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A severe bug in ATI display driver in Windows Vista and Windows 7 for deinterlacing 1

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#1 ·
A severe bug in ATI display driver in Windows Vista and Windows 7 for deinterlacing 1080i video using Vector Adaptive (VA) mode.


We met a severe bug in ATI display driver in Windows Vista (both 32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit) for deinterlacing 1080i video (both MPEG2 and H.264) using Vector Adaptive (VA) mode.


If we enabled Aero glass effect (default enabled) in Windows Vista or Windows 7, when watching 1080i MPEG2 or H.264 video using DxVA video acceleration, the display driver will fall back to Bob deinterlacing mode and can't choose other modes besides Weave. While watching SD video using DxVA, the Vector Adaptive mode is automatically selected.


This is unacceptable because Vector Adaptive mode is the best deinterlacing mode, it's annoying and unreasonable that every time we need to disable Aero effect in Windows Vista or Windows 7 to allow choosing this mode when watching HD content.


This is easily reproducable in the latest Catalyst 9.3 driver. I'm using ATI 4550 and ATI 4850, and from my friends, their 4870 cards all have this major problem.


Please fix this severe issue in the near futhure, hopefully in Catalyst 9.4.
 
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#3 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ter9999 /forum/post/16239296


The latest Catalyst 9.4 doesn't fix this issue!!


Urge ATI can fix this, it's really annoying that we need to turn off Aero to let deinterlace 1080i using Vector Adaptive mode.

I have a 4850 running under windows 7 and the 9.3 (and now 9.4) drivers and am not seeing any de-interlacing problems at all for 1080i content in VA mode. The picture is VERY nice in fact. Better than my HD200 extender in some cases.


To help reproduce the problem, can you tell us what codecs you are using, directshow filters, and what player (VMC, vlc, SageTV, PowerDVD, etc...), and what versions for each?
 
#4 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeSM /forum/post/16239444


I have a 4850 running under windows 7 and the 9.3 (and now 9.4) drivers and am not seeing any de-interlacing problems at all for 1080i content in VA mode. The picture is VERY nice in fact. Better than my HD200 extender in some cases.


To help reproduce the problem, can you tell us what codecs you are using, directshow filters, and what player (VMC, vlc, SageTV, PowerDVD, etc...), and what versions for each?

Thank you!


I'm using ATI4550, the latest DVBViewer Pro 4.0 using "Cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD9)" codec to watch 1080i H.264 HD channels and

using "Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD9)" codec to watch 1080i MPEG2 HDTV channels. Both codecs enabled DxVA.


If not disable Windows Aero in Vista and Windows 7, when switching to 1080i channels, the driver will automatically turn to Bob mode, when switching to SDTV channels, the VA mode is selected again automatically.





Another user uses ATI4830 that has the same issue with me. Maybe these cards are not power enough to enable 1080i VA deinterlacing and Windows Aero together? I don't think so, I may think of this a driver issue.
 
#9 ·
Are you sure it's really Bob? Did you run some test patterns such as a 1 pixel vertical black and white stripe with a moving bar? Bob means the 1 pixel stripe will be black and white flickering.
 
#10 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/16245690


Are you sure it's really Bob? Did you run some test patterns such as a 1 pixel vertical black and white stripe with a moving bar? Bob means the 1 pixel stripe will be black and white flickering.

It's easy to be reproduced that I leave the CCC open on the "Avivo Video - All Settings" page, rebuild gragh for the 1080i HDTV channel. Then the deinterlacing bar will automatically change from VA to Bob.


In Bob mode the vertical resolution halfs and the picture becomes bob up and down, it can easily be distinguished on the TV station logo.
 
#11 ·
OK, I confirmed the bug (?) in a similar configuration to yours by running a test pattern.


- HD 4550: Only Bob works if Aero is on. VA works if Aero is off.

- HD 4670 or higher: VA works if Aero is on or off.


The interlacing bar of HD 4670 changes to three options (from five), but after refreshing CCC I see all five options (that's the reason why I asked a question). Do previous drivers (CCC 8.x) suffer from the same bug?


HD 4550 is a kind of on a threshold as a good HTPC video card. You will need to compromise.
 
#12 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/16245951


OK, I confirmed the bug (?) in a similar configuration to yours by running a test pattern.


