Help! DVD playback at 1080i with ATI Radeon 7200?

The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


The long version:

I'm using an PIII550 Win98 box with ATI Radeon 7200 and
Powerstrip feeding a 4:3 Mistubishi HD set. It took me several
days of frustrating trial and error and internet reading, but I
finally have gotten multiple resolutions to work:

640x480p with 540p timings -- good for 640x480 videos
1280x960i with 1080i timings -- good for viewing pictures
720x480p with 540p timings -- good for 4:3 DVDs
720x720i with 1080i timings -- will be good for anamorphic DVDs

I use the following programs for videos:

Windows Media Player -- .avi and .wmv videos
mplayer (a linux port) -- .avi and .ogm videos
PowerDVD -- DVDs

My problem is with video playback on the interlaced resolutions.
With video hardware acceleration set to the 3rd or 4th notches,
all video playback is stretched vertically by a factor of 2x so
that only the top half of the video shows. This is obviously
unusable.

With hardware acceleration set to the 1st or 2nd notches, then
video playback is correct for mplayer and PowerDVD, but extremely
sluggish. Video playback for Windows Media Player is always 100%
scale, in the lower left corner.

I'm really only concerned with getting DVD playback to work with
interlaced resolutions. With my particular TV, the unusual
letterboxed 720x720i resolution will provide me with
the best anamorphic movie playback. However, without hardware
acceleration it's too choppy. Thus, my options a

1. Get hardware acceleration to work - Is there a way to do this?
I've tried fiddling with various switches on OpenGL and Direct3D
settings and none of these seem to have any effect. There are
a number of settings in Powerstrip which I don't understand. I
tried switching some of them but so far nothing seems to work.

I'm guessing that whatever hardware function is being used to
scale the video is some sort of "overlay" function. Thus, the
program decodes the video to a piece of video memory at the
original resolution and the video card scales this image to
the desired size on the fly while displaying it. Is that right?
I guess that whatever the video card is doing it's incrementing
by only half as much as it's supposed to on each scanline,
because it's interlaced. Is there some sort of hack to get it
to work properly on interlaced resolutions?

2. Get a more efficient DVD playing program - I use PowerDVD simply
because that's what came with my DVD drive. Any suggestions
for better DVD playback software?

3. Tweak PowerDVD - is this even possible? I've probably overlooked
options which could make it play back faster. However, I
somehow doubt minor tweaks could get it up to speed. Playback
without hardware acceleration is very choppy, varying between
around 4 to 8 frames per second. A tweak which increased speed
by 25% would still be too slow.

4. Get a faster processor - but no one has PIII's any more and
upgrading to a PIV motherboard along with new memory is too
expensive. Also, my motherboard might not support PIII's
faster than 600mhz anyway.

I thank you for your time reading the long version, and would
appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo

Sounds like you have a slow computer. What speed is your CPU?



"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


The long version:

I'm using an PIII550 Win98 box with ATI Radeon 7200 and
Powerstrip feeding a 4:3 Mistubishi HD set. It took me several
days of frustrating trial and error and internet reading, but I
finally have gotten multiple resolutions to work:

640x480p with 540p timings -- good for 640x480 videos
1280x960i with 1080i timings -- good for viewing pictures
720x480p with 540p timings -- good for 4:3 DVDs
720x720i with 1080i timings -- will be good for anamorphic DVDs

I use the following programs for videos:

Windows Media Player -- .avi and .wmv videos
mplayer (a linux port) -- .avi and .ogm videos
PowerDVD -- DVDs

My problem is with video playback on the interlaced resolutions.
With video hardware acceleration set to the 3rd or 4th notches,
all video playback is stretched vertically by a factor of 2x so
that only the top half of the video shows. This is obviously
unusable.

With hardware acceleration set to the 1st or 2nd notches, then
video playback is correct for mplayer and PowerDVD, but extremely
sluggish. Video playback for Windows Media Player is always 100%
scale, in the lower left corner.

