GeForce 8400GS woes

[Zaap]

Originally Posted by jetgraphics

Solution: Installed Elecard MPEG2 Decoder, selected it for PLAYBACK, problem resolved.

Holy crap! Tried this and... amazing! So glad you posted this!

I was at my wits end. I take it BTV has been 'dead' for some time, but my family has been using it for years with no complaints. Not long ago I upgraded my living room media PC to a 9800GT/512 from an older 8600GT/256, and BTV playback sucked- annoying little freezes in the video every 10 seconds or so.

It was flawless with the 8600GT for years, so I figured the 9800 would be an upgrade, not a downgrade.

I tried every type of driver new and old, PowerDVD 9 video encoder, every possible setting in BTV. I reinstalled BTV, then reinstalled Windows 7 on the same drive- made sure all my drives weren't fragmented, tore down the machine, rebuilt it. My main drive was a bit older, so I got a newer, faster hard drive, reinstalled Windows and BTV again on that... STILL the crappy skipping video problem, and only in BTV. (For all other video apps play back was stellar, so I stubbornly refused to give up on what I knew was a better card.)

You can imagine how frustrating it is when you get to the point that you're willing to toss money at virtually ANYTHING that will fix the problem, but I didn't even know what direction to start tossing it in.

Finally stumbled across this post- I figured, eh, why not give this a shot?

Installed Elecard- edited my CustomSettings file adding Elecards' CUID #, restarted BTV, switched decoder to Elecard, and from overlay to 3D Rendering... and BAM!

The best picture quality I've EVER seen in BTV. Beautiful video, absolutely skip free. I was on the verge of giving in and looking into whatever else I'd have to switch over to, when this solution saved my bacon. I figure now I can hang on with BTV for the foreseeable future since everything else still keeps on chugging away just fine.

And yes, I guess I've resurrected sort of a dead thread to post this, but what the heck- I think with a product as 'dead' as BTV maybe that's fitting.

[Jakesty]

Did you have to buy the Elecard support, or was it a freeware?

Which program did you specifically install since they have so many?

[Zaap]

Their site is very confusing, but luckily I just copy/pasted Elecard MPEG2 Decoder into a Google search, and found this:

http://www.elecard.com/en/products/e...lugin-wmp.html

It says for WMP, but also ...and other DirectShow based products.

I'm currently using the 30 day free trial, but I'm more than happy to throw $25 at this since it seems to have solved my playback issues.

By the way, I thought a software decoder would really tax my CPU, but I don't see much of a hit when I check task manager while playing something in BTV.

So far, win/win.

[SnakeDoctor]

Originally Posted by Zaap

Holy crap! Tried this and... amazing! So glad you posted this!

I was at my wits end. I take it BTV has been 'dead' for some time, but my family has been using it for years with no complaints. Not long ago I upgraded my living room media PC to a 9800GT/512 from an older 8600GT/256, and BTV playback sucked- annoying little freezes in the video every 10 seconds or so.

It was flawless with the 8600GT for years, so I figured the 9800 would be an upgrade, not a downgrade.

I tried every type of driver new and old, PowerDVD 9 video encoder, every possible setting in BTV. I reinstalled BTV, then reinstalled Windows 7 on the same drive- made sure all my drives weren't fragmented, tore down the machine, rebuilt it. My main drive was a bit older, so I got a newer, faster hard drive, reinstalled Windows and BTV again on that... STILL the crappy skipping video problem, and only in BTV. (For all other video apps play back was stellar, so I stubbornly refused to give up on what I knew was a better card.)

You can imagine how frustrating it is when you get to the point that you're willing to toss money at virtually ANYTHING that will fix the problem, but I didn't even know what direction to start tossing it in.

Finally stumbled across this post- I figured, eh, why not give this a shot?

Installed Elecard- edited my CustomSettings file adding Elecards' CUID #, restarted BTV, switched decoder to Elecard, and from overlay to 3D Rendering... and BAM!

The best picture quality I've EVER seen in BTV. Beautiful video, absolutely skip free. I was on the verge of giving in and looking into whatever else I'd have to switch over to, when this solution saved my bacon. I figure now I can hang on with BTV for the foreseeable future since everything else still keeps on chugging away just fine.

And yes, I guess I've resurrected sort of a dead thread to post this, but what the heck- I think with a product as 'dead' as BTV maybe that's fitting.

Zaap,

I'm trying to install the Elecard codec on my BTV server and I guess I need some more detailed help:

1. Exactly what file did you edit for adding Elecards' CUID #?
2. How does one determine the CUID#?

Thanks,
Bill