[sofa-spud]

Originally Posted by monopole

Are you outputting to spdif? if so, there's a setting in MPC (options/output i think) to output to spdif. If not, you can try adding the cyberlink audio codec as an external filter or use ac3filter (which is free).

Thanks,
I think I'm flogging a dead horse with the machine I have here though. Even pushing the CPU (Barton) as far as it will go it will not playback smoothly so I'll have to hope the coreavc codec works and is made available...

If not, its SD until I can acquire a MB + CPU capable.

John

Just a quick update....

I've now installed an Athlon X2 4200+ and I now have silky smooth playback of live stuff with a CPU utilisation of around 40%. This is using Media Player Classic (MPC) with the Cyberlink H.264 codec with DXVA (hardware acceleration) switched on (Nvidia 6600GT AGP graphics card with the latest beta drivers).

Setting the MPC output to Overlay gives the best results - if I user VMR7 or VMR9, I see a lot of combing (jaggies) from the de-interlacing (this was when watching the BBC test transmission showing standard def stuff - which looked very good indeed - it's amazing how good standard def looks when there aren't any mpeg2 artifacts to get in the way). Then at 10pm, the real hi def stuff came on and it looked stunning.

By the way, coreavc have now released version 1.1 of their codec (it doesn't support hardware acceleration) which supports the BBC test transmissions... not much info yet on whether it is more efficient than the Cyberlink codec.

Also, Nebula electronics have released version 3.6.01 of their software which supports the BBC HD transmissions. It's software only decoding - so it's a bit choppy.

http://www.nebula-electronics.com/downloads/hd3601.asp

[Gadget Freak]

Well the HD quality from my Humax yesterday for the Germany v Costa Rica match was stunning, crystal clear and completely without the usual blockiness and pixelation problems of SD.

A few glitches with sound and picture but these are due to interference from my aerial. Anyone got any good tips on reducing interference ???

I've seen that CoreAVC have a MBAFF codec available now (don't really know what this is, but having read loads of threads about HD via Freeview, it seems to be a key component of a viable setup)

I'm still not clear about what else I'll need apart from a TV aerial and a computer (and even then I don't know what sort of spec I should ask for to be sure of getting the best picture quality).

Anyone care to offer a suggested shopping list?

[sofa-spud]

Ok,
Dont know what I've done, but I'm suddenly getting much better performance...
Maybe someone can figure something out from this info, & sorry for the long post...

All this is on a barton cored CPU clocked to 2200MHz, 512MB RAM, 6600 video card(128MB RAM):

I recorded some stuff from BBC and ITV HD using DigiTV s/w
I could play this back using MPC and the cyberlink codec as suggested by monopole, Video played back approx 9 frames/sec. While I could hear the ITV audio(stereo I believe), I couldnt hear the BBC(5.1 on the recorded file) to either the sound card analogue o/p nor the S/PDIF to the av processor.

I tried the CoreAVC 1.1.05 codec and suffered massive green blocking and still no 5.1 sound. This was with deblocking and interlacing off.

Today I set the digitv s/w to record the England game(22GB!) which it appears to have done as a .ts rather than .mpg as before.

The sound now appears on the analogue o/p & S/PDIF, which the TAG sees as stereo, and the video plaback is 18-19 frames/sec using the coreavc codec (~12/sec using the cyberlink codec).
Much better, but now the video slowly begins to lag the audio(due to the slow frame rate playback I presume?) to the point where the picture shows the players about to kick-off, but the audio has just described Englands goal!

So;
Any Gurus out that might explain any of the above?

Anyone seen any issues with the 5.1 sound tracks from the BBC?

Is there any difference when recording (with digitv) a single program rather than entire ts that might explain the above audio issue?

After all this I still think I need to upgrade...

John

Ahh, good to hear that digi-tv can record the program - i want to record planet earth in all its hd glory.

