-235 for all video content and 0-255 for all PC type applications, video games and photographs.

Based on what others have said it does seem possible that somehow my HDTV produces different grey levels between different applications when compared to other systems. I'm not sure if my HDTV somehow uses different grey levels between RGB and YCbCr sources, if other enthusiasts are not calibrating all of the sources, or if there is a difference between our calibration sources.

At this point I am quite confident that I do finally have the right grey levels visible everywhere - for the first time ever.I use the UseBT601CSC=1 hack of course, to fix SD levels.

For photos 0-255 are clearly visible. I have a self made (with Photoshop) test pattern with 0 background 3,5,8,10,13,15,18. They are compressed to 16-235 because of the dongle, but my TV is calibrated to video levels so that is fine.

If I recall, we have previously established that the 2400 and 2600 can only pass 2 channel pcm via hdmi, along with bit reduced formats like regular dolby digital or dts.

This is a 2400 and 2600 design limit, not a hdmi limit.


Thanks for the response. I thought there was a way to pass HD audio formats from movies via the 2600 hd xt HDMI(DVI) based on the response from racerxnet(unless i misunderstood something):





For HD audio with the ATI cards you need to have the UAA driver installed in order for this to function. There are drivers available for XP SP1 as well. After the driver is loaded you can then load the HD drivers from ATI. Look in dsevice drivers for the HD audio and set it for this in your sound device properties.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/835221

MAK

My PC does have a Realtek ALC888 HD Audio card. When I select the sound option in XP "Realtek HD Audio output", I'm still not able to send any of the HD audio surround to my receiver. I downloaded/installed the "ATI HDMI Audio Device" software from Realtek. A new option appeared in sound default devices, "Realtek HDA hdmi out". When I selected it, I couldn't get any audio out of the HDMI out of the 2600. I also understand the UAA driver should be installed as part of XP sp3? Not sure if somehow this is missing, how to check if UAA is even there.

I use the UseBT601CSC=1 hack of course, to fix SD levels.

For photos 0-255 are clearly visible. I have a self made (with Photoshop) test pattern with 0 background 3,5,8,10,13,15,18. They are compressed to 16-235 because of the dongle, but my TV is calibrated to video levels so that is fine.

You haven't needed to make any brightness or contrast adjustments anywhere?

If I apply just UseBT601CSC=1, I end up with an HTPC calibrated for a display with PC grey levels (0-255) - even with the ATI dongle in use (and without the dongle things are only worse).

The UseBT601CSC=1 expands SD video from 16-235 into 0-255, so again I would need a display that supports PC grey levels.

The only thing I can think of is the HDMI handshaking between your display and video card flips either the display into PC grey levels or the video card to video levels. If correct, this suggests that at least some HDTVs are detected correctly with ATI 2X00 series cards.

From what I've read, most people do have to adjust their AVIVO brightness/contrast to +16/86% after applying UseBT601CSC=1 to bring grey levels back to video levels for output to an HDTV. Mine is consistent with this, except +15/85% is more accurate (and this doesn't fix photograph grey levels nor video game grey levels). I'm almost positive my father's HTPC is the same way too. His display is an Olevia 747i and his video card is an ATI 2600Pro.

Edit: What software are you using to display your photographs? Which operating system are you using? I am running Vista SP1, fully updated.

Here is what I am using for calibration sources:


SD WMV: Attached zip file, wmv
Photographs, generic PC applications: Attached zip file, bmp
HD MPEG-2: http://www.w6rz.net/ramp.zip (16-235 is between the dots)
DVD: Avia Calibration DVD (I own it)
Blu-ray: AVCHD iso burned to DVD from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496
HD-DVD: HD-DVD iso burned to DVD from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496
Video games: Crisis, Grid, Half Life (not true calibrations, but the games appear to match the bmp within the attached zip file, using the full 0-255, so I have been using the bmp to do the actual calibration)
HD Recorded TV: I used TSConverter2.5 to create a Media Center dvr-ms recording using the HD MPEG-2 ramp mentioned above. Note there was no difference in playback between the dvr-ms file or the ts file.


Does anyone know of any particular channel and time that an appropriate grey level test pattern is transmitted in Canada on ExpressVu satellite? Although I'm fairly confident my SD Recorded TV is correct I don't have a true calibration source. One area I'm sure there is some minor error is SD content captured through the PVR-250. I have checked calibration of the PVR-250 using the same content captured digitally through the R5000HD, but there is probably some minor error. The PVR-250 does have both brightness and contrast fine tuning available through the registry.

FYI, the bmp and wmv grey level calibration sources were produced by Ian Kennedy (Microsoft) and originally downloaded from this thread: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/post/228161.aspx

You haven't needed to make any brightness or contrast adjustments anywhere?

If I apply just UseBT601CSC=1, I end up with an HTPC calibrated for a display with PC grey levels (0-255) - even with the ATI dongle in use (and without the dongle things are only worse).

The UseBT601CSC=1 expands SD video from 16-235 into 0-255, so again I would need a display that supports PC grey levels.

The only thing I can think of is the HDMI handshaking between your display and video card flips either the display into PC grey levels or the video card to video levels. If correct, this suggests that at least some HDTVs are detected correctly with ATI 2X00 series cards.

From what I've read, most people do have to adjust their AVIVO brightness/contrast to +16/86% after applying UseBT601CSC=1 to bring grey levels back to video levels for output to an HDTV. Mine is consistent with this, except +15/85% is more accurate (and this doesn't fix photograph grey levels nor video game grey levels). I'm almost positive my father's HTPC is the same way too. His display is an Olevia 747i and his video card is an ATI 2600Pro.

Edit: What software are you using to display your photographs? Which operating system are you using? I am running Vista SP1, fully updated.It has been verified by several people now, with severl different cards that the dongle causes all sources to be compressed as they leave the HDMI port to 16-235. So, yes, the reg tweak expands SD video so it appears on the desktop (e.g. if you take a screenshot) as video black = 0, video white= 255, like photos and like HD video, then all those sources are compressed to video levels if the dongle is in place (and the colorspace is changed to YCbCr).

As ever with PCs you can never say things will behave the same on all systems, but this is pretty well verified as 'normal behaviour' and works perfectly here.

Here is what I am using for calibration sources:


WMV: Attached zip file, wmv
Photographs, generic PC applications: Attached zip file, bmp
DVD: Avia Calibration DVD (I own it)
Blu-ray: AVCHD iso burned to DVD from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496
HD-DVD: HD-DVD iso burned to DVD from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496
Video games: Crisis, Grid, Half Life (not true calibrations, but the games appear to match the bmp within the attached zip file, using the full 0-255, so I have been using the bmp to do the actual calibration)
SD Recorded TV: CBC news recording (many examples of black and the announcer's white shirt collar shows clipping of whites clearly when present). This appears to align perfectly with the Avia Calibration DVD (both are mpeg-2).
HD Recorded TV: Same CBC news episode, except captured directly through the R5000HD USB port and the transport stream converted to dvr-ms using FireSTB. This appears to align perfectly with the Blu-ray AVCHD Calibration DVD.


Does anyone know of any particular channel and time that an appropriate grey level test pattern is transmitted in Canada on ExpressVu satellite? Although I'm fairly confident my SD & HD Recorded TV is correct I don't have a true calibration source. One area I'm sure there is some minor error is SD content captured through the PVR-250. I have checked calibration of the PVR-250 using the same content captured digitally through the R5000HD, but there is probably some minor error. The PVR-250 does have both brightness and contrast fine tuning available through the registry.

FYI, the bmp and wmv grey level calibration sources were produced by Ian Kennedy (Microsoft) and originally downloaded from this thread: http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/post/228161.aspxNote: The 'normal' behaviour with the UseBT601CSC=1 is all video sources are first expanded to 0-255. Ie. 16 becomes 0 and 235 becomes 255. This happens by default with HD, but only with the tweak for SD. This clips below black and WTW so you should not see BTB or WTW (0-16, 235-255) at all whatever brightness you set your screen to. You can argue about it being desirable, some like to see BTB, WTW, but since these are not supposed to be seen and since the BTB WTW pixels were available to the deocder/renderer when calculating neighbouring cells (clipped subsequently) their absence should have no impact on visual quality.

Now because SD video (with the tweak) is expanded to 0-255 video black appears as 0 in any screenshot taken. Your bmp was taken before expansion so video black is 16. The bmp and the wmv should NOT look the same.

The bmp should have muddy grey video black (16) when displayed on a calibrated TV (with or without dongle). It is no longer video it is a photo and for a photo16 is not black. All detail from 0-255 should be visible.

The wmv should have no below black detail, but everything above 16 should be visible.

Apologies if you know all of this and this sounds like I am teaching you to suck egss, but I am worried that you may be trying to correct for things that are perfectly OK. Sorry again, if I am wrong.

It has been verified by several people now, with severl different cards that the dongle causes all sources to be compressed to 16-235. So, yes, the reg tweak expands SD video so it appears on the desktop as 0-255, like photos and like HD video, then all those sources are compressed to video levels if the dongle is in place (and the colorspace is changed to YCbCr).

As ever with PCs you can never say things will behave the same on all systems, but this is pretty well verified as 'normal behaviour' and works perfectly here.

I agree that using the HDMI dongle vs not using it definitely changes something related to expansion, but on my system and my fathers, with the dongle in use and default settings we get fully compliant grey levels with SD Recorded TV, DVD, and WMV test clips (16-235 visible). We are not able to see the full 0-255 with the test bmp image I attached to my last post.

Is there some reason you won't answer my questions regarding which OS you are running (including service packs) and which software you are running?

I find it difficult to understand why my fathers HTPC and mine display compliant grey levels with SD content by default (without hacking the registry) when the HDMI dongle is used, yet your system does not. I agree it could be the display, but still wonder if it is instead the OS or different software being used that is the source of the difference.

I also know for a fact that Microsoft did make changes to Vista in service pack 1 that change grey levels. I suspect there are also differences betwen Vista and XP.

Is there some reason you won't answer my questions regarding which OS you are running (including service packs) and which software you are running?No not at all. I just missed it. I am using XP SP3 (SP2 was the same). I am pretty sure though that others have got the same results with Vista (probably SP1).

I use PDVD7&8, MPC-HC and TheaterTek for video, all show identical calibration with no brightness/contrast tweaks. I just looked at your wmv using WMP and that was perfectly calibrated too. I use Avivo in MPC-HC and PowerDVD, with TheaterTek I normally use ffdshow to upscale, but I have also tested with DXVA. All results are identical. I mostly use Meedio to view photos, but that is irrelevant. Previewing in windows and using XP's slideshow are just the same - the desktop is 0-255 and appears as 16-235 after the dongle does its work.

Note: The 'normal' behaviour with the UseBT601CSC=1 is all video sources are first expanded to 0-255. Ie. 16 becomes 0 and 235 becomes 255. This happens by default with HD, but only with the tweak for SD. This clips below black and WTW so you should not see BTB or WTW (0-16, 235-255) at all whatever brightness you set your screen to. You can argue about it being desirable, some like to see BTB, WTW, but since these are not supposed to be seen and since the BTB WTW pixels were available to the deocder/renderer when calculating neighbouring cells (clipped subsequently) their absence should have no impact on visual quality.

Now because SD video (with the tweak) is expanded to 0-255 video black appears as 0 in any screenshot taken. Your bmp was taken before expansion so video black is 16. The bmp and the wmv should NOT look the same.

The bmp should have muddy grey video black (16) when displayed on a calibrated TV (with or without dongle). All detail from 0-255 should be visible.

The wmv should have no below black detail, but everything above 16 should be visible.

Apologies if you know all of this and this sounds like I am teaching you to suck egss, but I am worried that you may be trying to correct for things that are perfectly OK. Sorry again, if I am wrong.


All along I have been talking about "visible grey levels", where changes in grey level can be detected throughout the specified range of "visible grey levels".

Visible grey levels for video should be 16-235 (since TVs operate with a visible grey level range of 16-235). Visible grey levels for photographs, PC applications and video games should be 0-255.

I think we are on the same page, but when you say

"The bmp should have muddy grey video black (16) when displayed on a calibrated TV (with or without dongle)."

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say. If a TV is calibrated per normal TV calibration practices, unless the video is compressed and converted, 16 should be black and everything below it should be black also. If the dongle is expected to compress PC grey levels into video grey levels (as you stated previously), it will definitely change how this bmp looks when displayed.

No not at all. I just missed it. I am using XP SP3 (SP2 was the same). I am pretty sure though that others have got the same results with Vista (probably SP1).

I use PDVD7&8, MPC-HC and TheaterTek for video, all show identical calibration with no brightness/contrast tweaks, I mostly use Meedio to view photos, but that is irrelevant. Previewing in windows and using XP's slideshow are jsut the same - the desktop is 0-255 and appears as 16-235 after the dongle does its work.

The OS probably makes all the difference.

SP1 definitely changes the way grey levels are displayed and my understanding is Vista RTM was also different than XP.

Until someone else with Vista with SP1 and all updates installed comments we cannot tell if there is something "non-standard" or non-typical about both my Toshiba 51H83 and my father's Olevia 747i.

I assume when you say your desktop images (0-255) "appears as 16-235 after the dongle does its work" you are talking about the actual level that the TV receives, not what it appears to look like??

Anyway, lets leave this discussion for now until someone with Vista SP1 (updated), an 2X00 series video card and an HDTV hooked up with an ATI HDMI adapter is able to compare their findings to my observations and calibration.

All along I have been talking about "visible grey levels", where changes in grey level can be detected throughout the specified range of "visible grey levels".

Visible grey levels for video should be 16-235 (since TVs operate with a visible grey level range of 16-235). Visible grey levels for photographs, PC applications and video games should be 0-255.

I think we are on the same page, but when you say



I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say. If a TV is calibrated per normal TV calibration practices, unless the video is compressed and converted, 16 should be black and everything below it should be black also. If the dongle is expected to compress PC grey levels into video grey levels (as you stated previously), it will definitely change how this bmp looks when displayed.Unlike video in the ATI drivers (HD by default, SD with 'the tweak'), this bmp has not been expanded. So if you took a screenshot of the wmv 16 would be 0 if inspected in Photoshop. However, in the bmp it is still 16.

So, if you correctly calibrate your TV to view video without the dongle you would need to calibrate to PC levels (0-255). If you correctly calibrate your TV for video with the dongle you need to calibrate so 16 is black and 235 is white (because the dongle changes any value of 0 to 16 etc.).

So regardless of whether you have the dongle or not "video black" in the bmp (not the wmv) is not going to be black. If your TV is calibrated to PC levels (no dongle) then 0 will be black and the bmp has video black as 16. If you calibrate your TV to TV levels (with dongle) 16 is black, but the photo will be compessed so 0=16 and 16 (video black in the bmp) is 32, so, again, 16 in the original image will appear grey. This is right because you want 16 in any photos you have to be visibly grey, not black.

The OS probably makes all the difference.

SP1 definitely changes the way grey levels are displayed and my understanding is Vista RTM was also different than XP.

Until someone else with Vista with SP1 and all updates installed comments we cannot tell if there is something "non-standard" or non-typical about both my Toshiba 51H83 and my father's Olevia 747i.You are right, we need a definitive statement from someone using Vista SP1. I have posted in a few places to people who have got the same results as me to see what they are using.

I'll let you know if any are Vista.

Anyway, for XP it works! :)

Quick report on 8.5 hotfix: expansion same (HD expands, SD doesn't until you use usebt601csc=1), multimon acceleration still broken.

No sign of deinterlacing issues some people reported in 8.5.

Setup: vista32 SP1, sapphire 2600xt

The OS probably makes all the difference.

