BBC HD problems and AMD/ATI graphics

SystemLord

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The issue of 'choppy' picture with BBC HD is well documented. Drilling through all posts on the various forums (not just on AVForums.com) leaves you bog-eyed.
[Ideal perhaps to watch BBC HD:D]

Basically it seems that ATI is the culprit now in that it won't/can't put out a driver update to remedy the situation.
If you complain too much on the AMD website forum your posting is simply removed. They simply reply that they are looking into it.

It seems that there is now a mass migration from ATI to Nvidia (as Nvidia dont appear to have the 'choppy' issues), and I'm joining the queue.

I am thinking of replacing the onboard HD3200 graphics with an Nvidia 9500GT. Palit seems to be a good one. However I dont really want to spend too much, just in case:rolleyes: the problem is not solved. I have seen an Nvidia 9400GT which is more to my liking price-wise.

So peeps, what are your views? Is the 9500GT 'entry level' or can I safely go for the 9400GT?

Or perhaps you disagree that AMD is the culprit.

Thanks in advance
 
The issue of 'choppy' picture with BBC HD is well documented. Drilling through all posts on the various forums (not just on AVForums.com) leaves you bog-eyed.
[Ideal perhaps to watch BBC HD:D]

Basically it seems that ATI is the culprit now in that it won't/can't put out a driver update to remedy the situation.
If you complain too much on the AMD website forum your posting is simply removed. They simply reply that they are looking into it.

It seems that there is now a mass migration from ATI to Nvidia (as Nvidia dont appear to have the 'choppy' issues), and I'm joining the queue.

I am thinking of replacing the onboard HD3200 graphics with an Nvidia 9500GT. Palit seems to be a good one. However I dont really want to spend too much, just in case:rolleyes: the problem is not solved. I have seen an Nvidia 9400GT which is more to my liking price-wise.

So peeps, what are your views? Is the 9500GT 'entry level' or can I safely go for the 9400GT?

Or perhaps you disagree that AMD is the culprit.

Thanks in advance

Well, there's another factor to consider when going for a new graphics card and the choice between ATI/Nvidia. ATI have just released their 5xxx range which will (when the commercial players such as PDVD and TMT catch up) give full HD audio bitstreaming to an amp and allow it to decode with no downsampling involved. I've not read anywhere that Nvidia have an alternative product. The catch at the moment is the early adopters premium on these cards but they'll come down just as all new technology does.

I'm sure it's just a case of waiting for the appropriate drivers from ATI, they obviously know about the issue and are working on it as a priority, the number of users involved is too great not to.

If I were you I'd hang fire for a while and see what happens over the next few CCC driver releases.
 
If I were you I'd hang fire for a while and see what happens over the next few CCC driver releases.


Well with AMD, how long is "for a while" ?
They've know about this for months. The "next few CCC driver releases" could be ........................who knows?:rolleyes:
 
Well with AMD, how long is "for a while" ?
They've know about this for months. The "next few CCC driver releases" could be ........................who knows?:rolleyes:

Monthly. The 9 is 2009 and then then 9, 10 ,11 is Sept, Oct, Nov etc. The 9.11 beta is out now.
 
I would go the Nvidia route and keep an eye out for an update to the CCC drivers
 
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I use an ATI 2600 AGP card and BBC HD, ITV HD and Luxe HD all play fine for me (albeit at 720p on my projector and 1080p on my 22" TV). I'm using CCC 9.9 - the first drivers since the original gfx card disc that seem to work!!
 
I use an ATI 2600 AGP card and BBC HD, ITV HD and Luxe HD all play fine for me (albeit at 720p on my projector and 1080p on my 22" TV). I'm using CCC 9.9 - the first drivers since the original gfx card disc that seem to work!!

What OS, codec and media player?
If you are not using HA it does work on any version of the drivers ;)
 
What OS, codec and media player?
If you are not using HA it does work on any version of the drivers ;)

I use XP SP3, DVB Viewer to watch the freesat channels, using the Cyberlink Powerdvd codec for HD. ....and I need to use HA, due to only having a P4 2.8 CPU !!
 