For yesterdays game, I ditched the cyberlink codec in favour of the coreavc codec... using hardware decoding on the cyberlink codec, my pc would randomly reboot - had it on for few hours before the game without a problem, then about half an hour before the game was due to start my PC would randomly reboot when watching HDTV. Tried software decoding with the cyberlink codec, but it was jerky.... so out of desperation, I spent $20 on the coreavc codec, which worked like a charm... Using coreavc, CPU usage jumps between 50-75% on my Athlon X2 4200+. I'd say the picture quality is slightly better too - with cyberlink + hardware decoding + overlay (I had to use overlay since VMR7 and VMR9 would de-interlace incorrectly, producing jaggies), I ended up with a thick, horizontal line across the bottom of the picture. Coreavc has none of these problems.

Just a note about 5.1 and BBCs HDTV... for their previews, my amp reports dolby digital 5.1, but for the footy and the SD broadcasts on BBC HD1, the sound drops to pro-logic (i.e. prologic on a dolby digital stream).

For people with problems with 5.1 output via s/pdif, have you tried AC3filter?

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AC3_Filter.htm

Still cannot receive ITV on HD - the error rate is massive and all I see on screen is a noisy frame every few minutes. Presumably ITV are broadcasting at a much smaller power level than BBC (I'm near Canary Wharf).

[sofa-spud]

Originally Posted by monopole

Just a note about 5.1 and BBCs HDTV... for their previews, my amp reports dolby digital 5.1, but for the footy and the SD broadcasts on BBC HD1, the sound drops to pro-logic (i.e. prologic on a dolby digital stream).

For people with problems with 5.1 output via s/pdif, have you tried AC3filter?

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AC3_Filter.htm

Still cannot receive ITV on HD - the error rate is massive and all I see on screen is a noisy frame every few minutes. Presumably ITV are broadcasting at a much smaller power level than BBC (I'm near Canary Wharf).

I dont see that much difference in signal strength from here in N London, maybe your suffering from clutter in your area?

After RTFM I now have the correct audio being reproduced. I even bought TSReader and can now stream the live pictures and audio albeit poorly. So, now its time to treat myself to a new CPU & MB, any recommedations given I want to keep my (AGP) graphics card for now and I need regular PCI slots (3 if poss) for the other cards in the current setup?

John

Clutter? From other Freeview channels or something else? Just trying to fathom if I can get around this somehow... the next England game appears to be ITV only... bugger.

For motherboards, I've been impressed with my ABIT AV8-3rd eye (always used Gigabyte and ASUS before that) - you get a little LCD screen that plugs into the motherboard via a usb type cable (though it's not usb) and shows things like CPU temperature, voltages, system temp etc... and if you're in to overclocking, the bios is very helpful in letting you do that. I've got 2 black gold pci freeview cards in there for use with media centre and the nebula digitv pci for use as a radio and this HD trial etc..

I've just upgraded from an Athlon 3400+ to an Athlon X2 4200+ - this thing flies (£200 from ebuyer.com)! And is more than fast enough to let me use coreavc 1.1 to do the h.264 decoding in software (it appears to utilise both CPU cores on the Athlon).

[sofa-spud]

Originally Posted by monopole

Clutter? From other Freeview channels or something else? Just trying to fathom if I can get around this somehow... the next England game appears to be ITV only... bugger.

Either your suffering obstruction (buildings etc) in the path from CP and/or interference from another transmitter
Looking at
http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/tx_lse.html
It appears both Reigate (low power) and Bluebell hill in Kent (2KW) use ch27

You mentioned before you see high error rates on ch27, whats the signal strength like?
Do you see good signal strength and low error rates on all the other channels from CP?

John

Signal strength for ITV HD mux is all over the place... sometimes it's strong with lots of errors, other times there's no detectable signal at all.

Normal Freeview is fine - I can see all the channels perfectly.

[sofa-spud]

Originally Posted by monopole

Signal strength for ITV HD mux is all over the place... sometimes it's strong with lots of errors, other times there's no detectable signal at all.