SP1 definitely changes the way grey levels are displayed and my understanding is Vista RTM was also different than XP.

Until someone else with Vista with SP1 and all updates installed comments we cannot tell if there is something "non-standard" or non-typical about both my Toshiba 51H83 and my father's Olevia 747i.Confirmation from someone I trust that Vista can behave the same as on XP (although, as ever with PCs maybe not all the time!):

http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=67710&postcount=83
http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=67713&postcount=84

Btw, does anyone know how to force Vista Media Center to use the desktop Resolution & refresh rate?

I can set my 2600 pro to 1080i50hz and tweak the "overscan" perfectly using the slider but if I then choose 1080i50hz in VMC it gives me 1080i60hz which is useless to me! :( (I dont use my MediaCenter for BD playback, only HDTV using DVB-T @ 25/50hz)

The OS probably makes all the difference.

SP1 definitely changes the way grey levels are displayed and my understanding is Vista RTM was also different than XP.
I noticed the very same thing. I had a HD2600 with built in HDMI port and everything was decent with the Arfster tweaked Bioshock drivers 7.9 I believe.

Then Vista decided to update to SP1 and the grey levels changed and I could no longer get a decent picture in the native 1360x768 resolution of my 32" Sony HDL-32D3000 HDTV.

Replaced the GFX with a MSI HD3650 card and installed 8.4 drivers. Again built in HDMI port but the same results on Native resolution 1360x768 on the using this GFX card, washed out colors and dark gray instead of black.

When I change the GFX card to any other resolution the gray levels are excellent, such as Resolution of 1920x1080 or 1280x720. I don't understand why this is the case. To change the display settings to get the same picture quality in 1360x768 the changes to the GFX cards settings is way to complex and I have yet found a decent picture quality in the Native resolution.

I noticed in the monitor section of the Control Panel there is only a Generic monitor listed. Is there such a thing as a monitor driver for the Sony HDTV?

Also in the Sony's listings for HDMI devices there is no entry. Should the HTPC be listed as a HDMI device in the HDTV?

Any help with selective registry tweaks is appreciated. For changing drivers I do the normal ATI deinstall, Safe mode boot, DriverCleaner and then reinstall of ATI drivers.

I may be wrong but the problem could be that the graphics card/driver assumes that you are connecting to a monitor rather than an HDTV because 1360x768 isn't a standard HDTV timing whereas 1280x720 and 1920x1080 are.

It's possible that at 1360x768 your card is outputting RGB/ PC levels (0-255) and when set to HDTV timings it's outputting YCbCr/ Video levels (16-235).

I wonder if this also applies to configurations where the ATi DVI>DMI dongle is used?

Wo0zy

Replaced the GFX with a MSI HD3650 card and installed 8.4 drivers. Again built in HDMI port but the same results on Native resolution 1360x768 on the using this GFX card, washed out colors and dark gray instead of black.

When I change the GFX card to any other resolution the gray levels are excellent, such as Resolution of 1920x1080 or 1280x720.


Sounds like the card is doing the equivalent of a HDMIdongle levels contraction, as it recognises 1080p and 720p resolutions as a HDTV. Few questions:

Are you getting same levels with HD and SD?
Tweaks?
Brightness/contrast in CCC?

It's possible that at 1360x768 your card is outputting RGB/ PC levels (0-255) and when set to HDTV timings it's outputting YCbCr/ Video levels (16-235).


Aha, good thinking batman.

Quick test this for one2go: grab this...
http://w6rz.net/ramp.zip

When played, does the ramp only continue between the dots? Or does it continue on beyond that? (if display is at video levels you'll have to fiddle things so it isn't crushed out). Or does it get to a certain grey at the dots, and then just clip to black0?

Thanks for the help, this is one of the times I wish to be at actual keyboard rather then remote connection to editing machine. I do have several of the test clips from w6rz.net site, but the answer will have to wait until I get home :mad:

I have not applied any tweaks yet via the registry and the change of Brightness and Contrast in CCC does not give the desired results. So far I have concentrated on the Desktop colors & brightness/contrast it looks washed out including the colors of top bar of apps like I.E.

The other resolution that I tried and it looked acceptable was I believe the HD-Lite resolution 1400 something. This maybe true that the built in HDMI port does nothing different then the dongle. I do have a HD2600 with built in HDMI from Palit and it behaved identically.

In CCC there is an entry for adding HDTV resolutions is it possible to add this there and then the card thinks it is a TV rather then a monitor, which sounds more and more believable as the problem since this did not appear until after SP1. CCC says as connected display, Sony TV [Single].

Here are two screen shots of the ramp played in MPC HC

1. 1360x768
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/9734/ramp1360x768to2.th.png (http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ramp1360x768to2.png)

2. 1920x1080
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/8325/ramp1920x1080ifn0.th.png (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ramp1920x1080ifn0.png)

To me this doesn't look very good as the end basically has no steps in the white & black area.

That's a single expansion there - the dots are supposed to be 16/235, but if you check they're 0/255.

Btw, does anyone know how to force Vista Media Center to use the desktop Resolution & refresh rate?
This is what i'm also interested in.

Also tried CCC 8.5 with bad result.
Can't get 1:1 pixelmapping with my Sharp 46X20E anymore. The image is scaled down for whatever reason. Tried 1080p@24/50/60Hz.

Going back to 8.3 and all is fine.

Ghosting is still present with 8.5.
I'm back on 7.11 and that looks much better.

I'm still confused about the ATI dongle thing. I have connected a PANA plasma via dongle and the grey levels look quite correct for me. The only thing I have done is to add the "UseBT601CSC"="1" regkey. Otherwise black was washed out on SD and I had different levels of black on desktop and SD playback. I did not change any CCC contrast + brightness settings and I even did not had to touch the default settings of the tv set at all.

grubi.

That's a single expansion there - the dots are supposed to be 16/235, but if you check they're 0/255.
Forgive me for being naive here so how do I correct this to proper 16/235 expansion. I use almost exclusively 720p to 1080p content on that HTPC so I am not that much interested in a proper SD expansion.

I'm still confused about the ATI dongle thing. I have connected a PANA plasma via dongle and the grey levels look quite correct for me. The only thing I have done is to add the "UseBT601CSC"="1" regkey. Otherwise black was washed out on SD and I had different levels of black on desktop and SD playback. I did not change any CCC contrast + brightness settings and I even did not had to touch the default settings of the tv set at all.

grubi.As you have seen me post earlier, I have the same experience. Dongle + "UseBT601CSC"="1" is enough for a video level calibrated TV.

Hi all.

I'm tring to test new Italian Rai HD dtt channel with Media Portal TV Server. With a Cynergy Dtt XS usb device. Rai HD broadcast sometimes in 720p sometimes in 1080i both in H264. (it's a experimental dtt channel for Europen Footbal Championship 2008). I'm using Media Portal and tv server svn, an Ati hd3850 via dvi/hdmi dongle on Panasonic plasma 37pv60. With Cyberlink h.264/avc1 and dxva active as codec work fine perfect deinterlacing when 1080i is broadcasted. Play is amazing. Catalyst avivo is set on automatic deinterlacing. When I try to use "Avivo Mpg video decoder" in last avivo 8.5 package deinterlacing is bad the image is jerky seems run at 25 fps instead 50 fps. The question is "Avivo Mpg video decoder" can be decode in dxva/hw mode and use for this purpose. Same codec for mpg2 stream seem work better.
Thanks a lot.

Tried 1080p@24/50/60Hz.

How do you get 1080p@50? I've never been able to get my APG HD2600XT or my new 780G mb with HD3200 built in to play nicely. I get offered 1080p60, 1080p24 with the new 8.5 driver that I didn't get with 8.4 or 1080i25 which was awful with 8.4. I'm in PAL land so 1080p50 would be ideal.

The question is "Avivo Mpg video decoder" can be decode in dxva/hw mode and use for this purpose.

No, it doesn't work at all, it's really only a codec for mpeg2. My guess is your PC is trying it, failing, and using something else as a backup.

If you have the Cyberlink codec working, just leave it with that. There's not going to be any difference at all between different codecs when you use bitstream decoding anyway, as the card does absolutely everything.

How do you get 1080p@50? I've never been able to get my APG HD2600XT or my new 780G mb with HD3200 built in to play nicely. I get offered 1080p60, 1080p24 with the new 8.5 driver that I didn't get with 8.4 or 1080i25 which was awful with 8.4. I'm in PAL land so 1080p50 would be ideal.

If you're sure your TV supports it then look under the HDTV section in CCC. There are two boxes. The top box should contain all HDTV timings while the bottom box shows currently selectable timings. You can tick 1080p50 in the top box to force it to be available in the bottom box.

Once it shows up in the bottom box, elect it and "Apply Format". If it isn't listed anyway (top or bottom) your TV may not be advertising it as a supported format inwhich case it's time for Powerstrip.

Wo0zy

If you're sure your TV supports it then look under the HDTV section in CCC. There are two boxes. The top box should contain all HDTV timings while the bottom box shows currently selectable timings. You can tick 1080p50 in the top box to force it to be available in the bottom box.

Once it shows up in the bottom box, elect it and "Apply Format". If it isn't listed anyway (top or bottom) your TV may not be advertising it as a supported format inwhich case it's time for Powerstrip.

Wo0zy

There is and never has been 1080p50 in the HDTV section, only 1080i25. :mad:

Im running 720p50 as a result.

I may be wrong but the problem could be that the graphics card/driver assumes that you are connecting to a monitor rather than an HDTV because 1360x768 isn't a standard HDTV timing whereas 1280x720 and 1920x1080 are.

It's possible that at 1360x768 your card is outputting RGB/ PC levels (0-255) and when set to HDTV timings it's outputting YCbCr/ Video levels (16-235).

I wonder if this also applies to configurations where the ATi DVI>DMI dongle is used?

If it isn't listed anyway (top or bottom) your TV may not be advertising it as a supported format in which case it's time for Powerstrip.
When I looked yesterday in the TOP BOX of the HDTV section in CCC it had listed 720p and all sorts of 1080 variations. Trying to generate a custom resolution only would let me go down to 1440x768 but not 1360x768. I presume to add this to the HDTV available resolutions I need to use Powerstrip. Any problems using it with Vista and are there any heads ups for installing and using it?

Thanks

arfster,

Would you mind explaining what you're seeing with one_2go's ramp images and why you interpret them as expanded?

Just looking for clarification before performing a few more tests of my own.

Thanks,

Wo0zy

There is and never has been 1080p50 in the HDTV section, only 1080i25. :mad:

Im running 720p50 as a result.

Sorry, yes you are correct. Powerstrip time then :)

Wo0zy

Sorry, yes you are correct. Powerstrip time then :)

Wo0zy

I've ended up with some odd results using PS so i've resigned myself to 720p50 and perfect overscan (the slider works well now) of about 2% to ensure all 16:9 material fills the screen (avi's are the culprits).

When I looked yesterday in the TOP BOX of the HDTV section in CCC it had listed 720p and all sorts of 1080 variations. Trying to generate a custom resolution only would let me go down to 1440x768 but not 1360x768. I presume to add this to the HDTV available resolutions I need to use Powerstrip. Any problems using it with Vista and are there any heads ups for installing and using it?

Thanks

1360x768 wont be in the HDTV section as it's not an HDTV timing. Check display manager instead. If it's not there and you can't use the "force" button, then you'll need Powerstrip (it works fine under Vista but IIRC you need to run it as administrator or disable UAC).

I don't understand why 1360x768 has disappeared on you. I didn't think SP1 changed anything that should effect available resolutions..

Wo0zy

There is and never has been 1080p50 in the HDTV section, only 1080i25. :mad:

Im running 720p50 as a result.

That's exactly my problem and my solution!! Never listed 1080p50 so have found 720p50 gives the best results. Which is really annoying with a 1080p TV. 1080p60 is jerky on news tickers etc. Assume there's not a lot I can do about that. 720p50 is the only silky smooth option I've found.

That's exactly my problem and my solution!! Never listed 1080p50 so have found 720p50 gives the best results. Which is really annoying with a 1080p TV. 1080p60 is jerky on news tickers etc. Assume there's not a lot I can do about that. 720p50 is the only silky smooth option I've found.

Agreed, my only beef with 720p50 is that things look a little softer than 1080p60 ..... but I cant live with the judder caused by the 50hz -> 60hz conversion either. :eek:

arfster,

Would you mind explaining what you're seeing with one_2go's ramp images and why you interpret them as expanded?


These are the three possibilities you can see:


Not expanded: ramp goes 0-255 from one edge of the display to the other, with 16 and 235 at the dots. This is what's actually in the file.

Expanded: ramp is 0-255 between the dots (see one2go's screenshots)

Clipped: ramp goes 16-235 between the dots, but there are no values beyond them (ie it jumps from totally black0 at the dots to grey16 on a PC levels calibrated TV). This will happen if you expand, then contract back via CCC settings, as btb <16 and wtw >235 are getting chopped in the expansion. Not sure if the dongle does this also?
Edit: wrong! using CCC 16/86 does contraction before expansion, thus no loss of btb/wtw. However, desktop color in CCC, and I'm pretty certain the dongle too, will result in clipping.


If you're not quite sure what you're seeing, get irfanview, screenshot/paste into it, and click on any pixel, it'll tell you the RGB values (in the window title bar)


Note if you're using a video levels calibrated display, you'll have to fiddle with brightness/contrast to actually see <16 and >235.

I've ended up with some odd results using PS so i've resigned myself to 720p50 and perfect overscan (the slider works well now) of about 2% to ensure all 16:9 material fills the screen (avi's are the culprits).

Doesn't the slider scale? I've always found that using the slider results in a nice looking desktop (smooth curves on backgrounds etc) but creates issues with video such as slight stutter (noticable on vertical scrolling credits for instance). Creating a custom resolution (either within CCC or powerstrip when needed) doesn't seem to do this.

Maybe it's just my system :(

Wo0zy

These are the three possibilities you can see:


Not expanded: ramp goes 0-255 from one edge of the display to the other, with 16 and 235 at the dots. This is what's actually in the file.

Expanded: ramp is 0-255 between the dots.

Clipped: ramp goes 16-235 between the dots, but there are no values beyond them (ie it jumps from totally black0 at the dots to grey16 on a PC levels calibrated TV). This will happen if you expand, then contract back via CCC settings, as btb <16 and wtw >235 are getting chopped in the expansion. Not sure if the dongle does this also?


If you're not quite sure what you're seeing, get irfanview, screenshot/paste into it, and click on any pixel, it'll tell you the RGB values.


Note if you're using a video levels calibrated display, you'll have to fiddle with brightness/contrast to actually see <16 and >235.

Gotcha. Thanks arfster :)

Doesn't the slider scale? I've always found that using the slider results in a nice looking desktop (smooth curves on backgrounds etc) but creates issues with video such as slight stutter (noticable on vertical scrolling credits for instance). Creating a custom resolution (either within CCC or powerstrip when needed) doesn't seem to do this.

Maybe it's just my system :(

Wo0zy

I haven't noticed this myself, im using a Gigabyte PCIe HD 2600 Pro 512MB Passive and it seems fine.

Hrrm, well learn something every day. Seems if you reverse expansion by CCC video brightness 16/86, you don't get clipping, and btb/wtw are not lost. Must be applying CCC video settings on the YUY2, before the RGB conversion (ie contraction before expansion). However, if you use desktop colour settings, it doesn't (done after RGBification presumably, when btb/wtw are already lost). I guess the dongle also contracts things post-RGB, essentially the same as using the desktop colour sliders.

