Let's set this straight - No one can do 24p consistently well - Page 25

24p content played on HW that doesn't support it will experience 3:2 pulldown in NTSC land as it is converted to 60p. If you don't notice judder, don't worry about it.

I decided to hook up my TV to my computer and download some movies on it. I had no knowledge of any of this, the first movie gave me a headache as I didn't know I had to switch the refresh rate for a 24p movie. then I started to notice the problems like frame that are easily visible on a 135 inch screen.

No one can say they aren't seeing them as they are there unless you are using reclock or managing to sync up close enough that the audio and video are staying in perfect sync. Highly doubtful without some type of mechanism adjusting things to stay in sync.

HDMI for audio and video probably does it much better than other ways, but the problem definately is there and thats not people pretending its there, thats people like you pretending it isn't there.

Different HW makes seeing these kinds of issues easier/harder to spot. 135" would probably fall into the first, and a TV with heavy interpolation probably the later. Our collective tolerance for judder doesn't help either.

I don't think those who aren't observing the issues are pretending that they don't exist, they (like you) are just influenced by their observations.

Yes, but its a fact that they do exist,its opinion that they don't exist, big difference.

I was talking about the dismissive implication that you wouldn't be noticing these things without hitting Ctrl+J (eg here.

That's great, and I'm glad you're happy with your solution. I know there are things I've seen that I wish I could "unsee" and just be happy. I've learned in my experience in this hobby (HT in general) that it's not a bad thing to be unaware of "problems", but that doesn't mean they aren't there, or diminish them any.

RBE is a good example, I don't see it (or at least I see it so rarely that it doesn't bother me), but I know there are others who are driven literally into pain by it. The fact that I, or even that the vast, vast majority of people don't see it doesn't diminish the relevance for that those that are physically affected by it.

That's the thing, you're not the final arbiter of relevance.

I'm not calling anyone ignorant, and I agree with the assertion/POV that noobs need not go looking for it, but the constant echo of "We don't see it, it's not relevant" anytime anyone does bring up the issue is... well tiring.

The problem is these apps just aren't integrated. If/when I switch from using SageTV and it's extenders as my solution, I don't want to go to a solution where I have to jump back and forth between applications (which IMO is harder to automate that switching devices) to get the functionality I want. We're veering OT, but JRMC is just too far away from my needs to be used for TV, and MPC-HC just isn't going to cut it for integration to have MB or MM switch to it for playback from WMC.

Frankly I don't care about "most users", I care about my "needs". I've got two devices that have better video proessing than a PC, and I haven't even got a Radiance (yet?). As much as I like to help folks and answer questions, I'm not in this hobby for some theoretical alternative to mass-market products that an "average person" would be happy with, I'm in it for my own desires. And frankly the last few years have made me appreciate the value of Kaleidscape more, though not quite enough to push me to get one. Though if they were maybe a quarter the price I would be tempted/likely to jump.

Too bad MadVR doesn't work in much.

I did, all the resolutions I expected to see were there, as I would expect since my HD300 autodetected everything.

Honestly, I just don't see it. IMO the pinacle of the HTPC was probably right before Blu-ray and HD DVD came out. We had great software with high levels of HT integration/automation capabilities like Theatertek, and it could play any movie you would buy, with full functionality (menus), ripped or right off the disc. Of course you could do the same in WMC, or SageTV, or just about anything. WMC supported just about everything TV wise (though CableCard was still not quite here yet), but so did SageTV and some other options. That was probably the time I was happiest with my HTPC setup.

As much as I love HD, it's really thrown a wrench in everything. We're stuck with with Blu-ray software from companies in a race to see who can make the worst software and add the most useless and annoying features, DVR software has all but dried up. Cable Card opened some new options but clobbered usability and compatibility, as has Blu-ray. And to top it all off, nothing really changed in the overall playback "quality" area since my HTPC with a 6800GT. We've still got video level problems, drivers still constantly break and unbreak stuff. HDMI/HDCP/EDID handshaking makes for issues like my i7/AVM50V disaster. But then again I got into things early, and I never really found hooking a PC up via component or VGA to a projector difficult. That and I've never been one to want to use "PC" functionality on my TV anyway so that reduced some of my issues.

Which is why I'm on the Echo beta. Worst case I guess I can use the Echo on my auxiliary TVs, and my Xbox 360 in the HT (where it already is) for TV, and shift to a Dune or something for media (ie Blu-ray/DVD rips).

Bling is nice, but it's way at the bottom of my feature list.

Seeing issues with frame drops isn't an opinion or a "viewpoint" it's an observation/fact and not something you can disagree with anymore than you can disagree with "Blu-ray discs are round".