Is this the problem with the processor maxing out when trying to stream/play BBC HD?

I thought is was a Flash problem with the ATI drivers not being able to use the GPU to process the video and it's this fix we're waiting for.

I used a E2200 and it would get very hot trying to play BBC HD streamed. Playback would eventaully become choppy, the HTPC overheat and eventually cut out, causing a re-start.

I replaced it with an E6700 which also maxes out at 100% utilisation but doesn't get hot enough to shut the machine down. BBC HD plays smoothly but it taxes the processor. Reducing the airflow (by sticking the HTPC in a cupboard)to the CPU cooler will eventually cause the machine to shut down.

Anyone got similar experiences?
 
I installed the retail version of Windows 7 at the weekend and did a bit of testing.

Using DVBViewer and the internal Microsoft codec, before installing any external codec, I got the breakup. Then I installed other codecs – the usual suspects – CoreAVC, PowerDVD8 – and no breakup at all. Return to the Microsoft codec and the problem returns.

Same using the Microsoft drivers and the ATI Catalyst 9.9 drivers.

One odd thing though – returning from s3 standby, DVBviewer is almost dead when I run it, on any channel, any codec, any renderer although I didn’t try the d3d custom renderers in the new beta. Very occasionally I got some sound but never any picture and it was so bad that the whole PC froze for seconds – even the mouse pointer didn’t move.

Haven’t had much chance to test it but it seems that removing CCC 9.9 solved the problem. Haven’t tried any other versions yet…
 
I'm running an 8500GT with SP/DIF pass through to the HDMI connector. I had to disable Dolby Plus and the other digital settings on W7 control panel so would imagine the PC was outputting those, as my TV couldn't take it.

If the 8500GT can decode it fine (has Purevideo hardware acceleration) on a P4 3ghz, I see no reason why the 9400GT wouldn't also, as it's essentially the same card.
 
I read somewhere recently of a technique that supposedly works:

Change to BBC HD, let it play a bit then rewind and see if it plays ok. Keep doing this and sonner or later it will play fine.

I have tested it and it works fine for me on a HD4550 and lastest Catalyst drivers (9.10?). The only problem is one time it took about 20 attempts to get it to work, and when I flicked to another channel and came back again, I had to do it all over again :(
 
Sorry... just joined the discussions :)

I didn't know there was a problem with BBC HD on ATI.

I have an onboard HD4200 running CC 9.10 and haven't had any trouble from BBC HD.. is this because its one of the new chips?
 
Whilst it would be great to get BBC-HD working on ATI video card nicely do you honestly think it is at the top of their "to do" list when they have just launched an entirely new range of video cards.

It is a bit like the situation with Arcsoft and TMTP3 - when will there be an update for PAP HD-Audio? It just not at the top of their list of things to do for the few people who might have the video card and their software.

The same is the case with ATI, do you really think that probably less than 1000 people in the UK who have their video card, plus a DVB-S/S2 satellite card and WMC are at the top of their hit list?

If it gets fixed then it will happen when it happens.
 
Has anyone tried 9.11 drivers yet? I'm not hopeful tough.

I have an onboard HD4200 running CC 9.10 and haven't had any trouble from BBC HD.. is this because its one of the new chips?

No. Read the whole thread, it's not big as it's only apparent in certain circumstances e.g. Win7 + MS decoder.
 
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Just to let you know that I got so thoroughly fed up with the BBC HD problems with my onboard HD3200 graphics that I decided to go for a dedicated graphics card. Bought the Palit 9500GT (fanless) and found that BBC HD was flawless.

Only problem was that I could not get 1080 resolution and had to go down to slightly less for everything to fit on the screen. No real problem though :) However after about 20-30 minutes the screen would just freeze up and I would have reboot the system.

In the end I decided to go back to onboard graphics.

After all my rantings and ravings and criticising BBC HD and ATI, why should I go back to square one?

Well, TBH, I have come to the conclusion that BBC HD is not what I was led to believe it would be. OK, some of the transmissions are really good but in the main they do not excite me (or make me moist [TheydonBois will like that one]).

