ZoomPlayer Experience?

[Bill Anderson]

Now I'm really stumped. I've been posting off and on about making my
AIW 9600XT play nice with Windows Media Center and HDTV, and I've had a
good bit of success. Not total success, but I'm getting there.

One of my goals has been to record and play HDTV files. I've
successfully recorded HBO Hi-Def video using CapDVHS, but I can't find a
player that will play back the files adequately.

Media Player is jerky.
MCE flashes bright/dim/bright/dim.
VLC Media player tears the image when anything moves fast
I've tried others, but nothing looks very good.

Somebody suggested ZoomPlayer as the best option to play back the HDTV
files. So I've installed ZoomPlayer Standard and the picture looks
really good. Maybe a bit of tearing, I'm not sure yet. But it produces
a great-looking HDTV image. Unfortunately, there's no sound.

Now I can play other files with ZoomPlayer -- avi files from my video
recorder for example, and they look and sound great. But when I try to
play a file I've recorded with CapDVHS, I get a good picture but no sound.

There are sound options in ZoomPlayer and I've been through them one by
one. There aren't many sound options in CapDVHS, at least nothing useful
that I could find. No go with either route.

Again -- the files that have no sound in ZoomPlayer exhibit no audio
problems at all when using the other players. So does anyone know what
there might be about a CapDVHS file's audio that all the other players
would like but ZoomPlayer wouldn't like?

Again ... help, please.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Now I'm really stumped. I've been posting off and on about making my
AIW 9600XT play nice with Windows Media Center and HDTV, and I've had a
good bit of success. Not total success, but I'm getting there.

One of my goals has been to record and play HDTV files. I've
successfully recorded HBO Hi-Def video using CapDVHS, but I can't find a
player that will play back the files adequately.

Media Player is jerky.
MCE flashes bright/dim/bright/dim.
VLC Media player tears the image when anything moves fast
I've tried others, but nothing looks very good.

Somebody suggested ZoomPlayer as the best option to play back the HDTV
files. So I've installed ZoomPlayer Standard and the picture looks
really good. Maybe a bit of tearing, I'm not sure yet. But it produces
a great-looking HDTV image. Unfortunately, there's no sound.

Now I can play other files with ZoomPlayer -- avi files from my video
recorder for example, and they look and sound great. But when I try to
play a file I've recorded with CapDVHS, I get a good picture but no sound.

There are sound options in ZoomPlayer and I've been through them one by
one. There aren't many sound options in CapDVHS, at least nothing useful
that I could find. No go with either route.

Again -- the files that have no sound in ZoomPlayer exhibit no audio
problems at all when using the other players. So does anyone know what
there might be about a CapDVHS file's audio that all the other players
would like but ZoomPlayer wouldn't like?

Again ... help, please.

Then again, never mind. I removed the nVidia drivers I'd installed and
then ran the catuninstaller and removed everything ATI-related, and then
re-installed all the latest of ATI's MCE drivers (except for the
Catalyst Control Center) and sonofagun -- ZoomPlayer's sound works just
fine. The video looks super, too -- extra sharp HD. The only problem
is that it drops frames -- the video is jerky. Sigh. I will keep
working.

 

[First of One]

Enable AGP Fast Writes in both BIOS and ATi SmartGART. For some odd reason
this enables DXVA in the ATi drivers.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

Then again, never mind. I removed the nVidia drivers I'd installed and
then ran the catuninstaller and removed everything ATI-related, and then
re-installed all the latest of ATI's MCE drivers (except for the Catalyst
Control Center) and sonofagun -- ZoomPlayer's sound works just fine. The
video looks super, too -- extra sharp HD. The only problem is that it
drops frames -- the video is jerky. Sigh. I will keep working.

 

[Bill Anderson]

Enable AGP Fast Writes in both BIOS and ATi SmartGART. For some odd

reason
this enables DXVA in the ATi drivers.

