AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Let's set this straight - No one can do 24p consistently well
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Let's set this straight - No one can do 24p consistently well - Page 26

post #751 of 1176
8/9/12 at 6:30am
Disc? What is that?










Oops.. I'm sorry. That was condensending and rude. assasin's right. We use our HTPC's in a different way.
Edited by Sammy2 - 8/9/12 at 6:35am
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #752 of 1176
8/9/12 at 6:39am
I play phyisical Blu-rays on a weekly basis and its just fine as it is today (with JRMC in this case). Yes, there is no menu (yet), but if you rip the disc the menu is gone as well, so big deal.
The worst thing that usually can happen on some discs is that i have to select the proper subtitle track manually because Blu-rays just have 10-20 subtitle tracks, usually 2-3 for the main languages.

You don't need TMT or PowerDVD for watching physical discs. You may not get 100% of the "features" (if the menu can be considered such a thing), but just insert it into the drive and the main title starts playing - seems fine for me. smile.gif
Granted, i usually never watch any of the extras, i'm fine with the main movie, if you are into extras and that sort of thing, you might have a hard time navigating around.

But hey, even with selecting the subtitle track, i'm faster at the main movie then any CE player which shows the menu and all ads and FBI warnings and whatnot. wink.gif
Edited by Nevcairiel - 8/9/12 at 6:45am
Reply
Reply
post #753 of 1176
8/9/12 at 7:03am
I've said it before.. I bearly have the time to watch the movie itself and very rarely watch the special features. Skipping over a bunc of junk and a menu that just sucks another 5 to 10 minutes away is what I like. It takes less time than that to rip a disc than the time to get through locked down trailers, FBI warnings and then the menu. Rip n play I say. While its ripping I make popcorn!
Reply
Reply
post #754 of 1176
8/9/12 at 7:13am
And i just put it in the drive and it starts playing the movie, no trailers no nothing, seems easier biggrin.gif
If you only rip it to immediately watch it (and possibly remove it again later), it seems somewhat of a wasteful process.
Reply
Reply
post #755 of 1176
8/9/12 at 7:18am
So out of curiosity, do you rent discs (Netflix or other)? Or do you buy every BD you watch?
Reply
Reply
post #756 of 1176
8/9/12 at 7:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevcairiel View Post

And i just put it in the drive and it starts playing the movie, no trailers no nothing, seems easier biggrin.gif
If you only rip it to immediately watch it (and possibly remove it again later), it seems somewhat of a wasteful process.

You do that with JRMC? I did not know that was possible. I thought you were stuck watching the extra stuff.. Hmm? Maybe I need a different tack.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

So out of curiosity, do you rent discs (Netflix or other)? Or do you buy every BD you watch?

Yes. Rental discs are typically one-offs that get deleted later.
Reply
Reply
post #757 of 1176
8/9/12 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post

So out of curiosity, do you rent discs (Netflix or other)? Or do you buy every BD you watch?
I buy them. If i rent something its mostly a very spontaneous thing and happens via streaming.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

You do that with JRMC? I did not know that was possible. I thought you were stuck watching the extra stuff.. Hmm? Maybe I need a different tack.
Yes. JRMC uses my LAV Splitter for Blu-ray playback, which can quite simply only show the single titles, it cannot provide a full navigation "experience". tongue.gif
Reply
Reply
post #758 of 1176
8/9/12 at 8:05am
As stated above, I don't desire that "experience"..

Might give JRMC another whirl but I didn't much like the GUI last time I used it.
Reply
Reply
post #759 of 1176
8/9/12 at 8:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevcairiel View Post

I play phyisical Blu-rays on a weekly basis and its just fine as it is today (with JRMC in this case). Yes, there is no menu (yet), but if you rip the disc the menu is gone as well, so big deal.
The worst thing that usually can happen on some discs is that i have to select the proper subtitle track manually because Blu-rays just have 10-20 subtitle tracks, usually 2-3 for the main languages.
You don't need TMT or PowerDVD for watching physical discs. You may not get 100% of the "features" (if the menu can be considered such a thing), but just insert it into the drive and the main title starts playing - seems fine for me. smile.gif
Granted, i usually never watch any of the extras, i'm fine with the main movie, if you are into extras and that sort of thing, you might have a hard time navigating around.
But hey, even with selecting the subtitle track, i'm faster at the main movie then any CE player which shows the menu and all ads and FBI warnings and whatnot. wink.gif