Can't remember if it always did this, anyone? (using 8.4 Vista32)

usebt601 or whatever doesn't work for me under 8.5 on HDMI 1360x768 XP SP2.

However Hardware Acceleration is finally working for 780G! Yay!

usebt601 or whatever doesn't work for me under 8.5 on HDMI 1360x768 XP SP2.


There does seem to be some interplay between usebt601csc and HDMI output, a few people have said so. At a guess, this is being enabled by default when HDMI is in use - would be really stupid if it wasn't as you'd end up with SD at 31-219 levels (incredibly washed out).

Are you getting the same levels for SD and HD?

Well that's exactly what happens here with 8.3 & 8.4 (not bothered with 8.5) and the dongle. TV calibrated to video levels. Desktop and HD perfect due to expansion of HD and compression due to dongle. But, by default, SD is just compressed.

Well that's exactly what happens here with 8.3 & 8.4 (not bothered with 8.5) and the dongle. TV calibrated to video levels. Desktop and HD perfect due to expansion of HD and compression due to dongle. But, by default, SD is just compressed.

Jeez - and usebt601csc does nothing for you also?

Can ATI get anything right? :-)

No, it doesn't work at all, it's really only a codec for mpeg2. My guess is your PC is trying it, failing, and using something else as a backup.
If you have the Cyberlink codec working, just leave it with that. There's not going to be any difference at all between different codecs when you use bitstream decoding anyway, as the card does absolutely everything.

Thanks . I tried because I saw in that codec spec. the H264 Fourcc support.
I keep my Cyberlink avc1 codec setting.

I upscale all my SD resolution stuff to 1360x768 anyway. Blacks seem normal to me.

I've given up trying to get 16-235 for HD stuff.

Jeez - and usebt601csc does nothing for you also?

Can ATI get anything right? :-)No. Thankfully, usebt601csc works. So provided you are prepared to accept no BTB and WTW (which I am, given where it happens in the processing chain) I am very happy. But what made them think that was the sensible default option I cannot imagine!

I upscale all my SD resolution stuff to 1360x768 anyway. Blacks seem normal to me.

I've given up trying to get 16-235 for HD stuff.Beware if you are not already!

If you upscale SD your colors will be wrong (subtly wrong, but wrong none the less) unless you do YUV to RGB conversion in ffdshow. The ATI drivers will assume that your video is encoded using the 'default' colorspace for HD (BT.709) instead of the default for SD, including all DVD (BT.601), as by the time they see the video it will be in HD resolution.

Is this a bug in the ATI software, or is this being caused by something else. I just installed 8.4 about a week ago. I had been running 8.2 for a while, and have not had this problem:

I will sometimes turn the TV off while listening to music through my system via VMC. When I turn the TV back on, VMC no longer takes up the entire screen, and when I check out my settings in CCC, they have reset themselves to 1920x1280 with 30i. My "normal" setting for my Pioneer 5050 has been to Force it to 1280x768 with 60p.

Do I need to go back to the earlier version of the ATI software, or could some other factor be in play?

Beware if you are not already!

If you upscale SD your colors will be wrong (subtly wrong, but wrong none the less) unless you do YUV to RGB conversion in ffdshow. The ATI drivers will assume that your video is encoded using the 'default' colorspace for HD (BT.709) instead of the default for SD, including all DVD (BT.601), as by the time they see the video it will be in HD resolution.

Are you certain of this?

I upscale absolutely everything to 1920x1080 using the ATI card (my HDTV only supports 720p and 1080i through DVI). When I watch 480i content, it looks fine to me and I haven't noticed any (noticeable) flaws due to buggy colorspace conversion errors.

What should we be able to visually see that would indicate colorspace errors?

No. Thankfully, usebt601csc works. So provided you are prepared to accept no BTB and WTW (which I am, given where it happens in the processing chain) I am very happy. But what made them think that was the sensible default option I cannot imagine!

Unless our systems are different (again), I don't think you'll find BTB and WTW is actually gone.

ATI, with their 10-bit per color processing, seems to maintain all color detail throughout the entire video processing chain. If you crank up the brightness or turn down the contrast within ATI's CCC (using either the overall or AVIVO settings), you should see BTB and WTW on your display. This includes if you are using the UseBT601CSC=1 registry entry.

You can also confirm this if you have a display that supports RGB (0-255) and you both expand (using UseBT601CSC=1) and compress (using brightness/contrast CCC adjustments). You will still see BTB and WTW on the display. When you have a properly calibrated HDTV you won't see it obviously though (since BTB and WTW is displayed simply as black or white).

Are you certain of this?

I upscale absolutely everything to 1920x1080 using the ATI card (my HDTV only supports 720p and 1080i through DVI). When I watch 480i content, it looks fine to me and I haven't noticed any (noticeable) flaws due to buggy colorspace conversion errors.

What should we be able to visually see that would indicate colorspace errors?


Unfortunately, he's definitely right. To prove it you need an SD 75% colour pattern. Fire it through your ffdshow upscaling, screenshot and measure with a paint app (I like irfanview). The colours should be around 190/191 if you're at PC levels, or 180ish at video level (both 75%ish of the range). It'll be wildly off though, since the renderer is getting fed HD by ffdshow (and that's how it decides).

Alternatively, try scaling to 719 vertical pixels, and to 720, and noticing the colour differences. That's the cut off point - also for expansion (HD expands by default cos the bt709 matrix that the drivers use have expanded RGB values, but the standard bt601 one doesn't).

Alternatively2, use ffdshow, set RGB32 as only output, and flick between bt601 and bt709 to see what it should look like. Note the default ffdshow setting (standard range) actually expands with RGB converion, so set fullrange to not expand. If you're using no acceleration, this is the best answer to getting TV levels imo - no expansion at all, and driver sharpening/trdenoise etc cannot screw with your pixels either :-)

ATI, with their 10-bit per color processing, seems to maintain all color detail throughout the entire video processing chain. If you crank up the brightness or turn down the contrast within ATI's CCC (using either the overall or AVIVO settings), you should see BTB and WTW on your display. This includes if you are using the UseBT601CSC=1 registry entry.


It seems to work a little differently with the dongle and the CCC desktop colour settings - those occur after the RGB conversion/expansion because they have to process the whole desktop, and thus wtw/btb loss is inevitable. For example, 16 and all <16 becomes 0 RGB (since windows RGB values can't go outside 0-255), then the contraction has all those values becoming 16, thus loss of btb.

If you use CCC 16/86 it works on the YUY2/yv12 before conversion/expansion, and thus no btb/wtw loss (because at every stage it's being maintained within the 0-255 range). Surprised me this, I thought it was being clipped - maybe it was in past drivers?

He's definitely right. To prove it you need an SD 75% colour pattern. Fire it through your ffdshow upscaling, screenshot and measure with a paint app (I like irfanview). The colours should be around 190/191 if you're at PC levels, or 180ish at video level (both 75%ish of the range). If the wrong matrix is being used they'll be wildly all over the place.

Alternatively, use ffdshow, set RGB32 as only output, and flick between bt601 and bt709 to see what it should look like. Note the default ffdshow setting (standard range) actually expands, set fullrange to not expand.

I'm not using FFDShow though.

If the SD video is being entirely processed using AVIVO and displayed on an HDTV using 720p or 1080i, does this issue still show up?

I have tried comparing 800x600 (which is actually automatically scaled into 1184x696 and output using 720p timings) and 1920x1080 (spec compliant 1080i) and I haven't specifically noticed any color differences. If I drop down to 640x480, I only see a relatively small image with large black borders all around it, especially to the right (with DVI, the HDTV seems to display 640x480 using a window within 1280x720).

Also, when using AVIVO for everything, are you certain that a screen capture is an accurate way to measure what is actually being output to the display? I would think we would need to capture the output of the video card and analyze it somehow.

It seems to work a little differently with the dongle and the CCC desktop colour settings - those occur after the RGB conversion/expansion because they have to process the whole desktop, and thus wtw/btb loss is inevitable. For example, 16 and all <16 becomes 0 in the RGB, then the contraction has all those values becoming 16, thus loss of btb.

If you use CCC 16/86 it works on the YUY2/yv12 before conversion/expansion, and thus no loss. Surprised me this, I thought it was being clipped (and maybe it was in past drivers).

Even without the dongle, if I crank up the CCC brightness and contrast I can always see BTB and WTW detail. It does not clip anything at 16 or 0 on my 2600. This is how it has always worked for me, even with drivers back in the 7.10 range all the way to the current 8.5.

I've tried all 4 possibilities with and without the dongle as well as with and without UseBT601CSC=1. BTB and WTW never seems to get lost in my experiments.

There is and never has been 1080p50 in the HDTV section, only 1080i25. :mad:

Im running 720p50 as a result.

I have 8.5 and their is an option for my set for 1080P50... It is an HP DLP.

Even without the dongle, if I crank up the CCC brightness and contrast I can always see BTB and WTW detail. It does not clip anything at 16 or 0 on my 2600. This is how it has always worked for me, even with drivers back in the 7.10 range all the way to the current 8.5.

I've tried all 4 possibilities with and without the dongle as well as with and without UseBT601CSC=1. BTB and WTW never seems to get lost in my experiments.


OK - urrrgh, twisting my mind this. Are you talking CCC video brightness/contrast, or the main color brightness/contrast? They work at different stages of the chain.


For the bt601/709 issue, it's only a problem in two circumstances: using ffdshow to upscale SD, and with 720p widescreen encodes done without black bars (1280*555ish resolution, bt709 encode, but drivers assume they're SD cos vertical res is <720)

I'm not using FFDShow though.

If the SD video is being entirely processed using AVIVO and displayed on an HDTV using 720p or 1080i, does this issue still show up?

I have tried comparing 800x600 (which is actually automatically scaled into 1184x696 and output using 720p timings) and 1920x1080 (spec compliant 1080i) and I haven't specifically noticed any color differences. If I drop down to 640x480, I only see a relatively small image with large black borders all around it, especially to the right (with DVI, the HDTV seems to display 640x480 using a window within 1280x720).

Also, when using AVIVO for everything, are you certain that a screen capture is an accurate way to measure what is actually being output to the display? I would think we would need to capture the output of the video card and analyze it somehow.You are right. If Avivo does the upscaling all is fine. The drivers know that they are dealing with SD and they apply the correct colorspace. It is when you upscale outside of Avivo (normally using ffdshow) that you need to be sure you also do the RGB conversion externally.

I assumed the poster was upscaling himself using ffdshow. Reading his post again I am no longer so sure. Maybe he will let us know.

Unless our systems are different (again), I don't think you'll find BTB and WTW is actually gone.

ATI, with their 10-bit per color processing, seems to maintain all color detail throughout the entire video processing chain. If you crank up the brightness or turn down the contrast within ATI's CCC (using either the overall or AVIVO settings), you should see BTB and WTW on your display. This includes if you are using the UseBT601CSC=1 registry entry.

You can also confirm this if you have a display that supports RGB (0-255) and you both expand (using UseBT601CSC=1) and compress (using brightness/contrast CCC adjustments). You will still see BTB and WTW on the display. When you have a properly calibrated HDTV you won't see it obviously though (since BTB and WTW is displayed simply as black or white).No, it is definitely gone, if you allow the drivers to expand and do not fiddle with the CCC brightness and contrast. The dongle contracts back to video levels but there is nothing below "video black". This is easily verified by cranking up the brightness on the display (not CCC). However, much you boost it the BTB bar on a standard pluge never appears. Not that it is an issue as far as I am concerned since the data is there all the way though until the final point of display and you are not supposed to see the other stuff anyway.

I cannot speak for what happens if you do play with the CCC controls. As arfster has said before he believes the Avivo settings can be used to avoid clipping, but the desktop settings cannot, but as I do not touch these settings I cannot comment one way or the other.

Just did a quick test using 2600xt without the dongle, using a HD ramp expanded by drivers. The CCC desktop color settings cannot maintain btb/wtw, they're completely lost. Dongle-based contraction, working properly, should do the same thing (the emphasis on working, since clearly there are a lot of bugs!). CCC video colour to 16/86 does maintain btb/wtw, as that works in the opposite order: contraction before expansion.

For screenshots, CCC desktop color fiddling (and presumably dongle contraction) doesn't get captured as that's post-mixer. CCC video brightness/contrast does get captured, cos it's done earlier.

I have 8.5 and their is an option for my set for 1080P50... It is an HP DLP.

Yep, just finished installing a system with a 3650 (and CCC 8.5) coupled with a genuine 1080p sharp display and 1080p50 was available by default. Oddly, the default setting enabling scaling (to compensate for overscan) and I couldn't create a custom (optimised) timing for it using CCC (even with scaling turned off). Still 1080p50 was definately present and correct.

The ATi dongle was used on this system rather than a standard DVI>HDMI cable. Don't know if that makes a difference.

Wo0zy

As per my previous post, I should also point out that SD PQ through VMC was rubbish (very washed out and poor black levels). Further investigation is required but for starters, the UseBT601CSC=1 reg tweak was used and CCC adjustment (overall and AVIVO) were left at defaults.

Basic calibration was done using the "ramp" (http://w6rz.net/ramp.zip) and my new "knowledge" (thanks arfster). This showed what looked like normal expansion (no scales below or above "the dots" and perfect(ish) black at "the dots"). However, SD video (DVD actually) played through VMC was way off (far too bright and washed out). I know the ATi dongle was working correctly because the connection was recognised as HDMI (not DVI) and HDMI audio worked.

I'm starting to wonder if the differences seen between jong1 and HT's systems are being caused by the MS decoder used in VMC. Going to do more testing later.

Wo0zy

Basic calibration was done using the "ramp" (http://w6rz.net/ramp.zip) and my new "knowledge" (thanks arfster). This showed what looked like normal expansion (no scales below or above "the dots" and perfect(ish) black at "the dots"). However, SD video (DVD actually) played through VMC was way off (far too bright and washed out). I know the ATi dongle was working correctly because the connection was recognised as HDMI (not DVI) and HDMI audio worked.


Hrrrm, sounds like the dongle is killing the usebt601csc tweak, thus different levels. Are SD/HD at different levels outside VMC?

As you say, different setups might have different problems :-( Different OS's, different drivers, different dongle versions, etc etc arrrrrrg

The dongle certainly does not kill "the tweak" here (to repeat 3850, 8.4, XP SP3). I also know someone who is using Vista SP1 with the same experience.

It could be VMC. I know that VMC uses locked down filters for DVD playback, not Directshow merit. It would certainly be worth trying with another, true Directshow player like TheaterTek or MPC-HC where you can tightly control the filters used from within the GUI.

But it really does sound like "the tweak" is just not applied and I would start by double checking that it has been applied correctly:

- name is exactly right
- it has been applied in the right place
- it has been applied to both DVI/HDMI ports.

If there has previously been an old graphics card in the system it is very easy to mistakenly apply it to an old non-existent card's registry entry and it is also easy to apply it to only one port.

I have 8.5 and their is an option for my set for 1080P50... It is an HP DLP.

Really! bugger, im using 8.5 too and dont have it! I have a Marantz SR8001 AVR between my VMC and Pioneer 50mxe20 Plasma which even does 1080p@24hz. :(

PS. Im using the ATi HDMI Dongle.

The dongle certainly does not kill "the tweak" here (to repeat 3850, 8.4, XP SP3). I also know someone who is using Vista SP1 with the same experience.

It could be VMC. I know that VMC uses locked down filters for DVD playback, not Directshow merit. It would certainly be worth trying with another, true Directshow player like TheaterTek or MPC-HC where you can tightly control the filters used from within the GUI.

