Questions on HTPC 1080p playback

Hello everyone!

I tried my first HTPC build based on some posts here and now had some problems on 1080p playback on my new HDTV. If anyone has a similar setup and encountered the same problems I'd love to see how you solved them.

My setup:
AMD Athlon 64x2 5200 2.7Ghz Brisbane 65W CPU
ASUS M3A78-EM Motherboard (780 Chipset, Build-in ATI HD3200)
2x1g Crucial balista DDR-2@800MHz Dual-Channel Memory
WD 750 GB SATA HD
Antec M Fusion Remote 350 Case (with IMon remote)
Windows 7 Professional 32 bit
Panasonic Viera P54S1 Plasma TV

I use the Soundgrah Imon's iMEDIAN HD to organize everything because the windows media center does not play some of my .mkv and .ts files. So far I was able to play most of my files through HDMI connection except the following problems:

1) When I hit the 'Info' button on the TV remote, the TV always says the signal was '1080i' regardless of file type(1080p or 720p or DVD) being played. The Windows resolution is auto-set at 1920x1080 32bit and I don't see why only 1080i.

2) All 1080p mkv and ts files are skipping frames. CPU runs almost 100% when playing this files. Committed memory however never went over 1,000 MB. I am guessing the CPU is a little weak but then many other reported no problem with the 5200 + and M3A78-EM.

I updated drivers for the MB, Graphic, HDMI and HD audio. Also got the lastest version IMon which supports win7 nicely.

Any help will be appreciated!!

Thanks, you are right and it really just depends on the card setting. I looked at the graphic card setting and found the refresh rate was set to 30hz(interlaced) from installation. But the thing is when I tried to manually change it to 60Hz (that will do 1080p , right?) - no luck -just got black screens and had to wait 10 seconds to revert back to 30Hz.

It seems to me that either the Windows 7 driver, or HD3200 itself can not output 1080p at all. I have a little doubt on the second reason though, because when my PC is booting up (showing the BIOS info screen) before Windows loads, it did show 1080p when I press the 'i' button. When windows 7 starts to load, it changed to 1080i and stayed at 1080i.

I think I might have to end up going back to XP just in case the Windows 7 drivers for M3A78-EM and the HD3200 is not as good as in XP. Anyone other suggestions? Getting a discrete video card is possible as I have a 8800GTS lying around and I am sure it works for 1080p, but then it is really difficult if not impossible to fit any large card in Antec Fusion remote 350 Case.

Thanks. Will give it a try the next day. Btw will it play back .ts files as well?

Last night I finally learned how to force 1920x1080 @60hz in Catalyst. Now press 'info' on remote, and TV shows 1080p via HDMI.

And the good thing is the CPU usage suddenly dropped to 20% -40% range while playing 1080p ts files smoothly, which probably means hardware acceleration finally kicked in (which wasn't the case before I forced the 1080p resolution; CPU usage was 80%-100% despite the software always reporting using HW acceleration in both settings).

Now it seems to me that forcing 1080p actually solved both my problems. Mysteriously!

But , this forced mode was not stable! Black screens from time to time and eventually I have to boot in safe mode and cancel this forced mode. What a pity! Look like ATI still got work to do!

Does anybody have similar experience or know a workaround for this??