RC3 = smooth HD...I think I'm going to cry

[clayfree]

I just updated to RC3 and I am now getting smooth HD live tv using Nvidia 6600GT + PureVideo. I just watched the end of the Colts & Steelers and the picture was perfectly smooth.

It looks like this last RC was the magis one.

To everyone at Snapstream that worked on this..Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

[icmoney]

What is RC3?

Originally Posted by clayfree

I just updated to RC3 and I am now getting smooth HD live tv using Nvidia 6600GT + PureVideo. I just watched the end of the Colts & Steelers and the picture was perfectly smooth.

It looks like this last RC was the magis one.

To everyone at Snapstream that worked on this..Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

[clayfree]

Release candidate 3

[dlandrum]

Originally Posted by clayfree

To everyone at Snapstream that worked on this..Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I am in complete agreement. Nice work!

[HomeyFour]

Agreed. I'm not sure if its just my crazy eyes, but SD and HD content look gorgeous. Football was incredible yesterday - my dad asked my to bring over my BTV box to his house to watch the Superbowl in HD!

[civerson4]

RC3 is working great for me....but I still have very slight HDTV stutters when watching either a recorded program or live TV. Oddly enough, I can play recorded HD program on my Link Box perfectly--but not on my main HTPC (which leads me to believe I have either a hardware issue somewhere or a config problem--but for the life of me I can't find it). I have played with everything I can think of--and still can't figure this out. I can watch HDTV (recorded or live) in the Dvico fusion software and it plays flawlessly (but the software is not very user friendly)

Here are my specs (the system is about 4 months old and was built as a dedicated HTPC):

AMD FX 4200 Processor on Asus A8NE SLI Deluxe motherboard
2 GB RAM
4 x 300 GB HD (3x 300 in RAID 0 for media storage)
6600 (not GT) out to 50" Plasma via HDMI at 720p via Nvidia driver setting
81.98 Nvidia driver (current)
2 x Fusion Gold USB tuners
Pvr 500 MCE

I have tried all the Nvidia settings in the driver (changing from performance to quality, 16 bit to 32 bit color, different resolutions, etc).

I have tried turning "down" the hardware acceleration on the video card a few "notches" as well as turning off the "write combining" on the video card settings

Signal strength on my antenna (on my "test" station) is always 100% per both the snapstream and dvico signal checkers.

It does not seem to matter whether I am watching 1080i or 720p programming.

Standard def programming is perfect and recorded content on my link box (over a network is perfect). And the Dvico software plays HDTV perfectly. Any other suggestions?

I have opened up a trouble ticket with tech support--but I'll probably get help here faster.

Thanks in advance

[clayfree]

I just saw another thread about older driver software, see if this helps:

Just Upgraded to a GeForce 6200 and am Very Disapointed

[HomeyFour]

Yeah... I've had some VERY unusual behaviour (bad in particular) with some of the latest Nvidia drivers. Wicked bad color/tint/saturation and some unusual tearing with SD content. Nothing I had seen in the 60's release of the drivers.

[Rich A]

I've done some in depth testing of RC3 in the Nvidia decoder area. I'm happy to report that in overlay, (the only thing I use) the Nvidia works fine. RC3 seems to be the most stable of recent builds.

Careful comparisons between Nvidia Pure Video and SS SP decoder show me that the SS decoder is slightly sharper when dealing with digital content that is 480. At 1080 the SS SP decoder and Nvidia are very close but SS still seems to be sharper. The Nvidia has what I would call a very slight "soft focus" effect. It's very minimal but noticeable. Keep in mind that I'm viewing this on a six foot wide projected screen so any slight anomalies show up easily. Bottom line .. I prefer the SnapStream decoder.

Stuttering in general seems reduced slightly where marginal signals are concerned.

Also in setup I believe you are now actually reporting signal strengths below 90?
Usually the stations being scanned are reported as 95 or better or 0. Now I notice that a formerly 0 reported station is being reported as 75. It's still not auto-tagged as a usable station, but at least now I can SEE that there is a station there and "fine tune" the antenna direction to improve it. Thanks !!


FWIW, I have forced weaker stations (75 etc.) to be displayed as usable by checking their boxes in setup. The result is as expected. Although they play and record, there are drops and stutters.

In the setup, the only thing that needs to be fixed is the status where it ONLY shows "Success" for everything. If a signal is at what-ever threshold SS deems not usable, it would be better to change it to report "Weak Signal". If no signal is found then say so, "No signal". Success should only be reported when we are indeed successful.

Over-all .. nice job SS !!

[clayfree]

For the first time I am able to get a smooth picture with the Snapstream decoder. In previous versions I always got better performance from PureVideo.

Rich, I thiink you might be right regarding Snapstream vs Nvidia decoders. I will compare them on my theater when I get a chance.
Clay

[civerson4]

Well, I am guess I am the only one still experiencing stuttering. Tried reverting back to the 78.01 drivers--no real change. I'll keep playing with settings, but if anyone has anymore ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks again for the quick replies.

civerson4

[wxboy]

Yeah. Go up to 83.10 (UNOFFICIAL, guru3d.com) and the performance is so much beter than an Forceware 7X or 80-82 series. I can't wait for Forceware 85 that Vista 5270 has (85.05), since it has h.264 decoding accelleration. This will benefit us, right?

[civerson4]

Downloading now....thanks for the link. I'll let you know if it works for me.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by clayfree

For the first time I am able to get a smooth picture with the Snapstream decoder. In previous versions I always got better performance from PureVideo.

Rich, I thiink you might be right regarding Snapstream vs Nvidia decoders. I will compare them on my theater when I get a chance.
Clay

Please do report back what you see. I almost went blind switching back and forth and comparing them. I believe it's most noticable with the lower resolution 480 type digital. I haven't checked the analog yet.

[civerson4]

83.10 version of the driver didn't solve my problem. Maybe I just have a signal strength issue. Although the signal strength meter shows 100% on a number of channels, I am 44 miles away from the tower and may just be getting blips.

I guess I'll have to wait for the ATI cablecard tuner to come out later this year. Thanks for the help--and I'll let everyone know when I hear back from tech support.