But it really does sound like "the tweak" is just not applied and I would start by double checking that it has been applied correctly:

- name is exactly right
- it has been applied in the right place
- it has been applied to both DVI/HDMI ports.

If there has been an old graphics card in the system it is very easy to mistakenly apply it to an old non-existent card's registry entry and it is also easy to apply it to only one port.

100% yes to all three checks.

It's a shame you can't test VMC. I have a few more tests to perform then I'll report back.

Quick question. Does CCC show your HDTV connectin as HDMI or DVI and are you using HDMI audio? The reason I ask is that I have different revisions of dongle and 3650's and some work correctly (Rev B. I think) with later drivers (8.4 and 8.5) and early models most certainly don't.

By correctly, I mean reporting as an HDMI connection and allowing audio passthrough (I'm not talking about video expansion yet). I have one card which worked perfectly with CCC 8.2 and will now not recognise that it's connected via HDMI when using the dongle with either 8.4 or 8.5. Re-install 8.2 and it works again.

Cheers,

Wo0zy

There was definitely a change in the dongle from 2xxx to 3xxx. That certainly is not helping.

Yes. CCC (8.4 bundled version) reports my connection as HDMI. If you mean it says "DTV(HDMI) 3" in the left-hand list. I do not use HDMI audio.

Definitely suggest you try with MPC-HC and maybe a normal Directshow player (even, god forbid, WMP). All SD works fine here with the tweak and look exactly as you describe without it.

I assume you are always updating CCC when you update the driver. I have had other bizarre results with mismatched drivers and CCC. I hope this does not sound derogatory, just trying to suggest a few additional troubleshooting steps!

There was definitely a change in the dongle from 2xxx to 3xxx. That certainly is not helping.

Yes. CCC (8.4 bundled version) reports my connection as HDMI. If you mean it says "DTV(HDMI) 3" in the left-hand list. I do not use HDMI audio.

Definitely suggest you try with MPC-HC and maybe a normal Directshow player (even, god forbid, WMP). All SD works fine here with the tweak and look exactly as you describe without it.

I assume you are always updating CCC when you update the driver. I have had other bizarre results with mismatched drivers and CCC. I hope this does not sound derogatory, just trying to suggest a few additional troubleshooting steps!

Thanks jong1,

I've just finished testing another system and can now confirm everything you've said. The "UseBT601CSC=1" tweak does work perfectly well with the dongle and I appear to get correct levels across the board by simply applying this tweak and calibrating the display correctly. God knows what was going on earlier today (I can only assume it was my mistake. I'll need to check it out :o).

The only significant difference is that this system is on CCC 8.2 (because of the HDMI audio issue) and the "troublesome" unit is running 8.5 but I'm sure that that isn't the problem ;)

The "ramp" also displays perfectly on this system "between the dots" showing perfect 16-235 levels. As arfster suggests, adjusting the AVIVO brightness does indeed allow you to see btb levels if you wish so these are not being clipped even by using the dongle.

The one remaining mystery is the HDMI audio. The cards I'm having problems with (Asus models) actually ship with the appropriate dongle. Installing any CCC (and associated drivers) up to and including 8.3 shows the connection as HDMI (as you say DTV (HDMI)) and audio works. Completely remove CCC and the drivers then install CCC 8.4 or 8.5 and the connection is reported as DVI (you even get the warning message about connecting a separate cable if you want sound) and audio doesn't work. These cards include a yellow dongle which is colour coded to a yellow DVI port (fairly idiot proof :)). Interestingly, the very latest card I received still has the yellow port but the supplied dongle is now gray (not yellow) and audio works with 8.4 and 8.5 but only when the dongle is connected to the "non-yellow" DVI port. This kinda suggests something has changed recently. There's also a few references to this on the Asus forums, but no answer as yet :rolleyes:

Thanks again to you and arfster for the input. I'm now happy that we have consistent results across the board with the excepion of HT's system and assuming your btb and wtw levels aren't clipped when the AVIVO basic color settings are adjusted (just for testing obviously ;)).

Cheers,

Wo0zy

Really! bugger, im using 8.5 too and dont have it! I have a Marantz SR8001 AVR between my VMC and Pioneer 50mxe20 Plasma which even does 1080p@24hz. :(

PS. Im using the ATi HDMI Dongle.

I lost 1080p50 when I added HDMI splitter between my ATI HD 2600Pro and Panny PX80 plasma. Perhaps my splitter only allows resolutions supported by both outputs? If I recall correctly it was at not at HDTV section, though, but as a normal selectable resolution. On the other hand I thought I was able to adjust overscan for it. Have to check later.

Thanks jong1,

I've just finished testing another system and can now confirm everything you've said. The "UseBT601CSC=1" tweak does work perfectly well with the dongle and I appear to get correct levels across the board by simply applying this tweak and calibrating the display correctly. God knows what was going on earlier today (I can only assume it was my mistake. I'll need to check it out :o).

The only significant difference is that this system is on CCC 8.2 (because of the HDMI audio issue) and the "troublesome" unit is running 8.5 but I'm sure that that isn't the problem ;)

The "ramp" also displays perfectly on this system "between the dots" showing perfect 16-235 levels. As arfster suggests, adjusting the AVIVO brightness does indeed allow you to see btb levels if you wish so these are not being clipped even by using the dongle.

The one remaining mystery is the HDMI audio. The cards I'm having problems with (Asus models) actually ship with the appropriate dongle. Installing any CCC (and associated drivers) up to and including 8.3 shows the connection as HDMI (as you say DTV (HDMI)) and audio works. Completely remove CCC and the drivers then install CCC 8.4 or 8.5 and the connection is reported as DVI (you even get the warning message about connecting a separate cable if you want sound) and audio doesn't work. These cards include a yellow dongle which is colour coded to a yellow DVI port (fairly idiot proof :)). Interestingly, the very latest card I received still has the yellow port but the supplied dongle is now gray (not yellow) and audio works with 8.4 and 8.5 but only when the dongle is connected to the "non-yellow" DVI port. This kinda suggests something has changed recently. There's also a few references to this on the Asus forums, but no answer as yet :rolleyes:

Thanks again to you and arfster for the input. I'm now happy that we have consistent results across the board with the excepion of HT's system and assuming your btb and wtw levels aren't clipped when the AVIVO basic color settings are adjusted (just for testing obviously ;)).

Cheers,

Wo0zyThis is great news!

One qualification to what you said. I believe BTB and WTW is being clipped if you use default settings:

16 ->0 (expansion) -> 16 (dongle)
8 ->0 (expansion) -> 16 (dongle)

no below black detail left

What arfster is saying is if you boost the brightness in Avivo (not desktop) you can get it back because then (for example):

8 -> 24 (brightness adjustment) -> 8 (expansion) -> 24 (dongle)

But then you need separate calibration of your display at greater than video levels for no real benefit.

As I have said before this clipping does not worry me as it should not be visible anyway and is stillpresent through all deocding and post-processing.

Damn this is confusing....

Does the tv display 0-255 or 16-234 over hdmi?

My guess is 16-234

So basically everything thats not 0-255 should be expanded to 0-255, then contracted to 16-234 and then sent to the tv.

This should keep BTB and WTW for desktop but with a slightly different curve, and SD and HD content should display perfectly (except for a few rounding errors)

This is great news!

One qualification to what you said. I believe BTB and WTW is being clipped if you use default settings:

16 ->0 (expansion) -> 16 (dongle)
8 ->0 (expansion) -> 16 (dongle)

no below black detail left

What arfster is saying is if you boost the brightness in Avivo (not desktop) you can get it back because then (for example):

8 -> 24 (brightness adjustment) -> 8 (expansion) -> 24 (dongle)

But then you need separate calibration of your display at greater than video levels for no real benefit.

As I have said before this clipping does not worry me as it should not be visible anyway and is stillpresent through all deocding and post-processing.


Thanks :-) I was groaning internally at how to explain that.....


I've been experimenting a bit, trying to figure how various elements of the processing chain. As you say, btb/wtw are present when all postprocessing is happening, as this happens before RGB conversion/expansion (if you use ffdshow for this stage, all postprocessing is disabled, as it can't handle RGB). The only thing that's a little hard to nail down is scaling.

As far as I can see, the clipping that happens inevitably with expansion then contraction (in that order, the dongle method) is visually no different than simply throwing away <16 and >235. Given this is what you do when you calibrate your monitor anyway, there seems to be no downside. All a bit clumsy, but no harm done.

By the way, the dongle seems to do nothing more complicated than setting CCC desktop colour settings to roughly 32/74 (very very approx, did that by eye). As others have suggested, this contraction stage is notcaptured by screenshots.

Hmm..

I think we should focus on getting things working without the dongle first, as there is no point in wasting money if its not needed.


What we need to find out is:

-Is the output signal flagged as 16-234 or 0-255
-Does to TV contract 0-255 to 16-234 or does it display full 0-255

Then we need to find out:

-When 0-255 is contracted to 16-234 without clipping all the shades will be misplaced for 0-255 content, but the shades will be correct for all SD/HD content except for some rounding errors

is there any commandline parameters to CCC.exe ?

like /exit /quit /noicon :confused:

because the damn thing suicides itself every 1/2 day on my french XP since the 7.12, I've made batches that kill it and open it again when I switch pstrip resolutions......but then sometimes I have several ATi red icons in the tasktray.....and I need to hover w/ the mouse on top of them so they disappear :mad:

it seems impossible to refresh the tasktray automatically, or can I close CCC in a nice way ?

pstrip requires MOM.exe to change the resolution/refresh rate on the primary display, and it requires MOM.exe + CCC.exe to change the refresh rate on the secondary(but impossible to change the resolution whatsoever).

that's what I got at this point, and it seems to work OK except for the "ghost" ATi icons in the tasktray :mad:

start "ccc" /B "C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static\MOM.exe"
C:\Progra~1\PowerStrip\pstrip.exe /t:1280,62,62,196,768,4,8,20,61440,530
C:\Progra~1\pskill.exe -t ccc.exe
C:\Progra~1\pskill.exe -t MOM.exe

TIA,

OK - urrrgh, twisting my mind this. Are you talking CCC video brightness/contrast, or the main color brightness/contrast? They work at different stages of the chain.


For the bt601/709 issue, it's only a problem in two circumstances: using ffdshow to upscale SD, and with 720p widescreen encodes done without black bars (1280*555ish resolution, bt709 encode, but drivers assume they're SD cos vertical res is <720)

I wonder if we are talking about different things here.

I am using DXVA and AVIVO for absolutely all of my video processing and rendering. I do not have FFDShow installed.

I can adjust either the overall/main brightness/contrast in CCC or the video AVIVO brightness/contrast in CCC and in both cases I can see WTW and BTB if I crank up the brightness and/or turn down the contrast.

To me this says that BTB and WTW is not lost, at least if AVIVO is used for the entire video pipeline, without using any additional DirectShow filters - other than DXVA supporting filters such as Microsoft's MPEG-2 decoder and PowerDVD's decoder.

When your expansion is loosing BTB and WTW, are you using FFDShow or other non-DXVA filters?

Thanks jong1,

I've just finished testing another system and can now confirm everything you've said. The "UseBT601CSC=1" tweak does work perfectly well with the dongle and I appear to get correct levels across the board by simply applying this tweak and calibrating the display correctly. God knows what was going on earlier today (I can only assume it was my mistake. I'll need to check it out :o).

The only significant difference is that this system is on CCC 8.2 (because of the HDMI audio issue) and the "troublesome" unit is running 8.5 but I'm sure that that isn't the problem ;)

The "ramp" also displays perfectly on this system "between the dots" showing perfect 16-235 levels. As arfster suggests, adjusting the AVIVO brightness does indeed allow you to see btb levels if you wish so these are not being clipped even by using the dongle.

The one remaining mystery is the HDMI audio. The cards I'm having problems with (Asus models) actually ship with the appropriate dongle. Installing any CCC (and associated drivers) up to and including 8.3 shows the connection as HDMI (as you say DTV (HDMI)) and audio works. Completely remove CCC and the drivers then install CCC 8.4 or 8.5 and the connection is reported as DVI (you even get the warning message about connecting a separate cable if you want sound) and audio doesn't work. These cards include a yellow dongle which is colour coded to a yellow DVI port (fairly idiot proof :)). Interestingly, the very latest card I received still has the yellow port but the supplied dongle is now gray (not yellow) and audio works with 8.4 and 8.5 but only when the dongle is connected to the "non-yellow" DVI port. This kinda suggests something has changed recently. There's also a few references to this on the Asus forums, but no answer as yet :rolleyes:

Thanks again to you and arfster for the input. I'm now happy that we have consistent results across the board with the excepion of HT's system and assuming your btb and wtw levels aren't clipped when the AVIVO basic color settings are adjusted (just for testing obviously ;)).

Cheers,

Wo0zy

You made some interesting points above.

Am I correct to assume that when the HDMI dongle is installed on the "wrong" DVI port that not only do you loose HDMI audio, but you also loose the conversion to video grey levels?

I have a genuine ATI HD 2600XT and both ports are simply nickel plated. I have my HDMI dongle on the lower DVI port and when I look at what CCC thinks is connected as far as a TV, it states it is using a DVI connection - not HDMI!

I wonder if I switch the dongle to the upper DVI connector if CCC will suddenly think HDMI is actually being used and might compress the grey levels from PC to video levels (0-255 into 16-235).

Right now I need to use +31/74 as the overall CCC brightness/contrast to get correct grey levels (as mentioned above). This also aligns well with arfster's test when he is not using the HDMI dongle.

I have also just picked up a new video card. This is an HIS 3870 IceQ3. I wonder if it might behave differently as far as recognising if the HDMI dongle is used or not (this dongle is grey; the genuine ATI dongle with the 2600XT is black). With the new card, both DVI ports are gold in color.

I can adjust either the overall/main brightness/contrast in CCC or the video AVIVO brightness/contrast in CCC and in both cases I can see WTW and BTB if I crank up the brightness and/or turn down the contrast.


Hrrm, how about this: with CCC video settings set to application control and CCC desktop colour at default 0/0, play the ramp.zip, turn up brightness on your HDTV, is there anything outside the dots? (you can screenshot this)

Then with CCCdesktop to brightness 32, contrast74, and HDTV brightness still turned up, any difference? (can't screenshot this, it doesn't catch any fiddling after RGB conversion). Note this is different from setting CCC video to 16/86, because that acts on YUY2 rather than RGB, and contraction before expansion logically means wtw/btb isn't lost.

Hopefully this should get us on the same page, always tricky with so many factors :-)



When your expansion is loosing BTB and WTW, are you using FFDShow or other non-DXVA filters?


Tried both, although it doesn't actually matter - in Vista whether you use hardware acceleration or not it'll always expand HD (and SD with usebt601csc=1), because the expansion is part of the hardware RGB conversion stage. The only exception is if you do RGB conversion in software.

No, it is definitely gone, if you allow the drivers to expand and do not fiddle with the CCC brightness and contrast. The dongle contracts back to video levels but there is nothing below "video black". This is easily verified by cranking up the brightness on the display (not CCC). However, much you boost it the BTB bar on a standard pluge never appears. Not that it is an issue as far as I am concerned since the data is there all the way though until the final point of display and you are not supposed to see the other stuff anyway.

I cannot speak for what happens if you do play with the CCC controls. As arfster has said before he believes the Avivo settings can be used to avoid clipping, but the desktop settings cannot, but as I do not touch these settings I cannot comment one way or the other.

I was specifically talking about testing the situation where you use CCC controls to temporarily crank up brightness and contrast. When I do this, using either the overall brightness/contrast or AVIVO brightness/contrast, I can always see BTB and WTW.

