ATI Radeon HD 2X00 (2400,2600,2900) series owners thread [Text View] - Page 25

Siriusfilms

09-06-08, 05:02 PM

I have had so many issues getting HXA in PDVD 7 with my Diamond ATI 2600XT and all the latest Driver releases beyond CCC 7.7. I almost gave up. I was living with the Red Shift issues and lots of interlacing problems on the extra content on BR discs. Main feature playback was ok, but I really wanted to upgrade the drivers, every time I tried any ATI driver in the last year it didn't work. I did read here that the HXA could be broken on 2600XT's when used in a dual monitor config. I do have a standard 1600x1050 LCD monitor and a 1080i RP-TV which I use for the BR playback. Even with the reg tweaks on CCC 8.7 HXA didn't work

Fortunately, or unfortunately, my attempt at upgrading Vista SP1 rendered my HTPC useless. I got the Black Screen and Mouse Pointer ONLY. Working with Microsoft support for a few hours on a Sunday we realized that a reinstall was going to be necessary. As a MS Partner, the support tech admitted that when you get a Black Screen and Mouse Pointer in Vista, but no logon, your License Key has somehow gotten corrupted and the OS won't load. The Vista kernel loads successfully, but it stops after that. This is a very SCARY thing about Vista, but I'll comment on this elsewhere.

I ended up reloading the OS from scratch using a Vista SP1 retail upgrade CD I had. My original OEM license key fortunately worked and didn't have to use the upgrade license.

With the successful reinstall I eventually loaded CCC 8.8. I confirmed that the only game I play, GH3, worked satisfactorily, and then proceeded to install PDVD. I installed the latest Full realease of 7.3 and added the latest patch. I may have run the reg tweaks before installing PDVD, but can't remember right now. I was skeptical that it was going to work, but sure enough... I SEE HARDWARE ACCELERATION in the latest PDVD using the latest CCC 8.8 on a dual monitor (Analog & component) setup.

Siriusfilms

09-06-08, 05:15 PM

Siriusfilms

09-06-08, 05:59 PM

I looks like the only thing you can do is set up VMC/MCE to launch PDVD and minimize the MC UI. I'm skeptical that it will close PDVD and return to MC. I'll test and see. Here's the solutions:

http://thegreenbutton.com/blogs/mike/archive/2007/01/14/158640.aspx

http://ourmediacenter.com/node/9

firefoxsilver9

09-06-08, 10:56 PM

just upgraded to Vista SP1 and now whenever i try to play a h.264 file, (tried mkv's with dxva compatibility and some trailers from apple), MPC says its using dxva, but nothing is playing. it just says this "H.264 bitstream decoder, no FGT". I also can't get wmv to accelerate either. Tried powerdvd 8 as well. currently using Powercolor's 8.6 drivers.

HT Slider

09-07-08, 02:49 AM

Is there a way to get BR to play in VMC? I have PDVD7.3 working with HXA (see my post below). I should probably search the thread again befor posting, but as a regular subscriber I don't recall seeing VMC success.

Anyone?

EDIT: I just noticed this was the HD2X00 thread and not the PDVD Ultra thread...

One option is to install the latest version of My Movies.

Once this and the latest version of PDVD Ultra (OEM or Retail) is installed and you start Media Center, a pop up message will appear asking you if you want My Movies to integrate PowerDVD Ultra with Media Center for HD-DVD and Bluray.

If you click "Yes", My Movies will do several things:

It will configure Vista Media Center to recognize when an HD-DVD or Bluray disc is inserted and automatically start PowerDVD.
It will configure Vista Media Center so if you click on "play DVD" or click "DVD Menu" on the remote, Vista Media Center will first check if an HD-DVD or Bluray disc is in the drive and if so, it will automatically start PowerDVD Ultra (instead of trying to launch the Media Center DVD module).
It will configure My Movies to enable playing of an inserted HD-DVD or Bluray from the My Movies menu.
It will configure My Movies to enable mounting of an online HD-DVD or Bluray copy (in ISO form - if the correct mounting software is installed) and then start PowerDVD Ultra so the on-line movie will play.

My Movies will also monitor the remote control for "Green Button" presses while PowerDVD is running and if it sees this it will both close PowerDVD Ultra and bring Media Center back to the forground.

There were a number of bugs in the older versions of My Movies (starting PowerDVD, but then hiding it behind Media Center so you can't see it; failing to close PowerDVD when you press the "Green Button"; and leaving the mouse pointer at the center of the screen while PowerDVD Ultra is running) so you need the latest version installed for this to work properly.

The one major issue I have with the way My Movies integrates PowerDVD is the desktop resolution is always used for PowerDVD. In my case I want PowerDVD to run with a display resolution of 1920x1080 (the same resolution as the Bluray and HD-DVD movies) and I want a desktop resolution of something like 1360x768 so I can have a reasonable size for text and be able to read everything.

What I am looking for is a PowerDVD launcher/integration tool that always temporarily switches the resolution to 1920x1080 prior to launching PowerDVD and then switches the desktop back to 1360x768 when PowerDVD is closed.

There is a utility that is supposed to do absolutely everything I am looking for (and you), but the latest version has not been released yet. You can read up on it here http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/279556.aspx. Mikinho is promising the new version will be available on Monday.

Peekstra

09-07-08, 02:56 PM

I'm getting lots of tearing on my Samsung TV (monitor) 2 after I reinstalled my PC :(

All modes (except Zoomplayer with Overlay and MPC's Overlay or Direct3D) are almost unusable. But the picture is perfect on my primary monitor :confused:

Does anyone know how to fix this? I've already applied ExDeus tweaks (just as on my previous install) but it doesn't help.

Also, all Vista updates have been installed including the latest DirectX... (using Catalyst 8.8 with a 4850 card).

thanks!

edit: the problem can be temporarily solved by switching the primary and secondary (and back) in CCC. However, after a reboot the problem is back again.

arfster

09-07-08, 07:36 PM

edit: the problem can be temporarily solved by switching the primary and secondary (and back) in CCC. However, after a reboot the problem is back again.

There are a whole heap of bugs regarding dual monitors for a while now. I think the last one that worked properly was 7.12 , so you could give that a go.

Peekstra

09-08-08, 04:53 AM

There are a whole heap of bugs regarding dual monitors for a while now. I think the last one that worked properly was 7.12 , so you could give that a go.

Arfster, I'm afraid that 7.12 won't properly support my 4850 card?

By the way, it was working fine with 8.8 before I did a reinstall... so the hardware/drivers can function correctly.

At least I'll send a bug report to AMD.

Also, I noticed that my TV can't receive the data at the panel's native 1360*768 resolution because that's not in the EDID table of HDMI connectors 1 & 3. And those are the one's I wan't to use because HDMI2 locks a lot of settings. So while the CCC slider sits at 1360*768 the TV actually receives 1920*1080 (verified with powerstrip). That's some totally unnecessary up- & downscaling.

Maybe the problem can be solved by reprogramming the faulty EDID table with powerstrip...

EDIT:

Maybe the problem has been solved! I've installed the latest Reclock beta (vista compatible, available via the Slysoft forums) and now the EVR renderer works fine :)

Strangly enough, I have disabled reclock in Zoomplayer because it crashed with some files but the tearing is still gone?

For the moment it stays away even after some reboots so lets hope it is permanently fixed. :)

sharangad

09-08-08, 04:13 PM

Apparently the AMD GPU overclocking tool can tell you whether UVD is active, if anyone's in doubt about their card.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1128/AMD_GPU_Clock_Tool_v0.9.8.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/screenshots/1128.jpg

firefoxsilver9

09-09-08, 12:43 AM

sharangad

09-09-08, 02:27 PM

do you mean while playing a file?

Yeah.

torput

09-10-08, 05:17 PM

Eopian

09-10-08, 10:36 PM

jong1

09-11-08, 04:13 AM

1. Will a standard DVI<--->HDMI cable work for video only (this is what I'm doing now with my Nvidia 6600GT)?It will work but you will get PC levels out. With the ATI dongle you will get video levels.

Some TVs cannot be calibrated correctly for PC levels and PC levels can cause problems if the input is shared with another (video level) device eg. through an AVR or an HDMI splitter.

HT Slider

09-11-08, 08:35 AM

After reading this thread, and successfully setting one 2600AGP up, I have a couple of questions (I'm getting ready to add one into my main tv watching HTPC):
1. Will a standard DVI<--->HDMI cable work for video only (this is what I'm doing now with my Nvidia 6600GT)?
2. I'm using the Omega drivers with arfsters patch, is there any benefit to upgrading or are the omega drivers fine for now?

Thank you!

1. As jong1 said, this will output "PC levels" (sRGB with the range of 0-255 for grey levels) and your TV will be expecting "video levels" (BT.601 for SD and BT.709 for HD with the range of 16-235 for grey levels). If you instead use ATI's HDMI dongle (and a card that supports it) along with an HDMI to HDMI cable, the card will automatically output using TV friendly levels. Note that Nvidia cards correctly output using video levels when a DVI to HDMI cable is used (they don't require an HDMI dongle).

You still can "calibrate" the ATI driver to make it output using video levels (without using an HDMI dongle). My preferred method is to adjust the overall "color" settings (not AVIVO) to +31 brightness and 74% contrast. This essentially compresses the "TV unfriendly" 0-255 grey level range into 16-235 and this works for almost everything you are trying to display (video, pictures, video games, internet surfing, etc.). I found the PowerDVD Ultra when run under Vista somehow ignores this and you need to also adjust the brightness/contrast from within PowerDVD (+19 brightness/-5 contrast inside PDVD).

Another method is to adjust the AVIVO settings to +16 brightness and contrast to 86%. This does the same thing, but it only compresses actual video. Pictures, video games, internet surfing, etc. will still not display correctly on your TV (will still use a 0-255 grey level range).

2. I haven't used Omega drivers so I don't even know what, if any advantage they have over regular ATI drivers. With your system using an AGP card, there are only certain driver releases that will work (and my understanding is there are still issues getting hardware video processing to work).

HT Slider

09-11-08, 08:47 AM

I would like to use component 720P with my projector (good old Sanyo PLV-Z1). However, when I plug my ATI HD2400 to the projector, the picture is horizontally compressed (shrunk), and also a part of the display is missing from top and left (see attached picture).

There is nothing I can do on the projector, so I was wondering if there was a way to edit ATI's parameters so that it would be compatible with my projector. PowerStrip doesn't seem to support TV out.

If I plug my DVD player to the projector and output 720P over component, quality of the video is very good. So I know it is possible.

How are you connecting the projector (s-video to component dongle?, DVI to component dongle?)?

Is the projector detected as an HDTV (with 720p support)?

Which resolution are you using? (the video card should output compliant 720p when 1280x720 is selected)

ATI cards are usually quite good at being able to output standard, spec compliant 720p and 1080i formats.

One thing to note is when sending spec compliant formats to your projector that there will most likely be some overscan. This is normal and expected when being driven using spec compliant formats (regardless if a PC, hardware DVD player, STB, etc. is driving the projector). The difference is video devices, as well as video producers (people) expect a portion of the perimeter of the video to be hidden so they don't put anything critical in that area (no text, etc.). PCs, when used as PCs, on the other hand expect everything to be displayed so you need to use custom resolutions or turn on overscan compensation when using your PC as a PC.

When you get 720p displaying correctly, you should see the entire screen filled and potentially the outer 3-8% of the image cropped and hidden.

Eopian

09-11-08, 10:51 AM

Thank you for your responses!

The omega drivers are referenced in links on the first post of this thread. Somebody modified a set of drivers to work with the 2x00 agp series to work with acceleration. I get better acceleration with mpeg4 than mpeg2, but everything is still watchable using a 2.4 ghz Pentium4

mediaslave

09-11-08, 11:29 AM

VGA_Mode

09-11-08, 03:55 PM

I have a HD2400 pro in a DELL Inspiron 530. Running windows XP. And getting some strange play back problem. Looks like random lines popping up all over the picture. It's worst when using full screen mode. I tried different media type and different player (Windows media player and real player), all seem to have similar problem. I tried several different things like upgrading driver to latest and different codec, but no luck. Also tried regtweak suggested in this thread and still no help.

Anyone experience similar problem? Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Eopian

09-11-08, 10:08 PM

ExDeus

09-12-08, 04:03 AM

I am passing audio through my MSI 2600xt HDMI video card and using the Pioneer receiver I am only able to receiver stereo sound listening to a surround sound source
Are you getting decoded stereo LPCM, or compressed Dolby Digital / DTS in stereo?

If you're getting decoded audio, then you want SPDIF passthrough. Install a DirectShow filter that supports SPDIF, i.e., AC3Filter (http://www.ac3filter.net/), then set it for SPDIF passthrough.

In AC3Filter config:

Go to the SPDIF tab, set Output: AS IS (no change); check 'Use SPDIF'; check SPDIF passthrough: AC3, DTS; uncheck SPDIF options: 'Use AC3 encoder'.

Go to the System tab, set Use AC3Filter for: AC3, DTS, DVD, SPDIF (or just check them all); select Filter merit: Prefer AC3Filter.

Note: You can also use Spdifer (http://www.ac3filter.net/projects/spdifer), which is a smaller program just for SPDIF output.

topcaser

09-13-08, 02:12 AM

Hi,

iam using the 780G onboard solution equipped with a Radeon HD 3200 (Vista).

With Aero switched on, i can select only between weave and Bob deinterlacing. When i switch off Aero iam furthermore able to select (in CCC) adaptive. Is there a chance (maybe with a reg tweak) to bring the motion/vector adaptive deinterlacing back?

luckyknight

09-13-08, 06:21 PM

I'm not having much luck here. Uninstalled 8.8 and rebooted into safe mode - ran the driver cleaner. Tried 8.6 and 8.7 and they both refuse to install (driver failed to load in device manager). It's all very strange.

Another wasted 90 minutes of my life trying to get blu-ray to work properly!!

I gave up. Brought a Sony S350 :D

arfster

09-13-08, 07:17 PM

With Aero switched on, i can select only between weave and Bob deinterlacing. When i switch off Aero iam furthermore able to select (in CCC) adaptive. Is there a chance (maybe with a reg tweak) to bring the motion/vector adaptive deinterlacing back?

vforcedeint=6 should do the trick, as long as there isn't something else interfering.

Watch your GPU% though. Especially don't expect it to handle mpeg2 1080i, although you might just get away with h264/vc1.

topcaser

09-14-08, 02:20 AM

vforcedeint=6 should do the trick, as long as there isn't something else interfering.

Arfster, if this will work, you are my man. Nevertheless, i had a look to the registry, but it seems that things change in Vista compared to XP: In XP all settings were flat in the "000" and "001" respictively. Nevertheless, in Vista there are more subfolders.
1. In which subfolder does the reg tweak goes to?
2. Is it dword or reg_sz?
3. The UseBt601CSC Tweak: In which subfolder goes this tweak?

Edit: OK, found it in Exdeus post, where the reg tweaks have to go to. Dont need to be answered any more.
Edit2: Arfster, it has worked. You are my man!!!

Watch your GPU% though.

Can not watch it, since the integrated HD3200 has limited access to those parameters like utilization. Also tools (or better the monitors) like Rivatuner do not work. Is there also a reg tweak which brings back at least the ATI overdrive section that i can see current GPU clock speed?

Especially don't expect it to handle mpeg2 1080i, although you might just get away with h264/vc1.
No, thats not what i want to do. But thanks for the information.

Another question concerning EVR: EVR looks pretty good watching HD content. But SD content is very unsharp and the colors are much more poor than with overlay. Is there a trick to get a better SD picture quality? I have registered the evrprop.dll but no option do the trick.

sd77

09-14-08, 05:50 PM

I have a visiontek 2600xt 256mb pce hdmi output..its not recognizing my panasonic plasma..can this be a driver issue.. I updated to the 8.8 driver still no recognition...but it does recognize my sony.hdtv any suggestions? I called visiontek they have no idea and referrred me to call ati.

SweMart

09-15-08, 04:51 PM

I just updated my drivers from 8.5 to 8.8, when running MediaPortal in EVR mode I just get a black screen when watching TV, movies, DVD etc. If I use VMR9 instead I get a picture.

This applies to all the codecs I have available(MS, Avivo, PDVD 8) and also applies to SD and HD(H.264).

I've tried using Driver Sweeper but it makes no difference, I've tried uninstalling/installing a couple of times.

Anything I could try?

(Using a HD2600 512M)

arfster

09-15-08, 07:12 PM

Can not watch it, since the integrated HD3200 has limited access to those parameters like utilization. Also tools (or better the monitors) like Rivatuner do not work. Is there also a reg tweak which brings back at least the ATI overdrive section that i can see current GPU clock speed?

Not that I know of, sorry.

Another question concerning EVR: EVR looks pretty good watching HD content. But SD content is very unsharp and the colors are much more poor than with overlay. Is there a trick to get a better SD picture quality? I have registered the evrprop.dll but no option do the trick.

Did you manage to put in the usebt601csc=1?

Past that, just sharpening is all you can do. If your CCC isn't showing those, add Detail_NA=0 in the usual place.

daMaster

09-15-08, 08:02 PM

bajabronco

09-17-08, 03:22 AM

I have been reading through the forum, and am still stuck -
I am running a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Toledo 2.0GHz Dual-Core Processor , a SAPPHIRE 100207L Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card, mother board is Asus A8V-XE, my blue ray drive is a LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray DVD ROM SATA Model DH-4O1S-08. I am running Windows XP SP3 and have downloaded and done a clean install of the latest video drivers version 8.8 from ATI. I continue to try to use PowerDVD 7.3 with the latest updates, with hardware acceleration enabled, and no hardware acceleration. I am feeding the signal to HD TV at 720p through the HDTV Cable. Any ideas?

Mark

arfster

09-17-08, 08:52 AM

I am feeding the signal to HD TV at 720p through the HDTV Cable. Any ideas?

Do you have two screens attached?

Please post a screenshot of what dxva checker shows, gives us more info:
http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/#DXVAChecker

bajabronco

09-17-08, 12:17 PM

No only one - the TV.

bajabronco

09-17-08, 01:41 PM

Here are the screen shots -

bajabronco

09-17-08, 01:43 PM

#2 - I run Power DVD and am maxing out my CPU, with no processing through my GPU when checking CCC

arfster

09-17-08, 01:51 PM

Odd - dxva checker says the driver supports it fine. My first guess then would be PDVD is at fault. Thus, next step would be to test if acceleration works via another app. Try some h264 with MPC-HC:

http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

That's the only free software that supports acceleration with your card.

bajabronco

09-17-08, 08:30 PM

Ok, I did some testing - ran 1080p video (Miley Cyrust video) I downloaded off of the apple site, In DVDpro v 7.3- cpu cores is down near 4-8%, GPU up around 8-10%
Simposon blu-ray cpu at 98-100% GPU at 3-4%.

Same Miley Cyrus video playing in quicktime maxes out the cpu, GPU at 3-4%

I did download Media Player Classic, but must not have configured it right, - it preformed the same as quicktime at 100% cpu.

ToughRowToHoe

09-17-08, 11:07 PM

I recently purchased a Pioneer 1018 receiver with HDMI switching. I had previously passed through audio via onboard audio on my Abit F-190HD to a capable 5.1 receiver with success; however, now that I am passing audio through my MSI 2600xt HDMI video card and using the Pioneer receiver I am only able to receiver stereo sound listening to a surround sound source (e.g., DVDs, HDTV). I have tried updating drivers to no avail. Any recommendations?

It sounds like the Realtek driver issue. If so, you need the ATI HDMI driver from here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#High%20Definition%20Audio%20Codecs

DrLar

09-18-08, 11:51 AM

I'm havint trouble getting anything out of a VisionTek HD2400 Pro PCIe HDMI card, the "HDMI" part is not working, it was the MAIN Purpouse to purchase this card, it won't detect the TV, it does if I connect it thru the 15 pin VGA or the DVI connectors, but not the HDMI one (the most important of the 3).

Some say that I have to use some DVI-HDMI adapter, so what's the HDMI out connector for? Eye candy?

And the card didn't come with a DVI-HDMI adapter anyway

Specs:
Optiplex 755 PC
Core 2 duo 2.33GHz
2GB RAM
PCIe Slot
300W + Power Supply
WinXP SP2

DrLar

09-18-08, 04:55 PM

OK, I tricked the card of thinking it had an LCD monitor connected, I put a Dell 19 Inch wide screen LCD in the HDMI out (using a HDMI-DVI cable), it detects my Dell monitor just fine, then I quickly connect the HDTV in the HDMI connector, and I get an Image! BUT "CCC" still thnks it's an LCD monitor and won't send sound thru HDMI and the display ratio is wrong, the HDTV (GV47LFHDTV) displays the imaged too zoomed in.

Well I know that the connection is OK, but when I try to re-detect it says I have no display, and I lose the image on the TV, I have to reconnect the LCD monitor to get the image out going again.

HEEEEEEEELPPP!

dillee1

09-23-08, 11:48 PM

ugh this is just maddening. I just install the 8.8 drivers and the avivo codec package and still no acceleration of h.246/vc1. mpeg-2 is just so good looking when its being accelerated, the video is smooth as silk and the colors amazing. I've tried Powerdvd, both 7 and 8, mpc-hc and its standalone codec, and nero showtime. This is what i get when analyzing a mkv file that is dxva compatible. is there anything else besides codecs and mediaplayers that can prevent hardware acceleration, like chipset drivers or such? be nice if i had some sort of checklist.

Same card same problem here. Btw can you get the audio driver installed? I never getting beyond the MS UAA bus stage.

scat2002

09-24-08, 05:07 AM

ausvette

09-24-08, 05:40 AM

I can't get the profile manager to work properly in any release since 8.5 . In particular the 3d override display frequency when set in one profile is not saved to the xml profile file so therefore changing it in any profile changes it in all. Also unchecking "basic color settings" from application control isn't remebered after starting and stopping media centre.

Anyone else having this problem or have a solution ?

originalsnuffy

09-24-08, 09:10 AM

Scat;

Realistically you just have to experiment. Too many variables that are specific to your system.

I hook my HTPC with a 2400 directly to the TV via VGA and also via the ATI dongle over HDMI through the receiver to the TV. The latter is higher res; but slower and often buggier.

qweasdzxc63

09-24-08, 02:56 PM

el Filou

09-25-08, 08:39 AM

Does your TV has a 1:1 pixel mapping mode ("dot by dot", "just scan", etc.)? If so, enable it.

Then in CCC, there is a "scaling" page in the TV advanced peoperties, try fiddling with this setting to see if the text gets better.
If it does not, you may have to create a custom resolution in the TV properties page, which will disable scaling.

Concerning the Acer monitor, are you using both the monitor and TV at the same time?
There have been numerous problems witnessed when using a monitor and a TV at the same time, did you check if the problem goes away when only one of them is plugged in?

qweasdzxc63

09-25-08, 10:33 AM

I tried using DVI for Acer LCD monitor and it is fine. What happen here is HD2600 sending 1680x1050 to monitor, but monitor displaying @ 1440x900. Don't know why.

As to HTPC, my Hitachi has no such setting. I will be surprised if any RPTV has such setting. Does this have anything to do with HDCP.? The text is just unreadable. But if I change it to something like 800x640, it is readable because text is bigger.

Personally, if it shpuld work out, it must be some settings from TV. Customizing resolution will not make day and night difference.