No, no, no, no. This just doesn't cut it. IIRC, Jriver simply picks the longest track on the track. Often this is not going to cut it, because you end up with a version of the movie with extra scenes or commentary that you don't want. I don't know how people find this acceptable, because it's a complete nonstarter for me. If Jriver really takes blu-ray playback seriously, they need to implement full menus or at least a better selection logic for choosing the right track (I always wondered how hard it would be design the program to check IMDB for the correct theatrical length; this would be a big improvement). I'll agree with others who say that the state of blu-ray playback on HTPCs completely sucks. Personally I manually copy the theatrical version using makemkv, but this is a pain and sometimes requires some trial and error or research. Things were indeed better in many ways before blu-rays came out.
Reply
Reply
post #760 of 1176
8/9/12 at 8:23am
Except the PQ and AQ was sub-par.
Reply
Reply
post #761 of 1176
8/9/12 at 8:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

TMT is buggy as hell. That's likely your problem.
I rip everything to my server. No TMT needed.
I rip everything to my server, too. I don't understand. TMT is just a player. Have to have a player on the client PC (and one MM can invoke). What do you use that is better?

Edit: I see the other options the guys are mentioning. I need complete functionality via remote. Just like a standalone. I don't use a mouse in my HT. Well, I don't want to. But the G'dam HTPC forces me to have a portable wireless KB and mouse sitting around just to fix it when it hangs and you can't deal with whatever issue (most all of them) without a mouse and KB. And I want complete 100% disc functionality like I have now. I need the menus, pop-up and disc. I rip to iso. The only thing I carve out are trailers and protection. I don't want open source forum supported, barely documented geekware, I want a maintained commercal product with fit and polish. But I'd take it if it fixe all these issues. I really doubt it does.

I feed a Lumagen VP, unfortunatley the HTPC insists on some scaling, deinterlacing, colorspace conversions (YCbCr->RGB), and it's inherent frame rate issues. Alll of which my VO can do better.
Edited by GetGray - 8/9/12 at 9:05am
Reply
Reply
post #762 of 1176
8/9/12 at 8:52am
"...just a player"? The internals of the player (filters, splitters, codecs, etc) do matter.
Reply
Reply
post #763 of 1176
8/9/12 at 9:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stanger89 View Post


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.

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.

Wow. Just WOW!

Well, I guess we know where you're coming from. Guess you'll just have to commission custom software. Because those "most users" you have such disdain for really don't give a hoot about "your needs" and "your own desires," and the reason all those products you so loved tanked is because hardly anybody but you wanted them, cared about them, or bought them.

Yeah, Blu Rays really suck. Their very existance completely destroyed home theater. It's just such a disaster to be able to have gorgeous 1080P video and stunning HD audio. Really I think the Betamax was truly the "pinnacle" for me.

I find it quite remarkable that you complain about every trivial little reproduction problem and then turn around and long for the days of 480p video. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Reply
Reply
post #764 of 1176
8/9/12 at 9:08am
Clearly you didn't get his point.
Reply
Reply
post #765 of 1176
8/9/12 at 9:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GetGray View Post

Clearly you didn't get his point.

Assuming there was one....

Could things be easier, could some bugs be eliminated? Sure.

But the indisputible reality is that every person has at their easy disposal greater audio and video performance, and more choice of content, all in the comfort of their own home, than ever before, at lower cost.
Reply
Reply
post #766 of 1176
8/9/12 at 9:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GetGray View Post

I rip everything to my server, too. I don't understand. TMT is just a player. Have to have a player on the client PC (and one MM can invoke). What do you use that is better?
Edit: I see the other options the guys are mentioning. I need complete functionality via remote. Just like a standalone. I don't use a mouse in my HT. Well, I don't want to. But the G'dam HTPC forces me to have a portable wireless KB and mouse sitting around just to fix it when it hangs and you can't deal with whatever issue (most all of them) without a mouse and KB. And I want complete 100% disc functionality like I have now. I need the menus, pop-up and disc. I rip to iso. The only thing I carve out are trailers and protection. I don't want open source forum supported, barely documented geekware, I want a maintained commercal product with fit and polish. But I'd take it if it fixe all these issues. I really doubt it does.
I feed a Lumagen VP, unfortunatley the HTPC insists on some scaling, deinterlacing, colorspace conversions (YCbCr->RGB), and it's inherent frame rate issues. Alll of which my VO can do better.