I wanted to know if the video processing includes details from BTB and WTW when UseBT601CSC=1 is used and my assumption is that it must (based on the fact that if I adjust CCC's brightness/contrast I can see all BTB and WTW details).

When I have things calibrated correctly I simply cannot see any BTB or WTW and that is fine with me. Also at that point if I crank up the brightness/turn down the contrast on my HDTV I do not see BTB nor WTW. I have confirmed that my HDTV clips 0-16 at black and 235-255 at white. It is not able to distinguish between these at all.

Hrrm, how about this: with CCC video settings set to application control and CCC desktop colour at default 0/0, play the ramp.zip, turn up brightness on your HDTV, is there anything outside the dots?

No, but my HDTV can only display 16-235 no matter how much I adjust brightness/contrast on it. Doing this test I can only see roughly 30-220 (edit: and this is with the HDMI dongle in use).

Then with CCCdesktop to brightness 32, contrast74, and HDTV brightness still turned up, any difference?

Now I can see perfectly everything within the dots (or about 15-235; if I use 31/74 I see 16-235 with 16 as black).

If I instead crank the CCC desktop brightness to 100 and contrast 50, I can now see the entire ramp; from 0-255.

Hopefully this should get us on the same page, always tricky that when all you can do is describe things (screenshots don't work here).

I very much suspect that either different HDTVs perform different HDMI/DVI handshaking or the port that the HDMI dongle is plugged into makes a difference. Note that CCC reports my HDTV as being hooked up with DVI, even though I am using the HDMI dongle. Also note that my HDTV does not actually have an HDMI port on it. Instead I am using an HDMI to DVI cable with the DVI end connected to my HDTV.

Tried both, although it doesn't actually matter - in Vista whether you use hardware acceleration or not it'll always expand HD (and SD with usebt601csc=1), because the expansion is part of the hardware RGB conversion stage. The only exception is if you do RGB conversion in software.

With your system, if you crank up the overall (desktop) brightness/contrast in CCC enough, can you see the full ramp? Or does it get clipped at 16-235?

Further to my post directly above, if I use a DVI to DVI cable to hook up my HDTV (with the brightness still cranked and contrast lowered on the HDTV), using default CCC settings I can only see roughly 50-200 on the ramp.

Adding the HDMI dongle and using the HDMI to DVI cable to my HDTV (TV only has a DVI port), I then see roughly 30-220.

Finally cranking up the desktop brightness to 31 and contrast to 74, I now see 16-235 (properly calibrated). Also, at this point if I view a bmp of a ramp I see the entire 0-255 as I should for photographs. By finally including UseBT601CSC=1 I now also get SD content within spec and showing 16-235 on my HDTV.

To get PowerDVD Ultra to show 16-235 I also have to crank up the brightness in PDVD to +19 and turn the contrast down to -5. At this point absolutely every single source of video, photographs, video games, etc. that I use are within spec (16-235 for all video and 0-255 for all PC stuff, including photographs and video games).

Edit: Also note that with my HDTV's brightness cranked up and contrast lowered, that all blacks are displayed as grey (everything from 0-16 is grey) and all whites are a brighter grey (everything from 235-255 is brighter grey). As a final step, I calibrate my HDTV so blacks are black and whites are a bright white, without being excessive, blooming, etc. All of this suggests that it is my HDTV that clips 0-16 and 235-255 though, not the video card (especially since I have also hot swapped between my HDTV and my Viewsonic monitor with a 0-255 bmp displayed and the monitor displays an expanded range of 0-255 using default CCC settings and the HDMI dongle, yet my HDTV only displays 16-235; note this is a bitmap, not video so this particular hotswap test was not using expanded video).

I just cranked up my desktop brightness and as arfster has previously said I still get no below black detail, although the whole image becomes brighter.

Confusingly I tried adjusting the AVIVO color settings and they did nothing at all in either PowerDVD8 or WMP. But it's not a control I ever use, so I'd probably missed something.

I think part of the confusion is likely to be your unusual setup (DVI -> dongle ->HDMI -> DVI). As mentioned last night, my TV is recognised as HDMI, whilst yours is seen as DVI.

I just cranked up my desktop brightness and as arfster has previously said I still get no below black detail, although the whole image becomes brighter.

Confusingly I tried adjusting the AVIVO color settings and they did nothing at all in either PowerDVD8 or WMP. But it's not a control I ever use, so I'd probably missed something.

I think part of the confusion is likely to be your unusual setup (DVI -> dongle ->HDMI -> DVI). As mentioned last night, my TV is recognised as HDMI, whilst yours is seen as DVI.

It could be, except that my father's Olevia 747i behaves the same way and his is connected using the HDMI dongle and HDMI all the way to the HDTV. Also, mine behaves even worse if I go straight DVI to DVI. With straight DVI I really can't get enough brightness nor lower the contrast enough to get a compliant image (yet if I use an Nvidia card it does by default provide compliant grey levels for video (only) through DVI -> DVI).

Also, by me using a DVI->HDMI cable, according to the communication specs, DVI and HDMI are supposed to be completely identical. In other words, the HDTV is supposed to handshake the same way. The only difference is the preference for YCbCr vs RGB and ATI seems to force this based on if the dongle is used at their end.

I suspect the real issue is a glitch in how this handshaking works - or doesn't work with ATI cards. It is also possible that certain HDTVs are not compliant in how they handshake, but I suspect the issue is more likely related to ATI's interpretation of what the HDTVs are telling the video card.

By the way, the dongle seems to do nothing more complicated than setting CCC desktop colour settings to roughly 32/74 (very very approx, did that by eye).Not quite because don't forget it also causes the colorspace to change to YCbCr.

I just cranked up my desktop brightness and as arfster has previously said I still get no below black detail, although the whole image becomes brighter.

Is this when watching video and using AVIVO for all of the video processing?

If so, I am really baffled at how different our systems are bahaving.

Basically, add UseBT601CSC=1 so you have compliant 16-235 visible and then while playing video using AVIVO DXVA for everything, adjust the CCC overall brightness/contrast and no matter what you do you cannot see anything beyond the 16-235 range???

This is extremely wierd! It must be due to us running different operating systems.

I am running Vista SP1, fully updated and using Media Center (EVR) for playback of my calibrated content. Double checking in WMP, I see the same grey levels (with BTB/WTW visible if I adjust the overall CCC brightness/contrast).

One thing to note is PowerDVD doesn't change brightness at all if I change the overall brightness/contrast settings. For PowerDVD I have to either use AVIVO controls or, if AVIVO controls are set to "application controlled", I can use PowerDVD's own advanced video brightness/contrast controls.

"UseBT601CSC=1"

This registry entry in theory enables level expansion for SD material right? I've got the ATI 2200 IGP and was using this, and I watched some normal DVD last night. With that registry entry in, I got double expansion - both with PowerDVD and TMT. Extreme black crush and whites where like looking at a supernova! Removing that field in the registry made things look correct. Is this a known issue?

The HTPC is connected directly to my TV (projector) via the HDMI jack on the motherboard. Running 8.4.

btl.

Further to my post directly above, if I use a DVI to DVI cable to hook up my HDTV (with the brightness still cranked and contrast lowered on the HDTV), using default CCC settings I can only see roughly 50-200 on the ramp.



:confused::eek::confused:

When you take the above setup (default CCC, w6rz.net ramp), do you see a noticeable black gap between the dots and the first grey?

This is great news!

One qualification to what you said. I believe BTB and WTW is being clipped if you use default settings:

16 ->0 (expansion) -> 16 (dongle)
8 ->0 (expansion) -> 16 (dongle)

no below black detail left

What arfster is saying is if you boost the brightness in Avivo (not desktop) you can get it back because then (for example):

8 -> 24 (brightness adjustment) -> 8 (expansion) -> 24 (dongle)

But then you need separate calibration of your display at greater than video levels for no real benefit.

As I have said before this clipping does not worry me as it should not be visible anyway and is stillpresent through all deocding and post-processing.

Correct mate. Standard settings clip btb/wtw. I only boosted the AVIVO video levels to test arfsters theory with 8.2.

All good :)

Wo0zy

"UseBT601CSC=1"

This registry entry in theory enables level expansion for SD material right? I've got the ATI 2200 IGP and was using this, and I watched some normal DVD last night. With that registry entry in, I got double expansion - both with PowerDVD and TMT. Extreme black crush and whites where like looking at a supernova! Removing that field in the registry made things look correct. Is this a known issue?

The HTPC is connected directly to my TV (projector) via the HDMI jack on the motherboard. Running 8.4.

btl.

That is exactly how mine behaves.

What you can do to correct this is adjust the brightness and contrast within CCC to compensate. The advantage with doing this (combined with UseBT601CSC=1) is that it allows SD and HD content to be the same (HD is already expanded). If you adjust the overall brightness/contrast you will also be able to get your photographs to display correctly. If you adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast you will get all video, including PowerDVD to display correct grey levels. Unfortunately it is one or the other (I prefer to adjust the overall brightness/contrast in CCC and then adjust PowerDVD's brightness/contrast separately within PowerDVD).

:confused::eek::confused:

When you take the above setup (default CCC, w6rz.net ramp), do you see a noticeable black gap between the dots and the first grey?

Correct (using default settings everywhere, DVI to DVI, except my HDTVs brightness cranked up and contrast turned down to "try" to see more).

That is exactly how mine behaves.

What you can do to correct this is adjust the brightness and contrast within CCC to compensate. The advantage with doing this (combined with UseBT601CSC=1) is that it allows SD and HD content to be the same (HD is already expanded). If you adjust the overall brightness/contrast you will also be able to get your photographs to display correctly. If you adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast you will get all video, including PowerDVD to display correct grey levels. Unfortunately it is one or the other (I prefer to adjust the overall brightness/contrast in CCC and then adjust PowerDVD's brightness/contrast separately within PowerDVD).
What I'm not sure I understand is why I should use that entry at all - I've got correct levels in HD material without it (projector was calibrated with HD), and it seems like without it I'm also getting correct SD levels.

btl.

Correct (using default settings everywhere, DVI to DVI, except my HDTVs brightness cranked up and contrast turned down to "try" to see more).

OK, that's way different from anything I've seen - you seem to be getting the standard expansion of HD (RGB conversion), and then an extra expansion on top of that?

Edit: could you post a screenshot? (and also whether it's same as you see, might not be)

I think part of the confusion is likely to be your unusual setup (DVI -> dongle ->HDMI -> DVI). As mentioned last night, my TV is recognised as HDMI, whilst yours is seen as DVI.

I'm sure this is part of the issue. Unless the display is "seen" as HDMI (which requires HDMI at the TV end and an official ATi Dongle) I'm fairly sure the card outputs PC levels.

I'm also convinced there's something "fishy" going on with what the drivers are looking for when they detect the dongle otherwise a change for 8.2 to 8.5 wouldn't screw things up but I don't think this is the issue in HT's case as the display is actually DVI not incorrectly identified HDMI.

HT, if your display is seen a DVI I'm convinced that the calibration required will be different to someone who has a full "HDMI Chain". I'll do a few more checks later without the dongle and compare the results to yours.

Wo0zy

Not quite because don't forget it also causes the colorspace to change to YCbCr.

Hrrm, fair point - I wonder if that causes problems with some HDTVs.

Is this a bug in the ATI software, or is this being caused by something else. I just installed 8.4 about a week ago. I had been running 8.2 for a while, and have not had this problem:

I will sometimes turn the TV off while listening to music through my system via VMC. When I turn the TV back on, VMC no longer takes up the entire screen, and when I check out my settings in CCC, they have reset themselves to 1920x1280 with 30i. My "normal" setting for my Pioneer 5050 has been to Force it to 1280x768 with 60p.

Do I need to go back to the earlier version of the ATI software, or could some other factor be in play?

Sorry to interupt the discussion on dongles and tweaking for best picture, but I could really use someones help in this. At least someone saying "no, this is not an ATI software issue".

Again, sorry for the interruption.

Is this when watching video and using AVIVO for all of the video processing?

If so, I am really baffled at how different our systems are bahaving.

Basically, add UseBT601CSC=1 so you have compliant 16-235 visible and then while playing video using AVIVO DXVA for everything, adjust the CCC overall brightness/contrast and no matter what you do you cannot see anything beyond the 16-235 range???

This is extremely wierd! It must be due to us running different operating systems.

I am running Vista SP1, fully updated and using Media Center (EVR) for playback of my calibrated content. Double checking in WMP, I see the same grey levels (with BTB/WTW visible if I adjust the overall CCC brightness/contrast).

One thing to note is PowerDVD doesn't change brightness at all if I change the overall brightness/contrast settings. For PowerDVD I have to either use AVIVO controls or, if AVIVO controls are set to "application controlled", I can use PowerDVD's own advanced video brightness/contrast controls.Yes, AVIVO all the way.

It is not as simple as an OS issue as we have several people now using Vista SP1 with the same experience as I am having. What is more, once the registry tweak for SD is applied, all is good and consistent. Just what one might expect if you were configuring a PC to display mixed media (photos + HD +SD) on a TV (video level calibrated).

I am confused by your PowerDVD experience. Changing the desktop brightness/contrast should affect PowerDVD if it is using EVR. Sounds like your PowerDVD is falling back on Overlay rendering for some reason. This would certainly explain why you have to configure PowerDVD Separately from the rest.

Sorry to interupt the discussion on dongles and tweaking for best picture, but I could really use someones help in this. At least someone saying "no, this is not an ATI software issue".

Again, sorry for the interruption.

I can't offer you a fix yet but I have seen something similar with both 8.4 and 8.5. I run a "customised " 720p timing for my desktop and with the latest drivers it nearly always reverts to standard 720p (overscanned) when I either turn the TV off and then on again or move to another input and then back again.

I need to do some more investigation but have been rather preoccupied. You could go back to 8.2 as these drivers don't do this (or other weird stuff I'm having issues with) until someone finds a fix.

Wo0zy

Sorry to interupt the discussion on dongles and tweaking for best picture, but I could really use someones help in this. At least someone saying "no, this is not an ATI software issue".

Again, sorry for the interruption.

I too have a similar issue once in a while. Sometimes my work around is to hit the "green button" on the MC remote and that fixes it, other times I have to actually exit MC (using the remote) and then hit the "green button".

I'm not exactly sure what triggers the issue and on my system it doesn't happen very often. I suspect the issue has something to do with a change in resolutions used between MC and the screen saver. Instead of switching back properly, only a portion of the display ends up visible when it returns to MC.

Sorry I couldn't really help.

Yes, AVIVO all the way.

It is not as simple as an OS issue as we have several people now using Vista SP1 with the same experience as I am having. What is more, once the registry tweak for SD is applied, all is good and consistent. Just what one might expect if you were configuring a PC to display mixed media (photos + HD +SD) on a TV (video level calibrated).

I am confused by your PowerDVD experience. Changing the desktop brightness/contrast should affect PowerDVD if it is using EVR. Sounds like your PowerDVD is falling back on Overlay rendering for some reason. This would certainly explain why you have to configure PowerDVD Separately from the rest.

We were talking about something a little different and I don't know if it really has been confirmed that Vista clips BTB/WTW as soon as UseBT601CSC=1 is applied on "normal" systems. I for one find it very difficult to believe that this will be different between my system and other systems that are running fully updated versions of Vista w/SP1 and the latest video driver (8.5).

I can accept that different HDTVs will change the grey levels that the video card outputs and possibly even switch between RGB vs YCbCr, but that is it.

Without any doubt at all, there are significant differences between Vista and XP when it comes to renderers and how grey levels are controlled by different applications. This has been confirmed by Microsoft over on "thegreenbutton" threads.