- HD 4550: Only Bob works if Aero is on. VA works if Aero is off.

- HD 4670 or higher: VA works if Aero is on or off.


The interlacing bar of HD 4670 changes to three options (from five), but after refreshing CCC I see all five options (that's the reason why I asked a question). Do previous drivers (CCC 8.x) suffer from the same bug?


HD 4550 is a kind of on a threshold as a good HTPC video card. You will need to compromise.

Ah yes, sorry, I didn't see the 4450 in the original post. My 4850 works just fine though, so I am puzzled by the refernce to folks with the 4850 having issues.


ter999, did you enable hardware de-interlacing and select the VA mode in the advanced settings of powerdvd? I found I had to select this to have the powerdvd directshow filter do the right thing on rendering.
 
#13 ·
Outside PowerDVD, Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD9) Properties looks like this:



 
#15 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/16245951


OK, I confirmed the bug (?) in a similar configuration to yours by running a test pattern.


- HD 4550: Only Bob works if Aero is on. VA works if Aero is off.

- HD 4670 or higher: VA works if Aero is on or off.


The interlacing bar of HD 4670 changes to three options (from five), but after refreshing CCC I see all five options (that's the reason why I asked a question). Do previous drivers (CCC 8.x) suffer from the same bug?


HD 4550 is a kind of on a threshold as a good HTPC video card. You will need to compromise.

Thanks for your detailed information. But someone has 4830 (>4670) that have the same issue with me.


HD 4550 is advertised the "best" HTPC card by ATI that support UVD 2.2 (other cards can only support UVD2.0), so I bought 4550. It's strange that we need to make comprimse to get good HTPC experience..


So it's better to have driver unlock the function to enable VA in 1080i and Aero together. This issue occur in all former driver versions.


Also, I met following issues, could you please also confirm?


1. With Aero disabled, use DxVA for 1080i MPEG2 or H.264 content, in the CCC, can't select "Edge-enhancement", the bar grayed-out. Does 4850 have the same issue?


2. The ATI 4550 "Enable Dynamic Contrast" is always selected by default and grayed out in all circumstances. Can't disable. Does 4850 have the same issue?



Thanks!
 
#16 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ter9999 /forum/post/16248950


Thanks for your detailed information. But someone has 4830 (>4670) that have the same issue with me.


HD 4550 is advertised the "best" HTPC card by ATI that support UVD 2.2 (other cards can only support UVD2.0), so I bought 4550. It's strange that we need to make comprimse to get good HTPC experience..


So it's better to have driver unlock the function to enable VA in 1080i and Aero together. This issue occur in all former driver versions.


Also, I met following issues, could you please also confirm?


1. With Aero disabled, use DxVA for 1080i MPEG2 or H.264 content, in the CCC, can't select "Edge-enhancement", the bar grayed-out. Does 4850 have the same issue?


2. The ATI 4550 "Enable Dynamic Contrast" is always selected by default and grayed out in all circumstances. Can't disable. Does 4850 have the same issue?

I ran a MPEG-2 1080i test pattern from W6RZ with HD 4550, 4670, 4850 to see if vector adaptive deinterlacing works or not.


- Graphics card: Sapphire HD 4550 with fan, Sapphire HD 4670 GDDR4, Sapphire HD 4850 released in June 08

- Driver: CCC 9.1, 9.4

- Player/codec: Zoom Player MAX, Haali Media Splitter, CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD8)/CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD9)/Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder

- File: W6RZ Alternating black/white 1, 2, 3 and 4 pixel strips with moving interlaced bar 1920x1080: vertrezmotion.ts


If Aero is off, there is no problem (except for HD 4550, where only limited Avivo options are available). If Aero is on, then
CCC 9.1PDVD8PDVD9MS
HD 4550NoYes (all Avivo options unavailable)No
HD 4670YesYesYes
HD 4850YesNoYes
CCC 9.4PDVD8PDVD9MS
HD 4550NoNoNo
HD 4670YesYesYes
HD 4850NoNoNo
"Yes" usually implies all the Avivo options (deinterlacing or not) are available.

"No" implies none of the Avivo options (deinterlacing or not) is available.


