[Goi]

Hi guys,

The motherboard of my present HTPC decided to crap out on me. I'm thinking of getting a new mobo/CPU/memory and perhaps a new PSU, and keeping the rest of my system. Currently my 1.4GHz Athlon Thunderbird is already having problem with my ZP 3.1 + ffdshow experimental resize to 1024x768.


I would ideally like to do ffdshow Lanczos resize to either 1024x768 or double DVD size, along with dscaler sharpness, and dscaler deinterlace for non-progressive material.


I'm thinking of getting an Abit NF7 with an Athlon XP Barton 2500+, and 512MB PC3200 memory. I'm also thinking of overclocking it to 2.2GHz(3200+ speed). Would that be enough power to do what I've proposed above?


Currently my main system is a P4 [email protected] and its already having a bit of a problem with Lanczos resize to 1200x900 coupled with the 2 dscaler filters, which is why I'm asking...


The rest of my HTPC system(that remains the same) are as follows

Alpha PAL8045 heatsink/fan

Hercules Radeon 8500 128MB video card

Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM

M-Audio Audiophile 2496

Linksys NIC(probably not needed anymore since most mobos come with integrated LAN)

Leadtek TV2000XP Deluxe TV tuner

Seagate Barraccuda IV 40GB HDD

Enlight 300W PSU


I think the rest of the system is holding up pretty well, so I should only need to replace those 3 components, and perhaps the PSU(either a Antec SmartPower 350W or Zalman 400W, which one's better in terms of performance and noise levels?)


Thanks!

 

[llamameat]

That would be more than enough. My lowely 1800 can handle 1440x960 lanczos using VMR + sharpening +denoise3d

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, which version of ffdshow are you using? I'm wondering why my P4 2.8 is having problems then...


Anyway, I managed to figure out what was wrong with my present HTPC - it turns out to be a faulty stick of ram that's causing instabilities...so the upgrade plan is tentatively shelved...I wonder if that's good or bad news...

 

[llamameat]

i'm using the 12/13/02 version, as it seems to work extremely well with athons (although sometimes I switch to the newest to use denoise3d)

 

[Goi]

OK, thanks anyways. I'll keep that in mind the next time I upgrade...

 

[Goi]

llamameat, just wondering, what are your exact system specifications. Do you perform resizing before the other filters, or after? Performing resizing as the first action requires much more CPU power for each additional filter compared to after.


Also, you mention that you used the 12/13/02 version, but IIRC that build doesn't even have lanczos resize, only bicubic and perhaps experimental. Wasn't lanczos resize only introduced in the April or 0523 build this year?

 

[Glimmer Man]

I'm also running a P4 2.8, and I had stuttering problems, so using resize only and multiples of 16 I resized from 1440x960 down to 1088x960 before I got smooth playback. Then I added and experimented with different filters. I'm using the 20030523 version. After all was stable I used PS to go up to 1800x540p.

 

[Goi]

Glimmer Man, why would you want to resize to 1088x960? You lose the correct aspect ratio, and I don't suppose that's in any multiple of your input resolution or your final display resolution? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to rescale to an arbitary larger resolution...

 

[jvincent]

I just noticed last night that the latest ffdshow build 20030816 (?) is significantly slower than the 20030103 build.


My 2.5G P4 has no problem running Lanczos resize at 1440x960 on the old build but barfs horribly on the new build.


I seem to recall from some of the earlier discussion that the 20030103 and 20021213 builds were compiled with P4 optimizations. Or I may be hallucinating.


Just a head's up.

 

[Goi]

jvincent, how did the 0523 build run for you?

I wasn't aware the older builds had lanczos resize...looks like I have to try them out.

 

[jvincent]

I know I tried it, but I can't remember if it was any slower or faster than the 0103 build.


I'm stable now, so to avoid any more angry kiddies or spouse, I'm going to leave it alone. For a while anyway.