I'm really only concerned with getting DVD playback to work with
interlaced resolutions. With my particular TV, the unusual
letterboxed 720x720i resolution will provide me with
the best anamorphic movie playback. However, without hardware
acceleration it's too choppy. Thus, my options a

1. Get hardware acceleration to work - Is there a way to do this?
I've tried fiddling with various switches on OpenGL and Direct3D
settings and none of these seem to have any effect. There are
a number of settings in Powerstrip which I don't understand. I
tried switching some of them but so far nothing seems to work.

I'm guessing that whatever hardware function is being used to
scale the video is some sort of "overlay" function. Thus, the
program decodes the video to a piece of video memory at the
original resolution and the video card scales this image to
the desired size on the fly while displaying it. Is that right?
I guess that whatever the video card is doing it's incrementing
by only half as much as it's supposed to on each scanline,
because it's interlaced. Is there some sort of hack to get it
to work properly on interlaced resolutions?

2. Get a more efficient DVD playing program - I use PowerDVD simply
because that's what came with my DVD drive. Any suggestions
for better DVD playback software?

3. Tweak PowerDVD - is this even possible? I've probably overlooked
options which could make it play back faster. However, I
somehow doubt minor tweaks could get it up to speed. Playback
without hardware acceleration is very choppy, varying between
around 4 to 8 frames per second. A tweak which increased speed
by 25% would still be too slow.

4. Get a faster processor - but no one has PIII's any more and
upgrading to a PIV motherboard along with new memory is too
expensive. Also, my motherboard might not support PIII's
faster than 600mhz anyway.

I thank you for your time reading the long version, and would
appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo




-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

He has a PIII 550, sounds like that may be the culprit...
more RAM and/or a better video card can help. Also what about a seperate
MPEG decoder card?

"Klaus" wrote in message
...
Sounds like you have a slow computer. What speed is your CPU?



"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


The long version:

I'm using an PIII550 Win98 box with ATI Radeon 7200 and
Powerstrip feeding a 4:3 Mistubishi HD set. It took me several
days of frustrating trial and error and internet reading, but I
finally have gotten multiple resolutions to work:

640x480p with 540p timings -- good for 640x480 videos
1280x960i with 1080i timings -- good for viewing pictures
720x480p with 540p timings -- good for 4:3 DVDs
720x720i with 1080i timings -- will be good for anamorphic DVDs

I use the following programs for videos:

Windows Media Player -- .avi and .wmv videos
mplayer (a linux port) -- .avi and .ogm videos
PowerDVD -- DVDs

My problem is with video playback on the interlaced resolutions.
With video hardware acceleration set to the 3rd or 4th notches,
all video playback is stretched vertically by a factor of 2x so
that only the top half of the video shows. This is obviously
unusable.

With hardware acceleration set to the 1st or 2nd notches, then
video playback is correct for mplayer and PowerDVD, but extremely
sluggish. Video playback for Windows Media Player is always 100%
scale, in the lower left corner.

I'm really only concerned with getting DVD playback to work with
interlaced resolutions. With my particular TV, the unusual
letterboxed 720x720i resolution will provide me with
the best anamorphic movie playback. However, without hardware
acceleration it's too choppy. Thus, my options a

1. Get hardware acceleration to work - Is there a way to do this?
I've tried fiddling with various switches on OpenGL and Direct3D
settings and none of these seem to have any effect. There are
a number of settings in Powerstrip which I don't understand. I
tried switching some of them but so far nothing seems to work.

I'm guessing that whatever hardware function is being used to
scale the video is some sort of "overlay" function. Thus, the
program decodes the video to a piece of video memory at the
original resolution and the video card scales this image to
the desired size on the fly while displaying it. Is that right?
I guess that whatever the video card is doing it's incrementing
by only half as much as it's supposed to on each scanline,
because it's interlaced. Is there some sort of hack to get it
to work properly on interlaced resolutions?