HT Slider

09-25-08, 12:58 PM

Hi everyone

I would like to know what is the best connection for my Radeon HD 2600XT under Windows Vista 64, and what if any tweaks or setting in the ATI driver software I should be using.

all desktop size to be 1920x1080, I use SageTV, on want to set up PowerDVD8 Ultra for HD DVD and BluRay DVD playback, I have seen color issues and want the best I can get with this hardware, see my hardware list below.

ATI cards behave differently depending on if the ATI HMDI dongle is used or not. When it is in use AND the display's EDID confirms that it is an HDMI device, ATI cards follow the HDMI spec. Without both the HDMI dongle and an HDMI confirming EDID, ATI cards resort to PC monitor formats, regardless of whether Catalyst Control Center recognizes the display as a TV or not.

Note that the HDMI dongle must be an actual ATI HDMI dongle, not a regular DVI to HDMI adapter. The dongle must also be the correct version for the particular video card. In addition the video card itself must be a model that recognizes the ATI HDMI dongle. The best way to be certain the correct dongle is used and is supported, is to purchase a video card that comes with a dongle and use it with that card.

Essentially if you use the correct HDMI dongle with a modern HDTV (with an HDMI connection and EDID), ATI cards output using YCbCr with a calibrated visible range of 16-235 (which is what HDTVs are by "calibrated" for).

In all other cases, ATI cards revert to full range sRGB (RGB with a 0-255 range). While TVs will produce an image with this, the majority will produce an overly contrast image with dark scenes almost black and bright scenes with lots of clipped white (solid, constant bright regions instead of showing color details). Full range sRGB is what PC monitors are designed to use, not TVs.

Looking at your choices and assuming the dongle came with the card:

This 1.) no dongle ,video card DVI --> TV DVI

will drive your HDTV with sRGB.

This 2.) no dongle , video card DVI --> Reciever HDMI --> TV HDMI

will also drive your HDTV with sRGB.

This 3.) dongle used, video card dongle to HDMI --> Reciever HDMI --> TV HDMI

should drive your HDTV with appropriate YCbCr with a 16-235 visible range - assuming the receiver creates an appropriate EDID to send to the video card (most likely it does).

I would advise using #3. If you use #1 or #2 you will need to do ONE of the following:

Configure your HDTV to accept full range sRGB from within the settings menu (most TVs do not support this).
Calibrate your HDTV so instead of a visible range of 16-235, it has a visible range of 0-255 (most TVs do not have enough "adjustment range" to do this).
Adjust the overall "color" settings within the ATI Catalyst Control Center so brightness is +31 and contrast is 74%. This, as a final output setp, compresses all levels such that 0-255 is converted to approximately 16-235 (this works with everything from photographs to video games to TV playback, etc. - except some software (like PowerDVD Ultra) ignores this if you are using Vista). This is the method I use since my HDTV has a DVI port (no HDMI) and can't be calibrated to display sRGB properly.
Adjust the AVIVO color settings within the ATI CCC so brightness is +16 and contrast is 86%. This makes it so video processed by the AVIVO "engine" remains with a 16-235 range. This only affects video, not photographs, desktop, video games, etc. Also, if a software video decoder (such as ffdshow) is used, this has no effect (FYI ffdshow itself can be configured to do the same thing though).

In addition to what I have mentioned above, ATI video cards have what most of us consider a long standing BUG where they do not process SD video correctly. By default, ATI cards assume all SD video (less than 720 vertical lines) uses the sRGB colorspace (0-255 range). This would theoretically be correct for native PC content (video games, Internet) - BUT, it is totally incorrect for true video, including TV. SD video uses BT.601 (16-235 range), not sRGB. Almost all SD video, even video downloaded from the Internet, uses BT.601 so there is little reason for ATI do default to sRGB (FYI, Nvidia correctly processes SD video as BT.601 by default).

In order to make your video card process SD video correctly you need to add the "UseBT601CSC=1" registry setting.

The easiest way to do this is to use a utility. My personal preference is to download DXVAChecker, run it, right click on any DXVA modes and select "Video Acceleration Settings". In there, turn on "UseBT601CSC" and set it to "1". If you are running XP, reboot (no reboot required for Vista) and play some video.

At this point all that is left is fine tuning. Some things to consider are adjustments to your CCC AVIVO "All Settings". Here Edge Enhancement and Denoise are worth adjusting. With a very sharp digital display (LCD, etc.) I prefer to keep the denoise quite high and edge enhancement low and with an analog display (rear projection CRT based, projector, etc.) to run less denoise and more edge enhancement.

The other area worth paying attention to is grey level calibration for your HDTV. You'll need a calibration source such as the ones you can download and burn from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496. You'll probably find some relatively minor fine tweaking to brightness and contrast will make a big improvement.

HT Slider

09-25-08, 02:29 PM

I have a funny problem with this card I just bought for $50. I set this up as1650x1050 via the VGA adpater to Acer LCD monitor. Whenever I restart PC, it still stays at th resolution however I in fact have to move my mouse around to each corner to see the full screen. Just like overscan on CRT TV.

Your best bet for an LCD monitor is to configure the desktop resolution for the monitor's actual pixel resolution. It sounds like you have the desktop set higher than the monitors maximum resolution and the video card is using a virtual desktop resolution and panning the image around as you move the mouse. I forget how to turn this feature on/off, but you can switch to the scaling mode if you really want to use a different resolution than the monitor's native resolution.

Based on your 2nd post, it sounds like your monitor has a pixel resolution of 1440x900.

Also, I am bit confused by some people claim they are having stunning picture on their TV via DVI. I can get all resolution(my TV report 1080i,720P,480P ) to work just with the latest CCC, but the text is unreadable at all. The only useful use is to play video on TV if that is they call stunning picture.

It sounds like you have a CRT based HDTV, it is being driven with incorrect video levels and it probably could use calibrating. The reality is these don't have the accuracy required to make text look terrific at the best of times. On the other hand, if you have a quality HDTV and everything is calibrated well (convergence set accurately, BT.709 grey level output from the card, etc.) you should still be able to easily read the text - even when using 1920x1080 with 1080i timing (of course you won't be able to read the overscanned regions).

A modern digital HDTV on the other hand, does produce very sharp, clear text at all resolutions.

My HDTV is a 51" Toshiba 51H83 and the "couch" puts the viewers eye about 6.5 feet away from the HDTV. It is a rear projection CRT based unit that natively supports 540p, 720p, and 1080i (the CRT will also happily run at 1440i). I drive it through the DVI port like you and with ATI cards, by default these overdrive white/black text (ATI cards output using sRGB levels, instead of the required BT.709 levels to HDTVs with DVI ports). My HDTV will accept 480p, but it does a terrible job of converting it to 720p (the actual CRT does not support 480p). ATI cards do not natively support 540p, nor 1440i so that leaves me with 720p or 1080i.

My personal preference for desktop resolution is 1360x768 displayed within a custom 1080i resolution. The clearest text is displayed when using a custom 720p resolution (1186x696), but I find 696 is too few vertical pixels for practical use. Even though 1360x768 uses an interlaced display mode, since there are "almost" two vertical pixels for each virtual 1360x768 pixel, there is very little interlaced flicker; hence this is a better compromise for me. 1440x900 is another option, but the interlaced flicker is noticeable for text/desktop use.

I do also use 1776x1048 now and then and this is a 1:1 pixel mapped custom resolution using 1080i timing. Although the text is legible, the interlaced flicker gets annoying after a short while. One thing I do find is the convergence needs to be nearly perfectly set for text to be legible at this resolution (I set my convergence though the system calibration menu - with something like 90 convergence points to adjust; I typically adjust it once or twice per year).

For video games I either use 1440x900 or 1776x1048, depending on which looks better for that particular game (for most I use 1776x1048).

One thing these older CRT based displays do do well is display video. Calibrated properly these displays produce a more "movie theater like" image when compared to a modern mid-priced digital display of similar size. Although the image is softer and easier on the eyes, the detail is still very good with HD content. Several video enthusiasts have told me they prefer watching movies on my system than their equally sized LCD or plasma (I do too).

Try creating a custom resolution within 720p and another in 1080i and try carefully adjusting your displays convergence and calibrating the brightness and contrast (read my previous post; I recommend using the "overall color" setting, not AVIVO, since this improves text legibility of the desktop/PC applications). You will probably be pleasantly surprised at how functional your HDTV can really be (but don't expect text to ever look as good as it does on a PC monitor).

RockySpieler

09-25-08, 05:56 PM

Regarding Widescreen LCD Monitors with HDMI issues.

I have a Chinese Special 19" Widescreen HDTV LCD, which I just brought for my holiday Caravan............it to has an Non-HDTV native resolution in my case 1440x900.
Within ccc I was able to choose 1440x900 via HDMI (Dongle and HD2600XT) however the EDID information was 1080p or 720p, and the ccc drivers were scaling the image to 1080p. If I played with the scaling options (within ccc) I could get an ok picture, but it had bands top and bottom because the scaling was reducing a 16:9 ratio resolution (1920x1080) down to a 16:10ish resolution. Plus the TV itself was adjusting for overscan.

With centre based timings I got a small 1440x900 scaled down image within a scaled down 1920x1080 window.

Via VGA 1440x900 was 1:1 pixel mapped straight away, this would be my choice for PC connection on my particular 19" HDTV LCD.

I did not try dvi to HDMI without the dongle, perhaps this would give different EDID info. Nor did I try to tick the ignore EDID box, and manually input a max. resolution and refreshrate (in ccc).

I normally have a 42" 1080p lcd connected via HDMI, I was just putting my new purchase through its paces before taking it to the holiday "home".

firefoxsilver9

09-26-08, 12:32 AM

Does anyone else have a problem watching movies with VMR9? I'm having this issue with red and blue colors in the video having jagged lines in them. It almost looks pixelated and is very annoying. It doesn't seem to happen with EVR, but i don't like that renderer in XP. Here's some examples of what i'm talking about. I haven't tried VMR 7 to see if it appears there. I've tried both Window and Renderless of VMR9. i've used both media player classic and windows media player. i'm using Windows XP.

the screenshot is showing a red laser btw.

EDIT: the snapshots i posted don't show the jagged lines i'm experiencing. :(

scat2002

09-26-08, 05:30 AM

ATI cards behave differently depending on if the ATI HMDI dongle is used or not. When it is in use AND the display's EDID confirms that it is an HDMI device, ATI cards follow the HDMI spec. Without both the HDMI dongle and an HDMI confirming EDID, ATI cards resort to PC monitor formats, regardless of whether Catalyst Control Center recognizes the display as a TV or not.

Note that the HDMI dongle must be an actual ATI HDMI dongle, not a regular DVI to HDMI adapter. The dongle must also be the correct version for the particular video card. In addition the video card itself must be a model that recognizes the ATI HDMI dongle. The best way to be certain the correct dongle is used and is supported, is to purchase a video card that comes with a dongle and use it with that card.

Essentially if you use the correct HDMI dongle with a modern HDTV (with an HDMI connection and EDID), ATI cards output using YCbCr with a calibrated visible range of 16-235 (which is what HDTVs are by "calibrated" for).

In all other cases, ATI cards revert to full range sRGB (RGB with a 0-255 range). While TVs will produce an image with this, the majority will produce an overly contrast image with dark scenes almost black and bright scenes with lots of clipped white (solid, constant bright regions instead of showing color details). Full range sRGB is what PC monitors are designed to use, not TVs.

Looking at your choices and assuming the dongle came with the card:

This

will drive your HDTV with sRGB.

This

will also drive your HDTV with sRGB.

This

should drive your HDTV with appropriate YCbCr with a 16-235 visible range - assuming the receiver creates an appropriate EDID to send to the video card (most likely it does).

I would advise using #3. If you use #1 or #2 you will need to do ONE of the following:

Configure your HDTV to accept full range sRGB from within the settings menu (most TVs do not support this).
Calibrate your HDTV so instead of a visible range of 16-235, it has a visible range of 0-255 (most TVs do not have enough "adjustment range" to do this).
Adjust the overall "color" settings within the ATI Catalyst Control Center so brightness is +31 and contrast is 74%. This, as a final output setp, compresses all levels such that 0-255 is converted to approximately 16-235 (this works with everything from photographs to video games to TV playback, etc. - except some software (like PowerDVD Ultra) ignores this if you are using Vista). This is the method I use since my HDTV has a DVI port (no HDMI) and can't be calibrated to display sRGB properly.
Adjust the AVIVO color settings within the ATI CCC so brightness is +16 and contrast is 86%. This makes it so video processed by the AVIVO "engine" remains with a 16-235 range. This only affects video, not photographs, desktop, video games, etc. Also, if a software video decoder (such as ffdshow) is used, this has no effect (FYI ffdshow itself can be configured to do the same thing though).

In addition to what I have mentioned above, ATI video cards have what most of us consider a long standing BUG where they do not process SD video correctly. By default, ATI cards assume all SD video (less than 720 vertical lines) uses the sRGB colorspace (0-255 range). This would theoretically be correct for native PC content (video games, Internet) - BUT, it is totally incorrect for true video, including TV. SD video uses BT.601 (16-235 range), not sRGB. Almost all SD video, even video downloaded from the Internet, uses BT.601 so there is little reason for ATI do default to sRGB (FYI, Nvidia correctly processes SD video as BT.601 by default).

In order to make your video card process SD video correctly you need to add the "UseBT601CSC=1" registry setting.

The easiest way to do this is to use a utility. My personal preference is to download DXVAChecker, run it, right click on any DXVA modes and select "Video Acceleration Settings". In there, turn on "UseBT601CSC" and set it to "1". If you are running XP, reboot (no reboot required for Vista) and play some video.

At this point all that is left is fine tuning. Some things to consider are adjustments to your CCC AVIVO "All Settings". Here Edge Enhancement and Denoise are worth adjusting. With a very sharp digital display (LCD, etc.) I prefer to keep the denoise quite high and edge enhancement low and with an analog display (rear projection CRT based, projector, etc.) to run less denoise and more edge enhancement.

The other area worth paying attention to is grey level calibration for your HDTV. You'll need a calibration source such as the ones you can download and burn from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496. You'll probably find some relatively minor fine tweaking to brightness and contrast will make a big improvement.

HT Slider

WOW, what a awesome and very technical response, I don't know anything about the
YCbCr visible range of 16-235 or th sRGB (RGB with a 0-255 range), and this is why
I hangout here to learn and to ask questions and get a professional answer like yours.

I thank you so very much and I will do as advised on Saturday and will report back with the results.

Hats off to you:)

Scat

Gaizka

09-27-08, 11:29 AM

Hello there,

I have 2400pro agp card and latest drivers brokes HA in many circustancies..
As i read at many posts, best are 8.4 agp host fix that works great with MPC-HA..
Getting old 8.4 driver was very hard to me and i found a site that has all of them:

http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Files&go=cat&dwn_cat_id=18

Best regards

Longshankers

09-27-08, 07:44 PM

Hi there. I have a TravelMate 7520G with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400XT. I can clone to my TV but not initiate 'cinematic' mode so that my TVU or VLC is shown full-size on the TV because (or so I think) because I only have basic CCC (Acer butchered the CCC) and I can't seem to make -any- other version of drivers/catalyst center on my laptop under Vista.

Am I simply screwed as long I use Vista? Or is there some way I can make my Laptop do 'cinematic' mode vs a TV (S-Video/Multimedia cable) without getting a mode advanced CCC then the one that Acer supplies? Any experiences? :confused:

Thanks.

Nimo

10-01-08, 06:49 PM

Just bought an HD 2600Pro on flea bay for 73.00, thanks for the link to the agp drivers.

HT Slider

10-01-08, 07:07 PM

I've added a few minor enhancements to ATI HD Reg Tweaks 0.15 (http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/).

* Added short descriptions to the dialog box for each registry setting.
* Added check for null values before attempting to delete HD2400 registry values.
* Added mention of ATI HD4000 series to use HD2600, HD3000 settings.
* Added Denoise_NA=0.
* Added Detail_NA=0.
* Added VForceDeint=6.
* Added VForceHDDenoise=0.

One comment on your Reg Tweak tool is it seems to both add a lot of entries that are not necessary with current drivers and it adds all of these to many unnecessary locations.

Personally I've learnt (the hard way) over the years that it is always best to perform the absolute minimum number of tweaks required to get the job done. Newer drivers for example might handle some older tweaks in a different and negative way.

Does your latest version of the tool still add all of the tweaks and still add them to multiple locations?

HT Slider

10-01-08, 07:18 PM

Undocumented ATI registry entries

Looking at the tweaks available within DXVAChecker, it is clear that there are literally hundreds of undocumented entries that can be used to tweak our ATI cards.

Arfster, you seem to understand which ones we can use to get around certain issues, but there are so many more. Do you, or anyone else, have information on what they ALL do?

One tweak I'd really like to find is one that controls the output format. I'd like to be able to manually control if sRGB, YCbCr, or RGB BT.709 (16-235) is used. I wonder if one of these undocumented settings control the output format?

Running DXVAChecker, selecting "Video Acceleration Settings" and then clicking "show all settings" brings up over 200 registry entries that can be tweaked....

What do they all do?

What does "MasterDriveMode" do for example?

arfster

10-01-08, 08:01 PM

What does "MasterDriveMode" do for example?

Not a clue on that one. I've figured out quite a lot of them though (and there are actually a lot more!), feel free to ask. You might want to have a play with DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR for your srgb/ycbcr stuff. Total guess there though.

Many of them are obselete btw, and/or not relevent to our cards.

Edit: DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR probably refers to xvYCC, but you never know. Some of the regkeys have decidedly silly names.

HT Slider

10-01-08, 09:27 PM

Not a clue on that one. I've figured out quite a lot of them though (and there are actually a lot more!), feel free to ask. You might want to have a play with DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR for your srgb/ycbcr stuff. Total guess there though.

Many of them are obselete btw, and/or not relevent to our cards.

Edit: DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR probably refers to xvYCC, but you never know. Some of the regkeys have decidedly silly names.

Do you have a spreadsheet or list you could post with what you know?

Or is it "all in your head"?

Not much point in me asking about each one individually...

What we really need is for someone with inside information (beta team or something) to "leak" what all of the registry settings do. Not only is it difficult to figure out what they all do, but it is even more difficult to figure out what values can be used for each setting. Many of them are not a simple "0" or "1".

HT Slider

10-01-08, 09:30 PM

Edit: DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR probably refers to xvYCC, but you never know. Some of the regkeys have decidedly silly names.

Does it seem like all of the settings within DXVA are to do with decoding of video?

Assuming this, where would final output be most likely controlled?

I'd like to figure out how to turn on and off final output color compression (sRGB -> BT.709 type stuff).

I'm almost certain ATI has this capability in there somewhere...

ExDeus

10-02-08, 01:56 AM

One comment on your Reg Tweak tool is it seems to both add a lot of entries that are not necessary with current drivers and it adds all of these to many unnecessary locations.
My program has, since its initial release, allowed the user to add all entries, or to select the individual settings they would like to apply.

This covers scenarios for more- and less-knowledgeable users, and for different driver versions. The HD2400 and other cards are split up specifically to avoid unnecessary settings.

To make software that is useful under many different circumstances, one can't assume everyone is running a certain operating system or a certain driver version with a certain graphics card.

I'm still running Cat 8.4. For many users, I know settings are still useful that would be considered "unnecessary" with the latest drivers. What's unnecessary with today's drivers, may become necessary again with tomorrow's. We've already seen that.

The program only adds the settings where necessary.

For WinXP, it adds the settings in multiple places (almost always two places), because each display on the graphics card has its own settings.

If you want acceleration on the display attached to Port 0 of the graphics card, I've made the assumption that you want acceleration on Port 1 as well. Still, only the settings you select are applied, so no harm done; no "clutter" is added.

For Vista, I did make a change in 0.12, released in February 2008, to use a different registry key that applies to all displays, so the settings are only added under the one key. This still only reduced the entries made from two to one.

Personally I've learnt (the hard way) over the years that it is always best to perform the absolute minimum number of tweaks required to get the job done. Newer drivers for example might handle some older tweaks in a different and negative way.
You can remove a setting if it produces an undesirable result (i.e., color expansion is not as you expect), but as for the acceleration settings, adding an entry to enable DXVA when DXVA might have already been enabled does not cause any harm.

Many of the settings are also subjective, so adding them all might seem well and good for some, but unnecessary for others. Denoising, deinterlacing, edge enhancement, color expansion --- all user preferences. One could argue that the absolute minimum settings should be applied by default, and only add extra settings by request, but my view is that an all-or-individual approach achieves the greatest good. On the one setting I've been advised by arfster could be harmful without dual displays, HWUVD_ForceMPEG2, I added a warning. If you think an enhancement to have "recommended" settings for the current drivers would be useful, let me know.

Regardless, the user ultimately has control to add or remove any individual setting. The program just puts what the user wants applied where it needs to be.

scat2002

10-02-08, 05:27 AM

ATI cards behave differently depending on if the ATI HMDI dongle is used or not. When it is in use AND the display's EDID confirms that it is an HDMI device, ATI cards follow the HDMI spec. Without both the HDMI dongle and an HDMI confirming EDID, ATI cards resort to PC monitor formats, regardless of whether Catalyst Control Center recognizes the display as a TV or not.

Note that the HDMI dongle must be an actual ATI HDMI dongle, not a regular DVI to HDMI adapter. The dongle must also be the correct version for the particular video card. In addition the video card itself must be a model that recognizes the ATI HDMI dongle. The best way to be certain the correct dongle is used and is supported, is to purchase a video card that comes with a dongle and use it with that card.

Essentially if you use the correct HDMI dongle with a modern HDTV (with an HDMI connection and EDID), ATI cards output using YCbCr with a calibrated visible range of 16-235 (which is what HDTVs are by "calibrated" for).

In all other cases, ATI cards revert to full range sRGB (RGB with a 0-255 range). While TVs will produce an image with this, the majority will produce an overly contrast image with dark scenes almost black and bright scenes with lots of clipped white (solid, constant bright regions instead of showing color details). Full range sRGB is what PC monitors are designed to use, not TVs.

Looking at your choices and assuming the dongle came with the card:

This

will drive your HDTV with sRGB.

This

will also drive your HDTV with sRGB.

This

should drive your HDTV with appropriate YCbCr with a 16-235 visible range - assuming the receiver creates an appropriate EDID to send to the video card (most likely it does).

I would advise using #3. If you use #1 or #2 you will need to do ONE of the following:

Configure your HDTV to accept full range sRGB from within the settings menu (most TVs do not support this).
Calibrate your HDTV so instead of a visible range of 16-235, it has a visible range of 0-255 (most TVs do not have enough "adjustment range" to do this).
Adjust the overall "color" settings within the ATI Catalyst Control Center so brightness is +31 and contrast is 74%. This, as a final output setp, compresses all levels such that 0-255 is converted to approximately 16-235 (this works with everything from photographs to video games to TV playback, etc. - except some software (like PowerDVD Ultra) ignores this if you are using Vista). This is the method I use since my HDTV has a DVI port (no HDMI) and can't be calibrated to display sRGB properly.
Adjust the AVIVO color settings within the ATI CCC so brightness is +16 and contrast is 86%. This makes it so video processed by the AVIVO "engine" remains with a 16-235 range. This only affects video, not photographs, desktop, video games, etc. Also, if a software video decoder (such as ffdshow) is used, this has no effect (FYI ffdshow itself can be configured to do the same thing though).

In addition to what I have mentioned above, ATI video cards have what most of us consider a long standing BUG where they do not process SD video correctly. By default, ATI cards assume all SD video (less than 720 vertical lines) uses the sRGB colorspace (0-255 range). This would theoretically be correct for native PC content (video games, Internet) - BUT, it is totally incorrect for true video, including TV. SD video uses BT.601 (16-235 range), not sRGB. Almost all SD video, even video downloaded from the Internet, uses BT.601 so there is little reason for ATI do default to sRGB (FYI, Nvidia correctly processes SD video as BT.601 by default).