OK, that's way different from anything I've seen - you seem to be getting the standard expansion of HD (RGB conversion), and then an extra expansion on top of that?

Edit: could you post a screenshot? (and also whether it's same as you see, might not be)

It is almost as if my HDTV is somehow confusing the video card to output RGB 0-255, yet it can only handle 16-235 so everything gets an extra level of expansion. This is with the HDMI adapter in use too.

I'll try to post some screenshots.

What I'm not sure I understand is why I should use that entry at all - I've got correct levels in HD material without it (projector was calibrated with HD), and it seems like without it I'm also getting correct SD levels.

btl.

I suspect you'll actually find that if your SD content is calibrated using totally default settings (as mine is also), that your HD content is actually not calibrated. If you bring up an HD calibration ramp (such as http://w6rz.net/ramp.zip), you'll find that the HD has already been expanded and you cannot see all of the grey levels between the dots.

To fix this, you need to use the UseBT601CSC=1 to make SD and HD the same, and then adjust the CCC brightness/contrast to bring both SD and HD into calibration.

I can't explain why some systems by default are calibrated for SD (mine and yours are this way) and some HD (most are this way), but there is always a difference by default between SD and HD material (until UseBT601CSC=1 is applied).

We were talking about something a little different and I don't know if it really has been confirmed that Vista clips BTB/WTW as soon as UseBT601CSC=1 is applied on "normal" systems.

It's not so much that it's directly clipping (ie simply chopping <16 & >235), that's perhaps the wrong word I've been using. It's just that if you expand and then contract then everything originally <16 (ie btb) must end up as zero. That's a logical inevitability when Windows cannot have negative RGB values. From my tests this definitely happens with the CCC desktop colour settings, but not with the CCC video colour settings, proving that the former is post-RGB conversion/expansion, and the latter pre.

We were talking about something a little different and I don't know if it really has been confirmed that Vista clips BTB/WTW as soon as UseBT601CSC=1 is applied on "normal" systems. I for one find it very difficult to believe that this will be different between my system and other systems that are running fully updated versions of Vista w/SP1 and the latest video driver (8.5).

I can accept that different HDTVs will change the grey levels that the video card outputs and possibly even switch between RGB vs YCbCr, but that is it.

Without any doubt at all, there are significant differences between Vista and XP when it comes to renderers and how grey levels are controlled by different applications. This has been confirmed by Microsoft over on "thegreenbutton" threads.Well we will have to agree to differ on this. I for one am convinced that several people with Vista are not having the very strange behaviour you are seeing and the fact you do have an unusual setup makes that more likely the source of the confusion. What the rest of us are seeing is at least logical and consistent.

It is almost as if my HDTV is somehow confusing the video card to output RGB 0-255, yet it can only handle 16-235 so everything gets an extra level of expansion. This is with the HDMI adapter in use too.

I'll try to post some screenshots.As Wo0zy has said this is actually entirely consistent with the fact that your driver is not recognising your TV as connected by HDMI. Are you sure you have a real ATI dongle and not just any old DVI/HDMI converter?

One last thing, as I mentioned earlier, is there any chance you might have mismatching CCC and driver versions. This easily leads to chaos and if there is any chance you ever updated your driver without updating CCC I would suggest a clean uninstall and re-install to see if that helps.

If, as it appears, PowerDVD is falling back on overlay, not using EVR, this too could be an indication of a system problem that needs addressing.

I suspect you'll actually find that if your SD content is calibrated using totally default settings (as mine is also), that your HD content is actually not calibrated. If you bring up an HD calibration ramp (such as http://w6rz.net/ramp.zip), you'll find that the HD has already been expanded and you cannot see all of the grey levels between the dots.

To fix this, you need to use the UseBT601CSC=1 to make SD and HD the same, and then adjust the CCC brightness/contrast to bring both SD and HD into calibration.

I can't explain why some systems by default are calibrated for SD (mine and yours are this way) and some HD (most are this way), but there is always a difference by default between SD and HD material (until UseBT601CSC=1 is applied).I'm not sure we can say anything about bialio's integrated graphics solution. It may be that works just fine without the tweak. But you are right to suggest he double checks his SD and HD levels without the tweak.

Well we will have to agree to differ on this. I for one am convinced that several people with Vista are not having the very strange behaviour you are seeing and the fact you do have an unusual setup makes that more likely the source of the confusion. What the rest of us are seeing is at least logical and consistent.

What you consider "very strange behaviour" and an "unusual setup" isn't all that out of line.

As far as I'm concerned all that is happening here is the ATI card is confusing the grey level changes required for my HDTV at the final output from the card. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else works and all I need to do is crank up my CCC brightness and contrast to compensate. Also note this is exactly the same way most systems behave if their HDTVs are hooked up using the DVI port directly.

All that is unique about my setup is my HDTV is a little older and it has a DVI connection, instead of a modern HDMI connection.

You are running a completely different operating system, along with completely different software. It could also be argued that your system isn't behaving normally since you cannot control the brightness and contrast within CCC as all others are able to, including myself.

I would prefer to be able to use totally default settings, and not require UseBT601CSC=1, but lets not blow things out of proportion here.

As Wo0zy has said this is actually entirely consistent with the fact that your driver is not recognising your TV as connected by HDMI. Are you sure you have a real ATI dongle and not just any old DVI/HDMI converter?

One last thing, as I mentioned earlier, is there any chance you might have mismatching CCC and driver versions. This easily leads to chaos and if there is any chance you ever updated your driver without updating CCC I would suggest a clean uninstall and re-install to see if that helps.

If, as it appears, PowerDVD is falling back on overlay, not using EVR, this too could be an indication of a system problem that needs addressing.

I am 100% certain, as I have said before, that I have a real ATI HDMI dongle. It even says ATI HDMI on it. The card itself is a genuine ATI HD 2600XT also. I have not tried the other video port on the card though.

8.5 was installed with both the driver and CCC from the same install file.

I have recently performed a fresh install along with 8.5 (for other reasons) and it behaves exactly the same way, requiring tweaking of contrast and brightness to get things right. Quite honestly I would never bother uninstalling and reinstalling everything just to find out if I don't need to adjust the brightness and contrast. Every single application works fine as far as grey levels are concerned now that I have made the appropriate adjustments.

It's not so much that it's directly clipping (ie simply chopping <16 & >235), that's perhaps the wrong word I've been using. It's just that if you expand and then contract then everything originally <16 (ie btb) must end up as zero. That's a logical inevitability when Windows cannot have negative RGB values. From my tests this definitely happens with the CCC desktop colour settings, but not with the CCC video colour settings, proving that the former is post-RGB conversion/expansion, and the latter pre.

I re-examined the ramp using various brightness and contrast settings and unfortunately I was misinterpreting the results.

You are correct. I cannot see BTB or WTW when the AVIVO grey levels are left at the default settings, regardless of how high I crank the overall CCC color brightness/contrast settings. That actually isn't 100% accurate. If I remove UseBT601CSC=1 and use an DVD test disk or other SD test pattern I can see BTB and WTW, but this is not my current baseline.

Can you describe exactly where in CCC to find out if the device connected is recognized as hdmi or dvi?

I re-examined the ramp using various brightness and contrast settings and unfortunately I was misinterpreting the results.

You are correct. I cannot see BTB or WTW when the AVIVO grey levels are left at the default settings, regardless of how high I crank the overall CCC color brightness/contrast settings. That actually isn't 100% accurate. If I remove UseBT601CSC=1 and use an DVD test disk or other SD test pattern I can see BTB and WTW, but this is not my current baseline.Well this was the most strange behaviour. You seemed to be expanding yet not losing any BTB/WTW. It is good to knock that one off the list.

I've lost track of things a little over the last few days but i think this is still a summary of your situation.

No, I do mean UseBT601CSC=1.

I'll start again...

Default settings using the HDMI dongle:


DVD, SD Recorded TV, WMV - all correct with 16-235 visible.
Everything else wrong (including HD TV, photographs, PowerDVD Ultra and video games).


Adding UseBT601CSC=1:


Everything wrong, with video far too dark with too much contrast.


If I now adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast to +15/85%:


Most, if not all video is now correctly calibrated for 16-235 (including PowerDVD)
Unfortunately photographs, desktop and video games also only have 16-235 visible at this point


If I instead adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast back to default and check "application controlled" + crank up the overall brightness to +31 and overall contrast to 74% in CCC:


Photographs, desktop, and video games all have 0-255 visible (good)
DVD, SD Recorded TV, HD Recorded TV, and WMV all have 16-235 visible (even better)
Unfortunately PowerDVD Ultra is wrong (bad)


If I now crank up the brightness to +19 and contrast down to -5 in PowerDVD Ultra (advanced video settings), I now get absolutely everything working.

Does this make sense?

How does this compare to what others are seeing with your HDTVs?

Your TV is calibrated for video levels.

Since CCC is reading your connection as DVI (for whatever reason) I do not think the dongle is working for you. This would mean that you are not getting the contraction the dongle normally provides, so your TV is being sent PC levels for all except SD video, which without the UseBT601CSC=1 tweak do not get expanded. This matches exactly the description you gave above.

- All is normally too dark, except SD, which without the tweak outputs video levels even when all else is set to PC levels.

- Using the tweak makes things worse because then SD too is expanded to PC levels (but is now consistent with the desktop).

- Using the tweak, but adjusting video brightness cancel each other out and return video to good levels, but the desktop is still wrong.

- Adjusting desktop brightness instead fixes SD AND the desktop (photos etc.) as, with the tweak, both are expanded by default to PC levels. It is a rough equivalent of what the dongle is designed to do, except without YCbCr output, which is probably best for a DVI input and maybe why the dongle is not working.

The only confusing thing is why PowerDVD is not affected by the desktop adjustments. This I believe is explained by PowerDVD using overlay instead of EVR, which it does if it decides it cannot use EVR for some reason. If it were using EVR it would be affected by desktop brightness adjustments.

So I think we have it:

- You have a TV calibrated to video levels
- You have a PC which is outputing PC levels, by default, regardless of the dongle, because it does not see your display as HDMI
- You have a slightly defective PowerDVD install, which is not using EVR. Maybe a clean PowerDVD installation might fix this? Or leave it alone if you are happy with PDVD using overlay!

There is no longer any great mystery in the differences we are seeing.

The dongle seems to be a bit of a dog's breakfast, all told.

There's absolutely no reason not to do this in software, by simply having a software setting for no expansion in the first place. Easy to implement too, just have two RGB conversion matrixes/formula/whatever. The cards already have this for bt601/SD, so it's not like they don't know how.

The dongle seems to be a bit of a dog's breakfast, all told.

There's absolutely no reason not to do this in software, by simply having a software setting for no expansion in the first place. Easy to implement too, just have two RGB conversion matrixes/formula/whatever. The cards already have this for bt601/SD, so it's not like they don't know how.I agree, but I guess they were trying to automate it, for people that do not know.

Once they decided to send YCbCr to an HDMI display they needed to stop themselves doing that to a DVI display, which if is not some halfway house to HDMI will only support RGB. Not sure what the benefit of sending YCbCr is given everything has already been converted once to RGB, but maybe "real TVs" are able to process YCbCr better than RGB. Generally YCbCr seems better suited to manipulation of video than RGB, hence why most codecs seem to use it 'till the last stage. I may well be imagining it, but since I found out about this and set my AV amp to passthough YCbCr instead of RGB (which I thought was minimising conversions) I think my TV is providing better motion processing, even though screenshots are identical in color, levels & detail.

You would think they would be able to tell regardless of the dongle. In HT's case they seem to be able to tell it is a DVI display even though the dongle is there. So it is all a little odd and confusing! But maybe there is a reason.

The dongle seems to be a bit of a dog's breakfast, all told.

There's absolutely no reason not to do this in software, by simply having a software setting for no expansion in the first place. Easy to implement too, just have two RGB conversion matrixes/formula/whatever. The cards already have this for bt601/SD, so it's not like they don't know how.

Agreed but I guess it's a another case of trying to be "end user" friendly and failing. Let's face it, the user has an HDMI display sees the dongle and thinks "I obviously need to plug that in so my HDMI cable will fit" whereas CCC options for RGB and YCbCr(YPbPr) could be missed and maybe not be understood.

I applaud attempts at making HTPC's accessible to the masses but it is a shame it's at the expense of the enthusiast.

Regardless (and as I think you said in a previous post), I don't understand how expanding one form of video and not expanding another can be a logical default position :confused:

Thanks again for your recent help.

Wo0zy

Regardless (and as I think you said in a previous post), I don't understand how expanding one form of video and not expanding another can be a logical default position :confused:Yep, that is the final mystery in all this. Maybe they just wanted to be sure that DVDs played back OK on a video level adjusted DVI connected TV and forgot about HD in all the confusion.....No, no excuses, it's just plain bonkers!

So it is all a little odd and confusing! But maybe there is a reason.

I think it's pretty clear the reason is they don't give a monkeys :-) Still waiting on a resolution to my levels mismatch bug report, filed June 2007 and went through it extensively with their techs.

Every so often I post a bitchy "still not fixed" comment out of sheer obstinancy :)

I need some help:

I've searched and searched using different keywords w/ no luck and this post is extremely to long to try to sift through it all.

What is the max resolution that the HD 2600 Pro will go through a VGA? I'm trying to get it to fill the screen on my Sony V2500 46inch HD 1920x1080 TV.. The highest setting that the software allows me is the 1400x (something) (sorry)..

Is there anything I need to do? Would I have to change from the DVI-VGA to either the DVI-HDMI or buy the component adapter for the card to go to the TV?

I haven't updated anything and I'm currently using the software that came in the HD2600 box.

Thanks for any help!

I need some help:

I've searched and searched using different keywords w/ no luck and this post is extremely to long to try to sift through it all.

What is the max resolution that the HD 2600 Pro will go through a VGA?

My 2600xt is running at 1920*1200 through VGA, although with a lot of the drivers you have to use powerstrip to create a driver (easy enough) that supports this - the drivers don't seem to believe >1600*1200 is possible with VGA.

You might also need to go into CCC, goto the monitor attributes page, unselect "use EDID" and set 1920*1080 and 50/60hz.

How do you get 1080p@50? I've never been able to get my APG HD2600XT or my new 780G mb with HD3200 built in to play nicely. I get offered 1080p60, 1080p24 with the new 8.5 driver that I didn't get with 8.4 or 1080i25 which was awful with 8.4. I'm in PAL land so 1080p50 would be ideal.
I'm in PAL land also, i'v a HD2600Pro PCIe and CCC 8.3
connected to a Sharp 46X20E.
1080p50 is not listed in CCC under DTV->HDTV Support.
But in Displays Manager -> Refresh Rates it offers me 24 Hz, 25i Hz, 29i Hz, 30i Hz, 50 Hz, 60 Hz.
And my Sharp reports 1080p 50Hz.

Can anyone advise me how to sharpen the video with CCC 8.5?

I'm running an ATI 3850 with excellent results but would like to sharpen the picture slightly. I was expecting to find an edge enhancement slider in CCC but no luck so far :(

I'm in PAL land also, i'v a HD2600Pro PCIe and CCC 8.3
connected to a Sharp 46X20E.
1080p50 is not listed in CCC under DTV->HDTV Support.
But in Displays Manager -> Refresh Rates it offers me 24 Hz, 25i Hz, 29i Hz, 30i Hz, 50 Hz, 60 Hz.
And my Sharp reports 1080p 50Hz.

This seems fairly inconsistent. My system doesn't list 1080p50 under HDTV support but a system I installed earlier in the week did.