 

[Glimmer Man]

Hi Goi,

From what I understand you can resize to many resolutions as long as its a multiple of 16. My input is 720x480 which is a mulitple of 16(45x30), I had stuttering problems at 1440x960 which is a multiple of 16(90x60), so after experimenting I got smooth playback at 1088x960 which is a multiple of 16(68x60). I can run 1080i or 540p(using a transcoder) so I set PS to 960x540 to start and adjusted the aspect ratio in TT, after which I've bumped it up to 1800x540 and adjusted the AR again in TT. Like I have said I'm still trying to learn this stuff so if I'm off base let me know.

peace out-

 

[jvincent]

OK, so I tried the 0523 build, again and it's definitely slower than the 0103 build for my P4 based system.


As always, YMMV.

 

[Goi]

Thanks jvincent, appreciate your effort, is there anything in the 0523, feature wise, that isn't in the 0103 build? I might consider "downgrading' if its actually faster and looks the same.


GlimmerMan, I'm thinking more along the lines of keeping the proportion. I don't know for a fact that I'm right and you're wrong, but it just seems to make sense to me, so if anyone has a better idea(Owen?) perhaps they could clarify if we should just keep it in multiples of 16 or keep the aspect ratio. Personally on my P4 system I scale it to 1200x900 from any input resolution and then let my graphics card scale it to my target desktop resolution of 1600x1200 because 1600x1200 is 1.5x 1200x900, so I thought that's the closest I could get to a nice number so that the graphics card scaling is as foolproof as possible.

 

[jvincent]

As far as I could tell from the release / checkin notes there were some bug fixes and minor things added but it didn't look like there was anything specific in the resize area. Visually I can't tell the difference either.


I did just notice one thing. You said in your original post that you wanted to use some of the Dscaler filters. If I remember correctly the Dscaler filters that are built into ffdshow are older/slower. If you specify one manually you can use the latest DLL by specifying it.


There may have been some Dscaler changes made in the later build, but I can't remember.

 

[Goi]

OK thanks, I've always been using separate dscaler filters from the dscaler software itself. I wasn't even aware that ffdshow came with dscaler filters.

 

[Owen]

There are no definitive rules for resize settings.

It is my recommendation that people with low resolution displays (standard TV’s etc) should resize to double DVD resolution and then let the video card downscale to there output resolution.

People with high resolution displays should try resizing directly to there desktop-display resolution and avoid a second resize by video hardware if there CPU will allow.


This is only a guide. By all means try other intermediate settings. If you find one that works for you then great.

If you don’t want to spend the time to experiment, just use one of the above options and be happy.


All resize settings MUST be a multiple of 16 or ffdshow will reject them.


As for how much CPU power do you need to run ffdshow at its best, well the fastest CPU available (P4 3.2C) will only be just enough.

Damn, were can I get my hands on a P5 4Gig.


Regards,


Owen

____________________________

The ffdshow resize – sharpen dude

 

[tbhavsar]

I am using P2.6c (with the latest Intel Chip875) ZP3.1 + Wind DVD + FFDShow 200305 build + ReClock 1.1.


With the above combo, I ONLY get sound after couple of starting frames of video and then Video freezes;


I kept reinstallaing ZP, FFDshow or Reclock but no sucess yet..,Now I am frustrated....


I have Blur & NR above resize (1440x960) with lancoz and DScaler Sharpen (Set to 40); Any idea what is going wrong? Please help.

 

[Goi]

Owen, when you say ffdshow will reject resize settings that aren't a multiple of 16, what exactly will it to? I'm currently resizing on my main PC(not HTPC) to 1200x900, which isn't a multiple of 16. ffdshow however still runs, and I can see a clear difference between that and when resize is disabled(not checked). The OSD also shows an output resolution of 1200x900, so doesn't this mean that ffdshow has accepted this setting?

 

[Owen]

Goi,

You have the "Expand to next multiple of 16" box cheaked.

You should use "Specify Size".

You are actually resizing to 1200x912.



Owen