I totally hear you. It is what I orginally wanted, especially the "commercial product with fit and polish". I wanted my HTPC to act just like a BD player.

Unfotunately I was never, ever able to get either PDVD nor TMT to play back a movie without at least some hiccups. There was always some problem or other. I tried for years through 4 versions of PDVD and 2 of TMT. It just never happened. I gave up and bought a BD player for rental discs. Plus it had all the streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu+) that were a far superior experience to an HTPC.

For my purchased collection I remuxed everything to .mkv of .m4v and use MPC-HC. I get nearly perfect playback. I say nearly perfect because there are some frame drops the first 10-20 seconds which can be a bit annoying but usually it's just during the studio logos so not an issue. After that it's smooth sailing and I enjoy the movie rather than worrying if something will stutter, skip or pixelate at any moment like what was happening with the commercial players.
Reply
Reply
post #767 of 1176
8/9/12 at 9:26am
Thread Starter 
So maybe instead of focusing on just the hardware and "24p bug" we should be focusing or researching better ways to playback the media.
Reply
Reply
post #768 of 1176
8/9/12 at 9:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JMGNYC View Post

I totally hear you. It is what I orginally wanted, especially the "commercial product with fit and polish". I wanted my HTPC to act just like a BD player.
Unfotunately I was never, ever able to get either PDVD nor TMT to play back a movie without at least some hiccups. There was always some problem or other. I tried for years through 4 versions of PDVD and 2 of TMT. It just never happened. I gave up and bought a BD player for rental discs. Plus it had all the streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu+) that were a far superior experience to an HTPC.
For my purchased collection I remuxed everything to .mkv of .m4v and use MPC-HC. I get nearly perfect playback. I say nearly perfect because there are some frame drops the first 10-20 seconds which can be a bit annoying but usually it's just during the studio logos so not an issue. After that it's smooth sailing and I enjoy the movie rather than worrying if something will stutter, skip or pixelate at any moment like what was happening with the commercial players.

This is where we differ. I don't want my HTPC to be like a blu-ray player and it isn't. I don't care about streaming mediocre quality content from the internet. For mkv playback, I only have 20 or so frame drops in the first 2-3 seconds of playback when the refresh rate changes from 60fps for LiveTV to 24fps for film based content. These are negligible and understandable. They usually occur before the first Studio splash is started and definitely before it is over. Other than that there's no frame drops because I'm getting drops/repeats on the order of hours (almost days) and not minutes so they exceed the length of the movie by a long shot. There's no pixelization, tearing, haloing or artifacts on blu-ray sourced mkv's The audio is synced just fine with the video (but I believe this is occuring in my AVR which has lip sync). For LiveTV I have the best picture and sound quality given to my by my provider with a CableCARD tuner. So I think it works fantastically and am having trouble understanding what the issues that you are having are because I really am not experiencing them.
Reply
Reply
post #769 of 1176
8/9/12 at 10:33am
For people that want it simple and easy, it doesn't get much better than xbmc, if you don't care about frame drops,xbmc is the best ive found for a simple htpc experience, much better than jriver.
Reply
Reply
post #770 of 1176
8/9/12 at 10:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

This is where we differ. I don't want my HTPC to be like a blu-ray player and it isn't. I don't care about streaming mediocre quality content from the internet. For mkv playback, I only have 20 or so frame drops in the first 2-3 seconds of playback when the refresh rate changes from 60fps for LiveTV to 24fps for film based content. These are negligible and understandable. They usually occur before the first Studio splash is started and definitely before it is over. Other than that there's no frame drops because I'm getting drops/repeats on the order of hours (almost days) and not minutes so they exceed the length of the movie by a long shot. There's no pixelization, tearing, haloing or artifacts on blu-ray sourced mkv's The audio is synced just fine with the video (but I believe this is occuring in my AVR which has lip sync). For LiveTV I have the best picture and sound quality given to my by my provider with a CableCARD tuner. So I think it works fantastically and am having trouble understanding what the issues that you are having are because I really am not experiencing them.