Don't have SmartGART. I'd see that only if I'd installed CCC, wouldn't I?

Still, your note sent me to BIOS where I found my "Graphics Aperture Size" was 64MB. As my ATI 9600XT has 128MB of memory, I guessed I should change the setting to 128, which I did. The only difference I spotted was that instead of displaying video letterboxed, the display of HDTV on my monitor was now fullscreen "squeezed." I can deal with that of course. But the video was still jerky.

I even tried recording something new from HBO. Captured part of "Elizabeth" tonight. The video is jerky when I play back with the ATI file player. The video flashes bright/dim/bright/dim when I play back with MCE.

Discovered that RealPlayer provides a beautiful (but jerky) picture.

Discovered that QuickTime won't play the HDTV files I've captured. Won't load. I get an error message that the file isn't a video file.

Discovered that when I recorded something from PBS (Austin City Limits) I get no jerkiness or flashing, and that the picture looks better with the ATI file player than with MCE. Hmmmmmmm....... Maybe I really am experiencing some sort of copy protection on HBO.

Will keep playing with this. Thanks for the input. When I discover something definitive I'll post here. If you have more suggestions, lay 'em on me.

 

[Ian]

Don't have SmartGART. I'd see that only if I'd installed CCC, wouldn't
I?

I never seem to get an advantage from upping the aperture - I have 256mb
on my card and I don't want an aperture that large (not that I believe it
would all get used in any case).

You can get to smartgart settings via a standard control panel or tray
tools, but in any case my driver fastwrite settings have always defaulted
to on when the BIOS fastwrites setting is on.

I had awful trouble getting anything to not jerk playing HD files, until I
a/ properly enabled DX acceleration for WMV and b/ installed the free
utility "reclock".

I hadn't realised I was lacking proper support for acceleration, I'd
ticked the box in control panel after all! ATI had me install two MS
hot-fixes to ensure full hardware/dx acceleration (888656 and 891122). I
think I've been manipulated into patching my system to the copyright
police's gain, but whatever.

My system is borderline spec for HD, so I also have to keep on top of over
all system performance, fragmentation, memory management, etc. Media
Player was a weak HD performer for me but is so much better now I truly
have acceleration on - don't forget to enable "high quality mode" in the
performance settings of MP10 to finish that job. I respect VLC and others
but can't see how they are explicitly configured to use the hardware
rather than software playback.

Best - Ian.


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[Jeff OTF]

Now I'm really stumped. I've been posting off and on about making my
AIW 9600XT play nice with Windows Media Center and HDTV, and I've had a
good bit of success. Not total success, but I'm getting there.

One of my goals has been to record and play HDTV files. I've
successfully recorded HBO Hi-Def video using CapDVHS, but I can't find a
player that will play back the files adequately.

Media Player is jerky.
MCE flashes bright/dim/bright/dim.
VLC Media player tears the image when anything moves fast
I've tried others, but nothing looks very good.

Somebody suggested ZoomPlayer as the best option to play back the HDTV
files. So I've installed ZoomPlayer Standard and the picture looks
really good. Maybe a bit of tearing, I'm not sure yet. But it produces
a great-looking HDTV image. Unfortunately, there's no sound.

Now I can play other files with ZoomPlayer -- avi files from my video
recorder for example, and they look and sound great. But when I try to
play a file I've recorded with CapDVHS, I get a good picture but no sound.

There are sound options in ZoomPlayer and I've been through them one by
one. There aren't many sound options in CapDVHS, at least nothing useful
that I could find. No go with either route.

Again -- the files that have no sound in ZoomPlayer exhibit no audio
problems at all when using the other players. So does anyone know what
there might be about a CapDVHS file's audio that all the other players
would like but ZoomPlayer wouldn't like?

Again ... help, please.

I have an AIW 9600XT. To watch TS HD files I have had the most success
using Windows Media Player 10 with the following plug-in:

http://www.dvbportal.de/projects/hdtvpump/?ver=1.0.7