[rashid11]

Have no issues with AVC (MPEG4) or VC1, but do get an occasional jerk here and there playing back HD MPEG2 TIVO files . Is there a consensus on what a better MPEG2 codec is ?

 

[charlesj123]

PureVideo decoder, period!


Charles

 

[gadianton]

I think a lot of people would say purevideo. I was dissatisfied with purevideo, however. It just didn't handle deinterlacing well. Also, my impression is that it has not been updated in years. I personally use elecard and am sufficiently satisfied with it. Cyberlink seems to have a pretty decent one, and I think the new v.8 is supposed to be good.


Anyway, the consensus is probably purevideo, but in practice you should just try out a bunch until you find one that you are happy with.

 

[nm88]



Quote:
Originally Posted by gadianton /forum/post/14169775


I think a lot of people would say purevideo. I was dissatisfied with purevideo, however. It just didn't handle deinterlacing well.

Isn't that the truth. Like most others it will handle film material/IVTC fine, but throw in any interlaced content, PAL conversions, and so on, and it's a mess. Sometimes you can fix it by forcing the deinterlacing method yet other times the feature seems useless.


Unfortunately I haven't found a codec that does a better job.

 

[MikeSM]

The lastest ATI avivo enabled codec seems to do a pretty good job with MPEG2, though powerdvd also works pretty well. I watch a lot of 1080i recorded content, and the deinterlacing done by purevideo leaves something to be desired.

 

[TheFranchise]



Quote:
Originally Posted by gadianton /forum/post/14169775


I was dissatisfied with purevideo, however.

PureVideo is junk. When it works, great, but it's picky. PDVD7 (PowerDVD) is pretty much an updated and better PureVideo anyway.


For free, my first choices would be either Dscaler5 or the "damn, does this thing ever not work?" Gabest MPV. When other decoders falter, Gabest tends to play it fine.


According to Doom9, ATI's decoder is just an old PowerDVD one. I think that was from last year or so they tested that. It's possible a new version is different.


There are some others people like. There's no magic one. The good ones are in the same ballpark, more or less, unless maybe you're a professional TV engineer or something. Just try the more popular ones, and when you find one that works well for you, stick with it and move on to more important things.

 

[nm88]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFranchise /forum/post/14170202


PureVideo is junk. When it works, great, but it's picky. PDVD7 (PowerDVD) is pretty much an updated and better PureVideo anyway.

Cyberlink is worse. Anything that's not straight 3:2 pulldown comes out terrible and there are no options to help tweak it. At least Nvidia gives you a few deinterlacing options.


Dscaler was total crap for me, it could barely play anything without serious problems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFranchise /forum/post/14170202


For free, my first choices would be either Dscaler5 or the "damn, does this thing ever not work?" Gabest MPV. When other decoders falter, Gabest tends to play it fine.

Interesting, I'll try that one out.

 

[Mr.D]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFranchise /forum/post/14170202



For free, my first choices would be either Dscaler5 or the "damn, does this thing ever not work?" Gabest MPV. When other decoders falter, Gabest tends to play it fine.

another vote for Dscaler5

 

[charlesj123]



Quote:
Originally Posted by gadianton /forum/post/14169775


I think a lot of people would say purevideo. I was dissatisfied with purevideo, however. It just didn't handle deinterlacing well. Also, my impression is that it has not been updated in years. I personally use elecard and am sufficiently satisfied with it. Cyberlink seems to have a pretty decent one, and I think the new v.8 is supposed to be good.


Anyway, the consensus is probably purevideo, but in practice you should just try out a bunch until you find one that you are happy with.

gadianton,


I tried Elecard myself and found it very good in software mode. But using DXVA, was not better than Purevideo.


I made this comparison with Nvidia 6150 using encoded NTSC Walt Disney films and I could see segnificant deinterlacing artefacts on fast moving scene. But on software mode, picture was just beautiful without artefacts.


The other downside on Elecard, it doesn't play DVD without copy protection removal software.


Did you experiement the same?


Charles

 

[gadianton]



Quote:
Originally Posted by charlesj123 /forum/post/14172688


gadianton,


I tried Elecard myself and found it very good in software mode. But using DXVA, was not better than Purevideo.


I made this comparison with Nvidia 6150 using encoded NTSC Walt Disney films and I could see segnificant deinterlacing artefacts on fast moving scene. But on software mode, picture was just beautiful without artefacts.


The other downside on Elecard, it doesn't play DVD without copy protection removal software.


Did you experiement the same?


