purevideo ffdshow theatertek ???

Hope this helps as it's all I was able to find out.

Just to clear some things up. Any and all DVD players NEED a mpeg2 decoder. Powerdvd and Windvd for example come with their own proprietary mpeg2 decoder.

The maker of Theatertek didn't want to make his own so he licensed and packaged Nvidia's mpeg2 decoder (aka Purevideo).

Purevideo has a feature that does hardware acceleration for mpeg2 playback of SD and HD video, thats the main feature of it.

When implementing FFdshow in playback with Theatertek, it disables hardware acceleration and puts it into software mode. This is fine for DVD playback as dvd playback isn't very taxing on the system.

Now if you went to use FFdshow/purevideo with HD content then you might have and issue but as of now FFdshow/purevideo with theatertek is perfectly fine.

- Josh

Just to amplify and expand on what Josh said, using FFdshow in the processing chain will "unload" much of the processor work that your NVidia card would normally do using its built in "hardware acceleration" feature and put the processing load back on the main CPU for decoding and post processing. This can be quite taxing on the CPU so just expect that...even with an Athlon 3600 x2 .

Basically this means.... you should concentrate on lowering your processor overhead as much as possible and make sure you dont run any unnecessary software. Keep your HTPC "lean and mean". Also educate yourself on FFDShow and AVIsynth...understand how they work and what features they offer. It is easy to want to use all the knobs, whistles and bells since they're sitting there like candy. More is not better when it comes to processing.

Start without using FFDShow in the signal chain at all and really study the resulting picture quality. Decide what aspects are deficient (if any) based on your tastes, eyes and system. Then bring FFDFSHOW/AVIsynth into the picture if necessary.

I, myself, only use AVIsynth's LimitedSharpenFaster within FFDShow...and that's it....no other plugin within FFDShow and no other post-processing. Obviously your needs will vary depending on your system, but I made the mistake of trying to process too much initially and things get bogged down very quickly...both your processor and the picture quality. The trap is that you process too much by adding, say, one too many plug-ins or effects. That, then, creates artifacts in the picture quality which you add another plug-in to "clean-up". Soon it is much like the syndrome of taking a handful of pills...each sucessive pill being taken to treat the "side effects" of the previous pill. You end up with artificial looking garbage on your screen...

I know this is all rudimentary...but sometimes it's nice to be reminded. So just start with NVidia PureVideo decoder and TT and proceed with caution. I get very close to my ideal image with just one post-processing call after my decoder...

best of luck !!

p.s. - my system info is :

Athalon 5600 x2
NVidia 8600gts
NVidia "PureVideo" decoder
ZoomPlayer
AVISynth - LimitedSharpenFaster

Processor load for SD DVD play - 55%

What OS are you using. If you are in Vista you might as well just use WMP for DVD playback and not worry about any of the software decoding. EVR gives a quite pleasing picture compared to ffdshow.

Used to be a big theatertek fan in xp, but can't recommend it for Vista. Just not woth the expense IMHO.

EVR???? Also why WMP???? Many (like myself) use Theatertek for its clean interface and how it integrates nicely into MCE + MyMovies.

- Josh

The actual display application doesn't matter for image quality, since your decoder and (if you have one) postprocessor decide that - basically the media player only provides a frontend, the actual image produced is done by the directshow chain behind the scenes. If you use the decoder that comes with theatertek in media player classic or zoomplayer, you'll get exactly the same picture.

The only area where it does matter is if you have tearing - theatertek and zoomplayer were always popular because they included a renderer feature that eliminated this (exclusive vmr9 renderless). Since Vista with EVR seems to be largely immune to this, even that reason is gone.