Normal Freeview is fine - I can see all the channels perfectly.

I've read a few posts elsewhere reporting similar probs to you. The common theme seems to point at the antenna and/or cable from it.
A couple of people have reported some success with using one of these things:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...=SEO&U=strat15

given the price it might be worth a try?

John

Funilly enough, we'd just bought one of those for the office... so took it home to give it a try... the result was much, much worse - BBC HD was full of errors.

Originally Posted by sofa-spud

I've read a few posts elsewhere reporting similar probs to you. The common theme seems to point at the antenna and/or cable from it.
A couple of people have reported some success with using one of these things:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...=SEO&U=strat15

given the price it might be worth a try?

John

[LEFIZZ]

HI,

Just to say i also live on the Isle of Dogs (Canary Wharf if you want to sound posh,(joke)) and am getting reception of all the HD preview channels with only an indoor ariel. I do have a modern philips booster in the signal path which to my surprise actually seems to help. Have tried with various tuners hauppauge nova usb2 , freecom dvb stick and gdi black gold cards. Have got all of them working fine apart from the black gold card mainly due to drivers issue.

Curently i am using the dvb viewer beta 3_4_12 which is working pretty well. At work on Rathbone Place we have a lot of dell 650 workstations and this realease allow mulpi cpu support without blue screening them. It also seem to help. The graphic card both at home (9700 pro) and work (various Quadro and Quadro FX) arent modern enough to have h 264 support.

Here at home i have mildy overclocked a64 3500 and am trying to work out wether to go for a dual core cpu or a gfx card. My system ( home built) was too early to have PCI-e so from what i read I need to go PCIe to get pure video support? Or do the 6600 GT work as well. This to me seem like a problem that a gfx card would probably be more useful at than more cpu power.

What are people opinions?

Best Regards,

Phil

[LEFIZZ]

PS if i move the internal arial about 4 inch closer the the window frame i loose all HD test transmission apart from the BBC, if that helps.

Phil

Originally Posted by LEFIZZ

HI,

Just to say i also live on the Isle of Dogs (Canary Wharf if you want to sound posh,(joke)) and am getting reception of all the HD preview channels with only an indoor ariel. I do have a modern philips booster in the signal path which to my surprise actually seems to help. Have tried with various tuners hauppauge nova usb2 , freecom dvb stick and gdi black gold cards. Have got all of them working fine apart from the black gold card mainly due to drivers issue.

Curently i am using the dvb viewer beta 3_4_12 which is working pretty well. At work on Rathbone Place we have a lot of dell 650 workstations and this realease allow mulpi cpu support without blue screening them. It also seem to help. The graphic card both at home (9700 pro) and work (various Quadro and Quadro FX) arent modern enough to have h 264 support.

Here at home i have mildy overclocked a64 3500 and am trying to work out wether to go for a dual core cpu or a gfx card. My system ( home built) was too early to have PCI-e so from what i read I need to go PCIe to get pure video support? Or do the 6600 GT work as well. This to me seem like a problem that a gfx card would probably be more useful at than more cpu power.

What are people opinions?

Best Regards,

Phil

There are quite of few people of the Trial in the Canary Wharf area (I'm just down the road from The Gun).

Funny you work in Rathbone Place, are you in cex?

[Entertainment]

Wish HD Terrestrial TV was nationwide

[LEFIZZ]

Hey NewDTTBox,

NO i work above cex in an anmation company, thouhg see as it the door next to mine and i have always been a big gaming fan way back to the 48k speccy/beeb era i tend to go in from time to time. I live just at the start of manchjester road so very close. Fair play 'The Gun' might be a touch pricey but it a damn fine place to treat the missus from time to time, amazing grub.

