Intervideo / nvDVD hangs

[Sef]

[Sorry, posted this in the wrong forum ]

Hi,

I've recently installed the Hauppage Intervideo decoder (with the hardware accelerated registry hack) and the trial version of nvDVD so I can try out different decoders and compare them. Before that I was using the default Snapstream decoder. Deinterlacing was an issue and enabling it made the video stutter and the audio lag. The picture quality is far superior with the hardware decoders, the deinterlacing makes a huge difference, and the cpu usage is way down.

The problem is that both of these decoders are 'getting stuck'. I'll be watching something normally and suddenly the video will freeze up. The audio continues for a second or two before it stops. At this point I can use the forward/rewind and skip buttons and the video updates, but it won't go back into play mode, it stays on a single frozen image. Weird.

I have the exact same problem with both of these decoders, but not with the default Snapstream decoder. The problem is 100% repeatable at exactly the same spot in the video. I recorded a 2 hour film at the weekend and it does it once near the end of that, but I recorded two 30 minute programs yesterday and it does it several times in each of them.

Has anybody seen this problem before? Any suggestions? As I wrote this I started to wonder if it's because of my Radeon 9200 which is in AGP 8x mode and is known to be problematic. I'll try that in a moment. Meanwhile any help would greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Update]
Setting the AGP bus speed to 4x didn't help.

[Sef]

I've had a bit more time to play with the problem than I had this morning. My log file is reporting something about the VMR9 Allocator not using a private surface. Both the InterVideo and the nvDVD decoders have the same message. Is this normal behaviour?

[11/4/2003 20:43:44] Using third-party MPEG-2 video decoder "InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder for Hauppauge" for playback.
[11/4/2003 20:43:45] VMR9 Allocator not using private surface
[11/4/2003 20:43:45] PlaybackPlayer: VMR9 connected successfully.

BTW: Is there any way to persuade nvDVD to use VMR7? I've tried changing it using the properties dialog in the nvDVD player, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

Thanks.

[RobertH]

snapstream only works with vmr9 so no you cant force it to use vmr7.

the private message is odd, i get it on one of my machines but not on the other one so ive got no idea but as long as they work i dont care to much about it.

you might want to try the 3.7 catylist drivers if you are using the 3.8 versions, ive heard the 3.8 have problems with them

[Sef]

Cheers, Robert. I am using 3.8, mainly because enabling overscan in 3.7 was a pain in the 4$$! I can't test it just yet because the PVR's just started taping Wife Swap and it's more than my life's worth to interfere with it.

I'll try it later on tonight and report back.

[Sef]

Dropping down to Catalyst 3.7 didn't help the issue.

I'm going to borrow a few graphics cards from work today and see if I can get any of them to work.

[PaulyT]

I've been having intermittent crashes lately, too. I'm thinking the combination of ASUS MB + ATI video is just bad... I just ordered an Asylum GeForce FX 5600 Ultra video card, seems about the best for <$200 (although *after* I bought this off eBay, I discovered that compUSA sells it for only $130, an extremely good deal), and other posts indicate GeForce cards have better quality tv out than ATI. And I need a good graphics engine because I do a lot of 3D (OpenGL) work. So, crossing my fingers that this will help... I can post results after receiving+installing, if you want.

[cmasters]

The FX cards are easier to congure in the drivers so people think they output better. Side by side though the ATI has better output. At leas on my TV. The FX was good enough though and I would take that over crashing.

[maddogjt]

i've been having strange problems with my radeon 9600 pro with catalys 3.8 drivers.. 3.9 came out today so i'll let you know how they are working

-maddogjt

[Sef]

I had a go with the 3.9 drivers last night and they didn't make any difference to the problem. Please, let me know how you get on.

I've got hold of a GeForce FX 5200 from work but haven't had chance to try it yet. I'll report back when I do, probably over the weekend.

[Sef]

I finally got around to swapping that Radeon for a GeForce Fx today, and guess what... it made no difference!!!

I decided to take a look at playing the videos on another PC, so I copied them to my laptop and fired up Windows Media Player. Blow me, the exact same problem, the video freezes at that exact same moment. It does eventually recover, but it shows that the problem is in the recording and not in the playback.

I never saw the problem before I installed nvDVD and the Hauppauge decoder, but I'm not sure now if they're the cause of the problem. Does anybody have ANY ideas about this, it's driving me insane and killing my WAF points.

[Civuck]

Yep! EXACT same problem for me too with NVDVD and Intervideo decoders. I'm using WinXP home with a Gainwaird ti4200 videocard and 45.23 detonators. (PC is an XP2100+/1 Gig DDR333)

Have had to go back to default decodes...

[cmasters]

WHat encoder drivers are you using?

[Cayars]

My guess is that they are both using something other than a PVR-250/350 encoder. I guess this because I had the same problem as them when using an ATI card. Switched to a PVR-250 and no longer experience this problem. (garbage in, garbage out).

Carlo

[Sef]

Originally posted by Cayars
My guess is that they are both using something other than a PVR-250/350 encoder. I guess this because I had the same problem as them when using an ATI card. Switched to a PVR-250 and no longer experience this problem. (garbage in, garbage out).

Sorry, you lost me. How do I setup PVS to use something other than the PVR-350 encoder?

Originally posted by cmasters
WHat encoder drivers are you using?

Looking at the device manager, they claim to be 1.17.390.21219. I just checked the Hauppauge website and 21226 is the latest available, dated June. When I began prototyping my HTPC I played with several combinations of drivers and applications and had loads of problems with those drivers. I couldn't get them to work at all with PVS. I never figured out why and just stuck with the older drivers when I built the PC for real.

I'll experiment with the newer drivers tomorrow when the recording schedule isn't so busy. It's really more than my life's worth to go messing with it on a Saturday evening.

Cheers for the help, guys.

[PaulyT]

Originally posted by cmasters
The FX cards are easier to congure in the drivers so people think they output better. Side by side though the ATI has better output. At leas on my TV. The FX was good enough though and I would take that over crashing.

Well, you need to give more credit to the people on this forum - they're pretty technically savvy, and I don't think they'd equate ease of installation with end result quality.

Anyway, I've now installed my new GeForce FX 5600 Ultra card, and so far so good. You're right, there's not much apparent difference in the TV out quality (once I discovered the all-important 'TV out to S-video' setting!) , but I do think that the GeForce has better color, the ATI always seemed a bit washed out. But I didn't spend a lot of time messing with color correction on either one.

With my old ATI 8500DV, I used to be able to pretty reliably crash my computer by running SS in windowed mode using nvdvd decoding, and then opening the nvdvd control panel and/or task manager during live tv or video playback. But now I can do all this with no ill effects.

Can't yet speak to long term stability of the system with the GeForce card, but it's been a day and nothing's crashed yet...