The issues I was having with discs played back using one of the commercial players, not MPC-HC except for the dropped frames at the beginning.

I get disks from Netflix quite frequently and I use a BD player for those because my HTPC could never cut it. It's just not worth the time to rip them to .mkv before watching them. There's enough old TV and movies on Netflix streaming that I do watch it some and having a decent player, unlike a PC, is very useful. It's certainly not BD quality but it's as good as my DVR if it's in HD and actually better than my DVR on SD content. I'm currently watching a BBC murder mystery series from the 90s that's only available on DVD but is in HD on Netflix and the quality is definitely better than DVD.
Reply
Reply
post #771 of 1176
8/9/12 at 11:06am
Okay. Like I said we differ in use of the HTPC and maybe it isn't for you and your needs as much as it is for me.
Reply
Reply
post #772 of 1176
8/9/12 at 11:22am
well this is the point of htpc - its the most configurable box there is. thats why you recommend someone buy one as opposed to a Boxee or WDTV, so that they can play ALL their media.

unfortunately there is not good way to play bluray on one the way they are meant to be played. and thats a fact.

on my pc, if I put a bluray disc in the drive (WMC is always open), it boots into the TMT5 pluging - but it exposes the taskbar, forcing me to grab my trackball keypad to fix it. if I play a disc from inside Media Browser the TMT5 plugin works as desired, but if MB can play discs I have not figured that out yet.

most of these solutions are cobbled together and force users to use software that may not be legal in their jurisdiction and in all cases some functionality of the disc is lost no matter what solution is used.

the htpc front end needs real bluray playback built in - auto frame rate switching, menus, video commentary, etc - and none of the most popular ones (WMC, XBMC, JRMC, or Media Portal) can do it.
Edited by pittsoccer33 - 8/9/12 at 11:29am
Reply
Reply
post #773 of 1176
8/9/12 at 1:30pm
My gaming rig have Sandy Bridge with HD 3000 and a Nvidia Geforce 580 GTX. I shall plug HDMI cable to my living room TV Samsung 46B650. Mainly I thinking of using default XBMC setup with "Adjust display refresh rate to match video" option to take advantage of 24p. If no one else got any other suggestion.

Should I let my HD3000 or my Nvidia card to the job? Anyone tried both solutions and can tell what works best? Or do I need to tinker around with custom resolutions and such?

Best Regards!
Reply
Reply
post #774 of 1176
8/9/12 at 2:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zon2020 View Post

Assuming there was one....
Could things be easier, could some bugs be eliminated? Sure.
But the indisputible reality is that every person has at their easy disposal greater audio and video performance, and more choice of content, all in the comfort of their own home, than ever before, at lower cost.

Sure, BD is better quality, and I very much appreciate that, but Blu-ray is worse than DVD in every other way. Player compatibility sucks, it's far more incompatible, menus take a long time (for anything but a comparatively high powered PC) to load, they're more fragile than DVD, and it's only easy if you're willing to live with the artifical, limited, unimaginative constraints imposed by the content owners, ie pop the disc in a hardware player.

I wouldn't want to go back to DVD quality audio/video, but at the same time I think the whole HTPC thing was easier before Blu-ray, CableCard and their associated DRM and unnecessary complexity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zon2020 View Post

Wow. Just WOW!
Well, I guess we know where you're coming from. Guess you'll just have to commission custom software. Because those "most users" you have such disdain for really don't give a hoot about "your needs" and "your own desires," and the reason all those products you so loved tanked is because hardly anybody but you wanted them, cared about them, or bought them.

I'm just tired of getting told to settle. I don't have any disdain for anyone, but most people are happy with a "small" TV in a non-dedicated room with an HTIB, which is fine, but that doesn't mean I should have to settle for that when I want a better than the theater experience at home. For a long time it seems most here sought perfection, but now there seems to be a "it's good enough, you should be happy" attitude.