Workingin broadcast i have always been put off lcd/plasma since they always seen so poor colour wise and are usless ofr animation since even the slightest ghost means you cant animate on them cos it impossible to judge timing etc.
However when the first imgine of Galapogus came up on my ****ty littel 15" tft in my desk at home i was just blown away. You suddenly realise they can produce a decent enough imagine if given the right feed.

What amazes me if how good most of the sd stuff look upscaled when you take all the hideous low bitrate mpeg2 artifacting. H264 might bring my machine to its knees but looking at the stills i have captured via fraps even the individual frame look quite stunning. I want all freeview HD or otherwise to quickly move over to h264, and i mean quickly not 2010.

Phil

Originally Posted by LEFIZZ

Hey NewDTTBox,

NO i work above cex in an anmation company, thouhg see as it the door next to mine and i have always been a big gaming fan way back to the 48k speccy/beeb era i tend to go in from time to time. I live just at the start of manchjester road so very close. Fair play 'The Gun' might be a touch pricey but it a damn fine place to treat the missus from time to time, amazing grub.

Workingin broadcast i have always been put off lcd/plasma since they always seen so poor colour wise and are usless ofr animation since even the slightest ghost means you cant animate on them cos it impossible to judge timing etc.
However when the first imgine of Galapogus came up on my ****ty littel 15" tft in my desk at home i was just blown away. You suddenly realise they can produce a decent enough imagine if given the right feed.

What amazes me if how good most of the sd stuff look upscaled when you take all the hideous low bitrate mpeg2 artifacting. H264 might bring my machine to its knees but looking at the stills i have captured via fraps even the individual frame look quite stunning. I want all freeview HD or otherwise to quickly move over to h264, and i mean quickly not 2010.

Phil

Well you can usually catch me in Marinos most Saturdays.

[sofa-spud]

been away for a while upgrading...

Now get good playback on live viewing of both BBC & ITV,
for a while...

MPC seems to stop after around 20 minutes or so.
I've seen other reports that MPC is creating temp files in 'temporary internet files' folder and when they reach 4GB MPC stops and needs restarting. 4GB is approx 20mins on BBC from my previous recording sizes

My hard drive then fills up...

I have been searching and found some others reporting this on digitalspy, where its suggested is MPC doing it. While I can find other reports I cant find an answer

I know others here use MPC (Monopole?), do you see similar issues? or have you found a cure?



The playback is great, until the above happens...

John
BTW the setup is now:
Asus A8N-VM CSM (using onboard Nvidia 6150)
4200 x2
1GB Corsair RAM(2*512) DDR400
tsreader/MPC/coreAVC/AC3filter

hi, can someone please guide me on what i need to be able to view some of these HD channels? i have a samsung HD ready LCD tele and the normal telewest cable connection. the tele is supposed to have built-in freeview though i cant see any. if i can do something in time for the world cup finals, that will be great. thanks.

[razerindemix]

PLANET EARTH STARTS 8PM MONDAY EVEING
(unless i have missed any? please let me know anyone?)
cant wait it looks so coooool

[EBH]

Is the HD trial from Crystal Palace still running? I looked on CHannel 27 and 31 today and saw no signal.

Ben

[KelvinS1965]

Originally Posted by EBH

Is the HD trial from Crystal Palace still running? I looked on CHannel 27 and 31 today and saw no signal.

Ben

The Freeview HD trial has finished now. You can still receive free to air BBC HD via sattelite using either a PC with a suitable Sat card or search the forum for a set top box that will do it ( I think Humax make/made one IIRC).

[steve300]

Originally Posted by KelvinS1965

The Freeview HD trial has finished now. You can still receive free to air BBC HD via sattelite using either a PC with a suitable Sat card or search the forum for a set top box that will do it ( I think Humax make/made one IIRC).

...And if you want to get BBC HD back on freeview soon (they're asking people if they want an initial 4-hour overnight, BBC HD freeview service for all UK from early next year), make sure you tell them to go ahead with the 4-hour service, at their public consultation, before the 23rd October:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consul...v_consult.html

Steve