2. Get a more efficient DVD playing program - I use PowerDVD simply
because that's what came with my DVD drive. Any suggestions
for better DVD playback software?

3. Tweak PowerDVD - is this even possible? I've probably overlooked
options which could make it play back faster. However, I
somehow doubt minor tweaks could get it up to speed. Playback
without hardware acceleration is very choppy, varying between
around 4 to 8 frames per second. A tweak which increased speed
by 25% would still be too slow.

4. Get a faster processor - but no one has PIII's any more and
upgrading to a PIV motherboard along with new memory is too
expensive. Also, my motherboard might not support PIII's
faster than 600mhz anyway.

I thank you for your time reading the long version, and would
appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo




-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

He has a PIII 550, sounds like that may be the culprit...

HaHa thanks - I saw the part under his name and automatically thought it
was a signature....

Yeah your CPU is too slow...
1) Upgrade CPU or
2) Get a $40 hollywood plus decoder card.


"Jason" wrote in message
...

more RAM and/or a better video card can help. Also what about a seperate
MPEG decoder card?

"Klaus" wrote in message
...
Sounds like you have a slow computer. What speed is your CPU?



"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


The long version:

I'm using an PIII550 Win98 box with ATI Radeon 7200 and
Powerstrip feeding a 4:3 Mistubishi HD set. It took me several
days of frustrating trial and error and internet reading, but I
finally have gotten multiple resolutions to work:

640x480p with 540p timings -- good for 640x480 videos
1280x960i with 1080i timings -- good for viewing pictures
720x480p with 540p timings -- good for 4:3 DVDs
720x720i with 1080i timings -- will be good for anamorphic DVDs

I use the following programs for videos:

Windows Media Player -- .avi and .wmv videos
mplayer (a linux port) -- .avi and .ogm videos
PowerDVD -- DVDs

My problem is with video playback on the interlaced resolutions.
With video hardware acceleration set to the 3rd or 4th notches,
all video playback is stretched vertically by a factor of 2x so
that only the top half of the video shows. This is obviously
unusable.

With hardware acceleration set to the 1st or 2nd notches, then
video playback is correct for mplayer and PowerDVD, but extremely
sluggish. Video playback for Windows Media Player is always 100%
scale, in the lower left corner.

I'm really only concerned with getting DVD playback to work with
interlaced resolutions. With my particular TV, the unusual
letterboxed 720x720i resolution will provide me with
the best anamorphic movie playback. However, without hardware
acceleration it's too choppy. Thus, my options a

1. Get hardware acceleration to work - Is there a way to do this?
I've tried fiddling with various switches on OpenGL and Direct3D
settings and none of these seem to have any effect. There are
a number of settings in Powerstrip which I don't understand. I
tried switching some of them but so far nothing seems to work.

I'm guessing that whatever hardware function is being used to
scale the video is some sort of "overlay" function. Thus, the
program decodes the video to a piece of video memory at the
original resolution and the video card scales this image to
the desired size on the fly while displaying it. Is that right?
I guess that whatever the video card is doing it's incrementing
by only half as much as it's supposed to on each scanline,
because it's interlaced. Is there some sort of hack to get it
to work properly on interlaced resolutions?

2. Get a more efficient DVD playing program - I use PowerDVD simply
because that's what came with my DVD drive. Any suggestions
for better DVD playback software?

3. Tweak PowerDVD - is this even possible? I've probably overlooked
options which could make it play back faster. However, I
somehow doubt minor tweaks could get it up to speed. Playback
without hardware acceleration is very choppy, varying between
around 4 to 8 frames per second. A tweak which increased speed
by 25% would still be too slow.

4. Get a faster processor - but no one has PIII's any more and
upgrading to a PIV motherboard along with new memory is too
expensive. Also, my motherboard might not support PIII's
faster than 600mhz anyway.