As for the software I mentioned that "tanked":

TheaterTek (probably the best DVD software made) died due to Blu-ray's licensing restrictions making it impossible for them to add Blu-ray support.

SageTV was scooped up by Google because Google needed an awesome DVR for Google fiber.
Quote:
Yeah, Blu Rays really suck.[/QUOTE[

In pretty much every way except audio/video quality, they do.
Quote:
Their very existance completely destroyed home theater.

It came close to destroying the HTPC for me. I used to be able to pop a movie disc in my HTPC and play it in whatever app I wanted with full functionality, including apps that were specially designed for those of us with highly integrated HT systems. Now I'm stuck with a choice between three crappy programs from companies that don't care about individual users, with basically no integration whatsoever.
Quote:
It's just such a disaster to be able to have gorgeous 1080P video and stunning HD audio. Really I think the Betamax was truly the "pinnacle" for me.
I find it quite remarkable that you complain about every trivial little reproduction problem and then turn around and long for the days of 480p video.

I long for the days when a small company like TheaterTek could make a fully functional movie disc playing solution for the PC to serve the HTPC niche that Cyberlink/Arcsoft/Corel couldn't care less about, for the days when anyone making software for the HTPC could leverage cheap, easily, legally obtainable libraries (filters) that gave full movie disc functionality in any app. When you could pop a movie disc in and Windows Media Center could play it...
Quote:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I'm just saying things were easier when anyone (even the free or open source softwares) could leverage commercial decoders to support full movie disc functionality. Unfortunately BDs crazy DRM and licensing restrictions have killed that.
Reply
Reply
post #775 of 1176
8/9/12 at 2:23pm
Yup. Blu-rays suck for the reasons you mention. All the more reason to rip 'em to your HDD and play them back with everything that sucks about them stripped away and then play them back with just their glorious PQ and AQ attributes... no menus or other crap.. No judder, studder or audio drop outs. I get this with my set up and this is what I've been saying all along.
Reply
Reply
post #776 of 1176
8/9/12 at 2:25pm
Everything I own is on my unRAID server, but I shouldn't have to, and I don't want to do that with the discs I get from Netflix.
Reply
Reply
post #777 of 1176
8/9/12 at 3:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twau View Post

My gaming rig have Sandy Bridge with HD 3000 and a Nvidia Geforce 580 GTX. I shall plug HDMI cable to my living room TV Samsung 46B650. Mainly I thinking of using default XBMC setup with "Adjust display refresh rate to match video" option to take advantage of 24p. If no one else got any other suggestion.
Should I let my HD3000 or my Nvidia card to the job? Anyone tried both solutions and can tell what works best? Or do I need to tinker around with custom resolutions and such?
Best Regards!

xbmc has problems with 24p. many issues with audio sync at 24p, if your tv supports multiples of 24p it should work fine, like 48 hz or 96 hz, but at 24hz, xbmc has lots of problems. some cards seem better than others so I would try both and see if it works. if you turn off sync to display, supposedly that will fix the audio sync issue but then of course you will drop frames.
Reply
Reply
post #778 of 1176
8/9/12 at 5:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by robl45 View Post

thats not smooth, the lines should be straight.

My Frame Rate is 24.001 while the green line is mostly smooth, but it slowly decrease to a certain point & then spikes up & the Frame Rate temporarily changes to 23.925. When the spike moves off the left side of the screen the Frame Rate returns to 24.001. Does that mean I'm never at or near 23.976fps? And if frames are being dropped how can I tell how often that occurs?

Reply
Reply
post #779 of 1176
8/9/12 at 6:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike99 View Post

My Frame Rate is 24.001 while the green line is mostly smooth, but it slowly decrease to a certain point & then spikes up & the Frame Rate temporarily changes to 23.925. When the spike moves off the left side of the screen the Frame Rate returns to 24.001. Does that mean I'm never at or near 23.976fps? And if frames are being dropped how can I tell how often that occurs?

Wait.

What do you mean? You don't notice when they occur?
Reply
Reply
post #780 of 1176
8/9/12 at 6:23pm
LOL. I saw that coming smile.gif
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Let's set this straight - No one can do 24p consistently well