In order to make your video card process SD video correctly you need to add the "UseBT601CSC=1" registry setting.

The easiest way to do this is to use a utility. My personal preference is to download DXVAChecker, run it, right click on any DXVA modes and select "Video Acceleration Settings". In there, turn on "UseBT601CSC" and set it to "1". If you are running XP, reboot (no reboot required for Vista) and play some video.

At this point all that is left is fine tuning. Some things to consider are adjustments to your CCC AVIVO "All Settings". Here Edge Enhancement and Denoise are worth adjusting. With a very sharp digital display (LCD, etc.) I prefer to keep the denoise quite high and edge enhancement low and with an analog display (rear projection CRT based, projector, etc.) to run less denoise and more edge enhancement.

The other area worth paying attention to is grey level calibration for your HDTV. You'll need a calibration source such as the ones you can download and burn from http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948496. You'll probably find some relatively minor fine tweaking to brightness and contrast will make a big improvement.

I changed my setup to option #3 so my color space would be correct for movie and TV viewing, but Windows still looks better when I used option #1, haven't adjusted any brightness or contrast yet.

Thank you for your help
Scat

HT Slider

10-02-08, 10:57 AM

I changed my setup to option #3 so my color space would be correct for movie and TV viewing, but Windows still looks better when I used option #1, haven't adjusted any brightness or contrast yet.

Thank you for your help
Scat

If you are really convinced #1 lookes better for "Windows", then you could always use #1 combined with adjusting the AVIVO color settings to +16 brightness and 86% contrast. This will cause sRGB to be output for Desktop, PC applications, video games, etc. and BT.709 to be used for video.

You still, as usual, need the UseBT601CSC=1 registry setting to tell the video card that SD video is using the TV/video colorspace BT.601.

Having said that, I find it difficult to understand why using sRGB would look better for "Windows". sRGB uses the full 0-255 range of visible grey scale and your HDTV should only make the range 16-235 visible (BT.709). This means that everything that is supposed to be in the dark range 0-16 will be displayed as black on the TV and everything in the range 235-255 will be displayed as full brightness on the TV. This will provide a very high contrast image, but it will be loosing all of the dark and bright detail. Dark scenes in video games will be totally black for example.

I suggest you download some of the calibration samples I've linked to previously and have a look at how they appear on your HDTV. If callibrated correctly, the .bmp image should produce a visible range of 0-255 (sRGB) and all video should produce a visible range of 16-235 (BT.709). Essentially to display correctly on your HDTV, the video card will actually compress the .bmp so the 0-255 range (sRGB) becomes 16-235 (BT.709) so it will display correctly (it does the same with all other "windows" or PC applications too). To display correctly on your HDTV, video will be sent as it was originally recieved, using the range of 16-235 (BT.709 - actually SD video, originally in BT.601, will be upconverted to HD and converted to BT.709).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13939785&postcount=5409

jong1

10-03-08, 07:51 AM

Anyone who has trouble coming back from changing sources on their TV or AVR, or from standby - either blank screen or just sluggish response/system seizing for the first couple of minutes should check out this troublesome ATI service, if you missed the separate thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14338769#post14338769

Certainly the XP name gives no indication that it might mess around with screen detection

Kudos to leeperry for mentioning this waste of space way back in 2007!

Nimo

10-11-08, 01:21 PM

Well I got my 2600 pro up and running on my 875p Intel board pushing it with a 2.5 Northwood. I'm playing Iron Man BD on the Pioneer internal using MPC-HC latest build for Vista Ultimate. The latest build of MPC plays this thing out of the box with no external decoders, good job there guys. My ALC 655 Realteks also work in Vista a very dated sound chip even though Vista says incompatible they get the job done.

I'm totally surprised on the playback using EVR with the HD 2600 Pro, with exceptional playback. Installation was not such a breeze my EVGA disc has the drivers for Vista but you have to manually install them and you have to pick the right one! Other than that I'm satisfied with the results and it only costs me 73.00 for the card to get BD/HD playback. My client just gave me all the stuff she had so I have another mobo the dreaded p4s8x and an nVidia card I'll build this system for her kids I already have a 350 watt PSU and spare DVD player just need a 29.00 80 HDD and her kids will be set.:)

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o65/freedombikesusa/Untitled.jpg

shenrei

10-12-08, 06:00 PM

Hello everyone,

I was hoping someone on here can chime me in with a bit of advice. As I understand, AVIVO is a way (or is what ATI uses) for ATI cards to optimize video playback using the hardware on your video card, and NOT the processing power of your CPU. I'm not sure if that's exactly right, but it's what I've gathered from reading.

I currently own a HIS ATI2600XT and I am having problems with AVIVO functioning correctly in the CCC. Some new manufacturer's drivers were released last week (HIS ATI 8.9) and I have installed them over my older manufacturers drivers (8.4). Whereas the AVIVO video preview/color preview in the Avivo tab in CCC would function correctly in 8.4, it now shows a pitch black screen in 8.9. This would also occur when installing any of the drivers on ATI's site. Rolling back to the HIS 8.4 drivers, and the black screen on the preview would not occur. Rolling back even further to the drivers that came with the card itself, and it would function correctly. I'm not sure why this is, has anyone experienced this?

Shrikery

10-12-08, 06:36 PM

Sorry to jump in like this but i cant get much help on my issue anywhere ive tried.

Last week i got a Force3D HD 2400Pro PCI-E Graphics Card and it will not upscale any video no matter what i do, it simply resizes the video to fullscreen by making the pixels bigger rather then upscaling with resampling. Ive tried the basic xvid codec install, ive tried K-Lite codec pack, and various media players like MPC, WinDVD, the standard WMP and they all do the same thing. All i can get is simple resized video without any upscaling/resampling taking place so edges are very jaggy, its just zooming in on the pixels. This is with all formats i have, dvd, xvid, mkv, 264, wmv. The machine is a brand new base install of XP SP3 and ive used various ATI Catalyst drivers and every setting inside the CCC. I know its not the software build because i did the exact same install on an older machine with an ATI 7000 and its working with upscaling as normal. Ive had 3 ati cards now, a 7000, 7500 and 9700 Pro and they all upscale out of the box, i cant turn it off if i wanted to. The only way i can get upscaling now is by using a specific players upscale function such as WinDVDs Tridemension or ffdshows resize. Ive tried installing windows, then Catalyst 8.9 and then the basic xvid codec only and playing in WPM with the same results.

As far as im aware upscaling has always been automatic in graphics cards over the last 10 years or more and with ATI you cant actually turn it off so if anyone knows of a switch which allows upscaling to be turned off and on, that would be the only thing that would show that the graphics card is working properly. The place i bought it from says that upscaling is a function of the player software and not the graphics chip but i dont believe thats true, can someone educate me on this?

I can work around it by forcing ffdshow to upscale everything using the resize filter but that doesnt fix a faulty graphics chip and obviously increases processor usage. So can anyone give me some suggestions to prove that the graphics chip is at fault rather than user error? Put it this way, can anyone else play video through an ATI graphics card at fullscreen WITHOUT the video being upscaled with resampling as opposed to simply making the pixels bigger exactly like the zoom function in an image editor? Even the onboard Intel 3100 graphics upscales albeit very badly so therefore its not the software right?

Can anyone tell me if this is in any way normal for this card or what exactly is going on? Can ati cards now not do what their lowest end cards could do 7 or 8 years ago?

Also the deinterlacing options and denoise and sharpness sliders in my CCC make absolutely no change at all in thru any player or format. Is that normal? Doesnt sound so to me. Gawd this things got me ranting and raving hasnt it!

thx all, and apologies to anyone reading this a second time.

speedfrk

10-12-08, 11:32 PM

speedfrk

10-12-08, 11:40 PM

Well I got my 2600 pro up and running on my 875p Intel board pushing it with a 2.5 Northwood. I'm playing Iron Man BD on the Pioneer internal using MPC-HC latest build for Vista Ultimate. The latest build of MPC plays this thing out of the box with no external decoders, good job there guys. My ALC 655 Realteks also work in Vista a very dated sound chip even though Vista says incompatible they get the job done.

When you say that BD plays in MPC without external decoders are you saying that you don't need PDVD8 or similar? Typically, MPC will use other codecs if it needs them. For instance, it is definitely using the Realtek codecs that installed with your sound card. If it will play BD without any other software, that would be very surprising- and good!

Luar Azul

10-13-08, 06:55 PM

My program has, since its initial release, allowed the user to add all entries, or to select the individual settings they would like to apply.

...
Regardless, the user ultimately has control to add or remove any individual setting. The program just puts what the user wants applied where it needs to be.

I just would like to say that I use your tweaks and they work great. Many thanks!! :)

Hello everyone,

I was hoping someone on here can chime me in with a bit of advice. As I understand, AVIVO is a way (or is what ATI uses) for ATI cards to optimize video playback using the hardware on your video card, and NOT the processing power of your CPU. I'm not sure if that's exactly right, but it's what I've gathered from reading.

I currently own a HIS ATI2600XT and I am having problems with AVIVO functioning correctly in the CCC. Some new manufacturer's drivers were released last week (HIS ATI 8.9) and I have installed them over my older manufacturers drivers (8.4). Whereas the AVIVO video preview/color preview in the Avivo tab in CCC would function correctly in 8.4, it now shows a pitch black screen in 8.9. This would also occur when installing any of the drivers on ATI's site. Rolling back to the HIS 8.4 drivers, and the black screen on the preview would not occur. Rolling back even further to the drivers that came with the card itself, and it would function correctly. I'm not sure why this is, has anyone experienced this?

I have tried all versions of Ati drivers and always go back to 8.4. In my setup it is the best. It is amazing to me how and why a company can actually make drivers worse as time goes by, in any case, that is what happens in my system. (2400pro, windows XP, mpc-hc)

8.4 Rocks!! :)

arfster

10-13-08, 07:00 PM

It is amazing to me how and why a company can actually make drivers worse as time goes by, in any case, that is what happens in my system.

Not just you - to my mind, it's more than a year since the last vaguely competent set of drivers was released. Since 7.12 they broke all acceleration with dual monitors, and refuse to do anything to fix it - yes, you can get h264/vc1 back with a reg tweak, but 99% of people won't ever find that out and thus have zero acceleration, one of the card's main features!

Of course 7.8-7.12 were useless for other bugs as well, so really the July07 drivers are the last that could be called better than alpha-tested.

HDGIANTS

10-14-08, 12:33 AM

All:

We are a content distribution company that is distributing VC-1 content for the CEDIA marketplace.

We encode our content using a variety of different encoders, but for the most part we use Telestream's Episode encoder.

We are finding that partners who want to play video using ATI cards cannot get hardware acceleration to work.

We are encoding using the VC-1 Advance Profile, L3 (that would be 45 mb/s).

We are forced to use Microsoft Media Player for playback because all of the content needs to be wrapped in Microsoft DRM.

We have been told that the problem is that ATI has stopped supporting Mode C and that Microsoft is not yet supporting Mode D for their player.

Can anyone shed some light on this problem?

Thanks!

madshi

10-14-08, 04:02 AM

We are encoding using the VC-1 Advance Profile, L3 (that would be 45 mb/s).
Progressive or interlaced?

We have been told that the problem is that ATI has stopped supporting Mode C and that Microsoft is not yet supporting Mode D for their player.
That's more or less correct. However, it's not the media player which is important, it's the VC-1 decoder being used by the media player. The official MS VC-1 decoder doesn't support mode D, which is the only accelerated mode ATI hardware supports.

If your content is progressive you can try using the new open source VC-1 decoder developed by the MPC HC guys which supports mode D just fine. You'll have to find a way to force the MS media player to use this other VC-1 decoder. Maybe raising the merit of the open source VC-1 decoder will already do the trick. Otherwise you may have to delete the MS VC-1 decoder. Here's the link to the MPC HC doom9 forum thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123537

The open source VC-1 decoder is part of the MPC HC media player. But it's also available as a standalone codec, too, so that it can be used in other media players. The download links are buried somewhere in that thread.

dak0ta11

10-14-08, 12:51 PM

Could somebody answer this for me? I have the following card:
SAPPHIRE 100219L Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 AGP 8X HDCP Ready Video Card
Does this card come with the built-in soundcard? It did NOT come with the ATI HDMI adapter, but I ordered one anyway.
I am currently using analog out to my Onkyo 606, but I'd like to switch to HDMI only if it will work with this card.

Thanks,
Brian

Nimo

10-15-08, 12:06 AM

When you say that BD plays in MPC without external decoders are you saying that you don't need PDVD8 or similar? Typically, MPC will use other codecs if it needs them. For instance, it is definitely using the Realtek codecs that installed with your sound card. If it will play BD without any other software, that would be very surprising- and good!

It depends on the audio track but it has H.264 acceleration built in along with a bunch of other codec's. This version is hard to control the codecs in Vista just like my video card drivers. The HD2600 I have using the Vista drivers it came with is stuck in extended mode and there is no way to untick the switch. If I play anything in PDVD it will down res to 1280 from 1080p 60. But the good news is my LX177 can do 24Hz native so when I switch refresh rates it goes into a 1:1 desktop and shows the proper resolution.

I even installed the CCC thinking I can switch it off there, but no go so I'm just running the drivers with no control panel because it really does nothing for these drivers.

Nimo

10-15-08, 10:59 AM

Has anybody tested the 8.6 drivers from visiontek? I'm dl'ing them now but would like some feed back if possible this for my HD2600 AGP card.

Nimo

10-15-08, 12:48 PM

Just tested 8.5/8.6 and no go stutter city so I reverted back to 8.4 and installed CCC found out the overscan slider is set in the middle causing the cropping. So it's all good here in 875p land once again. Ok I'm now officially done screwing with this thing got the day off and going to watch some movies in series.:cool:

crabnebula

10-16-08, 12:36 AM

Just installed Cat 8.10 on my 780G. Contrary to previous driver upgrades, I did not need to reapply the UseBTCS601 registry tweak to get SD video to expand to 0-255 levels. Maybe they've normalized color output for HD and SD?

However, I'm still looking for a way to have all output compressed to 16-235. I'm currently using a DVI to HDMI cable. Does anyone know if using the HDMI output on a 780G motherboard forces YCbCr output like the HDMI dongle does on discrete cards?

h8redv2

10-16-08, 06:22 AM

Hi all

Just jumped on the HDMI wagon and need some help to understand it.

This is all on Vista 32 bit...!!

HD 2600XT is connected to philips lcd with hdmi
Philips lcd is connected with coax digital to yamaha 5.1 reciever.
This is to have perfect lipssync, as suggested by philips.

I have checked dts and dolby digital in audio properties.

When I play back the dts sample, my reciever switchs to DTS and I have sound from all speakers.

When I play back DD sample, the 5 test tones just bounces between my two front speakers ???

Why is this ?

Does VMC not passthrough DD like it does DTS ?

Do I have to install AC3 filter to do a passthru ?

PLease help me understand

arfster

10-16-08, 08:27 AM

Just installed Cat 8.10 on my 780G. Contrary to previous driver upgrades, I did not need to reapply the UseBTCS601 registry tweak to get SD video to expand to 0-255 levels.

I did :-(

Did you use drivercleaner before installing? Reg entries are pretty persistent.

jong1

10-16-08, 08:47 AM

The tweak is still needed for sure :(

crabnebula

10-16-08, 04:11 PM

Strange, I've made it a habit of just upgrading over the previous version, but in the past I've always had to reapply the registry tweak afterwards. Guess for some reason it didn't get erased during the latest update.

crabnebula

10-16-08, 11:57 PM

However, I'm still looking for a way to have all output compressed to 16-235. I'm currently using a DVI to HDMI cable. Does anyone know if using the HDMI output on a 780G motherboard forces YCbCr output like the HDMI dongle does on discrete cards?

Tested this and the answer is yes, using HDMI out on a 780G motherboard does yield YCbCr output.

aravs

10-24-08, 03:56 AM

just wondering if anyone here has gone on and upgraded from the 2x00 series card to the 3x00 series like i did. I'm experiencing some problems as outlined here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=14857042&postcount=184) and cant seem to find a solution. Hasn't been much activity in the 3x00 threads; guess everyone has moved onto the 4x00 series cards :(

Any help or suggestion would be appreciated.

jong1

10-24-08, 04:24 AM

Luar Azul

10-24-08, 07:58 AM

Not just you - to my mind, it's more than a year since the last vaguely competent set of drivers was released. Since 7.12 they broke all acceleration with dual monitors, and refuse to do anything to fix it - yes, you can get h264/vc1 back with a reg tweak, but 99% of people won't ever find that out and thus have zero acceleration, one of the card's main features!

Of course 7.8-7.12 were useless for other bugs as well, so really the July07 drivers are the last that could be called better than alpha-tested.

Well, today I went over to the same frivolous task of checking out the latest version (8.10) of Ati's drivers. Although this is becoming a habit I was still amazed to find yet another set of drivers that keep hardware acceleration broken for many kinds of encodings. I've been expecting the opposite, that a new set of drivers would reveal more of the true power of these graphic cards (for instance, allowing for more reference frames in 1080p encondings) for they can obviously surpass the ability of any cpu on the market on this kind of parallel processing task.

Perhaps, with the development of CUDA and other GPGPU languages, we will see other kinds of software (like coreavc) start taking advantage of the power of these GPUs to decode any kind of encoding in spite of the crippled drivers.

In any case my vision of the corporate industry certainly changed, there are simply too many instances to be ignored: they are certainly not trying to fulfill every consumer need, desire and aspiration to the best of their abilities. Instead they first try to create a hype about a product and later on they cripple their own products to keep us buying more and more of their sophisticated-junk. We certainly cannot (http://www.storyofstuff.com/downloads.html) go on like this for centuries without trashing the planet. How I would like to have more google-minded enterprises in the world!

Well all of this was to say that I tried the 7.7 version that you mentioned, it might be the best "out of the box" driver, but with the tweaks (http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/) that you and ExDeus created the 8.4 works much better for me. In any case, after fiddling with a disappointing 8.10 and trying the 7.7 again, I returned to the tweaked 8.4 and everything is running fine and dandy again. Thanks for the tweaks Arfster and for all the light that people like you and ExDeus bring to compensate for messed up companies and their software. In a better world Ati would pay people like you huge sums to come up with an excellent driver, and everyone would win.

Well, in this world the tweaks will have to do! Thanks :)

el Filou

10-24-08, 08:56 AM

Well, today I went over to the same frivolous task of checking out the latest version (8.10) of Ati's drivers. Although this is becoming a habit I was still amazed to find yet another set of drivers that keep hardware acceleration broken for many kinds of encodings. I've been expecting the opposite, that a new set of drivers would reveal more of the true power of these graphic cards (for instance, allowing for more reference frames in 1080p encondings) for they can obviously surpass the ability of any cpu on the market on this kind of parallel processing task.

Perhaps, with the development of CUDA and other GPGPU languages, we will see other kinds of software (like coreavc) start taking advantage of the power of these GPUs to decode any kind of encoding in spite of the crippled drivers.

In any case my vision of the corporate industry certainly changed, there are simply too many instances to be ignored: they are certainly not trying to fulfill every consumer need, desire and aspiration to the best of their abilities. Instead they first try to create a hype about a product and later on they cripple their own products to keep us buying more and more of their sophisticated-junk. We certainly can not go on like this for centuries without trashing the planet. How I would like to have more google-minded enterprises in the world!

I think you set your hopes too high.

The reason graphics cards will never be able to cope with more complex 1080p encodes is because there is no widely-used standard for these kinds of encodes. Manufacturers have to set themselves a goal, and this goal is H.264 Profile 4.1. Why? Because that's what is used by Blu-ray and HDTV.
The higher profiles are of no use to consumers, and supporting only some enhancements, like a higher number of reference frames, is getting out of the official profiles, so you don't have a canvas anymore. It's the people who encode that have to stick to Profile 4.1 and all will be well.

For the technical side, why don't the manufacturers develop drivers that support a higher number of reference frames or something else? Because they developed highly-specific circuits to handle video acceleration. These circuits (UVD/VP2/whatever) use a low transistor count so take little space on the chip, and don't need much power. Because these chips are tight to very detailed specs (Profile 4.1), they won't accept something that goes outside of the specs.

If you implemented H.264 decoding through the shaders you would waste valuable power (did you mention trashing the planet?) and would only please a very small market (people watching non-profile-compliant pirate rips of films), so they won't do it.
CoreAVC might do it one day but the benefit is not worth the cost of development.

Now, if you think about other enhancements, like consistent YCbCr-to-RGB conversion between SD and HD or settable output format, you are right but in that case it's either evil or just incompetence as these things should be easy to implement.

kammiz

10-24-08, 10:34 AM

i am having major issues with my club3d radeon 2600 hd xt card. i have an asus m2n-e sli motherbord, 4gigs of memory and 2,8ghz dual core amd2 cpu.

when i install the driver for the 2600 hd, vista will not boot. it fails during load and restarts, saying there was an hardware error due to a newly installed hardware/software. safe mode will work, but from the point of installing the drives it will not boot vista normally anymore.

i just tried formatting my disk, install vista and then the ati driver, but it still fails. do i need sp1 maybe? what else can cause this???

Disc13

10-26-08, 02:20 AM

Hi all,

Hopefully I can get a little insight into a problem I've been having.

I recently got a TV Tuner for the HTPC and have noticed that most of the time, 1080i material (CBS football games and shows) has some stutter associated with it. I'm talking about both live TV and recorded. Other HD channels run fine (and heck, even sometimes CBS runs perfectly).

So far my HD-DVD/Blu-Ray playback has been nearly flawless (until today when I played Doomsday and I got a pulsing sharpening/unsharpening thing, really weird, but since it's the first time I've seen such a thing I'm not worried). I'm on 8.6 drivers with no CCC installed -- 8.8-8.9 gives me a display driver crash when I play HD material, and 8.7/8.10 introduces some artifacts (often green boxes) or slight tearing.

So I guess my question is if any of you guys are running a 2600Pro and getting perfect video from CBS or 1080i material (1080p trailers from Quicktime are also hit and miss). I'm wondering if it's a limitation of the card, my card, or even something else in the system.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Dual Core E6750 2.66G
2Gig Ram
Vista 32 Sp1, TVPack

sharangad

10-26-08, 03:24 AM

indieke2

10-29-08, 01:57 PM

Interesting, that not having returned on this page for a while, 8.4 with tweak, is still hot. The one I am having for ages now, tweaked of course! Otherwise 1080 i, Mpeg 2 is unwatchable! had to delete register entries to make this work and trying different versions!

But now I have a problem. Trying to use Arcsoft Total media. With no acceleration, picture stutters. WITH acceleration, it becomes unwatchable, with blokking and strange movements. Doesn't this (latest) version of ATM doesn't like Ati 2600 xt, or must I use other drivers to make my Bd's work on it?

I have another computer wit N Vidia 9600 GS, that I don't use in my home theater, there everything is fine with this arcsoft version...

Your 5 cents? Something to do about it?

billkaren3

10-29-08, 11:50 PM

Hi guys ,My beautiful hd 2400 pro is a paperweight!! Seems the only driver that works for these cards are 7.9 beta and guess what!!! Ati made Visiontek
pull them and i cant find them anywhere.Vista and XP both crash on any catalsyt install ,card only runs with windows garbage display driver.:confused::(

Luar Azul

11-01-08, 05:25 PM

I think you set your hopes too high.