See here's what bugs me, 23.976 is irrelevant, or it should be. Displays can lock on to anything close, video processors as well, as to standalone devices. I have no idea what exact frame rate my HD300 outputs for film, it could be 24.123Hz for all I know, but it doesn't matter because it syncs the audio and video clocks automatically (without dropping audio or video frames), my AVM50V locks on as well, and so does my Planar 8150, so regardless of what the exact output frequency of my HD300 is, everything in the chain locks on and plays happy without any dropped frames or anything.

Then you go to the PC world where there are two separate, disconnected clocks, one for audio, and one for video, and we're left to the mercy of random chance or something as to whether they'll happen to play nice together, leading us to resort to bandaids like reclock (which drops audio frames or resamples the audio to adjust for the discrepancy between audio and video clocks), or to fiddle with custom resolutions/timings trying to force the video clock to match the audio clock, or to just live with it and hope they're close enough on this build, this combination of hardware/software, this time of the celestical cycle that the discrepancy in clocks isn't big enough to cause noticeable issues.

Something so easy in a "consumer electronic device" environment is effectively impossible in the PC world due to the hardware/software architecture that even after a decade or more really hasn't changed to address the issue. And frankly I don't know why it would give the microscopy of the HTPC market.

There are people there to hear it no matter how much you wish there weren't.

I agree with your assessment, but I was speaking to the suitability of HTPC for higher-end media consumption in general (since your comments were also at that level) not to the suitability of HTPC to you. Your preferences pretty clearly thumb the scale away from HTPC, but that doesn't mean (in a general sense) that HTPC can't do the task, and do it well.

Ignoring TV, JMC is an outstanding media player. On the right hardware, it would be difficult to surpass its capabilities w/ anything close in price on the CE side.

I'm curious what you have. Many of the older HW VPs, which were awesome in their time, have been surpassed by EVR on Intel or madVR on dGPU. AFAIK madVR is almost as good as what is possible with Lumagen products ($1500 base price).

It works in JMC...

That's definitely an odd issue then.

I test a lot of hardware, PC and otherwise. I don't think this statement is consistent with the current state of the market. The VP capabilities of PC GPUs has advanced considerably since the 6800GT, as has the approachability of HTPC. When I started this was a black art, I had to buy my grey market tuners on eBay, figuring out which GPUs had decent memory bandwidth w/o being a furnace was next to impossible, there were no decent cases, etc. Now (even though they get it wrong many times) most mainstream PC HW sites target our niche, GPU vendors get upset when they get bad HQV scores, you can get a myriad of CE style cases, we have DCT, QAM, & ATSC TV tuners, capable IPG, SSDs, Gigabit Ethernet, etc.

I'd argue that we are still climbing.

TBC, I don't doubt that you're having issues, just the general applicability of those issues to the wider experience.

I guess I've just been waiting to long for "the industry" to show they care, and in the process seen "all" the small companies/developers that actually do care (Theatertek, SageTV, BeyondTV, etc) get squeezed or shut out of the market only to leave the big boys (Microsoft, Cyberlink, Corel, nVidia, AMD, Intel, etc) who really don't care about anybody but their big corporate accounts.

Now Ceton gives me hope, they remind me a lot of SageTV, I just hope they're not too handicapped living within the WMC ecosystem.

I've got an AVM50V and a Planar 8150, both of which have Gennum VXP video processors in them. And as for video processor, scaling is really the least of my concerns, that's pretty easy to do (and really the Darbee Darblet makes far more of a difference/improvement than any filter I ever tried with ffdshow or other filter I ever tried, and with none of the complexity/side effects a lot of those filters) it's more the deinterlacing and aspect ratio controls.

If you could come up with a benchmark for dropped frames or correct level output and make it look like a gaming benchmark, then maybe nVidia/AMD/Intel would care about those too.

Is UAC on off still a requirement for better performance with the Intel card?

If not for the bling that the HTPC brings to the table, I would not consider using it for a minute. It locks, crashes, hangs, requires some windows update, stops recongizing the kludge of a remote control interface every time I have a guest it seems. The Oppo is flawless, and relatively cheap for it's stability. If not for the ability to play ripped DVD's and use my HTPC as a BRD "tivo", I'd not screw with it. And I would never recommend one to anyone in it's current state. Not to anything less than an very PC literate person to say the least.

1) It's not exactly a fair comparison to stack a $500-$1000 PC against a $5000+ device. If you throw enough $ at any problem, of course the solution is going to beat a commodity product that's simple math.

2) On a quick look around I wasn't able to find any solid reviews of the VXP capabilities (if it's really using Gennum's VXP, vs Sigma's I'm not sure it matters since that's a pre-2008 product) it's hard to speculate on its strength relative to what a properly configured PC can do (i.e. not talking about ffdshow). If you know of any detailed VXP reviews, I'd love to see them.