Actually ATI 4550 "Enable Dynamic Contrast" does not work at all whatever file (HD, SD, MPEG-2, AVC etc.) you play. This is evident by comparing the images from 4550 and 4670 with "Enable Dynamic Contrast" on and off.


As for 4850, this is surely a bug that should be fixed quickly. But, for HD 4550, it'a a bit hard for me to call it a bug. Simply Aero and Avivo post-processing are competing with each other in HD 4550. HD 4550 is very limited in hardware:
Memory busNumber of stream processors
HD 455064-bit80
HD 4670128-bit320
HD 4850256-bit800
Another quirk of HD 4550 is here (non-working Avivo in dual display).
 
#17 ·
This is definitely a driver issue. The drivers that came with my Gigabyte HD4550 are a beta of 8.10 and work almost perfectly when it comes to maintaining vector adaptive deinterlacing whether Aero is on or not and regardless of HD or SD. Different versions of Catalyst are an entirely different story as I tried both 8.12(couldn't even get it to install without errors) and 9.1. 9.1 breaks advanced deinterlacing support and I couldn't get vector adaptive to work while watching 1080i material through VMC. I rolled back and haven't had an issue since.


Now, I said it works almost perfectly. Every so often after watching an HD MKV file I find that Catalyst had slipped back to Bob mode and I have to reset it back to VA. Once done, though, it seems to stick without a hassle.
 
#18 ·
I do not have an ATI card but have monitored this and other thread involved with BR disk playing with both Nvidia and ATI cards.

Based on what is dwonloaded when ATI updates are available is it possible to have a driver version that is not compatible with a AVIVO or CCC version?
 
#19 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by sneakerx /forum/post/16250846


This is definitely a driver issue. The drivers that came with my Gigabyte HD4550 are a beta of 8.10 and work almost perfectly when it comes to maintaining vector adaptive deinterlacing whether Aero is on or not and regardless of HD or SD.

I tested 8.10 beta that is included in the Sapphire HD 4550 driver CD. VA works for MPEG-2 1080i, but there are two bugs:


- Weave/Bob only for MPEG-2 480i

- Edge Enhancement is permanently disabled.


For me it looks like all of these bugs are resulting from insufficient hardware. Broken Avivo post-processing is consistent throughout all the CCC drivers that I have never seen with HD 4670.
 
#21 ·
Thank you for all your information. I installed the driver (ati8531) on 4550 installation CD, the VA can work under Aero for MPEG2 1080i video, but can't for H.264 1080i content. Even I disabled Aero, the H.264 1080i forced to use Bob.



I compared the GPU usage that when watching MPEG2 1080i HDTV with Aero on (ati8531 driver on CD), 39%.

When using Catalyst 9.4 with Aero off, 55% for the same MPEG2 1080i channel.



So I don't think the 4550 hardware is not enough for VA and Aero on both together. Also I found when Aero off, the desktop/IE window will flicker sometimes and I think Microsoft don't want people to use Windows Basic themes anymore now.
 
#22 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/16250521


I ran a MPEG-2 1080i test pattern from W6RZ with HD 4550, 4670, 4850 to see if vector adaptive deinterlacing works or not.


- Graphics card: Sapphire HD 4550 with fan, Sapphire HD 4670 GDDR4, Sapphire HD 4850 released in June 08

- Driver: CCC 9.1, 9.4

- Player/codec: Zoom Player MAX, Haali Media Splitter, CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD8)/CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD9)/Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder

- File: W6RZ Alternating black-white 1, 2, 3 and 4 pixel strips with moving interlaced bar 1920x1080: vertrezmotion.ts


If Aero is off, there is no problem (except for HD 4550, where only limited Avivo options are available). If Aero is on, then
CCC 9.1PDVD8PDVD9MS
HD 4550NoYes (all Avivo options unavailable)No
HD 4670YesYesYes
HD 4850YesNoYes
CCC 9.4PDVD8PDVD9MS
HD 4550NoNoNo
HD 4670YesYesYes
HD 4850NoNoNo
"Yes" usually implies all the Avivo options (deinterlacing or not) are available.

"No" implies none of the Avivo options (deinterlacing or not) is available.


Actually ATI 4550 "Enable Dynamic Contrast" does not work at all whatever file (HD, SD, MPEG-2, AVC etc.) you play. This is evident by comparing the images from 4550 and 4670 with "Enable Dynamic Contrast" on and off.