I wonder if it has something to do with EDID and what's reported as the "native" resoltuion or timings specified in DTDs. Would you mind posting your EDID so I can check?

Cheers,

Wo0zy

I'm in PAL land also, i'v a HD2600Pro PCIe and CCC 8.3
connected to a Sharp 46X20E.
1080p50 is not listed in CCC under DTV->HDTV Support.
But in Displays Manager -> Refresh Rates it offers me 24 Hz, 25i Hz, 29i Hz, 30i Hz, 50 Hz, 60 Hz.
And my Sharp reports 1080p 50Hz.Maybe I am wrong, but doesn't that HDTV support section specifically say it is only to be used to add standard resolutions that you know your TV supports but are not declared in the EDID. I'd expect only timings that are NOT in your EDID to appear here.

Can anyone advise me how to sharpen the video with CCC 8.5?

I'm running an ATI 3850 with excellent results but would like to sharpen the picture slightly. I was expecting to find an edge enhancement slider in CCC but no luck so far :(If you are using XP there isn't one, at least yet.

Maybe my post was missed in any way so I will try it again:

I want to verify all the things beeing written here about the ATI dongle and level expansion. How do I find out if the display device connected to the ATI card is recognized as hdmi or dvi? Where exactly do I find this information in CCC.

Thanks.

If you are using XP there isn't one, at least yet.

Not entirely true.
Set the appropriate _NA setting in the registry to 0, reboot and you will get it.

grubi.

Not entirely true.
Set the appropriate _NA setting in the registry to 0, reboot and you will get it.

grubi.

Guys: Thanks for your responses. Alas it seems you are both correct :(
I enabled Detail_NA and got the sliders but unfortunately they do not have any effect on the video. They do however disable the WMV acceleration box function!

I get the impression that something is broke in that area of the driver. Reading between the lines, can I conclude that this function is working with Vista?

I appreciate the exchange of test results and findings. I almost have resigned myself to the fact since I'll move from the UK to the US in a few months I'll start all over again with Vista SP1 displaying proper black levels. This time it will be a full fledged 1920x1080p display.

Just a summarry to make sure I got it correct where to find the location of the controls for the color correction. Do I understand that in the Advanced CCC panel, where it says Color that this controls the brightness & contrast of the desktop and adjustments here will cause the loss of btb/wtw. Where it says AVIVO when that entry is expanded there are also controls that allow the adjustment of Brightness & Contrast an when changed there btb/wtw will not be lost.

I have the latest Registry tweaks but rather like to manually enter the UseBT601 part. Where exactly does this key need to be entered?

Finally I observed some weird entries in the registry. I have HD 3650 installed in the system. After uninstalling 8.4 running drivercleaner.net from save mode, I ran a search for HD 2600 in the registry and there were still 4 entriesl remaining. One I believe was under security something.

I then reinstalled 8.4 and was running again a registry search for HD 2600 and now there were numerous entries in the registry. Also a search for HD 3600 revealed numerous entries. I am wondering if after uninstalling and cleaning of registry these left overs could cause some difficulties.

This whole dilemma with GFX card vendors is a disgrace and when the time comes one has to manually clean the registry it almost looks like move on from an HTPC. Sometimes I wonder if they want to stay in business with the HD enthusiasts or drop them and cater to the gamers, which I come to believe that this maybe the case.

I also have a question to make about PC 0-255 Levels:

A question occurred:

Internal codec PC (0-255) Setting:

x264 mkv + CoreAVC Output Levels PC (0-255) + Output Overlay or WMR9 (renderless) = works fine

External “Shaders/12-235 -> 0-255” MPC-HC Setting:

x264 mkv + Cyberlink x264 or MPC-HC x264/AVC (DXVA) internal + Overlay = “Shaders/12-235 -> 0-255” works fine

x264 mkv + Cyberlink x264 or MPC-HC x264/AVC (DXVA) internal + WMR9 (renderless) (Windows XP SP3) = “Shaders/12-235 -> 0-255” I have error: “Could not load shader: 12-235 -> 0-255"

x264 mkv + Cyberlink x264 or MPC-HC x264/AVC (DXVA) internal + EVR Custom Pres. (Windows Vista SP1) = “Shaders/12-235 -> 0-255” I have error: “Could not load shader: 12-235 -> 0-255"

So that means I cant have PC (0-255) levels with Hardware Acceleration Enabled?

It sucks!!!

Do you have any solution please?
Does anyone know how to solve this?

I appreciate the exchange of test results and findings. I almost have resigned myself to the fact since I'll move from the UK to the US in a few months I'll start all over again with Vista SP1 displaying proper black levels. This time it will be a full fledged 1920x1080p display.

Just a summarry to make sure I got it correct where to find the location of the controls for the color correction. Do I understand that in the Advanced CCC panel, where it says Color that this controls the brightness & contrast of the desktop and adjustments here will cause the loss of btb/wtw. Where it says AVIVO when that entry is expanded there are also controls that allow the adjustment of Brightness & Contrast an when changed there btb/wtw will not be lost.

I have the latest Registry tweaks but rather like to manually enter the UseBT601 part. Where exactly does this key need to be entered?

Finally I observed some weird entries in the registry. I have HD 3650 installed in the system. After uninstalling 8.4 running drivercleaner.net from save mode, I ran a search for HD 2600 in the registry and there were still 4 entriesl remaining. One I believe was under security something.

I then reinstalled 8.4 and was running again a registry search for HD 2600 and now there were numerous entries in the registry. Also a search for HD 3600 revealed numerous entries. I am wondering if after uninstalling and cleaning of registry these left overs could cause some difficulties.

This whole dilemma with GFX card vendors is a disgrace and when the time comes one has to manually clean the registry it almost looks like move on from an HTPC. Sometimes I wonder if they want to stay in business with the HD enthusiasts or drop them and cater to the gamers, which I come to believe that this maybe the case.

FYI I have just moved out of the Nvidia camp to an ATI 3850 V8.5 Cat. I have a Marantz S1 PJ connected 1920x1080p and am getting PERFECT grey scale for HD and SD, something that eluded me with Nvidia!

BTW I am connected directly via DVI (no dongle)

http://img.kakaku.com/images/productimage/fullscale/05501215497.jpg
GIGABYTE GV-RX24P256H

Features:

# Powered by ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO GPU
# Supports PCI Express and 40 stream processing units
# Microsoft DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0 support
# Integrated with high-performance 256MB GDDR2 memory and 64-bit memory interface
# Supports Avivo technology
# Features DVI-I / D-sub (by cable) / HDTV
# Unique Screen-Cooling thermal design
# HDMI and 5.1 surround audio(by optional adapter)

Technical Information:

# Chipset ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro
# Core Clock 525MHz
# Mem Clock 800 MHz
# Memory 256MB
# Memory Bus 64 bit
# Memory Type N/A
# PCB Form Low profile with ATX bracket
# Bus Type PCI-E
# Bus Speed x16
# D-SUB Yes
# TV-OUT Yes DVI Port Y (DVI-I)
# VIVO No
# Multi View Yes

This little baby can over clock very well. I am running the core at 700mhz (added a 90mm fan and used riva tuner) and the memory at 960mhz. Performance playing back bluray has improved greatly. No more stuttering. :)

I'm a little confused as to what registry settings I need to apply to the Catalyst 8.5 drivers. Below is my setup:

Vista Ultimate 32-bit w/ SP1
ATI HD2600XT
Olevia 747i @ 1920x1080 connected via DVI->HDMI cable (no dongle!)
Catalyst 8.5 Drivers
Using Vista Media Center for TV/Video/DVD
PowerDVD/TotalMedia for Blu-Ray

I want to make sure that I apply the necessary registry setting only (i.e. 0-255 color expansion, trdenoise, etc.)

Please provide the latest registry recommendations based on the 8.5 drivers; I don't want to have additional registry setting that are not needed anymore.

Thanks!

Maybe I am wrong, but doesn't that HDTV support section specifically say it is only to be used to add standard resolutions that you know your TV supports but are not declared in the EDID. I'd expect only timings that are NOT in your EDID to appear here.

This warning is there if you select a timing from the "top" box" and force if to be available. The bottom selection box usually shows supported timings from what I've seen.

Check your EDID against the available HDTV timings in CCC and see if this is consistent with my findings. I'd look to compare with both "Standard timings" and DTD's.

Wo0zy

My 2600xt is running at 1920*1200 through VGA, although with a lot of the drivers you have to use powerstrip to create a driver (easy enough) that supports this - the drivers don't seem to believe >1600*1200 is possible with VGA.

You might also need to go into CCC, goto the monitor attributes page, unselect "use EDID" and set 1920*1080 and 50/60hz.


Thanks for your input.. Being a bit of a NEWB, I have no clue how to create a driver. I've never messed with powerstrip either..

Is there any direct information to assist me in this process?

I'll also check out the CCC settings!

Also, if I get the component adapter, will this give me more resolutions options?

Thanks again!

Just a summarry to make sure I got it correct where to find the location of the controls for the color correction. Do I understand that in the Advanced CCC panel, where it says Color that this controls the brightness & contrast of the desktop and adjustments here will cause the loss of btb/wtw. Where it says AVIVO when that entry is expanded there are also controls that allow the adjustment of Brightness & Contrast an when changed there btb/wtw will not be lost.

Correct.

As long as you intend to run a calibrated setup where WTW and BTB is invisible, it really doesn't matter which one you adjust (there are valid arguments for each).

One advantage to adjusting the settings under "color" is it brings the desktop, photographs, and video games into calibration at the same time as SD and HD video. The drawback with this is (at least in my experience), certain applications (PowerDVD Ultra in particular when running Vista) doesn't respond to changes in the "color" location so you need to also adjust PowerDVD's own brightness and contrast to get it calibrated. At this point everything is calibrated properly.

On the other hand, if you adjust the AVIVO brightness/contrast, you should experience calibration of all SD and HD video, including PowerDVD, but you will not end up with calibration for desktop, photographs and video games.

I have the latest Registry tweaks but rather like to manually enter the UseBT601 part. Where exactly does this key need to be entered?

Unfortunately it is a little bit awkward to find. This is how I do it:


Start the registry editior (regedit).
Open up "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video" and look at the sub-entries.
Expand the sub-entries and one by one click on the ones that have both 0000 and 0001, and find the one that contains details for the ATI driver installed.
Expand 0000, until you get to DXVA.
Within DXVA is where you create the registry entries that control DXVA.


Finally I observed some weird entries in the registry. I have HD 3650 installed in the system. After uninstalling 8.4 running drivercleaner.net from save mode, I ran a search for HD 2600 in the registry and there were still 4 entriesl remaining. One I believe was under security something.

I then reinstalled 8.4 and was running again a registry search for HD 2600 and now there were numerous entries in the registry. Also a search for HD 3600 revealed numerous entries. I am wondering if after uninstalling and cleaning of registry these left overs could cause some difficulties.

I wouldn't worry about a few leftover entries. It is also possible that the operating system includes default support for the 2600 so it may include these entries even from a fresh OS install.

There are many people who don't recommend using registry cleaning tools at all. They do help remove left over settings from previous video cards, but unless ATI has a bug in their software, ATI's intention is for customers to not clean the registry between driver upgrades.

This whole dilemma with GFX card vendors is a disgrace and when the time comes one has to manually clean the registry it almost looks like move on from an HTPC. Sometimes I wonder if they want to stay in business with the HD enthusiasts or drop them and cater to the gamers, which I come to believe that this maybe the case.

I think we all strongly feel the same way. Personally I find it totally ridiculous that high end turn key Media Center PCs are being sold to provide quality video, photographs, etc. display, yet out of the box grey levels are totally non-compliant with industry specifications. As far as I'm concerned it should be as simple as plug and play; just like hooking up a stand alone, hardware HD-DVD, Blu-ray, HD-PVR, STB, etc. This isn't rocket science and if a relatively inexpensive stand alone device can do it, why can't a high end, expensive Media Center PC?

I'm a little confused as to what registry settings I need to apply to the Catalyst 8.5 drivers. Below is my setup:

Vista Ultimate 32-bit w/ SP1
ATI HD2600XT
Olevia 747i @ 1920x1080 connected via DVI->HDMI cable (no dongle!)
Catalyst 8.5 Drivers
Using Vista Media Center for TV/Video/DVD
PowerDVD/TotalMedia for Blu-Ray

I want to make sure that I apply the necessary registry setting only (i.e. 0-255 color expansion, trdenoise, etc.)

Please provide the latest registry recommendations based on the 8.5 drivers; I don't want to have additional registry setting that are not needed anymore.

Thanks!

You have essentially the same setup as my father, except he uses the HDMI dongle.

The only registry entry that you really need is UseBT601CSC=1. TRDenoise=0 is only required with certain video sources. Typically the worst sources seem to be TV Tuner captures cards that are hooked up to external STBs.

My advice is do not add TRDenoise, unless find ghosting of the image during playback. You could also experiment with it and see which you prefer.

Other than that, you'll probably need to calibrate the brightness/contrast for the output of the video card (see above posts for that as well as a page back for calibration sources).

This little baby can over clock very well. I am running the core at 700mhz (added a 90mm fan and used riva tuner) and the memory at 960mhz. Performance playing back bluray has improved greatly. No more stuttering. :)

Why would you bother? why not just buy a passively cooled 2600 pro with 4x the processing power for only about $20 extra and have a Quiet HTPC!

This seems fairly inconsistent. My system doesn't list 1080p50 under HDTV support but a system I installed earlier in the week did.

I wonder if it has something to do with EDID and what's reported as the "native" resoltuion or timings specified in DTDs. Would you mind posting your EDID so I can check?

Cheers,

Wo0zy
Here's my EDID:

$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff Monitor EDID
$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff +00+01+02+03+04+05+06+07+08+09+0a+0b+0c+0d+0e+0f
$0c00000000 +00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4d 10 fd 0f 00 00 00 00
$0c00000001 +10 ff 11 01 03 80 52 2e 78 2a 1b be a2 55 34 b3 26
$0c00000002 +20 14 4a 52 af ce 00 a9 40 d1 c0 90 40 81 80 01 01
$0c00000003 +30 01 01 01 01 01 01 02 3a 80 d0 72 38 2d 40 10 2c
$0c00000004 +40 45 80 34 cc 31 00 00 1a 66 21 50 b0 51 00 1b 30
$0c00000005 +50 40 70 36 00 00 00 00 00 00 1e 00 00 00 fc 00 53
$0c00000006 +60 48 41 52 50 20 48 44 4d 49 0a 20 20 00 00 00 fd
$0c00000007 +70 00 31 4c 0f 4b 11 00 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 be
$0c00000008 +80 02 03 2e 72 50 9f 90 20 14 05 13 04 12 03 11 02
$0c00000009 +90 16 07 15 06 01 23 09 07 01 83 01 00 00 e3 05 03
$0c0000000a +a0 01 6c 03 0c 00 30 00 80 22 c0 11 11 19 19 02 3a
$0c0000000b +b0 80 18 71 38 2d 40 58 2c 45 00 34 cc 31 00 00 1e
$0c0000000c +c0 01 1d 80 d0 72 1c 16 20 10 2c 25 80 34 cc 31 00
$0c0000000d +d0 00 9e 01 1d 80 18 71 1c 16 20 58 2c 25 00 34 cc
$0c0000000e +e0 31 00 00 9e 01 1d 00 bc 52 d0 1e 20 b8 28 55 40
$0c0000000f +f0 34 cc 31 00 00 1e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 53
$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff Monitor EDID details
$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$0d00000000 EDID version : 1.3
$0d00000001 Manufacturer ID : SHP (unknown)
$0d00000002 Model ID : 0ffd (SHARP HDMI)
$0d00000003 Manufactured on : 2007, week 255
$0d00000004 Serial number : 00000000
$0d00000005 Input signal : digital
$0d00000006 Screen size : 82 x 46 cm
$0d00000007 Horizontal frequency : 15-75KHz
$0d00000008 Vertical frequency : 49-76Hz
$0d00000009 Bandwidth : 170MHz

Hello all. I’m having problems with my new HTPC build. I have a Diamond HD 2600XT, 256MB, GDDR3
It crashes to a black screen, the PC is still on, just locked up. These crashes happen during HD playback WITH hardware acceleration working.
Using PowerDVD, even though hardware acceleration is checked off, the CPU is doing the work, so with NO acceleration , it runs OK.
If I play a recorded TV show in HD using Windows Media Player WITH hardware acceleration ON, it crashes.
It also crashes in PowerDVD when playing recorded TV HD shows, but this time PowerDVD is allowing hardware acceleration.
Live HDTV runs OK, but my tuner card has its own acceleration onboard
ATI drivers are the May 2008 version. Audio works OK. I'm using the DVI to HDMI adaptor to my Sony TV
CPU is 5000+ X2 dual core at 2.6GHz, AMD heatpipe HSF
Power supply is Antec NeoHe 500 watt
2GB OCZ SLI ram, 4 4 4 15
Motherboard is Foxconn C51XEM2AA
Kworld HDTV tuner card
TV is Sony KDS60A3000, 1080P


So, to sum it up, it appears when the card is doing the work, it crashes, when the CPU does it, no problem.
I see others have had similar problems.
I don’t think it’s a card heat problem, GPU-Z shows a temp at idle of 49C and 59C right when the crash happens,
and these crashes happen pretty quick

Thanks for any guidance on this.

