[Alan Head]

About seven weeks ago I purchased Cineplayer DVD 4.0


I have been generally very pleased with the product but I do have a problem with some unusual image artefacts. These occur when using hardware acceleration playback. (force software decoding only deselected). This gives me the best possible picture but after around 20 minutes playing time an occasional dot appears on the screen (normally blue, looks like a dead pixel on a fixed panel lcd projector). The only way to get rid of the dot is to minimise the video window then return to full screen (or double click image). Sometimes a whole row of dots appear. The problem will then return throughout the film. I have included a simulated screen image to illustrate the problem.


My system is based on a Gigabyte GA-7VTXE Motherboard with a 1.4Ghz Athlon processor and 256MB of DDR RAM. I use a Pioneer 106S DVD Drive and a Radeon 7200 64MB DDR video card with 4.13.9009 drivers. I use Windows ME with Direct X 8.1 (4.08.01.0881) installed.


The system is very stable and reliable. Before I purchased Cineplayer DVD I had tried WinDVD and PowerDVD. In my opinion Cineplayer DVD (force software decoding only deselected) produces the best picture quality when it works. Unfortunately the artefacts really spoil an otherwise great product. These artefacts do not appear when using other DVD players so it looks like it is a Cineplayer specific problem.


I have contacted Ravisent Tech Support but had no reply (two weeks past)

Any ideas how to avoid the problem ?


Is there currently a problem with Ravisent Tech Support ?

 

[dlarsen]

Looks like bad memory (frame buffer) in your video card to me. Are you overclocking your radeon? Can you try underclocking it? Try another 7500? It's not a Ravisent specific problem IMHO. Different decoders use the frame buffer (and IcDT) in different ways. If I overclock my radeon, It first breaks using the CinePlayer filters, I can't blame the filters, however.


Dave

 

[Alan Head]

Dave,


thanks for the quick reply.


The Radeon is running at standard speed.


I have since downloaded the rage 3d tweaker and dropped the clock speed and memory clock back to 150.8 Mhz (around a 10% reduction in speed of each). I have just managed to watch an entire film without any artefacts. This looks like it may have cured the problem, although only time will tell.


It certainly looks like Cineplayer gives the video card a bit more of a workout than the other DVD playback products, which could account for the better picture quality.


thanks again

 

[dlarsen]

If slowing the memory / core speed down cures your problem, I would say that you have a defective card if it won't run @ default speeds. Is it under warranty? How is your system cooling? Power supply voltages?


Glad I could help.


Dave