As for 4850, this is surely a bug that should be fixed quickly. But, for HD 4550, it'a a bit hard for me to call it a bug. Simply Aero and Avivo post-processing are competing with each other in HD 4550. HD 4550 is very limited in hardware:
Memory busNumber of stream processors
HD 455064-bit80
HD 4670128-bit320
HD 4850256-bit800
Another quirk of HD 4550 is here (non-working Avivo in dual display).

Thank you very much!!


So do you mean 4670 can use VA mode for both MPEG2 and H.264 1080i contents with Aero on? How about other Avivo options, like "Dynamic Contrast", "Edge-enhancement", "De-noise", "Color Vibrance", "Flesh tone correction"? They all also available and take effects at the same time with VA and Aero on?


Could you also test your cards under dual display mode? My 4550 Avivo options all become unavailable when extended desktop to another display.



Thanks in advance!!!
 
#23 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ter9999 /forum/post/16255262


Thank you for all your information. I installed the driver (ati8531) on 4550 installation CD, the VA can work under Aero for MPEG2 1080i video, but can't for H.264 1080i content. Even I disabled Aero, the H.264 1080i forced to use Bob.

Well, I've never run across any 1080i H.264 clips so I can't attest to how well that would work with the 8.531 video drivers. My experience with MPEG-2, however, has been near flawless with both HD and SD material being properly deinterlaced with the vector adaptive method. Maybe I'm just special.
 
#24 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ter9999 /forum/post/16255494


Thank you very much!!


So do you mean 4670 can use VA mode for both MPEG2 and H.264 1080i contents with Aero on? How about other Avivo options, like "Dynamic Contrast", "Edge-enhancement", "De-noise", "Color Vibrance", "Flesh tone correction"? They all also available and take effects at the same time with VA and Aero on?


Could you also test your cards under dual display mode? My 4550 Avivo options all become unavailable when extended desktop to another display.

Yes, all Avivo options including VA work fine with Aero on or off when MPEG-2 1080i is played. All Avivo options work fine with Aero on or off when H.264 1080i is played, but I am not sure if VA is actually working or not (I see VA in CCC, but I know sometimes it's deceptive). I downloaded a couple of files from here but none of them is good for detecting deinterlacing mode. In US it's hard to find H.264 interlaced contents. (I will appreciate if you point me to a good H.264 interlaced file for testing.)


As for dual display mode, please read this post . If the second display is not 'too large', you will be fine.
 
#25 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/16258713


Yes, all Avivo options including VA work fine with Aero on or off when MPEG-2 1080i is played. All Avivo options work fine with Aero on or off when H.264 1080i is played, but I am not sure if VA is actually working or not (I see VA in CCC, but I know sometimes it's deceptive). I downloaded a couple of files from here but none of them is good for detecting deinterlacing mode. In US it's hard to find H.264 interlaced contents. (I will appreciate if you point me to a good H.264 interlaced file for testing.)


As for dual display mode, please read this post . If the second display is not 'too large', you will be fine.

Thanks!


ATI 4550/4350 has UVD2.2 support, other cards don't. Don't know if there are differences wrt 1080i MPEG2/H.264 DxVA decoding quality and Post-processing quality?


In your test, seems the 4850 cards also encountered issues with Aero on in the latest Catalyst 9.4 driver.


I'm a little bit hesitate on which card to replace my 4550 or even waiting for the updated driver..
 
#26 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ter9999 /forum/post/16262046


ATI 4550/4350 has UVD2.2 support, other cards don't. Don't know if there are differences wrt 1080i MPEG2/H.264 DxVA decoding quality and Post-processing quality?

A relevant thread is here . UVD is just a decoding block of the chip (decoding H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2), all the post-processing (deinterlacing, sharpening, denoise, color adjsument etc.) is done outside UVD, by stream processors (3D engine). So in general better 3D performance means better post-processing (to some extent). IMO choosing a card based on a minor revision of UVD is not a good idea. Actually I haven't see any noticeable difference between UVD 2.x.


BTW GeForce is no exception. Only GeForce 9500 GT or higher can do proper deingerlacing for MPEG-2 1080i.
 
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