Here's my EDID:

$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff Monitor EDID
$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff +00+01+02+03+04+05+06+07+08+09+0a+0b+0c+0d+0e+0f
$0c00000000 +00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 4d 10 fd 0f 00 00 00 00
$0c00000001 +10 ff 11 01 03 80 52 2e 78 2a 1b be a2 55 34 b3 26
$0c00000002 +20 14 4a 52 af ce 00 a9 40 d1 c0 90 40 81 80 01 01
$0c00000003 +30 01 01 01 01 01 01 02 3a 80 d0 72 38 2d 40 10 2c
$0c00000004 +40 45 80 34 cc 31 00 00 1a 66 21 50 b0 51 00 1b 30
$0c00000005 +50 40 70 36 00 00 00 00 00 00 1e 00 00 00 fc 00 53
$0c00000006 +60 48 41 52 50 20 48 44 4d 49 0a 20 20 00 00 00 fd
$0c00000007 +70 00 31 4c 0f 4b 11 00 0a 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 be
$0c00000008 +80 02 03 2e 72 50 9f 90 20 14 05 13 04 12 03 11 02
$0c00000009 +90 16 07 15 06 01 23 09 07 01 83 01 00 00 e3 05 03
$0c0000000a +a0 01 6c 03 0c 00 30 00 80 22 c0 11 11 19 19 02 3a
$0c0000000b +b0 80 18 71 38 2d 40 58 2c 45 00 34 cc 31 00 00 1e
$0c0000000c +c0 01 1d 80 d0 72 1c 16 20 10 2c 25 80 34 cc 31 00
$0c0000000d +d0 00 9e 01 1d 80 18 71 1c 16 20 58 2c 25 00 34 cc
$0c0000000e +e0 31 00 00 9e 01 1d 00 bc 52 d0 1e 20 b8 28 55 40
$0c0000000f +f0 34 cc 31 00 00 1e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 53
$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$ffffffffff Monitor EDID details
$ffffffffff ----------------------------------------------------------------
$0d00000000 EDID version : 1.3
$0d00000001 Manufacturer ID : SHP (unknown)
$0d00000002 Model ID : 0ffd (SHARP HDMI)
$0d00000003 Manufactured on : 2007, week 255
$0d00000004 Serial number : 00000000
$0d00000005 Input signal : digital
$0d00000006 Screen size : 82 x 46 cm
$0d00000007 Horizontal frequency : 15-75KHz
$0d00000008 Vertical frequency : 49-76Hz
$0d00000009 Bandwidth : 170MHz

Thanks SugoE,

It's not that then. The EDID contains SVD's (Short Video Descriptors) and DTD's for both 1080p50 and 1080p60 (both considered "native") so it doesn't make sense that 1080p60 is available in HDTV support and 1080p50 isn't even if jong1's suggestion was correct.

Is 720p50 listed in HDTV Support on your system?

Wo0zy

What's the proper HTPC setting for the HD 3650?

I have a 2600 XT and using TMT for BD/HD playback. Are you guys checking or unchecking "use application" in CCC Avivo. I was wondering if you all are calibrating picture with Avivo or the software. I know pic quality is different with every computer but I am just trying to get a census of what everyone else is using.

Thanks for your replies in advance.

Hello all. I’m having problems with my new HTPC build. I have a Diamond HD 2600XT, 256MB, GDDR3
It crashes to a black screen, the PC is still on, just locked up. These crashes happen during HD playback WITH hardware acceleration working.
Using PowerDVD, even though hardware acceleration is checked off, the CPU is doing the work, so with NO acceleration , it runs OK.
If I play a recorded TV show in HD using Windows Media Player WITH hardware acceleration ON, it crashes.
It also crashes in PowerDVD when playing recorded TV HD shows, but this time PowerDVD is allowing hardware acceleration.
Live HDTV runs OK, but my tuner card has its own acceleration onboard
ATI drivers are the May 2008 version. Audio works OK. I'm using the DVI to HDMI adaptor to my Sony TV
CPU is 5000+ X2 dual core at 2.6GHz, AMD heatpipe HSF
Power supply is Antec NeoHe 500 watt
2GB OCZ SLI ram, 4 4 4 15
Motherboard is Foxconn C51XEM2AA
Kworld HDTV tuner card
TV is Sony KDS60A3000, 1080P


So, to sum it up, it appears when the card is doing the work, it crashes, when the CPU does it, no problem.
I see others have had similar problems.
I don’t think it’s a card heat problem, GPU-Z shows a temp at idle of 49C and 59C right when the crash happens,
and these crashes happen pretty quick

Thanks for any guidance on this.

I experienced exactly the same symptoms with exactly the same video card. I also returned it for another Diamond 2600XT and it too had the same problem.

I gave up and picked up a genuine ATI 2600XT and the instant it was installed, hardware acceleration worked 100% fine.

I think Diamond has a major bug in their 2600XT hardware that causes hardware video acceleration to fail. With that same card, video game performance is fine (as fine as a 2600XT ever is at least) and there are no video gaming artifacts or crashes to suggest overheating.

Having said that, I found if I remove my cover and blow a 20 inch fan, blasting directly at the Diamond 2600XT that it was then able to do "some" video decoding, but even then it was still flaky. The genuine ATI card "just works" all the time, plus the genuine ATI's much larger heat sink and larger fan is virtually silent, while the Diamond was always screaming away.

BTW, those temperatures you are seeing are EXACTLY the same as my Diamond 2600XT was seeing. The genuine ATI 2600XT reports considerably higher temperatures, but always runs rocks solid.

EDIT: One final thing I should mention. I tried to get tech support from ATI for that Diamond and after escalating it a few times, they suddenly insisted that the Diamond 2600XT was not built to ATI specs, nor was it an ATI certified card. Since it used non-compliant components there was no tech support available and ATI recommended replacing it with one of their certified cards or a genuine ATI card. I wasted about a month struggling with this before I finally returned the 2nd one and picked up the genuine ATI card. I have never experienced even a stutter while playing back HD content with the genuine ATI card.

I have a 2600 XT and using TMT for BD/HD playback. Are you guys checking or unchecking "use application" in CCC Avivo. I was wondering if you all are calibrating picture with Avivo or the software. I know pic quality is different with every computer but I am just trying to get a census of what everyone else is using.

Thanks for your replies in advance.

Read through some of the more recent posts. This has been discussed quite a bit.

Personally I have the check box checked and use a combination of the overall "color" brightness/contrast and PowerDVD's advanced video brightness/contrast. I think you'll find the majority are adjust using AVIVO within CCC, but if they didn't have compliant grey levels to start with, they don't end up with compliant grey levels for photographs, desktop and video games by adjusting things this way. The adjustment I use gets everything to spec.

Thanks for your info. I got a tip in another forum to use Rivatuner, a freeware application that controls the video card, to underclock the core just a little bit, around 5 to 10MHz. And now, I have no more crashes, so far anyway. Temps went up, just a bit, like around 65C under a 58% GPU load. I wonder why this works? I would rather fix it in another way.

In case it hasn't been brought up, I've got a 2600XT PCIe card and it seems the limit of using resolutions that are multiples of 8 has been lifted. I have been able to do a pixel perfect resolution to my Studio Experience 20HD at exactly 1366x768 now and it looks great. No more 1360x768 :-).

Thanks for your info. I got a tip in another forum to use Rivatuner, a freeware application that controls the video card, to underclock the core just a little bit, around 5 to 10MHz. And now, I have no more crashes, so far anyway. Temps went up, just a bit, like around 65C under a 58% GPU load. I wonder why this works? I would rather fix it in another way.

There is obviously some sort of hardware design problem with the Diamond HD 2600XT. I have spoken to a few other individuals who have also had the same problem you and I had.

It is interesting that underclocking the card actually works.

It sounds like you only underclocked the core and not the memory.

What I find really strange about those Diamond cards is how the cards do not crash with video games, yet they can't handle decoding of HD video. I did notice a jump of 0.1 (or 0.2; can't recall which) in Vista's gaming performance measurement with the genuine ATI card over the Diamond.

Personally, after that experience, I will never consider another Diamond card. They have obviously taken some serious and critical short cuts somewhere, not to mention the extremely noisy little fans and tiny heatsinks they use.

I did take some pictures comparing the ATI vs the Diamond. The Diamond card is missing a number of components on the board and the components themselves are of lower quality (paper capacitors vs solid capacitors, smaller coils, etc.).

I paid a lot more for the genuine ATI card, but it truly has been rock solid as well as so quiet I can't hear it above the hard drives (The Diamond was so loud, it was the only thing I could hear, even over the hard drive head motion - the whining sound dominated my entire home theater room).

I think the only "proper" solution to the crashes is to replace the video card. If underclocking works well enough for you, then it is probably your only option.

Another thing I noticed was not only was ATI unwilling to support the Diamond 2600XT, the higher level tech supports talked very poorly about it - insisting if I wanted DXVA to work that I needed to purchase either a genuine ATI card, an ATI certified card, or at least a card using the reference ATI design. They really pushed getting rid of that particular Diamond card. I suspect they were well aware of the hardware defect, but they didn't specifically say they were (they just brushed off that question saying to get rid of the card...).

Again, my advice is to get rid of the Diamond 2600XT... They are junk based on my experience.

Yeah, I hear you. I have a spare 8600GT that I think I will use. I'll lose the audio though, but it's a good excuse to hook up a better sound card anyway. I wonder if I can use the ATI DVI to HDMI adaptor with the 8600GT? I know I won't get the audio, but I bet the video would work with it. Thanks

Yeah, I hear you. I have a spare 8600GT that I think I will use. I'll lose the audio though, but it's a good excuse to hook up a better sound card anyway. I wonder if I can use the ATI DVI to HDMI adaptor with the 8600GT? I know I won't get the audio, but I bet the video would work with it. Thanks

You should probably read about my experience with an 8500GT before going that route...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1031158

In summary, grey levels (brightness/contrast) were all messed up between applications (they were fine if you are only using Media Center, but I had to manually change them for PowerDVD every time).

Also, Nvidia cards do a terrible job of dealing with overscan when compared to ATI cards.

On top of that, I had to temporarily install a PC monitor in order to install the Nvidia drivers. For some reason Nvidia cards can't produce an image on my HDTV until the driver is installed (no BIOS access either). Once the driver was installed it did recognise my HDTV as an HDTV, but I still had to tell it to enable 1080i (ATI cards figure this out on their own).

If you have a modern 1080p HDTV these issues may not be present in your case.

Thanks SugoE,

It's not that then. The EDID contains SVD's (Short Video Descriptors) and DTD's for both 1080p50 and 1080p60 (both considered "native") so it doesn't make sense that 1080p60 is available in HDTV support and 1080p50 isn't even if jong1's suggestion was correct.

Is 720p50 listed in HDTV Support on your system?

Wo0zy
If you mean in CCC->DTV(HDMI)->HDTV Support->HDTV modes supported by this display, yes it's listed.
But it's confusing me below in the box it means:
These options are intended only for displays that report incomplete or
incorrect capabilities in their EDID information.:confused:
Anyway 1080p50 works perfectly for me, which was not the case with CCC 8.5 with the same settings.

it doesn't make sense that 1080p60 is available in HDTV support and 1080p50 isn't even if jong1's suggestion was correct.


Exactly. I guess it is time for trouble ticket. 1080p50 worked also for me until I put a HDMI splitter in between my HD2600Pro and display. Now, as 1080p50 is not in HDTV support there is no easy way to force it.

Hello all. I’m having problems with my new HTPC build. I have a Diamond HD 2600XT, 256MB, GDDR3
It crashes to a black screen, the PC is still on, just locked up. These crashes happen during HD playback WITH hardware acceleration working.
Using PowerDVD, even though hardware acceleration is checked off, the CPU is doing the work, so with NO acceleration , it runs OK.
If I play a recorded TV show in HD using Windows Media Player WITH hardware acceleration ON, it crashes.
It also crashes in PowerDVD when playing recorded TV HD shows, but this time PowerDVD is allowing hardware acceleration.
Live HDTV runs OK, but my tuner card has its own acceleration onboard
ATI drivers are the May 2008 version. Audio works OK. I'm using the DVI to HDMI adaptor to my Sony TV
CPU is 5000+ X2 dual core at 2.6GHz, AMD heatpipe HSF
Power supply is Antec NeoHe 500 watt
2GB OCZ SLI ram, 4 4 4 15
Motherboard is Foxconn C51XEM2AA
Kworld HDTV tuner card
TV is Sony KDS60A3000, 1080P


So, to sum it up, it appears when the card is doing the work, it crashes, when the CPU does it, no problem.
I see others have had similar problems.
I don’t think it’s a card heat problem, GPU-Z shows a temp at idle of 49C and 59C right when the crash happens,
and these crashes happen pretty quick

Thanks for any guidance on this.

probably a PowerPlay problem.
my Sapphire PCI-E 2600Pro had the exact same issue

use RivaTuner to check the voltages, and ask the mfg for a BIOS update.

my guess is that for UVD, your BIOS sends less than 1.2V(mine was sending 1.05V for UVD/2D and I was getting black screens everyday).
the new BIOS sends 1.25V all the time, no more powerplay :D

My 2600xt is running at 1920*1200 through VGA, although with a lot of the drivers you have to use powerstrip to create a driver (easy enough) that supports this - the drivers don't seem to believe >1600*1200 is possible with VGA.

You might also need to go into CCC, goto the monitor attributes page, unselect "use EDID" and set 1920*1080 and 50/60hz.

I still needs some help with this..EDID is unselected and 1920*1080 is chosen.. Still the same 1400*1050.

Will a component connection give me a higher resolution option than it does w/ VGA?

I still needs some help with this..EDID is unselected and 1920*1080 is chosen.. Still the same 1400*1050.


You'll have to dload powerstrip then. Can't remember quite how, but it was pretty easy to do - you just make a new driver with 1920*1080 (or whatever) as the max possible.