The reason graphics cards will never be able to cope with more complex 1080p encodes is because there is no widely-used standard for these kinds of encodes. Manufacturers have to set themselves a goal, and this goal is H.264 Profile 4.1. Why? Because that's what is used by Blu-ray and HDTV.
The higher profiles are of no use to consumers, and supporting only some enhancements, like a higher number of reference frames, is getting out of the official profiles, so you don't have a canvas anymore. It's the people who encode that have to stick to Profile 4.1 and all will be well.

For the technical side, why don't the manufacturers develop drivers that support a higher number of reference frames or something else? Because they developed highly-specific circuits to handle video acceleration. These circuits (UVD/VP2/whatever) use a low transistor count so take little space on the chip, and don't need much power. Because these chips are tight to very detailed specs (Profile 4.1), they won't accept something that goes outside of the specs.

If you implemented H.264 decoding through the shaders you would waste valuable power (did you mention trashing the planet?) and would only please a very small market (people watching non-profile-compliant pirate rips of films), so they won't do it.
CoreAVC might do it one day but the benefit is not worth the cost of development.

Now, if you think about other enhancements, like consistent YCbCr-to-RGB conversion between SD and HD or settable output format, you are right but in that case it's either evil or just incompetence as these things should be easy to implement.

(This is clearly an off topic message :o but I thought it might be interesting to share it instead of being just a private message.)

Thanks for the clear reply el Filou, I'm still hopping for that "shaders software" and I'll tell you why: now that we have so much technology and machines that could be working for us (instead of we being slaves to "maximum growth") I like to imagine a world where money would not exist and people worked for shifts for the benefit of all and dedicated their spare time to art, sports, science and philosophy, and other such pleasures. It is true I am constantly being disappointed by the choices that are fashionable in this society (like the lack of support for free software, or sacrificing true well being for great appearance). But I believe it is like in John Lennon's Imagine, "You may say I'm a dreamer", but I prefer to be an absolute idealist regarding ends and an absolute realist regarding only the means to achieve them.

Denouncing worse drivers is just a petite and almost insignificant way to remind us that things could be different. I'm just striving for a world where I'd rather live (instead of just trying to "fit in", as many of us do).

Thanks again :)

marksfink

11-02-08, 09:55 PM

Looking for help with a problem. A few details first of my config...

Dell XPS 420 with ATI 2600XT connected via HDMI to a Sony KDS60A3000 TV (and via DVI to an LCD monitor).

My ATI CCC settings for the TV are 1920x1080, 60hz with deinterlace set to Automatic and 3:2 Pulldown checked. I've applied Ex Deus's tweaks. ATI CCC version is 8.9.

I'm using Vista Media Center with Microsoft MPEG2 decoder and ATI cablecard tuners (thus, I must use the MS-MPEG2 decoder).

PQ on HD channels is great. It is also very good on most SD channels. However, when I watch many SD programs (not all), I get severe stuttering during motion. Using Comedy Central as an example, "The Daily Show" plays fine, looks great, but "Scrubs" stutters horribly. It affects only certain programs, not all.

I can "fix" the problem by changing the deinterlace setting (in ATI CCC) to either Adaptive or Bob, both work well - that is, all SD programs (including "Scrubs") play back fine without stuttering. However, when I do this, it noticeably softens the HD channels -- they look ok, but not nearly as good with deinterlace set to Automatic or Vector Adaptive.

So for the best picture, I am faced with changing the deinterlace setting depending on what I want to watch. I created ATI profiles (with desktop icons) for the deinterlace settings to make it easier, but I have to logoff and logon again for the change to take effect, so it is tedious.

Does anyone know of a hack or tweak I can use to improve the situation? Ideally, I'd like VMC or ATI to detect the source material and apply the appropriate deinterlace method. I think that is supposed to be happening anyhow, but it is apparently broken.

I don't mind changing ATI CCC versions if anyone thinks that will help. Registry hacks are fine too. But remember, I can't change the MPEG2 decoder with ATI cablecard tuners.

If there is no solution, then it will at least be good to know that (for now). I have tried everything I can think to try with the various ATI CCC settings -- that I have not mentioned here obviously.

daMaster

11-03-08, 10:55 AM

I have an ATI Radeon HD 3470 and I'm using the ATI DVI->HDMI dongle that came with the card:
1) With the ATI dongle, I'm losing BTB and WTW. Why is that?
2) My GPU speed on the DVI port of this card drops from 800MHz to 300MHz and my mem speed also drops from 800MHz to 400MHz. I can't change it in CCC or RivaTuner! With the component output, it is running fine at the spec speed of 800MHz and 800MHz. Anybody else have this strange issue?

jong1

11-03-08, 11:56 AM

I have an ATI Radeon HD 3470 and I'm using the ATI DVI->HDMI dongle that came with the card:
1) With the ATI dongle, I'm losing BTB and WTW. Why is that?Because the driver first expands video levels to PC levels, so 16 becomes 0, for example, if you capture the screen; Values below 16 are lost. Then it recompresses to video levels. You need to manually tweak brightness and contrast to avoid this. However, since these are not intended to be seen once the system is calibrated there is little practical benefit in doing so. Can be done if you wish though.

tman247

11-03-08, 12:25 PM

Can anyone comment if ExDeus's script will work on the new 4000 series cards (specifically 4550, which I plan to replace my 2600XT with at some point), and also an embedded HD3200 series (780G chipset).

Joe Hendrix

11-03-08, 12:41 PM

I hope someone can answer Marksfinks's question. I have the EXACT same problem. I'm just scratching my head on what to do with this. I have the HIS 2600 XT on an Intel DP35 Motherboard, and get QAM through HD Homerun. I'm running Vista SP1 (no TV Pack). My system is on a gigabit network, if that matters at all.

kammiz

11-03-08, 02:14 PM

Are you on Vista 32 bit?

yes, i am on vista 32 bit.

hoping for some help here.. i returned my motherboard and graphiccard, but the store could not find any fault with it. they installed vista and the drivers with no problems.

sharangad

11-03-08, 04:12 PM

yes, i am on vista 32 bit.

hoping for some help here.. i returned my motherboard and graphiccard, but the store could not find any fault with it. they installed vista and the drivers with no problems.

You said you had 4 GB of RAM. I was wondering whether you'd have the same problem if you reduced your RAM to 2 GB. 32 bit operating systems can only 4 GB of total RAM including actual RAM, memory mapped I/O. For instance with a graphics card with 1 GB of RAM. the actual amount of system RAM you can have goes down by 1 GB. Generally a 32 bit OS like XP or Vista can only address 3.2-3.3 GB of RAM. Some drivers like those for Creative soundcards don't run too well with 4 GB of RAM.

kammiz

11-04-08, 04:32 AM

You said you had 4 GB of RAM. I was wondering whether you'd have the same problem if you reduced your RAM to 2 GB. 32 bit operating systems can only 4 GB of total RAM including actual RAM, memory mapped I/O. For instance with a graphics card with 1 GB of RAM. the actual amount of system RAM you can have goes down by 1 GB. Generally a 32 bit OS like XP or Vista can only address 3.2-3.3 GB of RAM. Some drivers like those for Creative soundcards don't run too well with 4 GB of RAM.

i have tried this, it gives the same error with 1, 2 or 3gb installed also.

also, i just went from a 256mb card to a 512mb card, both from ati, both using the same driver-package, so it seems weird that this should have anything to do with the system memory or cpu.

this is my machine:

- AMD 64 Dualcore 5600+ 2,8ghz cpu
- ASUS M2N-E Sli motherboard
- 4x 1gb DDR2 6400 RAM, 800mhz
- Mist 500w psu

then i went from a Club3D Radeon x300 pcie16 card, to a Club3D Radeon HD XT 2600 pcie16 card and all the trouble started.

i have tried several amounts of ram installed, tried with most of my hdds disconnected, and it always gives the same error.

if i put the old graphics card back in, it works right away, without reinstalling.

sharangad

11-04-08, 04:45 PM

i have tried this, it gives the same error with 1, 2 or 3gb installed also.

also, i just went from a 256mb card to a 512mb card, both from ati, both using the same driver-package, so it seems weird that this should have anything to do with the system memory or cpu.

this is my machine:

- AMD 64 Dualcore 5600+ 2,8ghz cpu
- ASUS M2N-E Sli motherboard
- 4x 1gb DDR2 6400 RAM, 800mhz
- Mist 500w psu

then i went from a Club3D Radeon x300 pcie16 card, to a Club3D Radeon HD XT 2600 pcie16 card and all the trouble started.

i have tried several amounts of ram installed, tried with most of my hdds disconnected, and it always gives the same error.

if i put the old graphics card back in, it works right away, without reinstalling.

Mebbe the 2600 XT is faulty. Could you test it in another PC?

kammiz

11-05-08, 01:57 AM

Mebbe the 2600 XT is faulty. Could you test it in another PC?

it has been tested successfully.

yesterday i returned the 2600 and bought a 3650 card instead. when i reinstalled vista and then installed the drivers and rebooted i got a winload.exe error. i tried repairing windows, but at the same time i went through the bios settings. i dont know what made it work, but the "default gpu" was set to pci, not pci-e in bios. also, the disk priority was wrong. not boot priority, but priority between my harddrives.

anyway, after changing those settings and repairing windows i got the drivers reinstalled and the machine rebooted properly and everything works fine with the new card. :)

marksfink

11-06-08, 08:22 AM

I solved my problem with certain SD programs stuttering.

I did an express uninstall of all ATI software. Rebooted. Scrubbed the registry and program files. Rebooted again for good measure. Installed 8.4. Rebooted. Problem solved.

A couple things contributed to my problem:
- I upgraded directly from 7.9 drivers to 8.9. From reading this thread, it *appears* ATI has stuttering/deinterlacing issues post-8.4.
- When I upgraded to 8.9, I only uninstalled CCC -- I did not uninstall the driver or other ATI-related software, I did not scrub the registry or program files. There is no doubt in my mind now that this is a necessary step.

For instance, after I scrubbed my ATI install, I first reinstalled 8.9, still had issues, so scrubbed again, and installed 8.4. But in doing so, I noticed that registry key values under UMD\DXVA changed from simple integers to more complex hex strings (the change must have come between 8.4 and 8.9). 8.4 uses integers. Don't know if that has anything to do with post-8.4 issues, but you would think if ATI was to make such a change they would write the upgrade to ensure all registry values are updated, instead of relying on the end user to know to uninstall everything and delete all registry keys first. I know to do it now only by reading this thread.

This problem has cost me many hours of time troubleshooting. My consolation to stick with ATI is the awesome viewing experience I now have for both SD and HD. But this stuff is only for those with enormous patience and technical know-how. My family has been ready to throw this thing out for months. Hopefully I can warm them back up now.

As long as everything works with 8.4 and I have no reason to upgrade, I probably never will. Too much risk.

Joe Hendrix

11-06-08, 12:45 PM

marksfink - What did you use to "scrub" the registry? Where did you go to download 8.4? I would like to do the same with my system, to see if I get similar results.

Thanks.

marksfink

11-06-08, 06:59 PM

First, open CCC before you uninstall it, go to the Information Center, and look at the path for "2D Driver File Path" and copy-and-paste it into a text document, so you have it.

Next, look in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\

You will see a series of keys with long names like
{C172500C-87AC-4001-B47F-2E4EA48FB954} -- they won't be exactly this, but they will be similar.

Look for a key with 0000 and 0001 subkeys each with
UMD\DXVA subkeys. You should see references to the ATI 2600XT somewhere in there too.

Make a note of the long key name where you find the ATI settings, so you can come back to it later.

Now, run the express uninstall (which uninstalls everything for the ATI 2600XT card). Then reboot.

If all goes well, the express uninstall may delete your registry keys for you. It did for me the first time around, but did not the 2nd time around, not sure why.

After you uninstall/reboot, go back to the keys you noted in the beginning and delete all subkeys for them, only if they still exist obviously.

Also delete anything that remains in the C:\Program Files\ATI and C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies directories.

You can download 8.4 from: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/commonprevious-vista32.html

Or

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonxprevious-xp.html

depending if you have XP or Vista.

daMaster

11-07-08, 11:18 PM

Joe Hendrix

11-08-08, 11:42 AM

Thanks for all your help Marksfink. I updated my Drivers from the 8.5 version that Microsoft Update offered to me a while

back to the 8.4 drivers that you recommended. All went fine, and I noticed immediate improvements in the SD material I

was watching. I was so relieved, since I had this problem for quite a while. But... I went to listen to some music on my

VMC. I have a 3rd Party visualization program that kicks in called GForce that goes along with the music. Not sure if

that had anything to do with what happened, but after about 10 minutes or so, the screen went black. I had to pull up

Task Manager to shut down VMC. Then, I tested what would happen if I turned the TV off while music is playing (something

I do to save energy). When you turn the TV back on, the screen resolution changes from progressive to interlaced (30i).

I had this problem with other versions of ATI video drivers, as well. I would have to manually change it back to

progressive.

I haven't given up hope, but so far it has been a bumpy road. I'll be doing more testing.

It's wierd that ATI had the SD fixed on 8.4, but then abandoned it on later versions of their software!

HT Slider

11-09-08, 01:23 AM

I've got a Radeon HD 3470 that came with an ATI HDMI dongle. I also tried another DVI->HDMI dongle (from monoprice). With either dongle I'm getting PC levels (0-255) out of my video card. I guess this is due to the set not reporting correct EDID?

What HDTV do you have?

I haven't heard of any new HDTVs (less than a couple of years old) that ATI cards are not able to send YCbCr with a 16-235 range.

It could be the problem though.

HT Slider

11-09-08, 01:27 AM

I have a question for those of you familiar with ATI's registry entries.

Tonight I was looking through the registry on a couple of different PCs and I discovered that all of the ATI registry entries seem to be duplicated to a COMMON registry location on both PCs. Also, it seems like I can change the settings in this location and it does reflect in the normal location.

What is interesting about this is if this key is common to ALL PCs with ATI cards, then we no longer would need to search and find the custom GUID for our particular card/system.

Can some of you take a look at your registry and see if you have the following specific key that represents all of your ATI registry entries?

The key is found at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4 D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

If this is common to all PCs (at least running Vista as I am), it would make it much easier to tweak our ATI settings as well as help others in changing their settings.

Is this key common to all systems?

HT Slider

11-09-08, 01:51 AM

On a different topic, I am still frustrated with the fact that ATI cards still do not output using compliant BT.709 levels when an HDTV that is a few years old is used (DVI connection typically). This issue affects a huge number of people, including daMaster (previous post) and I. Nvidia released drivers a few months ago that allowed the user to select the output between sRGB, RGB BT.709 and YCbCr (BT.709). Note I haven't actually tested this myself, but have been told this by a few individuals.

One bit of excellent news is I did recently receive an e-mail from ATI last week where I was told that ATI will also be fixing this bug as well as the SD video being processed as sRGB bug in the near future (UseBT601CSC=1). When I pressed to see where it really was on the priority list, I wasn't able to get an answer.

So, not knowing when this will be fixed, I decided to take another look at the registry entries for our ATI cards.

From what I can tell there are essentially 3 different sections of interest:

1. 0000/0001 - This seems to be where settings for the renderer are located and this includes the resolutions, timings, brightness, contrast, gama, color mapping, etc. for the particular display(s) in use.

2. UMD - This seems to be where the 3D video processing settings are stored.

3. DXVA - This is where the DXVA video decoding settings are stored.

So, I looked carefully at the 0000 settings and found the following keys that look interesting:

DALDriverGammaData_Index0FS3DBlue
DALDriverGammaData_Index0FS3DGreen
DALDriverGammaData_Index0FS3DRed

These appear to contain a 9-bit map for the final output levels for the video card. If my guess is correct, we could probably use these to create our own sRGB to BT.709 mapping function.

On my system, the values stored in the 512 entries follow the pattern 00, 00, 01, 01, 02, 02, 03, 03, 04, 04, 05, 05, etc. (essentially a 0-511 -> 0-255 transform)

Could someone with a functional YCbCr 16-235 level output have a look at these entries and see if you have the same numbers?

If these map a 0-512 9-bit RGB render output to an 8-bit RGB DVI output, I might be able to create my own map so that this 0-512 maps to 16-235.

m1g12000

11-09-08, 04:49 AM

Hi,
I have this weird problem, when trying to play 1080p dxva movies, the movie shows artifacts and hiccups/sttuters. when trying recent drivers it only gets worse!
this problem occurs when i'm applying a resolution of 1920x1080, whether if it's a 720p file or 1080p and only when hardware accelerated. on 1366x768 resolution everything plays fine.
My TV is Sony KDL-40D3550 Full HD LCD connected to the 2600xt via DVI/HDMI adapter.
I've also tried to install the card in another PC, same problem.

Appreciate your help!

firefoxsilver9

11-09-08, 05:57 AM

Does anyone else have a problem watching movies with VMR9? I'm having this issue with red and blue colors in the video having jagged lines in them. It almost looks pixelated and is very annoying. It doesn't seem to happen with EVR, but i don't like that renderer in XP. Here's some examples of what i'm talking about. I haven't tried VMR 7 to see if it appears there. I've tried both Window and Renderless of VMR9. i've used both media player classic and windows media player. i'm using Windows XP.

EDIT: the snapshots i posted don't show the jagged lines i'm experiencing. :(

EDIT: here is an example.

originalsnuffy

11-09-08, 03:03 PM

The idea of going back to the 8.4 drivers was very good. I had updated to recent drivers, but had some problems. My HTPC chipset is unusual....it has a low power laptop chip even though it is a small form factor HP unit. Anyway, I got errors in the theater mode deinterlacing section of CCC with recent drivers. The kind of errors that crash CCC. This was in the menu that lets you choose between bob, weave, etc.

I traced some of the error messages, and they seem to be related to notebook chipsets. Which my unit probably has.

Went back to 8.4 and all the errors went away. And yes, I can choose modes of deinterlacing in CCC with 8.4.

No more driver updates for this cowboy!

djos

11-09-08, 04:10 PM

Btw, if anyone in 25/50hz land is having issues with occasional non-smooth motion and occasional thin black lines appearing with the 8.9 drivers & 1080p - i turned "detect pull-down" off and the issues went away. :)

daMaster

11-09-08, 10:03 PM

What HDTV do you have?

I haven't heard of any new HDTVs (less than a couple of years old) that ATI cards are not able to send YCbCr with a 16-235 range.

It could be the problem though.
It's a brand new Insignia NS-PDP50HD-09 50" plasma. When I take a screenshot it has PC levels (0-255), but it might be that the DVI->HDMI (ATI or monoprice) is compressing the PC levels to video levels once it gets to the TV (since I'm not seeing BTB and WTW). What's strange is that both the ATI and the monoprice dongle are doing the same thing. I thought only the ATI dongles compressed PC levels to video levels.

The key is found at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4 D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

If this is common to all PCs (at least running Vista as I am), it would make it much easier to tweak our ATI settings as well as help others in changing their settings.

Is this key common to all systems?
Yup, it's the same GUID for all systems.

lstepnio

11-09-08, 11:47 PM

HT Slider

11-10-08, 03:11 AM

It's a brand new Insignia NS-PDP50HD-09 50" plasma. When I take a screenshot it has PC levels (0-255), but it might be that the DVI->HDMI (ATI or monoprice) is compressing the PC levels to video levels once it gets to the TV (since I'm not seeing BTB and WTW). What's strange is that both the ATI and the monoprice dongle are doing the same thing. I thought only the ATI dongles compressed PC levels to video levels.

The way it works is everything is expanded into the 0-255 "visible" range during the decoding stage (regardless if the video remains as YCbCr or if it is converted to RGB). If you have the right ATI HDMI dongle installed and an HDTV with an EDID that includes HDMI information, the video card will, as a final step, convert the 0-255 range into a 16-235 range so your HDTV can display it properly. This conversion can be functionally considered as being done inside the HDMI dongle (but in reality the video card does it).

If you do a screen capture, it will always be in the expanded 0-255 range, regardless of what is connected to the output on video card.

When you switch between the generic DVI to HDMI adapter and the ATI HDMI dongle, your HDTV "should" be sent video with different levels (0-255 vs 16-235), even though the screen captures have the same numerical values.

Thanks for checking the registry entry. Assuming this works with all PCs, this definitely makes it much easier to figure out where to add the necessary registry tweaks. We could even simply share a .reg file or cut and past a text file with the settings.

Actually, for others to try, here is a .reg file that will insert the necessary "UseBT601CSC=1" setting. Copy and past it into Notepad and then save it as something.reg (perhaps "Process SD video properly.reg"):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4 D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\UMD\DXVA]
"UseBT601CSC"="1"

HT Slider

11-10-08, 03:30 AM

I have a 3450 connected via the ATI DVI->HDMI dongle to my Samsung 1080p@60Hz DLP. I have applied the registry tweak to expand DXVA SD. I think have everything calibrated for DVD, 720p/1080i MPEG-2 Transport streams.

This now leaves me with my software decoders, CoreAVC which I use for downloaded HD. CoreAVC has options for input and output levels. I currently have it configure to TV levels for input and output which based on my understanding is correct, correct? I looks like this is valid using the HD 709 test patterns as the patterns seem to be aligned up with DXVA levels. What settings is everyone using in CoreAVC that is in the same boat?

I also use ffdshow mostly for SD xvid/divx based content, what are the proper setting in ffdshow to line the levels up with everything else? I assume things will differ in ffdshow if the content is HD, correct?

I wish we had the same exact test patterns for SD MPEG2, HD MPEG2 and x264 which would make sanity checking this mess a whole lot easier. The HD 709 patterns are great with flashing backgrounds. ATI really is making this much more difficult than it needs to be. I was able to calibrate my NVidia solution much easier than this.

The "UseBT601CSC=1" setting tells the ATI AVIVO decoder to expand SD video into a 0-255 (PC level) range. Without it, AVIVO assumes SD video does not need to be expanded.

Since you are using the HDMI dongle, you actually do want the video to be expanded, regardless of which decoder you are using.

If you want to keep things simple and use the video card the way ATI expects it to be used, configure all of your decoders to expand everything into 0-255 (default settings) and be done with it.

An optional way to set everything up is to disable ATI's final "level compression" (where the 0-255 range is converted to 16-235) by removing the HDMI dongle and to then configure all of your video decoders so they do NOT expand everything into 0-255.

There are a few problems with this though.

AVIVO's decoders expand HD video and we don't know of a registry setting that will turn this off.
Photographs, desktop, PC applications, video games, etc. all use the 0-255 range. These will not display correctly on an HDTV unless the output is converted into the 16-235 range.

Number 1 can be worked around by enabling SD expansion (UseBT601CSC=1) and adjusting the AVIVO brightness and contrast to +16/86%, but I don't know of any work around for issue #2.

Personally I think it makes sense just to use the HDMI dongle and expand all video into the 0-255 range at the decoder. The only downside is you loose BTB and WTW (so this can't be used for calibration). On the upside, everything, including photographs, games, etc. displays as it should on your HDTV.

Note that I don't use CoreAVC, nor ffdshow so I am not familiar the exact settings required (but I expect default settings would expand and work properly with the HDMI dongle in place).

marksfink

11-10-08, 03:53 PM

firefoxsilver9

11-11-08, 04:35 AM

anyone have a POWERCOLOR 2400 Pro PCI card and able to get hardware acceleration of h.264/vc-1?

arfster

11-11-08, 04:47 AM

AVIVO's decoders expand HD video and we don't know of a registry setting that will turn this off.
Photographs, desktop, PC applications, video games, etc. all use the 0-255 range. These will not display correctly on an HDTV unless the output is converted into the 16-235 range.