I thank you for your time reading the long version, and would
appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo




-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----






-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

Try Zoom Player and see how that works.

http://www.inmatrix.com/

"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


The long version:

I'm using an PIII550 Win98 box with ATI Radeon 7200 and
Powerstrip feeding a 4:3 Mistubishi HD set. It took me several
days of frustrating trial and error and internet reading, but I
finally have gotten multiple resolutions to work:

640x480p with 540p timings -- good for 640x480 videos
1280x960i with 1080i timings -- good for viewing pictures
720x480p with 540p timings -- good for 4:3 DVDs
720x720i with 1080i timings -- will be good for anamorphic DVDs

I use the following programs for videos:

Windows Media Player -- .avi and .wmv videos
mplayer (a linux port) -- .avi and .ogm videos
PowerDVD -- DVDs

My problem is with video playback on the interlaced resolutions.
With video hardware acceleration set to the 3rd or 4th notches,
all video playback is stretched vertically by a factor of 2x so
that only the top half of the video shows. This is obviously
unusable.

With hardware acceleration set to the 1st or 2nd notches, then
video playback is correct for mplayer and PowerDVD, but extremely
sluggish. Video playback for Windows Media Player is always 100%
scale, in the lower left corner.

I'm really only concerned with getting DVD playback to work with
interlaced resolutions. With my particular TV, the unusual
letterboxed 720x720i resolution will provide me with
the best anamorphic movie playback. However, without hardware
acceleration it's too choppy. Thus, my options a

1. Get hardware acceleration to work - Is there a way to do this?
I've tried fiddling with various switches on OpenGL and Direct3D
settings and none of these seem to have any effect. There are
a number of settings in Powerstrip which I don't understand. I
tried switching some of them but so far nothing seems to work.

I'm guessing that whatever hardware function is being used to
scale the video is some sort of "overlay" function. Thus, the
program decodes the video to a piece of video memory at the
original resolution and the video card scales this image to
the desired size on the fly while displaying it. Is that right?
I guess that whatever the video card is doing it's incrementing
by only half as much as it's supposed to on each scanline,
because it's interlaced. Is there some sort of hack to get it
to work properly on interlaced resolutions?

2. Get a more efficient DVD playing program - I use PowerDVD simply
because that's what came with my DVD drive. Any suggestions
for better DVD playback software?

3. Tweak PowerDVD - is this even possible? I've probably overlooked
options which could make it play back faster. However, I
somehow doubt minor tweaks could get it up to speed. Playback
without hardware acceleration is very choppy, varying between
around 4 to 8 frames per second. A tweak which increased speed
by 25% would still be too slow.

4. Get a faster processor - but no one has PIII's any more and
upgrading to a PIV motherboard along with new memory is too
expensive. Also, my motherboard might not support PIII's
faster than 600mhz anyway.

I thank you for your time reading the long version, and would
appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

Isaac Kuo

"sheer" wrote in message ...
"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Try Zoom Player and see how that works.

http://www.inmatrix.com/

Thanks for the link! It seems that it actually doesn't
include a DVD player at all--it's just a front end for
PowerDVD or any other compatible DVD playing software.

Nevertheless, I may experiment with the freeware version
for playing other videos. It suffers from the same
vertical 2x stretching/cropping that all of the other
media players suffer from in interlaced modes, but there
might be options to get around that (nothing I've fiddled
with in it has fixed it yet).

As with all of the other media players, playback is
smooth and flawless in non-interlaced modes (with
hardware acceleration turned on).

Isaac Kuo

"Klaus" wrote in message ...
He has a PIII 550, sounds like that may be the culprit...

Well, it's not "the" culprit--with hardware acceleration
turned on, playback is smooth with rare dropped frames.
It looks very nice on the non-interlaced resolutions.
The playback is just as smooth at interlaced resolutions,
but there's some bug/flaw somewhere which makes only
the top half of the image visible and stretches this
top half 2x vertically.

