Choppy HD Video Playback

[Gregoroth]

As some of you know, I've just built myself a new computer but I'm encountering some problems, again.

The problem I'm focusing on today is HD playback. I have downloaded a few HD video files and most of them play great but 2 are quite choppy. I thought maybe because they were so large that my 1GB of RAM was the problem. After having a look at file sizes I saw that one of the files tha tplays fine is about 350Mb, twice the size of the other 2. I thought maybe something to do with the bitrate...nope, they're all roughly the same.

Also, my DVD playback is rubbish. The DVD doesn't seem to be upscaled at all! (Playback on my 1Ghz, 98SE PC was at least upscaled and looked amazing) It's looks like it's stuck at 720x... resolution and is very grainy and has some ghosting.

I've updated to the latest ATI Catalyst Control Centre (uninstalled old drivers first). Rolled back to original Windows Media Player and installed WMP 11 again. I've re-installed PowerDVD.

I found a Microsoft XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility which has some interesting information. It says that Nero has put it's own DVD decoder on. PowerDVD is still the preferred one though but is Nero causing all this video nonsense? I uninstalled the Nero Media Player but the checkup tool is still saying the codecs are there. (probably because i renamed them and forget to change them back, lol...)

I was fiddling around with settings yesterday and noticed that my videos suddenly looked pretty bad with strange colour bands. I eventually found this was down to enabling WMV acceleration in the Catalyst Control Panel! So that's turned off. (Playback was still choppy on those 2 files I mentioned when this was turned on)

Could another driver be causing an issue here? I know my HP printer drivers are a bit flaky. When I close the printer taskbar icon down, it gives an error message and sends a report.

I watch a ton of videos and watching DVD's on my computer is a main aspect of usage for me. Any ideas!? :(

*Gaming is fine and very fast. It's just some video that has problems

Core 2 Duo E6300
Foxconn P9657AA-8EKRS2H
1xCorsair 1GB DDR2-667
Radeon X1650XT

EDIT:

I just tried turning WMV acceleration on again in CCC and there's no video corruption. Hmm...

I also forgot to mention that:

1. I tried re downloading the video's
2. occasionally, WMP seems to not respond. It doesn't open but it's running in the Task Manager.

[mac124]

I had some issues on my tv card where the playback seemed to lose sync after a while and that turned out to be due to the fact i have a dual core cpu, i set affinity to one core and it played fine, not sure if this will help in your case though as some of your vids play fine.

[Gregoroth]

I set Affinity to the second core for WMP and left everything else as it was. It was ever so slightly less choppy. In fact, nothing to note tbh.

I'm guessing it's the same thing that's tying into my DVD problem. Also, WMP crashed again when I tried to open the video file. I had to end it's process in Task Manager and try again. :?

[Barley]

HD as in high definition? Hmmm. My monitor/TV is high def. If i download a HD video and play it, will I get HD quality viewing from my DVI cable?

[Gregoroth]

[quote:53deda7293=\"mac124\"]I had some issues on my tv card where the playback seemed to lose sync after a while and that turned out to be due to the fact i have a dual core cpu, i set affinity to one core and it played fine, not sure if this will help in your case though as some of your vids play fine.[/quote:53deda7293]

On the lines of the cpu - Do I need to download any tools to get it working properly like AMD cpu's (optimizer?)

EDIT:

I just tried downloading a standard definition version of one of the videos and it has the SAME problem! :evil:

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[Gregoroth]

[quote:f51032e085=\"PrivatePyle@Work\"]Prob a stupid question, but have you tried any other players? I just started using VLC and it is really good. Seems to play just about everything. Just wondering if it might mysteriously solve the playback problem...[/quote:f51032e085]

I tried PowerDVD but it's still the same. I also installed the K Lite Codec Pack but it the videos were still jerky.

Btw, I think I've found the problem codec:

Windows Media Audio 9.1
192 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo (A/V) 1-pass CBR

The 2 choppy videos used this audio codec. I think all the other use a variable bit rate codec which play fine. That's why I installed the codec pack. I thought maybe it would fix it and it had a broken codec checking tool built in. So -> Wtf...?

EDIT:

This codec pack uses Media Player Classic with built in tools. One of those is telling me if any frames have been dropped from the video file. It says 0 dropped frames. Does this mean it's been corrupted when I downloaded it? I had disabled the firewall when I re downloaded the first 2 files yesterday and then there's the problem of the standard definition version have the same problem. :?

The file I'm trying to play now is a new one I downloaded, so basically, this is the 3rd choppy video. The filename says h.264 which links to ATI's AVIVO? Do this mean it's my silly ATI drivers that are causing the problem? (For the record, I uninstalled all my old drivers again and put on the most recent stand alone driver [6.12], with ATI Tray Tools installed as well.)

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[Gregoroth]

[quote:476553e1ea=\"PrivatePyle@Work\"][quote:476553e1ea=\"Gregoroth\"]The file I'm trying to play now is a new one I downloaded, so basically, this is the 3rd choppy video. The filename says h.264 which links to ATI's AVIVO? Do this mean it's my silly ATI drivers that are causing the problem? (For the record, I uninstalled all my old drivers again and put on the most recent stand alone driver [6.12], with ATI Tray Tools installed as well.)[/quote:476553e1ea]

It does sound like it could be a driver issue - if it is, I'd have thought there'd be sporadic references to it on various different forums. have you tried a search of the ATi forums? They might proffer something... :?[/quote:476553e1ea]

Absolutely nothing about it. The only reference I had was to the PowerDVD upscaling issue. The user uninstalled some software and the problem was fixed.

I've tried uninstalling most of the things I put on. Apparently temp monitoring programs have issues sometimes so I got rid of that but it didn't help. I think I'm going to uninstall the printer next. If that doesn't help then I want to format and start again. Seeing as I bought OEM, does this mean I have to fiddle around calling Microsoft tech support to get a new activation code or will it just recognise my setup and activate automatically like it did the first time?

[Anonymous]

[Removed at the request of the author]

[Gregoroth]

[quote:c040e612b8=\"PrivatePyle@Work\"]I have used my OEM XP Pro CD 3 times now for fresh installs and I use the same code and have never had a problem :)[/quote:c040e612b8]

Ok, Thanks for the info. Also, I didn't say, my HDD led blinks a bit every 1 sec. Is that normal?

[Gregoroth]

Anyone?

[Firerat]

Your HDD LED will blink if it is use
Might be a page file or something, how much physical ram do you have free?
and is your PC 'doing' anything?

[Gregoroth]

Rougly 660MB available. Page File Usage is at a solid 262MB with no change.

I don't think it's system restore because I turned that off to test and it was still being accessed :? It seems like it's once every second, on the dot (not heavy usage).

Anti virus is off and same thing, I've just disconnected from the net and that didn't affect it. Page File is now at 258MB but the line indicator on Task Manager is completely straight.