Number 1 can be worked around by enabling SD expansion (UseBT601CSC=1) and adjusting the AVIVO brightness and contrast to +16/86%, but I don't know of any work around for issue #2.

If you use the color menu in CCC, it affects everything (video and desktop) because it works after the RGB conversion. Not sure of the exact values needed though because I don't use that.

Note you'll lose btb and wtw this way, because the expansion is done first. If you use 16 & 86 in ccc/video/basic color it works on the YUV, does the contraction before the expansion, and btb/wtw is retained.

originalsnuffy

11-11-08, 09:03 AM

I have a powercolor card 2400 (don't know if its xt or pro).
You need to run the vbs script from ex deus to get the acceleration going methinks.

firefoxsilver9

11-11-08, 10:10 AM

i did. it didn't work. i've tried so many things i'll just probably give up. i hope to get a new computer this Christmas anyways...

lstepnio

11-11-08, 10:54 AM

The "UseBT601CSC=1" setting tells the ATI AVIVO decoder to expand SD video into a 0-255 (PC level) range. Without it, AVIVO assumes SD video does not need to be expanded.

Since you are using the HDMI dongle, you actually do want the video to be expanded, regardless of which decoder you are using.

If you want to keep things simple and use the video card the way ATI expects it to be used, configure all of your decoders to expand everything into 0-255 (default settings) and be done with it.

An optional way to set everything up is to disable ATI's final "level compression" (where the 0-255 range is converted to 16-235) by removing the HDMI dongle and to then configure all of your video decoders so they do NOT expand everything into 0-255.

There are a few problems with this though.

AVIVO's decoders expand HD video and we don't know of a registry setting that will turn this off.
Photographs, desktop, PC applications, video games, etc. all use the 0-255 range. These will not display correctly on an HDTV unless the output is converted into the 16-235 range.

Number 1 can be worked around by enabling SD expansion (UseBT601CSC=1) and adjusting the AVIVO brightness and contrast to +16/86%, but I don't know of any work around for issue #2.

Personally I think it makes sense just to use the HDMI dongle and expand all video into the 0-255 range at the decoder. The only downside is you loose BTB and WTW (so this can't be used for calibration). On the upside, everything, including photographs, games, etc. displays as it should on your HDTV.

Note that I don't use CoreAVC, nor ffdshow so I am not familiar the exact settings required (but I expect default settings would expand and work properly with the HDMI dongle in place).

Thanks for the reply.

To review from a fresh installation assuming best video quality and no concern for desktop colors:

1) Connect to display/receiver using the ATI HDMI dongle.
2) Perform clean installation of drivers.
3) Apply the UseBT601CSC=1 fix to bring SD DXVA video to the same levels.
4) Calibrate the display one increment above when 16 disappears into the BTB background of a test pattern.
5) Verify that all software decoders are expanding to 0-254.
6) Validate DXVA SD and HD with pattern and repeat with software SD and DXVA

I'm correct that no adjustment is needed in any of the color settings in the CCC panel using this method, right? Any other corrections?

jong1

11-11-08, 11:08 AM

Thanks for the reply.

To review from a fresh installation assuming best video quality and no concern for desktop colors:

1) Connect to display/receiver using the ATI HDMI dongle.
2) Perform clean installation of drivers.
3) Apply the UseBT601CSC=1 fix to bring SD DXVA video to the same levels.
4) Calibrate the display one increment above when 16 disappears into the BTB background of a test pattern.
5) Verify that all software decoders are expanding to 0-254.
6) Validate DXVA SD and HD with pattern and repeat with software SD and DXVA

I'm correct that no adjustment is needed in any of the color settings in the CCC panel using this method, right? Any other corrections?You are correct, no other adjustments are needed. Desktop colors will be perfect too. Unless you are using ffdshow to upscale when you also need to convert YUV to RGB in ffdshow using BT.601 if you want to avoid color decoding errors.

However, using the method you have listed, BTB will be clipped by the drivers so you cannot use it to calibrate your screen; You need another method. On my screen I am able to change the aspect ratio on the TV. I change it to 4:3; this gives me black bars on the left and right of my PC desktop. Now I put up the standard pluge pattern with a video black background (or even simple video black). As I increase the brightness the black borders created by my TV stay black but the image in the center gets brighter. I just increase it until I can see the video brighter than the black bars and then bring the brightness back down until the video just merges with the black bars on either side. Job done.

Joe Hendrix

11-11-08, 01:07 PM

>>> after about 10 minutes or so, the screen went black.

Joe, how is your TV connected? HDMI? Do you have a screen saver set for 10 minutes or power mgmt set to sleep the display after 10 min?

I'm connected via HDMI. When I turn my TV off with VMC open, my System event log floods with HDCP errors (if VMC is closed and I turn my TV off, I don't get any errors). When I turn the TV back on with VMC open, I have to close VMC for HDCP to occur, then relaunch VMC. The bottom line is that I close VMC before I turn my TV off, or I disable the TV in the ATI CCC and run VMC on the LCD display instead (for instance, if I want to play music and leave the TV off).

Don't now if this affects you though.

I've got my TV hooked up via HDMI (I think DVI -> HDMI).

My problems seemed to have gone away. Please don't ask me how. It was a nightmare when I went to get the "new" video drivers installed, and things happened that I didn't think could happen. I'm sorry for not being able to help, but I can happily report that turning the TV off and then back on while VMC is running doesn't "reset" the video display anymore. Same goes for putting the PC to sleep, and running the visualization program.

FYI, when I did the uninstall of the old drivers, I used a program from guru3d called Driver Sweeper. I guess this helps to ensure that your registry and system is cleared of the previous version, before installing the newer version. One thing I had to do, though, to get Driver Sweeper to work was to edit it's permissions, since Vista was blocking it.

Also, these are the only drivers that have given me decent SD video playback. Everything else I've tried have given me stutter.

HT Slider

11-11-08, 05:30 PM

If you use the color menu in CCC, it affects everything (video and desktop) because it works after the RGB conversion. Not sure of the exact values needed though because I don't use that.

Note you'll lose btb and wtw this way, because the expansion is done first. If you use 16 & 86 in ccc/video/basic color it works on the YUV, does the contraction before the expansion, and btb/wtw is retained.

Note that he is using an HDMI dongle so the output video is already being compressed from 0-255 into 16-235.

Were you suggesting he reverse this overall compression by adjusting the overall "color" brightness and contrast and then disable expansion at the decoder by adjusting the AVIVO brightness and contrast? I never though of trying that, but I guess it would be another option.

I know that using an overall "color" brightness and contrast of +31 and 74% does approximately the same thing as the HDMI dongle does, but I don't know what numbers would be required to reverse this when the dongle is in use and someone wants the final "compression" turned off.

Arfster, with your HDTV, how do you have it hooked up so there isn't any compression (0-255 to 16-235 at final output)?

HT Slider

11-11-08, 06:06 PM

Thanks for the reply.

To review from a fresh installation assuming best video quality and no concern for desktop colors:

1) Connect to display/receiver using the ATI HDMI dongle.
2) Perform clean installation of drivers.
3) Apply the UseBT601CSC=1 fix to bring SD DXVA video to the same levels.
4) Calibrate the display one increment above when 16 disappears into the BTB background of a test pattern.
5) Verify that all software decoders are expanding to 0-254.
6) Validate DXVA SD and HD with pattern and repeat with software SD and DXVA

I'm correct that no adjustment is needed in any of the color settings in the CCC panel using this method, right? Any other corrections?

Correct... sortof "yes" and "no"...

With what you have stated above you will get everything displaying correctly and everything calibrated, including desktop, video games, PC applications, all video playback software, etc., etc. This is essentially how ATI expects you to have everything hooked up.

The downside to this is video WILL loose all BTB (1-15) and WTW data (236-255). In theory there should not be any BTB or WTW data with properly masted video, but if you are looking for "absolute video perfection", where nothing is potentially lost, you probably want to ensure every single bit of information available in the source content is also sent to your HDTV (even if your HDTV doesn't actually display BTB and WTW when calibrated).

If what you are looking for is truly video perfection (including BTB and WTW) at the sacrifice of desktop/video game grey level performance, what you stated above is not what you really want. To maintain BTB and WTW you want to essentially turn off all video expansion (don't expand 16-235 into 0-255) and all video compression (remove the HDMI dongle so output isn't compressed using the 0-255 into 16-235 mapping). The downside to this is only video will display correctly.

What do you really want?

Everything calibrated, but no BTB or WTW?
ONLY video calibrated, and keep BTB and WTW?

Note that you will not notice any difference in image quality with either of these options (unless you are viewing content that was not mastered correctly and contains BTB and WTW).

The Holy Gav

11-13-08, 09:34 AM

hi there
i have a 2600xt hd pcie card and have been following the growing debates of the 4550 4650 4670 card debate, are these cards really a worthy upgrade.
with all the hacks for the 2600 will my main concern of sd and hd playback be better with this card or with an upgrade to any of the above mentioned cards.
regards
ps still in awe of some of the video gurus work on this forum, keep it up gives me hope, just don't turn the torch of at the end of the tunnel:)

arfster

11-13-08, 10:17 AM

Note that he is using an HDMI dongle so the output video is already being compressed from 0-255 into 16-235.

Oh, duh, missed that :-) Missed that it was you I was replying to, you know all this crap anyway.

Were you suggesting he reverse this overall compression by adjusting the overall "color" brightness and contrast and then disable expansion at the decoder by adjusting the AVIVO brightness and contrast? I never though of trying that, but I guess it would be another option.

Hrrrrmf, that might actually work. Way too tired to think it through though.

Arfster, with your HDTV, how do you have it hooked up so there isn't any compression (0-255 to 16-235 at final output)?

I mostly just use ffdshow rgb conversion so no contraction/expansion in the chain at all - don't really think it makes much difference, but it seems tidier and with a quadcore there's many times more cpu power than needed. Also avoids the silly issues with widescreen 720p + bt601, chroma upsampling stuff, and the screwing around trying to fix whatever acceleration/deinterlacing/etc bug ATI has added in their latest drivers. Basically I've largely given up on hardware acceleration and indeed pretty much all gpu features, and would probably go integrated if I was making a new setup.

For Bluray it's just 16/86 and a standard dvi>hdmi cable (no dongle).

lstepnio

11-13-08, 11:25 AM

Correct... sortof "yes" and "no"...

With what you have stated above you will get everything displaying correctly and everything calibrated, including desktop, video games, PC applications, all video playback software, etc., etc. This is essentially how ATI expects you to have everything hooked up.

The downside to this is video WILL loose all BTB (1-15) and WTW data (236-255). In theory there should not be any BTB or WTW data with properly masted video, but if you are looking for "absolute video perfection", where nothing is potentially lost, you probably want to ensure every single bit of information available in the source content is also sent to your HDTV (even if your HDTV doesn't actually display BTB and WTW when calibrated).

If what you are looking for is truly video perfection (including BTB and WTW) at the sacrifice of desktop/video game grey level performance, what you stated above is not what you really want. To maintain BTB and WTW you want to essentially turn off all video expansion (don't expand 16-235 into 0-255) and all video compression (remove the HDMI dongle so output isn't compressed using the 0-255 into 16-235 mapping). The downside to this is only video will display correctly.

What do you really want?

Everything calibrated, but no BTB or WTW?
ONLY video calibrated, and keep BTB and WTW?

Note that you will not notice any difference in image quality with either of these options (unless you are viewing content that was not mastered correctly and contains BTB and WTW).

I'll be stuck with the HDMI dongle once my new Denon 2809 arrives next week. The method seems to be working and loosing BTB and WTB in video doesn't seem to be an issue. The information you posted really helped in setting this card up correctly, it's appreciated!!

I've encountered another minor issue introduced with the upgrade to the ATI card I figure I'll throw out there. I noticed that 1080p x264 encodes starting glitching, this would always happen at the same point in the video. I'm using software decoding. I can replicate the issue using onboard SPDIF or the ATI HDMI audio. The issue went away when I swapped back the nVidia card and restored an image of the drive taken before the upgrade. There are no dropped video or audio being reported by any of the filters when the studder occurs.

Using the ATI card this issue is present with the following commonly used filter chain:

AC3Filter -> Direct Show Audio Renderer -> SPDIF
Haali->
CoreAVC-> VMR9 Windowless

The two work-around filter chains that resolve the issue:

AC3Filter -> Reclock -> Direct Show Audio Renderer -> SPDIF
Haali->
CoreAVC-> VMR9 Windowless

I even configured reclock to do "nothing" and as long as it's in the chain there is no issue. I found reclock can introduce it's own set of issues and instability so there is another work-around I found that works.

ffdshow audio decoder -> Direct Show Audio Renderer -> SPDIF
Haali->
CoreAVC-> VMR9 Windowless

It seems that when AC3Filter or SPDIFER are used in combination with the ATI card/drivers without reclock it introduces a studder. I'm guessing that other audio decoders might not have the problem but I wasn't able to get my PureVideo audio decoder to connect to my chain to verify further.

I'm hoping that helps someone else.

Joe Hendrix

11-15-08, 11:34 AM

Just a follow up to my on-going problems with this card. I had this problem before, and it went away when I rebuilt my system and used the ATI drivers that came from the Windows Update site (8.5 drivers). But the 8.5 drivers gave me poor SD video playback (stuttering video). Through this thread, I went with installing the 8.4 drivers, which resolved the SD stutter. Everything for the last few days had seemed to finally fall into place. But as of last night, a problem which I just hate has come back. When the HTPC comes out of sleep mode, the drivers unilaterally decide to switch from progressive to interlaced! I have to manually go into CCC to switch it back to progressive in order to get a decent picture. Does anyone know if there is a way to make my settings to a progressive picture "stick"? Is my moniter (Pioneer 5050SX) sending across some wrong information to the video card?

el Filou

11-15-08, 01:01 PM

I mostly just use ffdshow rgb conversion so no contraction/expansion in the chain at all - don't really think it makes much difference, but it seems tidier and with a quadcore there's many times more cpu power than needed. Also avoids the silly issues with widescreen 720p + bt601, chroma upsampling stuff, and the screwing around trying to fix whatever acceleration/deinterlacing/etc bug ATI has added in their latest drivers. Basically I've largely given up on hardware acceleration and indeed pretty much all gpu features, and would probably go integrated if I was making a new setup.
Do you also use your HTPC to watch live TV or recorded TV shows, or only films?

I'd like to build a new system soon, but I want it future proof and watch european HDTV with it, and I think even a quad core wouldn't be able to do 1080i50 H.264 decoding + good deinterlacing + high quality RGB conversion.

Now that I know about all the long-running stupid (because I can't imagine their engineers don't have the knowledge to fix them all quite easily) ATI issues that are not getting fixed, I'm sure I won't be satisfied if I choose a low power CPU and a 4650 that I'm not getting the max. possible video quality.

arfster

11-15-08, 01:24 PM

8.11 reg keys for people to play around with (forgive the silly dots and ÌÌÌÌÌ chars)

DXVA_MVA_TOSS_POINTS
DVD_DEBUGLEVEL
UseBT601CSC
DXVA_MPEG2
DXVA_MPEG2SD
DXVA_WMV_PF
DXVA_NLOCALBUF
DXVA_WMV
DXVA_ELEGANT
DXVA_NOHDDECODE
maMethod
DeintUseField
maMotionThreshold
MaWeightedOffset
maSimilarityThreshold
maNoiseLevel
maMotionDecay
maUVPLANE
TRDenoise
DXVA_DetailEnhance
DXVA_ColorEnhance
Denoise_ENABLE_DEF
Denoise_ENABLE
Denoise_DEF
Denoise
Detail_ENABLE_DEF
Detail_ENABLE
Detail_DEF
Detail
Fleshtone_ENABLE_DEF
Fleshtone_ENABLE
Fleshtone_DEF
Fleshtone
ColorVibrance_ENABLE_DEF
ColorVibrance_ENABLE
ColorVibrance_DEF
ColorVibrance
3to2pulldown_DEF
3to2pulldown
HalfResoPulldown
DynamicContrast_ENABLE_DEF
DynamicContrast_ENABLE
HDDeintVector
HDDisableBob
H264HDDeintBob
RenderDebug
UseNativeMode
AspectRatio
OTMDeint.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OTM1Buffer.ÌÌÌÌÌ
UseTVMMMode.ÌÌÌÌ
UseDisplayScaling.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
MasterDriveMode.
SortPreFlipCtrl.
Overlay2xHScaling.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OvlNumBuffers.ÌÌ
TkHalfDemo.ÌÌÌÌÌ
TkEdgesDemo.ÌÌÌÌ
TkFastBlitOnly.Ì
TkThreshold.ÌÌÌÌ
WriteVAVHDdata.Ì
DeintBltExEnable.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
ConstrictionEnable.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
CtxEnable.ÌÌÌÌÌÌ
EnableCCFastBlend.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_VSYNCBLT.ÌÌ
BobNV12By4Blt.ÌÌ
VForceFilter4.ÌÌ
LRTCEnable.ÌÌÌÌÌ
LRTCCoef.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
LRTCDemoMode.ÌÌÌ
LRTCUseFrameRate.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DVPF_DivXDeblockOn.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OvlHPQ.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OvlRotation.ÌÌÌÌ
RegKeyCondPM4.ÌÌ
DXVA_VHD_TOSS_POINTS.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
dwBADummyMode.ÌÌ
NumH264CompressBuffer.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_UVA_H264.ÌÌ
DXVA_UVA_H264_R600.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
BubbleTest.ÌÌÌÌÌ
RegKeyLight.ÌÌÌÌ
RegKey1.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
RegKey2.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
RegKey3.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
RegKey4.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
RegKey5.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OvlDisableOverlay.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_EnableSCVP.OvlTileMode.ÌÌÌÌ
Filter4.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OVL_PPW.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_UseAVP.ÌÌÌÌ
UseDXVAinBatteryMode.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_USE_PARSER.
DXVA_COMPBUFFPOOL.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
OVL_USESORT.ÌÌÌÌ
OvlIrqFlip.ÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
DI_METHOD_DEF.ÌÌ
DI_METHOD.ÌÌÌÌÌÌ
NumBAH264CompressBuffer.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
NumBAVC1CompressBuffer.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
EnableMPEG2AES.Ì
SORTEnableVirtualization.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
SORTEnableFullScreenOpt.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestAperture.ÌÌ
VTestBitWidth.ÌÌ
VTestDesktopSize.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestSClk.ÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestMClk.ÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestUMAChannels.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestHTLinkFreq.
VTestHTLinkWidth.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestUMAClock.ÌÌ
VTestSidePortClock.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VTestPerfMode.ÌÌ
VTestDWMState.ÌÌ
VForceUVDH264.ÌÌ
VForceUVDVC1.ÌÌÌ
VForceUVDMPEG2.Ì
VForce24FPS1080MPEG2.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForce24FPS1080VC1.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForce24FPS1080H264.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForceMPEG2HDFileOnly.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForceHDDenoise.
VForceHDPulldown.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForceMaxFPS.ÌÌÌ
VForceMaxResSize.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForcePCOM.ÌÌÌÌÌ
DisablePCOMxvYCC.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForceDeint.ÌÌÌÌ
VForceDenoise.ÌÌ
VForcePulldown.Ì
VForceDetailEnhance.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForceColorEnhance.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
ForceOTM.ÌÌÌÌÌÌ
VForceLRTC.ÌÌÌÌÌ
DXVA_ENABLE_UVD_TILING.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
EnableCOPP
HWUVD_DisableH264
HWUVD_ForceH264
HWUVD_DisableVC1.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_ForceVC1.Ì
HWUVD_DisableMPEG2.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_ForceMPEG2.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_NumInputBuffers.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_BitstreamMemoryRegion.ÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_SideportOptimization.ÌÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_InvertEndianBitstream
CUVDSessionMPEG2
HWUVD_TossPoints.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ
HWUVD_Profiling.GetVS.ÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌ

Seeco

11-16-08, 06:56 AM

Hey guys, a swedish hd4870 user here intruding in your 2xxx thread, but it seems like there's a lot of knowledge here :)

I have recently installed the HD4870 in my HTPC, coming from a Nvidia 9600GT. The reason for this upgrade was to get rid of a plethora of stutter, refresh rate and color space issues with my former card, and to gain some gaming power as well. I have been reading about this regtweak in combination with the DVI->HDMI dongle, and figured that that would be the solution I needed.

I use my HTPC for movies, TV, pictures and gaming. I use the following codecs and software:

Mediaportal
Matroskasplitter
VMR9

Movies (x.264): ffdshow, AC3Filter, Reclock
Movies (xvid): ffdshow, AC3Filter, Reclock
TV: ATI Codec (hardware deint.), AC3Filter, Default Directsound Decoder

However, the dongle + regtweak fix hasn't really done it for me. Right now, what I'm seeing is this:
Movies (x.264 and xvid): Black crush (or at least a really dark picture), haven't been able to see banding
TV: Normal blacks, banding
Games: Crushed blacks and banding
Mediaportal interface: Banding in background pictures etc. (So I guess that means banding in windows)

My TV is a Pioneer 5080XA. It allows me to select between the 16-235 and 0-255 colour space. It also has an "auto" alternative, which is supposed to automatically determine the incoming colour space. I have had it set to 16-235 assuming that the dongle was transmitting this colour space. In CCC the TV is recognized as it should, nothing leads me to believe that it isn't recognized as a HDMI device.

Here's the weird part:
- If I watch a x.264 HD movie and switch from 16-235 to 0-255, a lot of detail pops out in the dark parts of the picture. It really gives more of the impression of how the picture is "supposed" to look. Same goes for xvid and games, although in games I still have banding in both modes.
- If I do the same when watching TV, I get grey blacks

And the really weird thing: If I set the TV:s colour space option to "auto", I get the same effect as when setting it to 0-255! Doesn't that mean that the TV really is receiving a 0-255 colour space? Wasn't the dongle supposed to fix this?

This leads me to believe that the HTPC is really sending out a 0-255 colour space. The x.264 material, being expanded to this colour space, isn't showed (reasonably) correctly until I set the TV to match it. TV is actually being sent out as 16-235, resulting in grey blacks and dull whites when I set the TV to 0-255. The thing is I remember reading somewhere that HW accelerated material is always expanded to 0-255?

This is just really a jungle to me, but I'm hoping I can get some help in this thread because a lot of people seem to be having the same problems with the 2xxx cards as well. I'm not giving up! :)

EDIT:
I tried re-applying the regtweak, and given that I haven't managed to change anything else now TV as well is showing black crush :) And just as with HD material and games, setting the TV to 0-255 brings out more detail. I still have pretty bad banding though, just as with games.

I also have an additional question: In CCC nowadays there is a setting which is called "pixel format". This can be set to a couple of things, among those are something roughly called "RGB limited range" and "RGB full range". Where do these settings fit in in all this? Do they determine what the dongle "does" (although I guess the dongle doesn't do anything by itself) or what?

arfster

11-16-08, 10:03 AM

This leads me to believe that the HTPC is really sending out a 0-255 colour space.

Test rather than guess :-)

screenshot some video or image, load into irfanview (free, minimal image viewer), click on a really dark or blazingly bright area. In the window header it'll tell you the RGB values. Check sd vs hd does the same thing, check images vs video.

