everything is great... except...

[superhappyte]

Hi All,

running Vista Ultimate x64 on a core 2 E6400, 2gig ram, Fusion Dual digital 4 with latest drivers. 7600GT with latest drivers running at 1920x1080p on my Samsung 40" lcd tv

I have followed the sticky thread to optimise vista/media center and everything is really fantastic.

the only little thing left to fix is this: When i am watching live TV and there is an Ad on which uses primarily White (ie the Apple "i'm a mac" ads) the screen freezes and the sound chops in and out. When that particular ad finishes, it picks back up and away it goes.

sometimes you can tell when a "white" ad is about to start because sometimes it starts playing up about 1 second before the ad starts. But again as soon as the ad finishes away it goes as if nothing happened.

This doesn't seem to occur when i am playing a DVD or a divx.

any ideas why its choking when the white colour fills the screen?

cheers

ps.. its not just Ads, thats just when it mostly occurs, but its when any show is displaying mainly white on the screen. doesn't happen with any other colour.

[test7875]

Originally Posted by superhappyte

Hi All,

running Vista Ultimate x64 on a core 2 E6400, 2gig ram, Fusion Dual digital 4 with latest drivers. 7600GT with latest drivers running at 1920x1080p on my Samsung 40" lcd tv

I have followed the sticky thread to optimise vista/media center and everything is really fantastic.

the only little thing left to fix is this: When i am watching live TV and there is an Ad on which uses primarily White (ie the Apple "i'm a mac" ads) the screen freezes and the sound chops in and out. When that particular ad finishes, it picks back up and away it goes.

sometimes you can tell when a "white" ad is about to start because sometimes it starts playing up about 1 second before the ad starts. But again as soon as the ad finishes away it goes as if nothing happened.

This doesn't seem to occur when i am playing a DVD or a divx.

any ideas why its choking when the white colour fills the screen?

cheers

ps.. its not just Ads, thats just when it mostly occurs, but its when any show is displaying mainly white on the screen. doesn't happen with any other colour.

I have EXACTLY the same issue.

Read my post histories .. no one can tell me why. It only happens on CH9 for me. It occured both on Vista 64 and 32.

Hmm I can see you have an Nvidia video card .. I have an 256mb ATI X1600, seems i finally know its the DD4

Please report it to fusion as i have and they dont believe me (they will blame everything else)

I can recommend a few things to minimise the issue

When you say you have the latest drivers .. I can see that fusion have releaseed over the weekend 3.61.00 are these the ones you have loaded

I might start a seperate thread re this as well in the tuner section

Cheers
TEST7875

[Auldar]

I sometimes see something similar on my Foxtel recordings via my HVR-1300 on Vista MC.. I put it down to the default saturation levels being way off.. When there's a high level of white on the screen, all other colours wash out.

On really high white scenes, I get the choppy audio and screen flicker..

I had until now thought it was just the HVR-1300, although it's possible we're not seeing exactly the same problems, and more a common symptom.. I've yet to notice it on DTV recordings, but I don't tend to watch/record much FTA via the HTPC.

[test7875]

Originally Posted by Auldar

I sometimes see something similar on my Foxtel recordings via my HVR-1300 on Vista MC.. I put it down to the default saturation levels being way off.. When there's a high level of white on the screen, all other colours wash out.

On really high white scenes, I get the choppy audio and screen flicker..

I had until now thought it was just the HVR-1300..

Hmmm interesting .. very interesting .....

Like i said with mine .. its only on CH9 (HD and SD) and only on VISTA (64 and 32).
Only when it goes to a white background.

Anyone else out there?

[superhappyte]

i have a gigabyte nvidia 7600GT.. both my card and your card should be more than capable of handling anything media center throws at it

a friend mentioned that it might be something to do with edge detection on the mpeg stream.. (??) he didn't elaborate..

but still.. if it was purely a calculation problem, i would expect my hardware to handle it..

[bbboy]

Originally Posted by superhappyte

running Vista Ultimate x64 on a core 2 E6400, 2gig ram, Fusion Dual digital 4 with latest drivers. 7600GT with latest drivers running at 1920x1080p on my Samsung 40" lcd tv...

everything is really fantastic.

I passed out at this point... What a beautiful setup... (and pretty much what I'm to get, except e4300 and undecided on screen).

I'm unable to help your problem, but I hope it gets resolved soon! Otherwise, sounds like a case where you might consider letting sleeping dogs lie...

[Auldar]

This is starting to drive me nuts.. Anyone else seen this and have any suggestions?

For me it's only on analog captures/recordings on my HVR-1300..

[gehenna]

quick question - you say it happens on live tv. so, if once it happens you skip back ten seconds or so, does it happen on replay?

[Astrotoy7]

can someone tell me why they think Vista x64 is remotely necessary for MCE functionality ??

I spend 99% of my free time monitoring, maintaining, advising re- tweaking heavily(sometime recklessly IMO) overclocked gaming rigs at uni lans/tourneys. The weapon of choice is still xp x86 for any power gamer worth their salt. When things shift to DX10, blu ray, and devs step to the plate to author software to utilise all this ....the eventual shift to x64 for gamers will occur. But for now,

The only applications that really need x64.
*high end graphical and video apps. (add $1000-2000 quadro multi GPU to that). Does anyone work for WETA, ILM or Pixar ??
*mid to high end networks/corporate servers

*Playing xvids, and recording 1080 interlaced aussie telly ?? why subject yourself to that. Driver support is better than it ever was for xp64 on release, but is still far from anything like Vista x86, or xp of course - when stability is a concern - as is the case in a MCE rig

ah well, whatever rocks ones boat

as for the dvico.... Feel free to peruse the tuner sections here, you'll find they are replete with people complaining about their ****** dvico card. A tuner that isnt 100% reliable in a mce setup fails in what its meant to do. If you have a spare pci-e x1 slot, buying a pci-e tuner is the best favour you can do your mce rig...stability for dual recording, quick channel changes etc

good luck!

astro

[Auldar]

Originally Posted by gehenna

quick question - you say it happens on live tv. so, if once it happens you skip back ten seconds or so, does it happen on replay?

For me it's a problem with the encoder - so live TV and recordings have issues with high white levels in them. It can also cause the audio to stop being recorded..

I might have to ping Mark from NewMagic again since he helped so much with the ghosting/smearing issue..

[Auldar]

Well I've finally fixed my problem! This has been a thorn in my side since day 1.


The problem appears to be caused by the adapter I'm using with my Foxtel box to convert the SCART plug to S-Video. When I used the STB's "VCR in/out" port with the provided cable (unfortunately this forces me back to using Composite), I no longer get the problems with high white scenes causing flicker and audio drop outs!!

I found this thread, which pointed out that Maplin converters have problems with signal levels, and when used with a Hauppauge capture card, can cause lots of problems. I don't actually know what brand the SCART adapter I'm using is, but when I stop using mine, I no longer have this problem. I'll have to look at another method of getting S-Video out of my Foxtel STB..


http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=10549


And some examples linked in that thread (although not quite what I'm seeing):

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=7249


Hopefully this helps other people, although I'm not sure it exactly relates to the OP's problem..?