Poor/Pixelated Video Issues.

[Desten]

Greetings People! I recently installed a fresh W7 RC 64Bit - Build 7100 on my Acer 5720ZG. Everything seems to be running pretty smoothly performance wise, besides watching Videos.

Main Spec:

Processor: Intel (R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2310 @ 1.46GHz 1.47 GHz.
Ram: 4,00GB Crucial DDR 2.
Video Card: GeForce 8400M GS

Current Display Driver: 8.15.11.8585 <-- Supposed to be the latest.

I am currently using VLC and Media Player Classic, and when attempting to play MKV or AVI files the quality is just poor, it`s like running a game without any anti-aliasing. Choppy and sometimes Pixelated, specially when I forward the Video. I have tried with several different drivers, and it seems that the problems occurse with all of them, I have reformatted twice and the problem is still there, I doubt it is a codec issue, since I am using CCCP. Any tips would be appreciated! :--)

 

[torrentg]

Give PowerDVD a try. It will play most MKV files if you change the name to make it an AVI file.

I'm not suggesting you always use it since you probably like the players you mentioned, but it is awesome. It would be a good test I suppose, to determine things from there.

 

[Desten]

Thanks for the replay torrentg, I will give it a shot.

 

[12eason]

Install k-lite. Way better than cccp and vlc. Also, set the output mode of MPC to EVR custom pres and the resize filter to bicubic ps=-0.6.

 

[Desten]

No luck with K-lite either, nor PowerDvD still poor quality. I suspect it`s something with the drivers, perhaps I should do a clean install and go with the latest Vista 64-Bit drivers? what do you guys think? Because I spent the whole night yesterday trying to solve this problem, and this problem never occured on XP. I have been noticing some not to drastically graphical issues as well, on the gadgets, screensaver etc. And I cant even manage to get a decent quality playing AVI files in WMP as I should, and there should actually not be any need to use any third part softwares to run a AVI file, that leaves me suspecting there is something wrong with the drivers that got updated automaticly by windows update.

 

[Desten]

Meh sort of frustrating hehe.. Just cant figure out what the cause is, if it`s not the GPU Driver nor Video codecs, what can it be? It`s certainly not overheating, the laptop is really cool.

 

[sirdan]

Some sort of direct draw acceleration issue?
Run dxdiag and check display tab.
maybe reinstalling drivers may help or newest dx runtime

 

[Desten]

Oki, sec, thanks for the reply.

 

[Desten]

Looks pretty much ok right ?

 

[Desten]

Any suggestions people ?

 

[sirdan]

Well if it happens after format then its weird. After driver install (win 7 dedicated of course), run newest dx redistributable package. I dont know if the newest is already included in win 7. But may be already.
Next thing that come to my mind is wrong video renderer used. Run MPC Home Cinema and in options/output make sure evr/evr cp is checked (oh 12eason suggested that). Do u see pixelation with WMP too?

 

[Desten]

Yep indeed, it`s weird. And yes, the quality is still poor in WMP and I have tried playing with Directx/Rendering in output etc, then again it kills the aero. Seems like I am suffering the same as this people over here on this thread Poor video quality - Windows 7 Forums. No solutions yet, It`s really a weird situation..

 

[sirdan]

Another hint.... If u use ffdshow for decoding videos, go to video options>>output and make sure that YV12 colorspace is UNchecked. That can lead to pixelation too. Thats somehow limit on win7 and evr. Dont know why others decoders (including WMP) may force that colorspace while evr cant accept it.. Could be also 64bit system problem or graphic drivers.
Well... so if u run 64 bit system, u may try 64 bit ffdshow along with 64 bit MPC HC. Wonder if evr fail in both x86 and x64 decoding chain.

 

[Anthony]

Can you post a screen shot of the video?

 

[Desten]

No luck Sirdan, appreciate the input though! thanks for trying. And yes, I should have considerd taking some screenies, sec.

 

[sirdan]

So, when playing rightclick on mpc hc window then go filters menu, what exactly renderer is used?

 

[Desten]

MPC HC - DVD


WMP - DVD


MPC HC - Filter


If WMP and MPC shows the same amount of quality how can it be codec related? Oh and pixelation only appears when I run MKV files, mostly when forwarding.

 

[sirdan]

Ok lets things clear now. When you are using vista/seven default renderer should be evr: http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3121/schowek1d.jpg
Im on xp now but look on renderer description/name.
I dint see pixelation on your videos. So u watch just poor encoded avi.s right(?). Somebody had the same problem on that forum and he claimed he's gonna download better quality encodes.. Or when u watch videos on high resolution display u may have bad scaling. And if u put dvd screenshots then better change to cyberlink pdvd mpeg2 decoder (free in k-lite) not internal one in mpchc.
"mkv files" means NOTHING. Any container has inside video format that is decoded by dedicated dshow filter (i guess it may be h.264 decoder).

 

[Desten]

Hey man, thanks for busting your ass aiding me really appreciate it. I agree with the poor encoded thing, atleast for the avi files. All though they did scale just fine on XP, not the best quality but ok. Anyways, when I switch to EVR on MPC I seem to get a pretty decent quality, but it`s like the screen takes over the entire explorer, the only option I get is rewind/forwarding and I cant seem to escape the windows besides heading to taskmanager and execute the MPC. Thanks for beeing patience with me, I am not that experienced with video codecs/formats.

 

[Desten]

New problem appeard when about to run Doom 3.