When I disable hardware acceleration, this bug/flaw is
not encountered. However, the additional strain of
doing the image stretching entirely in software makes
PowerDVD very very choppy. Other media types like
DivX .avi files aren't as severely affected, but there
are a lot of dropped frames.

HaHa thanks - I saw the part under his name and automatically thought it
was a signature....

Yeah your CPU is too slow...
1) Upgrade CPU or
2) Get a $40 hollywood plus decoder card.

Thanks--upgrading the CPU is a very expensive option;
I might as well get a whole new computer. PIII's are
not easy to find, and even if I did find one my
motherboard probably can't take one faster than 600.
That leaves me with a motherboard/CPU upgrade, which
would practically be a PIV upgrade. At that point,
I need all new RAM...

That Hollywood Plus decoder card option sounds more
like it, although I still hope to find a solution
which fixes the bug/flaw rather than adding more
hardware.

Thanks again!

Isaac Kuo

Isaac, are you running DX 8 or 9? Try upgrading/downgrading and see if that
helps. It may be a DX problem. Hardware acceleration determines if
DirectDraw is on or off. Worth a shot and its free.


"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
"sheer" wrote in message
...
"Isaac Kuo" wrote in message
om...
The short version:

Does anyone know a DVD player program much faster than PowerDVD?
I'm suffering choppy 4-8fps playback with PowerDVD.

Try Zoom Player and see how that works.

http://www.inmatrix.com/

Thanks for the link! It seems that it actually doesn't
include a DVD player at all--it's just a front end for
PowerDVD or any other compatible DVD playing software.

Nevertheless, I may experiment with the freeware version
for playing other videos. It suffers from the same
vertical 2x stretching/cropping that all of the other
media players suffer from in interlaced modes, but there
might be options to get around that (nothing I've fiddled
with in it has fixed it yet).

As with all of the other media players, playback is
smooth and flawless in non-interlaced modes (with
hardware acceleration turned on).

Isaac Kuo

On 8 Dec 2003 08:25:14 -0800, (Isaac Kuo) wrote:

I'm using an PIII550 Win98 box with ATI Radeon 7200 and
Powerstrip feeding a 4:3 Mistubishi HD set.

How are you connecting them?

"Jason" wrote in message ...
"sheer" wrote in message
...

Try Zoom Player and see how that works.

http://www.inmatrix.com/

Isaac, are you running DX 8 or 9? Try upgrading/downgrading
and see if that helps. It may be a DX problem. Hardware
acceleration determines if DirectDraw is on or off. Worth
a shot and its free.

Thanks, it helped a lot!

I couldn't figure out how to check which version of DX was
installed. It certainly wasn't the latest DirectX 9.
After I downloaded/installed DX9, I was able to successfully
use a DX9 only filter option in Zoom Player. It worked!
Now, Zoom Player successfully streches to any resolution
including the interlaced resolutions I had problems with.
Playback at 1280x960i is smooth and very nice--a distinct
improvement for videos that aren't 640x480 in resolution.

Obviously, the 640x480 videos played about as well as they
possibly could at 640x480 resolutions. Even so, playback
to 1280x960i looks better because the interlacing eliminates
visible scanlines, making it look "fuller".

I haven't purchased Zoom Player Professional yet to play
DVDs, because I'm still hoping to get PowerDVD or some other
DVD player working by fiddling around. A few nights of
experimenting is worth saving $20, IMO, especially since
I'm having fun and learning stuff while I'm at it.

Either way, my next priority is actually to get .ogm files
to play, and get all of the DivX files to play correctly.
Currently I use mplayer to play these files--it uses its
own internal codecs and ignores Windows codecs. With hardware
acceleration turned on, it still suffers from the vertical
stretching even with DX9. It's not surprising that it
wouldn't take advantage of DX9 since it's a linux port.
Messing with codecs should hopefully get Zoom Player up to
speed with these files it currently can't play.

Again, I thank you all for the help! Your suggestions have
been invaluble.

Isaac Kuo