Seeco

11-16-08, 10:08 AM

OK, but I guess that will only tell me if the expansion of SD material works as it should, right? What happens when the signal leaves the HTPC via the dongle is another thing I suppose.

el Filou

11-17-08, 10:22 AM

Seeco, just to provide feedback, I'm also seeing a lot of banding in MediaPortal backgrounds with my Radeon (it's a 1300 but the problems are the same as with the 2xxx-4xxx).
Actually I'm seeing banding everywhere and I'm pretty sure it's the Radeon's fault. Sadly I have no option to output studio levels as I don't have an ATI dongle and I'm not sure if a 1xxx would recognize one.
In my TV's manual there is a warning to "not connect a DVI PC to the HDMI port". While this works perfectly, I think the warning is about the picture quality and possible banding, maybe because the TV's digital processing chain is not designed to correctly process Full RGB input.
Once again, it would be perfect if I could choose the pixel format without needing the HDMI dongle. Damn ATI :mad:

John P

11-17-08, 03:46 PM

axeaxeaxe

11-17-08, 04:02 PM

almost there...
sorry if my post is double, searched the thread but couldn't find it

what's my problem: until this week i played 720p content on my samsung le40m87 from my laptop (through hdmi cable) with ati mobility radeon hd 2400 using gomplayer. i already gave up on full hd because my processor couldn't handle it.
until i found windows media player classic home cinema. with the DirectX Video Acceleration it played 1080p on my laptop (res. 1280x800). thrilled as i was, wanted to play it on my samsung, so i popped in the hdmi cable, but it wouldn't play all of a sudden. 720p would't play either, but using gomplayer it does. i don't understand. when i set the resolution of the tv to 1280x1024 it does play but there must be a way to play it in 1920x1084?
btw, when i play the 1080p on gomplayer it shows on my tv, but it's stuttering...

if there is more info needed, i'll be glad to post it! thx in advance!!!

Seeco

11-17-08, 04:22 PM

isaacfank

11-17-08, 06:34 PM

i need the bios for a visiontek 2600 pro. i reflashed mine and now it wont regognize it. but i cant find the bios on techpowerup. so if someone could get thiers off and email it to that that would great. just pm me if you got it.

Joe Hendrix

11-17-08, 06:38 PM

Also, every time I turn the TV off and start it again, the pixel format resets to "full range". Maybe this is also a part (or symptom) of the problem?

This kinda goes along with my problem of the driver resetting my video output to interlaced, even though I've told it numerous times that it should output progressive. How do you make your settings "stick"?

lousygolfer

11-17-08, 07:21 PM

I'm sure that this pretty basic question or issue has been discussed several times previously, but after spending an hour searching this 6000+ post thread, I could not find the answers so I am hoping someone can spend a minute and save me a lot of time. I also tried looking in my Diamond owners manual, but saw nothing and could not find anything on their website, plus I know from numerous previous attempts that Diamond does not respond to tech support questions.

I want to connect my 2600xt via HDMI cable to my home theater receiver and use that connection for both surround sound and, via the receiver's HDMI output, video. I have an ATI DVI-HDMI connector, but I'm not sure if I need to do anything else. So, my questions are:

1) Do I need to connect anything to the video card (say a cable from an SPDIF connector on my motherboard) to allow for the audio to passthrough the DVI-HDMI connector to my receiver, or does the audio signal pass through the PCI-E connection? If I do need a cable, what kind is it and from were do I obtain one?

2) I've seen some posts in the Catalyst 8.10 and 8.11 threads complaining that there is a problem passing through audio via HDMI to Denon and Yamaha and certain other home theater receivers, but those threads are talking about HD 3XXX and 4XXX cards. Is that also a problem with the 2600xt?

Here's my system:

- e2140 @ 2.6gHz
- Foxconn P9657AB-8EKRS2H LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
- 2gb pc5400 DDR2
- Diamond HD 2600xt 256mb GDDR3
- Antec NeoPower 380w PSU
- Silverstone LC16 case
- Win XP SP3
- Denon AVR 887 receiver in a 5.1 setup (won't ever expand to >5.1 b/c of features of the room)
- Hitachi P42H401 plasma HDTV

Thanks.

EDIT 11/18/08: I called ATI tech support and I'll answer my own questions and hopefully help out someone else:

1) No separate wiring or connector is necessary - the audio is passed through the PCI-Express connection. I'll need to go to Windows System--> Audio --> and convert to HD Audio, but will need to get the drivers from ATI's website http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=27794

2) The audio problem through HDMI connections to certain HT receivers is a firm/software issue and not a hardware issue, so it effects Radeon 2xxx series cards as well as the 3xxx and 4xxx series cards. It is not a problem with all Denon, Yamaha or Sony receivers, just particular ones and as of the present, there is no solution to that. The tech support guy knows that ATI's engineers are working on the problem and does not know if it will be solved in Catalyst 8.12 due in December or a following update, but does claim that ATI will fix the problem in the near future.

isaacfank

11-17-08, 09:19 PM

have you tried to do anything yet? cause you should start there and then ask if something goes wrong.

pod7381

11-17-08, 09:51 PM

Nimo

11-17-08, 10:22 PM

I found AGP drivers at the link below. I am successfully using the 8.10 version to play Blu-Ray's with my VisionTek 2600PRO AGP. I am running MCE 2005 using a Athlon XP 3200+ and PowerDVD 8 Ultra ver 2021U.

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625

Good find I'm super hesitant on installing these as my 8.4's seem to be working with both HD and BD. Only certain HD titles gives the display driver failed dialog.

Just tested these on my media box and it didn't like these one bit, first thing I noticed was the text wasn't sharp and the color shifted and it lost wtw and btb. So for me I'm still sticking with 8.4's and not going to bother with updating anymore these work the best for my set up. Since this box isn't connected to the net I had to burn the drivers to disc first and last time... I got to keep telling myself don't screw with it it's perfectly fine. But curiosity always killed the canary and I still break what's working perfect, human nature is a bee-otch sometimes and temptation is an evil venture... I didn't even bother to reinstall the 8.4's I just re imaged the drive it's actually quicker.;)

HT Slider

11-18-08, 12:28 AM

Hello All,
I can not realistically go thru all 206 pages of this thread, although I did search thru quite a few. I haven't come across the solution to my problem. If there is a solution!
Can someone tell me how to get 5.1 output via the ATI HDMI Dongle. All I get is 2-channel PCM. I have the HDMI connected directly to my LCD and a Digital Audio cable from LCD to Receiver(Yamaha).
Thank You

If there is an alternate method of getting Multi-Channel output to my Receiver, please let me know.

To the best of my knowledge, the 2X00 and 3X00 series cards only support 2-channel PCM, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 (noting that DTS and DD5.1 actually use a 2-channel PCM "path"). These cards do not have DTS Connect, nor Dolby Digital Live so the only way to get 5.1 channels is to start with a DTS or DD5.1 source.

You might be able to install some sort of software virtual sound driver that recieves 6-channel PCM and encodes it to Dolby Digital 5.1 prior to sending it to the 2600. I know software such as this existed for XP, but I personally was never able to get it to work very well (since then I have always purchased motherboards with either DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live and used the SPDIF connection; this is the best option IMO when 8-channel HDMI is not available).

EDIT: The name of the software I "tried" to get working many years ago is "AC3 Filter". I notice that there is now Vista support (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-CD-Rippers-Encoders/AC3-Filter-a-RC.shtml) and it is supposed to support real time encoding of 6-channel PCM into Dolby Digital 5.1. In theory (and as long as it supports the 2600) this should do the job for you.

If you were willing to upgrade, the 4X00 series cards support 8-channel PCM so (as long as your receiver supports this too) you would always get all of the audio channels working, regardless of the source.

jong1

11-18-08, 04:40 AM

AC3Filter works very well now. Also the NEW Reclock (from Slysoft) has a built in AC3 Encoder. Both can be configured to output AC3 at the maximum rate (640kb/s), so better than DVD quality (which is 384kb/s or 448kb/s), although not quite as good as HD audio of course.

h8redv2

11-18-08, 09:29 AM

pod7381

11-18-08, 09:12 PM

originalsnuffy

11-18-08, 11:22 PM

POD--I have an audigy, and it has a combined spdif optical and 2 channel output jack.

There are also external digital add on cards for some creative cards. I think you will have to google to see what options you have with your card. Creative cards can be hard to get working properly, their drivers are somewhat controversial. Sort of like ATI video cards, in my opinion. (I still cant' get my All in wonder to work as a tv card since they went to the universal av design). But I digress.

avsuser2

11-19-08, 11:54 AM

sorry I can't read the whole post.

I have a problem with a Powercolor ATI HD 2400 Pro 512mb and dvi output.

I bought a Samsung T220HD and i tried to use the DVI output with the DVI-I cable bundled with the samsung monitor.

Problems rise at 1680x1050 @ 60Hz resolution

Issues are: sudden loss of signal, green pixel on the screen blinking at random positions, loss of signal and corrupted pixel on the top-left of the monitor when I maximize a window (no multimedia players, i'm talking about "standard" windows, like firefox or explorer.exe itself)...

I tried different versions of catalyst (7.6, 7.11, 8.10, 8.11) always the same problem

I tried the "alternate dvi operational mode" and "reduce dvi frequency"

The monitor DVI input is ok, I did a test with a macbook and there were no problems

My OS is windows xp pro.

I tried both sp2 and sp3

I'm currently using the vga output without issues

Some details about my video card:

Graphic chipset: ati radeon HD 2400 PRO
Per. id: 94C3
Vendor: 1002

Subsystem ID: 2232
Subsystem vendor ID: 1787

Bus type: PCI Express
Current settings: PCI Express x16

Bios version: 010.060.000.000
Bios serial number: 113-AB1690x-xxx
Bios date: 2007/09/20

Memory size: 512MB
Memory type: HyperMemory

Main Clock: 525 MHz
Memory Clock: 400 MHz

Primary screen: NO
Anyone can help?

TIA

Sorry for my english

arfster

11-19-08, 02:01 PM

Issues are: sudden loss of signal, green pixel on the screen blinking at random positions, loss of signal and corrupted pixel on the top-left of the monitor when I maximize a window (no multimedia players, i'm talking about "standard" windows, like firefox or explorer.exe itself)...

It's overheating, a lot of the 2400pro cards had that problem.

If you have a large desktop fan, try opening the side of the case and blasting it with cool air. If you suddenly have no crashes, you've IDed the problem.

Personally I'd just send it back. The 2400pro was never a good product.

avsuser2

11-20-08, 06:38 AM

It's overheating, a lot of the 2400pro cards had that problem.

If you have a large desktop fan, try opening the side of the case and blasting it with cool air. If you suddenly have no crashes, you've IDed the problem.

Personally I'd just send it back. The 2400pro was never a good product.

Thank you very much.

I will make this test asap.

Moreover, that video card has passive cooling. (PowerColor calls it SCS)

Another little question (off topic): I have also a powercolor hd3650 SCS3 (~52° celsius in idle, ~70° full charge, in summer time). I haven't a DVI monitor so everything works fine. This video card has the same overheating issue of 2400?

Thank you again, I will make you know if it's overheating.

Dr.2K

11-21-08, 11:23 PM

Quick question please, can I get 5.1 and 7.1 HD audio with my 2600pro with the latest catalyst and HDMI drivers or do I have to physically upgrade to the new 4XXX ati cards?
I have DVI to HDMI adapter going to my onkyo 806 receiver and then out to my sony W4100 LCD TV.

originalsnuffy

11-22-08, 06:31 PM

Dr. 2K

The HDMI only carries 2 channel of audio to the best of my knowledge.

HT Slider

11-22-08, 08:16 PM

Thanks folks for your replies,
My Dell Computer does not have SPDIF on the MoBO. My Creative Live Value Sound card that came with the Dell also doesn't have a Digital Out Jack. The Sound Card does have an SPDIF EXT. connector on the board(for an external SPDIF Device) but I have no idea what it is used for or how to use it.
If anyone can shed some light on this, I would really appreciate it. If this SPDIF connector is of no use, I guess I will try one of the software solutions mentioned here.
Thanks Again.

SPDIF with your sound card and the HDMI audio on your video card have the same capabilities (both support 2-channel PCM, encoded DTS 5.1 or encoded Dolby Digital 5.1). If you have an HDMI receiver working with your video card, there is no reason to consider purchasing the SPDIF kit for your sound card.

Since you do not have DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live (with any of your current audio outputs), you do not have HARDWARE that can CREATE DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 out of multi-channel PCM audio tracks. For this you can give AC3filter a try.

Having said that, if the source you are playing DOES have DTS 5.1 or DD5.1 audio tracks, as long as the OS and software are configured correctly, these audio tracks can be output through either SPDIF or your HDMI 2-channel. DVD movies for example always have at least one of these so you will get 6-channel audio. When watching a Bluray or HD-DVD movie, before you start watching it - every time - you need to manually select a DD5.1 or DTS audio track (if the movie has one of these) instead of using a default 8-channel track. Most HD-DVD and Bluray movies do have DD5.1 or DTS, but not all do (if they don't you'll have to revert back to a trying AC3filter; you also need 8-channel capable Bluray/HD-DVD playback software to make this work).

The 4X00 series video cards support 8-channel PCM over HDMI so as long as you have a receiver that also supports this, the ultimate audio/video solution would be to pick up one of these video cards.

Personally I am pleased with the audio quality that my motherboard's DTS Connect and SPDIF provide. I don't get 8-channels, but the audio quality is still very good with 6-channels. What I like about this setup (DTS Connect specifically) is no matter what I am watching, I always get high quality 6-channel audio, even with Bluray movies that don't have DD5.1 or DTS audio tracks. I also do not need to manually select a DTS or DD5.1 audio track when watching a Bluray or HD-DVD movie. On top of this, when playing a video game I also get 6-channels of audio. Without DTS Connect, I would either be looking for a new sound card or a complete HDMI 8-channel solution (my receiver does not have HDMI).

jong1

11-23-08, 03:00 AM

Since you do not have DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live (with any of your current audio outputs), you do not have HARDWARE that can CREATE DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 out of multi-channel PCM audio tracks. For this you can give AC3filter a try.AC3Filter will not work with PowerDVD, not sure about TMT. PowerDVD8 can be set to perform AC3 or DTS "Downmixing" on all HD audio. You need to select it from the audio tab of the configuration menu WHEN AN HD AUDIO SOURCE IS PLAYING (i.e when playing a Blu-ray with HD audio). This option does not work with PowerDVD7.

Reclock can be made to work with PowerDVD and can encode all 6-channel sources to AC3 @full bitrate. Make sure you select "6-channel" output though, not more, or Reclock will not/can not encode it.

Goon_Squad

11-23-08, 08:09 AM

arfster: So I downloaded IrfanView and took screenshots of HD material, SD material and desktop. Just as I thought they all show a 0-255 range, which means that the regtweak has done its job. It also goes along with my impression that my HTPC is putting out pc levels despite the use of the dongle. When I set the TV to 16-235 I get black crush, which goes along with the clipping of pc levels into video levels. When I set the TV to 0-255 I see more detail but get alot of banding, which goes along with expanding video levels to pc levels.

The question is my on earth my dongle won't do what it's supposed to - it came with the card (HD4870). As for the pixel format setting - I have not yet been able to tell a difference between the different settings of it, which leads me to believe that it's really not doing anything for me. Maybe that is linked to the dongle problem. Also, every time I turn the TV off and start it again, the pixel format resets to "full range". Maybe this is also a part (or symptom) of the problem?

Seeco - interesting points you raise there. Almost identical to myself actually. My situation is ATI 3550, dongle supplied with the card, and Pioneer 508XDA. And I've taken the same screenshots, irfanview check, and found exactly the same thing - levels are 0-255.

When you are setting the range on the screen though, are you selecting RGB 0-225 (or RGB 16-235) or the Ycrcb 4:4:4 setting? Or some other setting? My understanding is that the ATI cards with dongle will only output Ycrcb, and this is confirmed (in my case anyway) by selecting the RGB options result in colours going haywire.

So are you outputting RGB or Ycrcb?

Cheers,
Goon

Seeco

11-23-08, 05:28 PM

HT Slider

11-23-08, 10:41 PM

AC3Filter will not work with PowerDVD, not sure about TMT. PowerDVD8 can be set to perform AC3 or DTS "Downmixing" on all HD audio. You need to select it from the audio tab of the configuration menu WHEN AN HD AUDIO SOURCE IS PLAYING (i.e when playing a Blu-ray with HD audio). This option does not work with PowerDVD7.

Reclock can be made to work with PowerDVD and can encode all 6-channel sources to AC3 @full bitrate. Make sure you select "6-channel" output though, not more, or Reclock will not/can not encode it.

I thought you said AC3Filter worked well now for Dolby Digital Live....

If AC3Filter can't be selected as the default audio device, accepting 6-channel PCM, encoding it to DD5.1 and then output this to the actual digital audio device, then what does it work with? Can you use it with video games, Media Center, etc. or does it only work with specialized audio software?

I use PowerDVD 7 and and as you said, it's downmixing capability never worked properly (always creating horrible audio quality). Hardware DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live does work very well with PowerDVD 7 though.

HT Slider

11-24-08, 12:37 AM

Goon_squad: I only have two ways of telling which color space I'm outputting, and none of them is really certain. The first is to see what my TV is defaulting to when I use the "auto" mode. With the 8.10 drivers it defaulted to the "YBR 4:4:4" mode. I'm not sure what that means regarding to color space, but everything looked the way it would if I would have output a 0-255 color space - no black crush in 0-255 material (that is, everything) but a lot of banding. With catalyst 8.11 the TV is defaulting to mode 4, which is "RGB Full range" (0-255). I have banding everywhere. Setting it to "RGB 16-235" produces black crush. Choosing either option 1 or 2 in the TV ("YBR 4:2:2" or "YBR 4:4:4") with catalyst 8.11 produces a whacky picture, like a sharp greenish-yellowish filter over everything.

I guess that if "YBR" in the TV means YCrCb, then with the 8.10 drivers the card was outputting YCrCb and with catalyst 8.11 it's outputting RGB. With regards to color space the story seems to be the same with both driver versions - the picture looks the same with 8.10 and "YBR 4:4:4" as it does with 8.11 and "RGB Full". Full detail but a lot of banding.

And again, for me the pixel format setting in catalyst 8.11 has no effect at all - nothing happens to the picture when I change it.

What I really can't wrap my head around is that I have banding everywhere. If I get black crush in video when I set the TV to 16-235, then the video must be output as 0-255 right? And because of expansion of the original 16-235 video material, this produces banding. So far I'm following things. But why on earth would I get banding in games under the same circumstances? Games aren't expanded from 16-235 to 0-255. If I indeed have 0-255 output, why would there be banding in games? As far as I can see games should be one of the few things that would benefit from this whole mess :)

Although I can't explain exactly what is going on, hopefully I can provide some information that might help:

(if anyone more familiar with the video pipeline sees an error in what I have written below, please speak up)

The ATI HDMI dongle and CCC "pixel format" settings only effect the very final output from the video card. They do not have anything to do with screen capture grey levels.
Since in the "PC world" 0 is the standard reference black and 255 is the standard reference white, it is "standard" (default) for video decoders to perform an expansion transform while decoding video. This expansion takes the video data, with an original reference black of 16 and an original reference white of ~235 (16-235 visible range) and expands it into a 0-255 range.
The exception to this is ATI's SD colorspace bug where you need to add the "UseBT601CSC=1" registry setting to properly expand SD video.
It is important to recognize that ATI "expects" everything to be in a 0-255 range when sent to the renderer. The terminology they use for "pixel format" is not correct if the decoder did not expand the video into 0-255 (this is explained further below).
Although this is not the default, you can turn off decoder grey level expansion with most software decoders if you prefer. With anything that uses the AVIVO hardware to decode, you can turn off expansion by setting AVIVO brightness/contrast to 16/86.
When YCbCr or "limited range RGB" is selected as the "pixel format", grey levels are compressed so what was in a 0-255 range is transformed into the 16-235 range. Note that the video card doesn't actually know if the decoded video it is trying to display was expanded or not and it always performs this compression if one of these is selected.
When "full range RGB" is selected, grey levels are output as is. In other words, if you do a screen capture and look at the levels in the image, it is those levels that are being sent to your HDTV. Again, the video card does not know if the decoded video was expanded or not, so non-expanded video would be output with a 16-235 range, even though "full range" is selected.
YCbCr 4:4:4 and YCbCr 4:2:2 use exactly the same colorspace and grey levels. The only difference is 4:2:2 only provides color data for every second pixel to reduce bandwidth. 4:4:4 provides color data for every pixel.
In the "TV/video/etc. world", while 16 is the reference black and 235 is the reference white there is still a 0-255 data range communicated. 1-15 is considered blacker than black (BTB) and 236-255 is considered whiter than white (WTW). When a PC expands video from the 16-235 visible range into 0-255, BTB and WTW is lost forever. With a properly calibrated system this doesn't really matter, but this does mean that calibration sources that rely on BTB and WTW will not work if it is lost.

I have no idea why using YCbCr seems to cause strange tint issues on your system. In fact HDTV's with HDMI ports on them normally prefer YCbCr.

If everything was working as expected and you want everything (including video games, PC applications, photographs, TV and movies) to display correctly, you "should" find the following works properly:

Hook up your HDTV using the ATI HDMI dongle.
Set the "pixel format" to "YCbCr 4:4:4" (I would have expected this to be the default).
Add the "UseBT601CSC=1" registry entry.
Leave all of the CCC brightness/contrast settings at default and leave all video decoders set to expand video levels (default).
Download a Bluray calibration source, burn it to DVD, and use it to calibrate your HDTV. It should be "relatively" close with default settings. If not I would try different settings at the HDTV first (unless there is a known bug with YCbCr colorspace and Catalyst 8.11 - I haven't heard of one though).

In theory you should not notice a significant difference between selecting "YCbCr 4:4:4", "YCbCr 4:2:2", or "limited range RGB" (as long as your HDTV is expecting video level RGB, not "full range RGB").

If you want to maintain BTB and WTW at the sacrifice to experiencing incorrect grey levels for photographs, video games and PC applications, you could instead select "full range RGB", turn off all decoder grey level expansion, and keep your HDTV set to expect video level RGB (or "limited range RGB" if it uses that terminology).

HT Slider

11-24-08, 12:49 AM

ATI responded to my long standing grey level support ticket (actually they keep closing them over and over), where "uncompressed" grey levels (RGB 0-255) are sent to my HDTV, yet since it is an HDTV it needs "limited range RGB" (RGB 16-235), stating that this will be manually selectable in the very near future.

It turns out that 8.11 did add this feature (as discussed here).

I have to say I am amazed at how ATI can keep getting this wrong though. All along, for the past 4+ years, the problem was when an HDTV with a DVI port was driven by an ATI card. HDTVs with HDMI ports were always correctly driven with YCbCr.

So what did ATI do???

They added this "great new feature" that was supposed to finally resolve this issue, but they only enable it when an HDTV with an HDMI port is being used.

When an HDTV or projector with a DVI port is used, all ATI cards STILL ALWAYS output RGB 0-255. There is STILL no way to control this and this problem STILL exists (since 2003...).

I wonder if I can somehow make use of it through a registry setting though.

Could someone save a snapshot of their ATI video registry entries with your system set to limited range RGB and again set to full range RGB?

I expect the registry entries will be found in the 0000 area, not in the DXVA section.

jong1

11-24-08, 02:58 AM

I thought you said AC3Filter worked well now for Dolby Digital Live....

If AC3Filter can't be selected as the default audio device, accepting 6-channel PCM, encoding it to DD5.1 and then output this to the actual digital audio device, then what does it work with? Can you use it with video games, Media Center, etc. or does it only work with specialized audio software?

