Horizontal Line during DVD Playback

T

TokyoShoe

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
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So I've been tweaking and fine tuning my HighDef HTPC setup. About a week ago I played some regular DVDs on it and they looked great. The rest of the week I've been playing HD-DVD's on it and tuning performance accordingly. Now I go back and play a regular DVD , and I get a horizontal "refresh line" or something going right across the middle of the picture. There is actually a slight offset of the two halves , so you can see a little "break line" where the top and bottom picture don't quite 100% line up. It also creates this wierd "shutter effect" because the top half and bottom half refresh slightly out of sync.

It's annoying as heck, and distracting to boot. I've tried the Nvidia 162.22 Forceware Drivers, 163.44 Beta Forceware drivers.. same thing between both. Checked multiple DVDs I've played back on this system before, same problem across all of them. Checked the settings on the drive, and they are tuned for best performance like they should be. I've checked the settings in PowerDVD Ultra and cannot find anything set incorrectly. To even further add to the confusion, it is happening in Windows Vista Media Player as well too !

This is driving me insane to try and figure out. Can someone help me with this?


Also, a slightly related note: Is there anyway to test if the Hardware Acceleration & Decoding that my 8500GT is supposed to have.. is actually WORKING?
 
JPGR87 said:
are you running ffdshow by any chance?
Click to expand...

Actually no I'm not. Should I be? I have heard of FFDShow, and I know what it can do. I just have not installed it yet because I'm partially pushing the minimum CPU limits for an HD-DVD setup already. I'm not sure I have any spare horsepower for FFDShow effects.

Should I install it and see what it can offer regarding this issue?
 
I was just wondering because most of the filters have a checkbox that says "process only right half of image" and i thought you may have inadvertantly clicked on one of those. ffdshow is something you should definately look into after you fix this issue for standard dvd's.

Powerdvd ultra should be using your nvidia card's purevideo optimizations, but it sounds like it could be a dvd decoder problem. I'd try uninstalling and reinstalling powerdvd to see if it does anything, or else try installing windvd or something to see if that will decode dvd's correctly.
 
I now have FFDShow installed, still trying to configure it. I will readily admit being new to this HTPC thing, especially in regards to HDTV Resolutions. So if you can pitch in any recommended settings for using it to improve performance on DVD playback I'd be much appreciative.

And yes, I am starting to wonder if I need to remove and reinstall PowerDVD. It's been acting quite strange
 
FFDShow does work with PowerDVD, right? I thought it would give some kind of indicator down on the system tray when running... but while I've got PowerDVD up I see no such indicator. Hmm, I think I'm missing an option somewhere.
 
So I've reinstalled PowerDVD Ultra. I've got it setup and configured pretty good, I think. I also now have FFDShow installed, and have it configured based upon another thread I found in the AVSForums. I double checked my codec / driver installs. Everything "should" be good.

I see effects trying to be applied to PowerDVD videos being played back, and I definitely see more CPU Usage than previously Unfortunately I still can't get rid of the mid-screen, left to right "refresh sync line" that I see. It's like the top and bottom half of the screens are refreshing at different rates.. and it only happens during DVD playback.

Does anyone have any ideas? Suggestions? (FFDShow works with Vista, doesn't it?)
 
i had that on my 20" acer... For some reason there was exactly what you decibed. I got it fixed by opening up nvidia control panel and editing video quality.


That's it. I actually touch one thing. I left the video playing in the background, then when I opened it up and went to adjust it. It magicically worked. I don't know what was up, but I've never had the tear again. Maybe you'll be that lucky.
 
JPGR87 said:
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/horizontal-lines-on-video-playback-with-vista-t330614.html
that guy has a similar problem i think, maybe that thread can help
Click to expand...

Thanks to this thread, I've figured out what the problem is. Unfortunately it doesn't entirely resolve the issue:

The horizontal line issue was the 163.44 drivers. I get the same thing with the 162.22 drivers as well. I switched out the drivers to another set, and the line goes away! Unfortunately another issue shows up. It seems all Vista 32-bit drivers for my 8500GT break down into 2 categories, they either cause the mysterious Horizontal Line issue, or they won't give me HDCP compliance in 1080i.

Right now I'm using the 163.11 drivers, they run like a dream.. even improved my HDCP performance some, AND they got rid of the mystery line. Unfortunately... they won't give me 1080i HDCP Compliant. I've been trying driver after driver with no luck. Can anyone point to a set of "Dream Drivers" for HTPC use in an HD-DVD setup, for an 8500 ? This is driving me crazy !
 
i noticed that later...

if there's one thing ATI has over nvidia, its their driver numbering scheme. What is 7.5? Oh, its the driver that came out in May of 2007. What is 165.3489? Ha...good luck.
 
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