3.5.3 versus 3.7.2

[HomeyFour]

I wasn't sure were the best place would be to put this, but I'd rather discuss this in the Beta forum than general forums, since the folks in here seem to have a more "vested" interest in the successes of BTV and SnapStream.

I downgraded my system to 3.5.3 today from 3.7.2. I don't know what my problem is, or how it got that way. I downgraded because, put simply, the video quality was just crappy. I have a 6600GT, with the NVIDIA PureVideo decoder. When I beta test, I first go through the upgrade channels, and evaluate things. Then, after a while, I go back to a saved "master" Norton Ghost image of my machine, with just XP+a few small updates, IGCutter, etc and load the beta again from "scratch". 3.7.2 just looked awful for me - there was terrible "blockiness" in the video, and there were some minute hiccups and skips in the video. Again, I reload from a master image, so I know for a fact that there are no system-wide changes from one BTV install to another.

As is typical, I tweak and fuss and tried to figure out why the heck the video quality was so poor. The other built-in decoders were much worse, as was overlay mode. (I typically run in 3d accel with hardware deinterlacing, exclusive fullscreen at 800x600). The last straw came today when my wife asked me to hook the TV back up to Cable, because the picture was just too "blocky" for her.

So, I uninstalled 3.7.2, ran registry-cleaner, and reverted back to 3.5.3. Same settings - NVIDIA, exclusivefs, same "base" system, same 77.72 drivers, same PureVideo decoder, no antivirus, and the picture is truly fantastic, like I'd expect.

What the devil am I missing here? I've tried the "smart" versus the "automatic" deinterlacing in the decoder, I've tried bnflaherty's reg trick that unlocks more settings, I've confirmed that quartz.dll didn't suddenly get upgraded (the master image has directx 9.0b). I just don't get a good picture on 3.7.2 - I've tried 3 times, upgrading and reloading from master, and in all cases, the 3.5.3 image is SO much better.

The only difference I've seen is that in 3.5.3, the PureVideo decoder shows up as "Nvidia DVD Decoder" whereas in 3.7.2, it shows up as "Nvidia Video Decoder". I have no idea if this makes any difference, but again, the base OS and system in all cases are from a master image that I use.

Am I missing anything glaringly obvious that would make 3.7.2's picture quality look significantly worse than 3.5.3, all other things being equal?

PS: Sorry for the long post, but I'm stumped!

[jdiff]

Have you ever used/played around with the older nvdida decoder (1.00.67 or something like that)? In my system, that was referred to as Nvidia DVD decoder while the new Purevideo is referred to as NVidia Video Decoder. Have you installed both at the same time and switched between them? That is the only fishy thing I see that you wrote.

[HomeyFour]

Originally Posted by jdiff

Have you ever used/played around with the older nvdida decoder (1.00.67 or something like that)? In my system, that was referred to as Nvidia DVD decoder while the new Purevideo is referred to as NVidia Video Decoder. Have you installed both at the same time and switched between them? That is the only fishy thing I see that you wrote.

I did use the old .67 version a while back, but I've fresh-installed using the PureVideo one since it came out. 3.5.3 recognizes the "new" decoder still as DVD decoder, wheras 3.7 recognizes it as Video Decoder. I never had both installed at once.

[HomeyFour]

I'm replying to myself, but I figured it all out. 1) Color depth set to 16bit versus 32bit 2) 12V molex not connected to 6600GT card.

[dequire]

Originally Posted by HomeyFour

2) 12V molex not connected to 6600GT card.

That'll do it, every time!