I use PowerDVD 7 and and as you said, it's downmixing capability never worked properly (always creating horrible audio quality). Hardware DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live does work very well with PowerDVD 7 though.Sorry, I didn't explain well, it does work well when it loads, but not all apps will load it. Specifically PowerDVD will not. It is not a "works for everything" solution like DDL/DTS-C built into a motherboard.

It does do a very good job with "Directshow Players" though, like TheaterTek, MPC-HC .....

Much as I am reluctant to recommend PDVD8 at all, let alone just to fix the downmixing bug in PDVD7, for someone new to this, DTS/AC3 Downmixing does work well in PDVD8.

Seeco

11-24-08, 05:08 AM

HTSlider: Yes, you're right in everything you say! :) A few comments though:

# YCbCr 4:4:4 and YCbCr 4:2:2 use exactly the same colorspace and grey levels. The only difference is 4:2:2 only provides color data for every second pixel to reduce bandwidth. 4:4:4 provides color data for every pixel.

So does that mean that YcbCr 4:4:4 is supposed to be output as 16-235? Because with Catalyst 8.10 my TV defaulted to "YBR 4:4:4" (probably equivalent to YCbCr 4:4:4 right?) when set to "auto". Judging from that there must be some difference in default output between 8.10 and 8.11. Despite this though, everything looked the same as it does with Catalyst 8.11 defaulting to "Full RGB" and "RGB Full" selected in the TV.

The problem with the pixel format settings persists though, when I go back and forth between all of the different settings I can tell absolutely no difference in the picture. I have the standard Windows XP background, and it's pretty easy to tell if there is a difference from looking at the dark parts of it. I know what black crush looks like (I see black crush when the TV is set to 16-235) and it doesn't go away when I change the pixel format to RGB Limited nor when I change it to YCbCR 4:4:4 nor 4:2:2. There is absolutely nothing happening for me with this setting :) And as I think I've said before, this is a newly installed and pretty highly controlled PC.

I'm just hoping that ATI makes all these options totally free, not depending on EDID, dongles or anything. Something that may never happen. The only thing I can think of now is that there is some glitch for me in the communication between the TV:s EDID and the graphics card.

Does anyone have any comments on my banding issue? That is one of the stranger things with this whole deal. I can accept the fact that:

1. When I Enable the 0-255 (Full RGB) setting in the TV a lot of low level detail is revealed and I seem to get rid of black crush. I still get a lot of banding. As far as I can see this goes along with the idea of my graphics card outputting 0-255.

but what about the fact that:

2. Under these circumstances I have an equal amount of banding in games, which should be 0-255 to begin with and thus should benefit from the graphics card outputting 0-255 and the TV being set to the same.

jong1

11-24-08, 05:44 AM

Could someone save a snapshot of their ATI video registry entries with your system set to limited range RGB and again set to full range RGB?

I expect the registry entries will be found in the 0000 area, not in the DXVA section.I did a file compare on the appropriate GUID for each of the pixel formats and only two entries change. Here they are:

YCbCr 4:4:4
-----------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:30,00

YCbCr 4:2:2
-----------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:31,00

RGB Limited
-----------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:30,00

RGB Full
--------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:31,00

In the first binary value only one byte changes - half way along the third line:

01 for RGB full
02 for YCbCr 4:4:4
04 for YCbCr 4:2:2
08 for RGB limited

Looking at the registry entries I did spot something else that might be useful. Sorry if it has been spotted and discussed before. It is an entry in "0000" and "0001". It is a DWORD entry "DFP_AddHDTVPixelFormats" with a value of "2" in all cases above on my system.

Beware though, on my system these new pixel formats are anything but perfect! I posted my experiences here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15107510&postcount=86)

Goon_Squad

11-24-08, 08:05 AM

Actually, for others to try, here is a .reg file that will insert the necessary "UseBT601CSC=1" setting. Copy and past it into Notepad and then save it as something.reg (perhaps "Process SD video properly.reg"):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4 D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\UMD\DXVA]
"UseBT601CSC"="1"

Just checked my own machine, and the regkey is spot on. However for some reason the forum has a space displayed between the 4 and the D in the key, so a straight copy/paste doesn't work, I needed to remove the space.

The attached reg file worked a treat for me...

rahzel

11-24-08, 11:36 AM

I have an HD3200 780G motherboard, and pre-8.11, it would always default and run at YCbCr422, but since they introduced this "pixel format" setting in 8.11, if I set it to YCbCr422, it always reverts back to RGB 444 after reboot. I'd prefer to use YCbCr422 as this is a HTPC and video quality is my number 1 concern.

Anyone else have this problem?

jong1

11-24-08, 11:55 AM

Joe Hendrix

11-24-08, 02:20 PM

Looking for a shortcut now. I've decided to go ahead and keep using the 8.4 drivers, since they seem to be the only ones that I have found to properly handle SD video without judder. But... on occasion when my PC comes out of sleep, my video will do a little red to black dance and flip back and forth between 720p and 1080i and then finally settle on 1080i (the wrong setting). When this happens, the shortest path to fix this right now is to close VMC, right click on the background, select Personalize, and drag the resolution back to 1280x720, and hit OK.

Is there any way to write some sort of macro in order to make this a one step process? It seems to go wacky on me about once or twice a week, and I'd like to minimize the steps to manually fix this. I would love to be able to fix this quirk from within CCC, but I'm assuming there isn't any way in CCC to make my video display settings stick.

rahzel

11-24-08, 04:17 PM

Yes. See my link above.
All of my settings seem to work as advertised. Everything displays as my PS3 does (full, limited, YCbCr etc.)

So you're saying you cannot use YCbCr with the USEBT601CSC entry in the registry? Is it ok if I delete it?

Goon_Squad

11-24-08, 04:40 PM

The problem with the pixel format settings persists though, when I go back and forth between all of the different settings I can tell absolutely no difference in the picture. I have the standard Windows XP background, and it's pretty easy to tell if there is a difference from looking at the dark parts of it. I know what black crush looks like (I see black crush when the TV is set to 16-235) and it doesn't go away when I change the pixel format to RGB Limited nor when I change it to YCbCR 4:4:4 nor 4:2:2. There is absolutely nothing happening for me with this setting :) And as I think I've said before, this is a newly installed and pretty highly controlled PC.

I seem to be getting a mix of all the issues going on here. But I'm also suspicious that I'm not calibrating things correctly! I'm seeing the same black levels when set to RGB full range and YCbCr 4:2:2. This is judging with the THX logo, shadows fully visible. When I set to RGB limited range, it appear to be properly calibrated (ie. shadows disappear). Is this correct?

If I try to calibrate YCbCr 4:2:2 to a black level of 16, I need to drop the contrast a stupid amount, down to -22. And I also can't get YCbCr 4:4:4 to work at all, I get RGB output instead, matched to RGB full range output.

And I'm also getting the same issues raised by Jong1 and Rahzel, in that settings aren't being retained. CCC reverts back to RGB full range on re-boot.

Seems like Seeco and myself have dongle issues, despite these being original and supplied with the card (mine being a sapphire 3550) - is it possible to be getting YCbCr (either flavour) output 0-255 as I appear to be getting?

And if I'm getting YCbCr output at 0-255 should I be calibrating to a black level at 0 to make it work properly?

jong1

11-24-08, 05:29 PM

All of my settings seem to work as advertised. Everything displays as my PS3 does (full, limited, YCbCr etc.)

So you're saying you cannot use YCbCr with the USEBT601CSC entry in the registry? Is it ok if I delete it?Of course you can. It is not there unless you tweak it. But I strongly suspect, as always was the case pre-8.11, if you do the levels will all be screwed up for SD media like DVDs. At least that is what I see here.

rahzel

11-24-08, 07:41 PM

I calibrated my TV using a PS3 outputting YCbCr. I reverted back to 8.10 and SD appears to be fine. It's outputting to YCbCr422, DVD brightness seems normal, and I can pass BTB/WTW. YCbCr422 in 8.11 seemed fine too, my problem was that it wouldn't stick and always defaulted back to RGB444 Full if I restarted the computer. I'll try deleting that entry and see if it sticks.

edit: on second thought, I don't think it's worth the work as I saw no noticeable improvements over 8.10. I'll just wait for the next release.

HT Slider

11-24-08, 08:03 PM

Looking at the registry entries I did spot something else that might be useful. Sorry if it has been spotted and discussed before. It is an entry in "0000" and "0001". It is a DWORD entry "DFP_AddHDTVPixelFormats" with a value of "2" in all cases above on my system.

Thanks for the registry values. I'll experiment in the next few days.

Beware though, on my system these new pixel formats are anything but perfect! I posted my experiences here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15107510&postcount=86)

Your experience sounds the same as Seeco's (the YCbCr settings are messed up).

Does limited range RGB work on your system though (with the UseBT601CSC=1 setting)?

My HDTV expects RGB with BT.709 levels (16-235) so if I can find a way to use this (limited RGB for the pixel format), along with UseBT601CSC=1, I should be good to go.

HT Slider

11-25-08, 12:37 AM

...is it possible to be getting YCbCr (either flavour) output 0-255 as I appear to be getting?

I suspect, based on what I've read here, that ATI can output YCbCr with a 0-255 range when 4:4:4 is selected. More specifically, when YCbCr 4:4:4 is selected, it looks like no grey level transform is applied at final output (the levels are output unaltered, at whatever level the decoder in use produces).

In the "video world", YCbCr always has a limited range as far as reference black and white, but in the DirectShow PC world (to my surprise), YCbCr normally (default settings) uses a 0-255 range.

The reason I say this is I recently did some experiments with graphedit, connecting to remote graphs, modifying the graphs, and ultimately examining the levels used for NV12, YUY2, UYVY, and RGB. To my surprise, what I found was that ALL formats use a 0-255 range, when using default decoder settings. I also learnt that NV12 is actually YCbCr 4:2:0 (12 bpp/bits per pixel), AYUV is actually YCbCr 4:4:4 with alpha/transparency (32 bpp) YUY2 is actually YCbCr 4:2:2 (16 bpp), UYVY is actually YCbCr 4:2:2 (16 bpp) with a different ordering and RGB is 8-bits per color (24 bpp). I knew some of this, but I didn't realize that NV12 is a YCbCr 4:2:0 fourcc dataset.

I then disabled grey level expansion for the decoders in use and now ALL formats used a 16-235 range.

I suspect these apparent screw ups as far as "pixel format" and YCbCr 4:4:4 are related to Microsoft's recent pressure on ATI and Nvidia to properly support video, enabling Media Center to produce spec compliant video output. My (limited) understanding is Microsoft has requested that the hardware decoder (DXVA2) supports software selectable grey level transforms and that the final output transforms can also be controlled. They specifically want Media Center to be able to tell AVIVO not to expand BT.709 and pass the unaltered YCbCr directly to the renderer and this functionality was added to the TV Pack as well as Windows 7.

Is it possible that when YCbCr 4:4:4 is selected that it is only YCbCr (YUV, NV12, YUV2, etc.) that is passed through without grey level conversion? Perhaps they still do a 0-255 to 16-235 transform with other renderer inputs so video games, photographs and PC applications, etc. display correctly? If so, this would be the ultimate setup for us. We could turn off expansion in all of our decoders and now everything (including PC applications) display correctly, plus BTB and WTW would also be retained in video.

EDIT: I just read jong1's post in the other thread. ATI didn't do what I was hoping above. All the YCbCr 4:4:4 setting does is turn off the compression transform (0-255 -> 16-235) for everything.

A little off topic, one thing I wondered when I was experimenting with DirectShow is why didn't Microsoft specify the reference black and white levels as a part of the format. For example, I would have thought that DirectShow's YUV should ALWAYS comply with BT.709 levels for HD and BT.601 levels for SD. This way, when the renderer receives YUV data, it would know that it should be expanded if an sRGB display was used (PC monitor) and it should be passed through unaltered if a modern HDTV was used. Similarly if RGB always used sRGB levels (0-255), then again the renderer would know exactly what to do to display it correctly on any display. Unfortunately Microsoft didn't do anything to control colorspace or reference levels when DirectShow was developed.

One bit of good news is colorspace and reference levels apparently are controlled and specified with DirectShow's replacement, Media Foundation. Media Foundation is not really implemented much with Vista but with Windows 7 my understanding is video software will really start using Media Foundation (and hopefully all of these grey level issues will go away and WTW/BTB will be retained).

And if I'm getting YCbCr output at 0-255 should I be calibrating to a black level at 0 to make it work properly?

Personally I don't see any advantage to calibrate an HDTV to 0-255 if it is primarily used for video (unless there was some advanced video filtering in use that could take advantage of the 60% more colors that 0-255 provides vs 16-235).

You might see what happens if you disable expansion at the decoder step and select YCbCr 4:4:4 (if it will stay there after a reboot...). This should produce very good video quality and retain WTW/BTB, but I don't know what it will do as far as PC applications and photographs that actually need their 0-255 range converted to 16-235 so it displays correctly on your HDTV.

jong1

11-25-08, 04:14 AM

Does limited range RGB work on your system though (with the UseBT601CSC=1 setting)?

My HDTV expects RGB with BT.709 levels (16-235) so if I can find a way to use this (limited RGB for the pixel format), along with UseBT601CSC=1, I should be good to go.Yes, that is what I am using now - limited range RGB with UseBT601CSC=1.

Goon_Squad

11-25-08, 07:06 AM

I suspect, based on what I've read here, that ATI can output YCbCr with a 0-255 range when 4:4:4 is selected. More specifically, when YCbCr 4:4:4 is selected, it looks like no grey level transform is applied at final output (the levels are output unaltered, at whatever level the decoder in use produces).snip...

Thanks for the detailed info - much appreciated and gives me a good direction as to where these black levels are/should be at. Damn these buggy drivers though, seems like they have decided to put out the adjusted pixel format option without any kind of decent testing... nothing new I spose.

Currently I've dropped back to RGB limited range as i get much better levels, and the Pio can choose between limited and full range RGB. Colours are oversaturated though using RGB, not sure if this is a common issue?

pod7381

11-26-08, 06:32 PM

SPDIF with your sound card and the HDMI audio on your video card have the same capabilities (both support 2-channel PCM, encoded DTS 5.1 or encoded Dolby Digital 5.1). If you have an HDMI receiver working with your video card, there is no reason to consider purchasing the SPDIF kit for your sound card.

Since you do not have DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live (with any of your current audio outputs), you do not have HARDWARE that can CREATE DTS 5.1 or Dolby Digital 5.1 out of multi-channel PCM audio tracks. For this you can give AC3filter a try.

Having said that, if the source you are playing DOES have DTS 5.1 or DD5.1 audio tracks, as long as the OS and software are configured correctly, these audio tracks can be output through either SPDIF or your HDMI 2-channel. DVD movies for example always have at least one of these so you will get 6-channel audio. When watching a Bluray or HD-DVD movie, before you start watching it - every time - you need to manually select a DD5.1 or DTS audio track (if the movie has one of these) instead of using a default 8-channel track. Most HD-DVD and Bluray movies do have DD5.1 or DTS, but not all do (if they don't you'll have to revert back to a trying AC3filter; you also need 8-channel capable Bluray/HD-DVD playback software to make this work).

The 4X00 series video cards support 8-channel PCM over HDMI so as long as you have a receiver that also supports this, the ultimate audio/video solution would be to pick up one of these video cards.

Personally I am pleased with the audio quality that my motherboard's DTS Connect and SPDIF provide. I don't get 8-channels, but the audio quality is still very good with 6-channels. What I like about this setup (DTS Connect specifically) is no matter what I am watching, I always get high quality 6-channel audio, even with Bluray movies that don't have DD5.1 or DTS audio tracks. I also do not need to manually select a DTS or DD5.1 audio track when watching a Bluray or HD-DVD movie. On top of this, when playing a video game I also get 6-channels of audio. Without DTS Connect, I would either be looking for a new sound card or a complete HDMI 8-channel solution (my receiver does not have HDMI).
Thank You HT,
I appreciate your response.

Please forgive the following dumb question as I am not very knowledgable in these matters. You said in your response that if the source you are playing DOES have DTS 5.1 or DD5.1 audio tracks, and as long as the OS and software are configured correctly, these audio tracks can be output through my HDMI 2-channel as 6-channel. However, on my Yamaha 1400 Receiver only 2-channels of PCM input are shown on the display and no sound is coming from my rear speakers. Of course , I can have the Yamaha "Matrix "a Surround field, but the actual input into the Receiver is still only 2-Channel. How do I get the 6-channel input to the Receiver thru the 2-channel PCM as you described in your reply?

In PowerDVD 8- Audio Tab/enabled use HDMI (if I select ac3...passthru in the second options box it reverts to PCM)
Vista-Sound/enabled Digital Output Device(HDMI) I don't think this is necessary as long as "use HDMI" is selected in PDVD8.
In DVD menu- select DD5.1 or DTS 5.1 sound track.
Again, even with this setup, the Receiver is only being inputed 2-channel PCM.
I hope this all makes some sense.

HT Slider

11-29-08, 02:39 PM

In PowerDVD 8- Audio Tab/enabled use HDMI (if I select ac3...passthru in the second options box it reverts to PCM)
Vista-Sound/enabled Digital Output Device(HDMI) I don't think this is necessary as long as "use HDMI" is selected in PDVD8.
In DVD menu- select DD5.1 or DTS 5.1 sound track.
Again, even with this setup, the Receiver is only being inputed 2-channel PCM.
I hope this all makes some sense.

There may be a limitation or bug in PowerDVD 8, but with other software, as long as Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS formats are enabled in the properties/supported formats for the Vista Playback Devices, it will pass through DD5.1 and DTS over HDMI. Do you have these enabled?

You can actually test the ability for the OS to handle this by performing a test playback. To do this, get into the properties for the HDMI playback device, select supported formats, then select Dolby Digital and click "Test". Do the same for DTS to both test and enable it.

Now the OS will tell audio applications that the digital HDMI device supports both 2-channel PCM as well as DD5.1 and DTS passthrough.

Although PowerDVD doesn't seem to support Vista's audio system properly, with my HTPCs, if I select "SPDIF" and "no processing" in the audio configuration, it would output DD5.1 and DTS over SPDIF. Having said that, last night all of a sudden (after not watching any Bluray/HD-DVD movies for over a month), SPDIF output stopped working. I haven't figured out the problem yet (perhaps a Vista update?), but right now if I select SPDIF inside PowerDVD, PowerDVD locks up as soon as a Bluray movie with a DD5.1 soundtrack starts to play. I have to kill PowerDVD using the task manager. If I select 6-channel instead, my system's DTS Connect encodes this to DTS and it is then output over SPDIF. The HDMI devices don't have DTS connect so your only option is to get DD5.1 or DTS passthrough working.

BTW, I am running PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra and I updated from 4102 to 4407 to 4617 last night and with each version PowerDVD locks up now when I select SPDIF and try to pass through a DD5.1 soundtrack. Previously it worked perfectly with at least 30+ movies.

pod7381

11-30-08, 12:09 AM

rahzel

11-30-08, 05:42 PM

I switched back to 8.11 and even though I don't have the UseBT601 entry in the registry, the pixel format setting still won't stick on YCbCr 422 after reboot. It does, however, stick on RGB 444 Limited.

Something else I noticed is that if I set the pixel format and my TV both to Limited, videos look darker than than they do when both are set to Full (and/or its set to YCbCr 422), however the desktop looks the same (which it should). Something seems odd about the Limited setting when playing videos for me (HD videos). So for now, I guess I have to set it to Full with my TV set to accept Full as well (HDMI Black Level Normal on my Samsung A650 LCD) until ATI fixes this.

HT Slider

11-30-08, 11:42 PM

Hello HT,

In Vista's HDMI output device/properties, the DD5.1 and DTS boxes are both checked under supported formats.

However, when I select the "configure" box under the HDMI Output device, it only shows Stereo as being an available audio channel with 2 speakers showing in the test diagram. No option for 5.1 or 7.1.

I don't know if thats the cause of the problem because I believe PDVD8's configuration takes priority over the OS's configuration. I just thought I'd mention it.

So, at this point, I guess I'll just have to settle for Matrixed surround sound from my Receiver.

If you come up with any other ideas, please let me know and Good Luck with solving your SPDIF output problem.

It sounds like there are bugs in your HDMI audio driver.

When you enable DTS and DD5.1 as supported formats, this is expected to enable the output of unaltered DTS and DD5.1 in a "pass through mode".

The other settings, including "configure" and "advanced" properties control the PCM capabilities (discrete, uncompressed, digital audio channels).

When you select HDMI in PowerDVD, it should understand that DTS and DD5.1 can be output directly and automatically do this when playing DTS and DD5.1 audio tracks (as well as support 2-channel PCM for other audio tracks at whatever rate you select in advanced properties - 16/48 max for Bluray/HDDVD due to AACS rules).

I suggest you try a different HDMI audio driver and see if it works. ATI cards use Realtek audio drivers. You might try version 2.09 and see if it fixes the issue. Have a look here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3

Version 2.00 definitely has issues supporting DTS and DD5.1 pass-through (that was my SPDIF issue) and it could be that the version you are running does also. I installed 2.09 and PowerDVD 7.3 is now outputting DTS and DD5.1 perfectly (unaltered) over SPDIF.

HT Slider

11-30-08, 11:50 PM

On the topic of Catalyst driver version 8.11, last night my wife and I tried to watch a Bluray movie and the video driver kept crashing and "recovering"; eventually leading to complete system BSODs.

This system has always been absolutely 100% stable so I was amazed to suddenly see video crashes and BSODs.

Today I played with a few CCC settings, installed the latest Realtek audio driver, version 2.09 (and this resolved the SPDIF passthrough issues completely), but couldn't get the video driver to remain stable when playing certain segments of various Bluray movies. Eventually I gave up on Catalyst 8.11 and reinstalled Catalyst 8.10.

Now there are no more video driver crashes and the system/PowerDVD is rock solid again.

This is the first time I have had to resort to an older driver to make the system work properly...

djos

12-01-08, 12:16 AM

8.11 causes me major issues on my 2600pro, In desktop mode I had issues with losing vertical stability and parts of the screen erupting into horizontal black lines whenever I tried to open a windows explorer session etc.

Since going back to 8.10 iv'e had issues with video stutter on all video so I think I need to try removing all ATI video stuff and doing a clean install.

I have a Gigabyte HD 4550 fanless with native HDMI coming next week but I might do it before then as it's really annoying!!

pvrnorth

12-01-08, 02:16 PM

genro

12-01-08, 02:24 PM

Just to add to the 8.11 misery...

I tried upgrading to 8.11 from 8.7, and tried playing a BLURAY movie with Powerdvd, and got lock ups and resets. I dropped back to 8.7 (not knowing where this started), and things were fine again.

I'm using a 2600XT.

Unfortunately with these things its always YMMV. 8.11 actually fixed some occassional corruption with TMT with my 2600xt. I'm using component out. So far I haven't had any issues with 8.11 actually in Vista.

pod7381

12-01-08, 10:01 PM

Thanks HT, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.

I downloaded the Realtek R2.09 audio drivers. Before I install them, I want to check the drivers that the 2600Xt is currently using. Is there a way for me to do this?

Also, I noticed in Vista/Device Manager/Sound, Video,Game Controller under High Definition Audio Device/Properties... the drivers being used are generic Windows Vista drivers. Are those the proper drivers for my setup?

Thanks again for your time and patience.

pod7381

12-04-08, 01:15 AM

HT, you solved my problem!