Charles

Most of my experiments were with 1080i ts content that I converted to mpg2, and SDTV (480i) mpg2 content. My main goal was decent deinterlacing (without regard to DXVA or software) when playing the video at 1.5-2.0x speed (using reclock to adjust the audio pitch back to normal.) I tried purevideo, cyberlink, intervideo, snapstream (which basically is cyberlink), gabest (which actually did a pretty good job), dscaler, and a few others I can't remember. Many just wouldn't work at 1.5 speed or looked terrible at that speed. Almost all of them were ok at normal playing speeds. Overall, though I preferred Elecard. I just like the picture better. Of course, all of this is subjective.


To be honest, when playing DVD content I switch between cyberlink and purevideo. I'm pretty agnostic there (though if I could choose, I'd probably stick with elecard). But on CSS protected content, I usually don't have to worry about deinterlacing. 90% of my playback is done in Zoomplayer, the other 10% is BTV.


My first bout of testing was over 1.5 years ago, but I upgraded my video card to a 8800GT last Christmas which instigated my second bout of testing. I have given some thought to checking out the new cyberlink decoder, but I'm not sure it is available yet. I tend to think that the decoder that is still being develop, will probably have a leg up on decoders that haven't been updated.

 

[joesavu]

It really depends on the chipset you are using. I tried mpeg2 codecs with the 680g and the nvidia 6150. I prefer the sonic dvb-pes/ps ds decoder while using with 680g, it has good deinterlacing, but notice slight ghosting, good fast forward/backward seeking during HDTV mpeg2 video it uses lot of cpu power like 2.7ghz dualcore to run smoothly. apparently does not do hardware decoding properly on the 680g for all other codec I tried on this board. As for the 6150, purevideo codec wins hands down, completely eliminated interlaced picture, no ghosting, hardware decoding very well on all mpeg2 content including HDTV, seeking suck though takes a second or something stops until keyframe. TV running is on XBR4 w/120hz and zoomplayer. As far as I can tell the 6150 works better with 120hz whereas 680g doesnt output frame correctly to work with TV. Im waiting for my 780g to come in next week, cant wait to test hope it doesnt let me down like the 680g. hope this helps

 

[jruser]

I like the Microsoft Decoder built into Windows Vista.


I use the ATI decoder on occasion and it offers lower CPU usage but seems to have a slight decrease in quality compared to the MS one.


I have not had much luck with Purevideo working correctly since switching to Vista x64. I either can't get it to work at all or it interferes with other codecs.

 

[joesavu]

my findings were disappointing. Tried every mpeg2 codec I can find for playback in zoomplayer. video playback looks the same as 680g, I found ghosting when when moving. The 780g works better with codecs in terms of seeking forward and backward. I would keep this board if I had demand for playing blueray or hddvd but I play mpeg2 HD so the nvidia 6150 does a better job for my needs. Its going on the auction block, I got 3 680gs so I dont need a forth. lol

 

[sharangad]



Quote:
Originally Posted by joesavu /forum/post/14253133


my findings were disappointing. Tried every mpeg2 codec I can find for playback in zoomplayer. video playback looks the same as 680g, I found ghosting when when moving. The 780g works better with codecs in terms of seeking forward and backward. I would keep this board if I had demand for playing blueray or hddvd but I play mpeg2 HD so the nvidia 6150 does a better job for my needs. Its going on the auction block, I got 3 680gs so I dont need a forth. lol

I think you have the ATi motion adaptive noise reduction bug on the 780G. You can disable it with a registry key.

 

[odditory]

My vote is also Purevideo, and take this from someone that's probably done more MPEG2 ripping and playback than most people (I have 17Tb of MPEG2 files). Whereas my impression of software-based MPEG2 decoders that rely on CPU for decoding tends to be "jerky" and "jittery" playback, Purevideo on the other hand 'feels' more solid in mpeg2 decoding, due to the GPU-assisted facet of it no doubt. I understand people have complaints about interlacing performance with some material, but it hasn't been that much of an issue for me.


That said, I don't like the fact that Nvidia makes it so confusing as to what exactly Purevideo is - many people are confused by it: "is it software? is it just functionality on the card? if I buy it does it decode everything like marketing materials imply? does my geforce chip support rev1 or rev2 purevideo, etc".


Nvidia's done a poor job with marketing this and make it seem like it's this all in one decoder for playing everything back for the "total HD experience". Their marketing dept. needs to be horsewhipped for all the window dressing and fluff and confusion they've surrounded what boils down to an MPEG2 decoder with.