I have a new 1080p TV and when it is set up properly the picture is stunning. I bet a lot of people would think it was in HD when its only SD.

When BBC HD first come on the scene it had the WOW factor. Then (August 2009) they messed things up and cut down the bitrate by some 40%. Picture quality now, apparely, has lost its sharpness. Must say that I was in John Lewis's last weekend and thought (taking into account shop lighting) that the picture quality on their HD displays was no better than my SD.

BBC have been highly criticised, see here

BBC - BBC Internet Blog: Points of View and HD Picture Quality: a response

which will take some to read in full, but well worth it.

So what do we do? Sky or Virgin? Or put up with it?

Once again, Britain is slipping behind.

Think I'll have to phone Sky and ask for a free HD box/subscription.:rotfl:
 
Read the whole thread, it's not big as it's only apparent in certain circumstances e.g. Win7 + MS decoder.

I did read the whole thread and while Presuming Ed is having trouble under win7 the thread overall did not suggest it was just a win7 issue.
 
As much as i am disapointed by the BBC HD issue, as this was one of the reasons I went down the HTPC route, Im not willing to go buy a new GFX card yet, ill sit and wait to see if it gets fixed.

Saying that i will probably eat those words and change my mind and go buy a Nvidia :rotfl:
 
Anyone know if there is any fix yet? I have the problem in win7 mce & DVBviewer. :mad:
 
No fix yet that I'm aware of.

You don't need to have the problem in DVBViewer - just use a different H264 encoder. The problem is a combination of Microsoft's decoder and some graphics cards.

The ffdshow one works well although I don't think it uses DXVA yet.

There is a Microsoft knowledgebase entry for this now although I've lost the link to it.
 
This is crazy, it's been so long as well, it's really annoying me.

I've been tinkering so much with registries and files i'm at a dead end now.

The problem I'm having is that 7MC looks for 1 decoder to do both the h264 HD streams and the MPEG2 SD streams and so far the only one that works is the MS DVD-DTV Video Decoder, so with all the best will in the world there is no way to register FFDShow for TV use. Well I can't get it to work.

I wanted to use FFDShow's ffmpeg-mt decoder for h264 HD stufff and FFDShow's libmpeg2 for SD stuff as this is all under the one Decoder, but win7MC refuses to load the filter. This would work around the blocking issues. I have loaded CoreAVC in as default decoder however you can only view BBC HD and no SD channels as 7MC doesn't switch decoders on finding a new video format. However CoreAVC proves that the issue lies within the MS DVD-DTV decoder mainly.

ATI and MS need to get together and sort this out once and for all.
 
If you have a powerful enough processor, you could disable the h.264 acceleration in the ATI driver. There are still issues with the software decoding (when just starting to watch) but it settles down after a few seconds and works fine afterwards.

It appears from the name of the registry settings to let you disable just MPEG2 or h.264 or VC-1 but I've found that it's all or nothing. The simplest way is to use "DXVA Checker" if you're not comfortable editing the registry with Regedit.
 
Yeah I know, I've edited the PreferredMPEG2videodecoder in the reg to FFDShows CLSID but that still doesn't load FFDShow for SD. I've also changed the default h264 preferred decoder to FFDShow's CLSID and this doesn't even load FFDShow. However when viewing movies FFDShow loads everytime for me so there must be something I'm missing somewhere.

Now here is the odd thing... in FFDShow's Video Config if you don't set the MPEG2 filter to use libmpeg2 and try to watch an SD channel then 7MC gives a Video decoder error message... which means it is using it however no tray icon appears to say that it is being used. I can watch SD but when I switch the BBC HD i get no picture but I get sound.

I can't load the direct stream into graph studio to see what is being used so i'm stumped. If i can get the FFDShow icon to appear for SD then in theory it should switch automatically to the h264 filter when viewing HD.
 
with all the best will in the world there is no way to register FFDShow for TV use.

That's an MCE specific statement. Registering different codecs for different sources, and choosing which one to use when, is straightforward in most other media software.
 

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