3) Scaling was just an e.g.(although isn't the VXP's tagline "Professional Grade Scaling" or something like that ), although I agree that it matters less now that most sources are available in HD. On modern PC HW DI isn't a concern, all of them do well. If you're into things like NR and contrast enhancement, that varies somewhat by vendor, there is a lot of flexibility to mess.

4) Darbee Darblet? I haven't played w/ one, but since it sits inline, and you like* what it does, it should work just as well for PC as anything else.

* Maybe I'm missing something there, but the before/after shots I've seen from it make it seem like a dynamic contrast enhancement filter. Personally, I don't care for that sort of "realer, than real" VP.

not really bold but true, the problem is going to be their for most people. all you have to do is look at the red and green lines on the EVR display, do they stay straight and even or do they eventually keep moving until they collide? just because people say they aren't seeing it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Most people are ignorant to the problem. People watch movies all the time on laptops that can't do 24p and think it looks fine, does that mean there isn't a problem?

Agree completely, you have to be a computer tech to get it working well and even then it doesn't work that well. I get random crazy things that happen that need a reboot to fix. but i can control it with my phone. the movies are on it so its easy enough for me, but no way would the wife be able to use it.

I don't consider myself a computer tech although I've been building them since the DOS days. Building the HTPC was easy. Setting it up was something completely different altogether. Now that that's done (and has been for months) the PQ is fantastic, the AQ is top notch and the funtionality is right on with full control from my Harmony 900. It took some perseverance and a desire to conquer various obsticles. I don't remember the last time I had to do a reboot to clear something up. I do reboot it maybe once every week or so just because and will probably just program that task in but like doing it when nobody's watching and it isn't recording. I've had to reboot every STB I've ever had too to clear up a locked screen. That goes for the streamer I've used to use too. Even my Blu-ray player has locked up and needed a reboot.

Back to 24p. The intel iGPU handled it quite well with no complaints. The nVidia GT 430 gives better color space IMO and handles the limited 720p29/30 content I have.

Seriously I'm not understanding what the hoop-la-la is all about here. There's no judder, jitter or $#!++er going on other than what would be expected from film-based material such as slow pans. Next time your in the theater look and you will see that it is there as 24000 frames every 1001 seconds just has that. If you don't see it on your system then it is over-processed with too much frame interpolation going on. Additionally, the audio is synced just fine with the video but that may be getting corrected by my AVR.

My HTPC has effectivelly replaced my Blu-ray player, streamer and STB DVR. I have seven HDMI inputs on my AVR of which I use exactly one. The BRP is connected but it is neglected and not used.
Edited by Sammy2 - 8/8/12 at 8:32pm

You are. Everybody uses mine. They have no choice if the want to watch CableTV. It just works with days and days on end of up time.

Windows 7 64 enterprise. TMT, latest build, MyMovies client, Virtual Clone Drive. I've kept it as simple as I could, and as clean as I could. The HTPC client is a Intel SB i5 2600 IIIRC, on an Intel MB, in a heatpipe fanless case, 8GB ram, 1 SSD. It is not used for any task other than to serve Movies from a Windows server. The windows server is a Dell P210 rackmount with a hardware Raid, 24 bay SAS drive array. Works as a file server and a MyMovies database server. Nothing else.

But I'm still curious what ctrl+j is displaying. I understand 3:2 pulldown, but after it's executed should ctrl+j display a corrected, or near corrected frame rate?

depends on how its setup. between xbmc, mpc-hc and reclock, things go wrong, too much of a hassle for the wife. If I had it working with my harmony remote, probably be easier for the wife to use it. If xbmc would just do its job, then probably anyone could handle it.

This is what I get playing 23.976 and the Ati set to 59Hz over HDMI to TV. Completely smooth running ticker:




But seems to depend on the screen to support the 59.xxx - and maybe the "Motion plus",
on an older PC Monitor over DVI (only 60Hz possible) the same playback results in a completely jerky ticker.
_
Edited by blaubart - 8/9/12 at 4:38am

thats not smooth, the lines should be straight.

What should I say, I'm not blind..

"Magic" of a "modern" TV?

Yet that's been exactly the comparison for as long as I can remember, that an HTPC can match/best just about anything out there, for way less money.

You really need to see one in action, the screenshots on the site are with it cranked way up, probably in the "unusable mode", but if you set it to reasonable settings it's basically like upgrading your display to something much more clear, for <$300. One of the best investments I've ever made in my HT.


And that's one of my problems, there's no good "HT-centric" playback software anymore (well maybe JRMC). PowerDVD is crap, TMT is crap, WinDVD is crap, and those are the only options if you want to be able to play discs from Netflix, and no, I don't want to have to rip every disc from Netflix just to watch it. MPC-HC is fine on my desktop with a mouse, but that's not an interface I want to use in my HT, there's no on screen, remote-friendly menus for doing things like selecting audio/subs, or picking titles.