I installed the new RealTek drivers that you recommended and now I get 5.1

from my 2600XT.

Before posting on this site, I spent an hour on the phone with Visiontek tech support

and they could not solve the problem. You're a genius, man.

Thanks alot for your help.

rahzel

12-06-08, 12:22 AM

Anyone know how to get it to stick on YCbCr 422? I'm using 8.12 beta now and it still won't stick. I don't even have the UseBT601 setting in my registry.

Sentteri

12-06-08, 11:01 AM

when i set the resolution of the tv to 1280x1024 it does play but there must be a way to play it in 1920x1084?

I seem to have the exact same problem..

I am unable to get my 2400Pro use DXVA with either 720p or 1080p. I can play 1080p with hardware acceleration on 1024x768 with about 10-20% cpu usage, but if I change my television's resolution to 720p or 1080p my Media Player Classic Home Cinema refuses to play the file anymore. It doesn't give any errors. It says "playing" but really it does nothing. I can play 1080p with any program if I don't use the DXVA, but then my cpu just doesn't have enough power to play them properly.

I've tried some different catalyst's but they haven't really done anything so I'm thinking it has to be something else and I would greatly appreciate if anyone knew how to solve this problem, thanks.

Dr.2K

12-06-08, 11:25 PM

Dr.2K

12-07-08, 12:41 AM

rahzel

12-07-08, 05:53 AM

Strictly viewing HD and desktop only on my XP machine with an HD3200 780G, this is what I noticed on my machine paired with a Samsung LN46A650 which has the option to switch between full and limited. For reference, HDMI Black Level Low is 16-235 and Normal is 0-255. Normally this is only available for RGB sources, or maybe I just haven't come across something that is YCbCr 444.

YCbCr 444 - HDMI Black Level is not greyed out and everything appears correct when set to Normal (0-255).

YCbCr 422 - HDMI Black Level is greyed out and everything appears correct.

RGB 444 Limited - If I set HDMI Black Level to 16-235, XP/Desktop levels look right, however, HD videos look too dark, and if I force my decoder to use PC levels, it makes it even darker. If I set HDMI Black Level to 0-255, levels appear correct for HD videos, however, desktop looks slightly washed out, and HD movies that have black bars, they appear grey instead of black. Shouldn't I be setting my TV to expect Video levels? Why do I have to set it to 0-255 for it to look right with HD videos (with exception to the black bars and the desktop).

RGB 444 Full - If I set HDMI Black Level to 0-255, everything appears correct.

And again, I still have the problem of the Pixel format reverting to RGB 444 Full if I set it to YCbCr 422.

edit: oh, and I can pass BTB/WTW with YCbCr 422, but I don't think I could pass it with RGB 444 Full. I will test this tomorrow.

Judging from that, it seems like YCbCr 444 is outputting 0-255. YCbCr 422 is outputting 16-235. RGB Limited, I have no clue... seems to be that its actually outputting 0-255 for me; the black bars being gray is probably because I have my decoder set to output 16-235. RGB 444 Full is outputting 0-255. BTW, I had my decoder set to output 16-235 for all. If I set it to output Full range, it makes everything look too dark, which confuses me even more. Wouldn't I need to set this to Full the 0-255 pixel formats?

John P

12-07-08, 10:38 AM

I could use a little help here please.

I have the HIS HD 2600Pro 512MB AGP version working in my windows MCE htpc. I forgot what ATI driver or CCC I was using before I tried to update the latest 8.11 last week and now everything is messed up. The reason I did this was because I was having audio issues with the HDMI out. I uninstalled everything and tried reinstalling the 8.11 display driver and the driver will not install. It keeps saying I do not have the necessary hardware or OS. Anyone have any ideas why the ATI display driver will not install? nd also why I cannot get audio from my HDMI out? Would appreciate nay suggestion on this. Thanks.

As far as I can find the latest AGP drivers are version 8.10 and are available at this site:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625

I am successfully using the 8.10 version to play Blu-Ray's with my VisionTek 2600PRO AGP. I am running MCE 2005 using a Athlon XP 3200+ and PowerDVD 8 Ultra ver 2021U. However I am using SPDIF from the motherboard for my audio.

Klaus_1250

12-07-08, 12:55 PM

Well, I got the driver installed off HIS website. But i still have no audio thru HDMI eventhough I have installed the High Def drivers from the HIS site and the realTek 2.09 drivers too. I don't even see a HDMI High Def selectable option under my output sound settings. Help????

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that AGP cards don't have HDMI audio. Do they even have HDMI ports on board? (mine, HD3850AGP has two DVI's with an adapter for HDMI)

djlpap

12-10-08, 09:27 PM

baribal

12-11-08, 05:25 AM

Maybe i write to the wrong thread but... :) I have ATI 4870 videocard (8.12 driver), LCD monitor (S-IPS) connected to DVI, kmplayer, vista x64. The problem is in "grey blacks". When i use haali renderer with TV range 16-235 in it i have deep blacks and picture is very nice. But when i use native EVR renderer the black are "grey" and looks bad for me. The same situation is when i use PC range 0-255 option in haali - dully blacks. What can be done to help EVR or else renderer to produce deep blacks?

PS Also when I'm capturing frame in kmplayer using EVR renderer and pasting it in the viewer i see that the most bright and the most dark pixel has PC range 0-255 and picture looks very nice with deep blacks. But while watching video i don't have such great picture.

baribal

12-11-08, 05:38 AM

What luma range PC or TV are better for mpeg4 and hdtv videos? I assume that PC range 0-255 reveals more details?

soulrider4ever

12-11-08, 06:09 AM

0-255 makes blacks greys on hdtv/sd content - which is bad.

baribal

12-11-08, 06:18 AM

0-255 makes blacks greys on hdtv/sd content - which is bad.

So why do i have 0-255 at the screencaps and they look great? Also is it possible to get 16-235 range with EVR renderer? As afr as i know it produces only 0-255.

originalsnuffy

12-11-08, 10:37 AM

djlpap,

Did you run the ex Deus tweaks? With those, PowerDVD will use acceleration in running HD DVD titles.

Arcsoft seems to use acceleration too...at least playback is fairly smooth on the discs I've been using.

baribal

12-11-08, 03:55 PM

Just wanted to add that i've fixed dull blacks by adding UseBT601CSC=1 registry value in dxvachecker. Strange thing is that this key should only change SD content output behaviour. But for me it also fixed "grey blacks" for HD content. How is it possible? I am using kmplayer+MPC video decoder+EVR.

PS It looks i'm figured this out - most of my hd videos has <720 resolution so i assume videocard thinks that it's SD content. Am i right?

arfster

12-11-08, 04:44 PM

Just wanted to add that i've fixed dull blacks by adding UseBT601CSC=1 registry value in dxvachecker. Strange thing is that this key should only change SD content output behaviour.

BT601 is SD, so that's intended.

But for me it also fixed "grey blacks" for HD content. How is it possible? I am using kmplayer+MPC video decoder+EVR.

PS It looks i'm figured this out - most of my hd videos has <720 resolution so i assume videocard thinks that it's SD content. Am i right?

Yes. Problem then is it's using the wrong matrix for rgb conversion - it's bt709 content being sent through bt601, so the colours will be a bit off.

baribal

12-12-08, 02:32 AM

Yes. Problem then is it's using the wrong matrix for rgb conversion - it's bt709 content being sent through bt601, so the colours will be a bit off.

So... How to make videocard identify HD content with <720 resolution to be a HD content and not SD? And w/o this key UseBT601CSC=1 HD content with <720 resolution will be defined as HD but videocard will not convert it to 0-255 becouse of ATI bug. So we get dull blacks but right colours (bt709)?

jong1

12-12-08, 03:08 AM

Normally all HD is expanded to 0-255 regardless of the USEBT601CSC entry, so with this switch to fix SD all video should have the same levels, that is why we use it. What are you using to decode your HD? Some codecs, in particular CoreAVC, have options for PC or limited levels built into them. You might want to check there.

The problem of slightly "off" colors due to using the wrong decoding matrix is very real though. The driver writers need to fix it. Haali Renderer can now use the horizontal resolution to decide and you can do the same with ffdshow.

t508080

12-12-08, 03:18 AM

Hey,

Has anyone got powercolor's HD2400 PRO PCI H264 & VC-1 Acceleration working. I've been looking around google and noticed that regardless of the operating system and driver version, there has been quiet a number of people who have not got H264 & VC-1 acceleration working at all. I've tryed to contact powercolor a few times but no responses :(

Laurence.

I got it working using the registry tweak in XP, but in Vista it won't work at all. My card is a Sapphire 2400 Pro, and I think I'm giving it up and just get a newer card. Looking at 4350 or 4550 now (passive cooling). Any recomendations?

baribal

12-12-08, 03:23 AM

What are you using to decode your HD? Some codecs, in particular CoreAVC, have options for PC or limited levels built into them. You might want to check there.

I've used internal kmplayer decoder and mpc video decoder too. W/o this key i have all my HD content (most of them <720 vertical resolution) suffered from dull blacks. After adding this key all just fine but for conversion it uses bt601 now instead of bt709.

The problem of slightly "off" colors due to using the wrong decoding matrix is very real though. The driver writers need to fix it. Haali Renderer can now use the horizontal resolution to decide and you can do the same with ffdshow.
So for HD content definition I can use horizontal resolution? I don't use haali and ffdshow. Can do such thing playing with kmplayer settings?

jong1

12-12-08, 04:02 AM

I've used internal kmplayer decoder and mpc video decoder too. W/o this key i have all my HD content (most of them <720 vertical resolution) suffered from dull blacks. After adding this key all just fine but for conversion it uses bt601 now instead of bt709. Yes, as explained, if the vertical resolution is less than 720 the drivers will treat as SD and follow the setting of USEBT601CSC. But I do not know why it is not expanding the ones with >720p. They are normally always expanded. Are you sure these are not? if most of your stuff is <720p maybe you were just seeing the problem with those. :confused:

So for HD content definition I can use horizontal resolution? I don't use haali and ffdshow. Can do such thing playing with kmplayer settings? Don't use kmplayer but I doubt it. You either need to decode from YUV to RGB using horizontal res as the criteria before sending to the renderer (the ffdshow method) or have a renderer that explicitly supports that method (Haali). Unfortunately, both turn off hardware acceleration if that is important to you.

baribal

12-12-08, 04:26 AM

Yes, as explained, if the horizontal resolution is less than 720 the drivers will treat as SD and follow the setting of USEBT601CSC. But I do not know why it is not expanding the ones with >720p. They are normally always expanded. Are you sure these are not? if most of your stuff is <720p maybe you were just seeing the problem with those. :confused:

Did you mean vertical resolution? 1280x688, 1280x544 - these HDTV rips suffered from grey blacks. I have some 1280x720 and 1920x810 rips. Gonna check this evening if they properly expanded w/o USEBT601CSC key. I think they will.

Is it so visible when bt709 expanded to 0-255 bt601? May be someone has screencaps? Gonna check this too.

baribal

12-12-08, 07:04 AM

jong1

12-12-08, 07:07 AM

Did you mean vertical resolution? Yeah, clearly! :o I've corrected the post!

jong1

12-12-08, 07:14 AM

Is it so visible when bt709 expanded to 0-255 bt601? May be someone has screencaps? Gonna check this too.Well it's definitely noticeable, mostly in greens, but also orange/red. But it is not like it is unwatchable. Probably smaller than the color errors in most people's uncalibrated TVs anyway.

There are some screenshots from DVE I posted here (http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showthread.php?p=67600#post67600).

jong1

12-12-08, 07:19 AM

If i use USEBT601CSC key and specify in the CCC AVIVO options brightness/contrast to 16/86% will I remove expansion of SD and HD videos? And will HD videos with <720 resolution be at their natural bt709 instead of bt601? And will all my videos be displayed at my LCD monitor w/o grey blacks/dull whites?It will not fix the use of the wrong colorspace conversion. It will remove expansion of video, yes, for applications that do not force their own settings. You may have to do something inside applications like PDVD too. Not sure as I do not do this, but I have heard from others that PDVD in particular does not follow the AVIVO settings. Also you will then have your desktop and video at different levels and if you calibrate for video you will have crushed blacks on all photos etc. (if that matters to you).

baribal

12-12-08, 08:02 AM

There are some screenshots from DVE I posted here (http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showthread.php?p=67600#post67600).
Look through the pics. You have there HD >720 resolution. So ...bt601 picture is what i should get when using HD <720 resolution and usebtcsc key. And ...dxva picture is how it should originally look? If yes then i see completely no difference.

jong1

12-12-08, 08:08 AM

Look through the pics. You have there HD >720 resolution. So ...bt601 picture is what i should get when using HD <720 resolution and usebtcsc key. And ...dxva picture is how it should originally look? If yes then i see completely no difference.I may have confused you. These were actually upscaled SD test patterns/frames showing the reverse problem - where upscaled SD is incorrectly converted using BT.709, so the inverse. I pointed you to them just to give you some idea of the color differences.

Look at the DXVA/BT.601 photos and then the YV12 ones. The first two should be close to the same (decoding/upscaling differences aside) and the last one shows the use of the incorrect color matrix. However, this is the reverse problem to yours, if you Goggle you may be able to find some better examples. I am sure I saw some a few months ago.

baribal

12-12-08, 08:27 AM

jong1

12-12-08, 08:35 AM

Got it. So the only exit is to use ffdshow with horizontal resolution as the criteria? Where exactly this settings are to be found b/c i'm not familiar with ffdshow? :( Or use haali renderer that correctly converts YUV to RGB using right bt709 colorspace? No other variants? And in both cases i loose hardware acceleration?Yep!

There may be an option in the latest MPC-HC to do a BT.709 to Bt.601 conversion using pixel shaders! I read something about that in the release notes. Can't say I've tried it though, or if it even fixes this issue.

For ffdshow you need to set up "presets" based on horizontal resolution and then set "RGB conversion" appropriately for each.

If you are making these videos yourself the best option is to encode them with the black bars (full 720p resolution). This is what is done for Blu-ray @1080p (all are at full 1080p resolution, even if 2.35:1 or 1.85:1). H.264 is pretty good at minimising any wasted space out of encoding the black bars.

el Filou

12-12-08, 08:46 AM

arfster

12-12-08, 09:50 AM

Quick guide to ffdshow solution (which fixes expansion and bt601/709 issues, at the cost of hardware acceleration).

Set ffdshow to decode whatever filetype you're using, and create new ffdshow profiles called HD and SD.

HD should be set with these auto-preload conditions:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/472/ffdshowpresetspk3.th.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ffdshowpresetspk3.jpg)
(and SD with width as 0 to 1000)

Output tab for both SD and HD profiles should look like this:

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/923/outputtabtg1.th.jpg (http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=outputtabtg1.jpg)
(thus doing the RGB conversion in ffdshow rather than the renderer, avoiding all levels expansion issues)

RGB conversion tab should be.....

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6788/rgbtabry6.th.jpg (http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rgbtabry6.jpg)
(that's HD, note the bt709. For the SD profile it should be bt601)

Note the contrast section is really confusingly labelled - it refers to expected input, not output. Setting Full range 0-255 actually tells it not to expand. Setting 16-235 tells it that's the input, and thus it should be expanded.

As a side note, it's probably not a good idea to do this with interlaced material. It is possible to get it to work, but introduces all sorts of other issues.

Doing ffdshow RGB conversion like this also disables all CCC postprocessing, from sharpening/denoising to deinterlacing, as all of these require YUY2/YV12 to be fed to the renderer (and deinterlacing requires nv12 for anything better than basic bob)

This whole setup isn't really ideal if you already use ffdshow, cos you have to duplicate everything. If you're already using profiles it gets even more irritating. Having said that, if you're already using ffdshow for upscaling you should be aware any SD upscaled by ffdshow will be treated as >720 line by the renderer, and thus converted with bt709 (the solution is to do RGB conversion as above in ffdshow).

djlpap

12-12-08, 08:50 PM

djlpap

12-12-08, 09:02 PM

I got it working using the registry tweak in XP, but in Vista it won't work at all. My card is a Sapphire 2400 Pro, and I think I'm giving it up and just get a newer card. Looking at 4350 or 4550 now (passive cooling). Any recomendations?

Yeah the registry tweaks dosn't seem to fix the problem in vista. It's a shame that it dosn't work in vista, because the card is directX and that requires vista. I suspect it's a driver problem in vista with these 2400 PRO PCI cards, although I can't find a solution.

DXVAChecker:

ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series
ModeMPEG2_IDCT: DXVA2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_A: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_C: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
BB0796AE-2ED4-468D-A182-38F2CEADECF8: DXVA2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT: DXVA2, NV12, -
ModeVC1_VLD: DXVA1/2, NV12, -
5B23D46D-FA5F-4FDC-B78A-7EB2787942EC: DXVA2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080

No resoultions for ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT & ModeVC1_VLD in Vista :(

el Filou

12-13-08, 08:50 AM

No resoultions for ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT & ModeVC1_VLD in Vista
Check if there is a "Check resolutions" menu item when you right-click on the lines for H.264 and VC1.

dillee1

12-13-08, 11:06 PM

@djlpap

I couldnt get h264/vc1 acceleration at all under winxp. DXVA checker reports
ModeH264_MoComp_NoFGT
ModeWMV8_PostProc
ModeWMV8_PostProc
but the h264 interface is DXVA2 only and WMV isn't the same thing as VC1.

In Vista I got the same report as yours; no supported resolutions reported and thus no acceleration with DirectShow players. However Windows Media Player do seems to accelerate h264.

baribal

12-17-08, 03:21 AM

t508080

12-17-08, 03:40 AM

Since I can't get HA to work in Vista with my Sapphire Radeon 2400 HD Pro card, I'm looking for a new passive cooled one. Can somebody please confirm that HA works in Vista with 4350 or 4550 cards. And will these cards be enough for postprosessing SD material in a good manner? I don't play any games, so this is only going to be used for movies.

jong1

12-17-08, 04:26 AM

Sorry for newbie questions but can you tell me where conversion bt601(709) -> RGB takes place? I don't use ffdshow at all and use dxva on my ATI 4870 card (evr renderer, kmplayer w/o transformation filter, mpc decoder). So decoder decode video in YUY or YV12 color space and then renderer start to work. So I assume that it's renderer converts video to RGB color space. How can i determine which color space bt601 or bt709 has the video (decoder sends video to renderer in YUY or YV12 color space)? I can see the difference at video when i change bt601 and bt709 options in haali rendeder but after i get screen caps in kmplayer i see no difference at all. Also it looks like my video doesn't convert to 0-255 because the picture has grey blacks. But on monitor all look how it should be. So what program do you use to get screen caps to see the difference in video using different player or renderer options? Thanks in advance.Yes, the renderer does the conversion, if the video is passed to it as YUV. In theory it is possible to specify the colorspace in the video stream, but because this is not dependable the driver writers have pretty much standardised on assuming <720p = BT.601 and 720p+ = BT.709. Trouble is this logic does not work 2.23:1 or even 1.85:1 aspect ratio 720p videos which have been encoded without the black bars. Haali uses horizontal resolution instead to get round this problem and the same can be done uisng ffdshow.

Here is a link to a recent thread which covered much of this and a link to some freeware video calibration tools.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15248800#post15248800

baribal

12-17-08, 05:13 AM

but because this is not dependable the driver writers have pretty much standardised on assuming <720p = BT.601 and 720p+ = BT.709.

So it's ati driver determine which color space matrix bt601 or bt709 use for conversion YUV->RGB or it's a renderer choose? For ex. it's often said that using USEBT601CSC fix tells ati driver to use bt601 matrix for SD video. But it will be used also for <720p HD video. And w/o this USEBT601CSC key <720p HD video will be converted with right bt709 matrix? Can't check b/c at screen caps don't see any difference. Need some tool for taking screen caps.

jong1

12-17-08, 06:51 AM

So it's ati driver determine which color space matrix bt601 or bt709 use for conversion YUV->RGB or it's a renderer choose? For ex. it's often said that using USEBT601CSC fix tells ati driver to use bt601 matrix for SD video. But it will be used also for <720p HD video. And w/o this USEBT601CSC key <720p HD video will be converted with right bt709 matrix? Can't check b/c at screen caps don't see any difference. Need some tool for taking screen caps.
It depends. The renderer does it, but can use its own algorihm or it can ask the driver to do it. VMR9/VMR7/EVR and Overlay I think all use the driver. If its DXVA it will use the driver for sure. Only Haali, that I know of, does it itself. The drivers (ATI and Nvidia) use 720 lines as the dividing line between HD and SD (as do most TVs by the way). The best way around it if encoding is to encode with the black bars included. All Blu-ray media is encoded this way - 1920x1088 regardless of the aspect ratio of the video. Modern codecs are good at minimising wasted space due to black bars.

On your other question, USEBT601CSC actually has nothing at all to do with whether the BT601 colour matrix is used for decoding! All it does is decide whether SD video is expanded to 0-255 or left 16-235. It has no effect on HD and no effect on the colorspace used when decoding SD. Dont ask why it is called what it is, I have no idea!

djos

12-17-08, 06:58 AM

I've just upgraded from my Gigabyte HD2600pro to a Gigabyte HD4550 Passive with Native HDMI and catalyst 8.12 and I must say it's a big improvement - it's solved all the stuttering problems I was having with PAL content @ 1080p50hz. :)

arfster

12-17-08, 08:16 AM

On your other question, USEBT601CSC actually has nothing at all to do with whether the BT601 colour matrix is used for decoding! All it does is decide whether SD video is expanded to 0-255 or left 16-235. It has no effect on HD and no effect on the colorspace used when decoding SD. Dont ask why it is called what it is, I have no idea!

Hehe, I had the same question a while back. Was told that usebt601csc is referring to is which matrix it uses - ie use matrix 0 or matrix 1. It's a hangover from ye olde days, back when HD was a pipedream. If they were starting from anew they'd probably have a single usecsc setting that affected both bt601 and bt709 (of course, they could still do that........)

Luar Azul

12-18-08, 03:32 AM

Hi.

I've noticed ATI now has a forum for Catalyst discussion.
They seem to answer with "please direct this question to our Catalyst Support Program" quite a lot, however I wondered if it would be useful if we compiled a list of issues we have with Catalyst drivers regarding video playback and post it to this forum with an explicit topic title.

long-lasting bugs to include:

- inconsistent levels expansion between SD and HD
- no user option to enable or disable (and keep BTB and WTW) automatic expansion (btw, NVIDIA now provides this)
- Use of >= 720 vertical resolution to decide on 601 or 709 colour conversion, instead of something more logical like > 720 horizontal (or > 768 to take into account SD PAL sampled with square pixels).
- chroma upsampling quality issues (that thread at doom9)
- Can't choose pixel output format for DVI cards, although you can use a 3rd party DVI-to-HDMI cable which works perfectly but gets you stuck with only full range RGB.

I still have only a X1300 but I'm always pushing back my purchase of a 4xxx because I hope they will fix these issues and NVIDIA's range of cards is a bit obscure to me regarding features.

Do somebody here already has an account on ATI's forum?

Let's not forget the fact that HA simply does not work from versions 8.4 onwards (8.5 also works but with a few glitches). I am one of the guys who has a Sapphire 2400pro and XP and I've been trying every ATI driver version only to find myself without hardware acceleration and then reverting every time to the old good 8.4 version that works fine. There are others here who reported the same experience. So...

(I have not tried version 8.12, I have lost too much time trying new versions that don't work, now I will only try a new version if someone says: it actually WORKS! I've given up on ATI driver's team.)