video smoothness

[-freddan-]

Anyone got problem with video smoothness while playing divX?
It appears mostly in movments....

Any who knows a sollution or have the same problem?

Thanx

[Acaila]

I've had it sometimes with DivX3, but never with 4...

[obelix]

Hi freddan,

please give me some info on your hardware.

^Obelix

[-freddan-]

sure obelix....thanks for trying to help me.....

I have..

1,5 Ghz Pentium 4
512 Mb RAM
Geforce 3 titanium 200 (could the drivers for the videocard be the problem, or maybe the tv-out?)

anything more you need to know?

I use Xmpeg to encode the divx.....good quality, about 2000kb/s
As player I use powerdivx, it works best for me...
I use AC3 sound, seems to works best i powerdivx...
In mediaplayer the smoothness is even worse...

[-freddan-]

by the way.....video samplingsize, whats that, and could that be the problem.....the movies I make become 12 bit, but I´ve seen other with 24.....

what format should I use?
YUY2 or YV12 ?

[obelix]

Hi freddan,

your machine should be fast enough. Do you play the movies from your hardrive or from a CD/DVD drive? Did you activate DMA for your drives (if you have IDEs)?
An average of 2000kb/s with AC3-sound can give you rather high peaks.
What OS do you use? (Some Windows according to the software you use).
I had trouble with Windows XP, it busted my DMA settings, my DVD-Rom stopped using DMA after a few weeks and I could not get rid of the PIO mode without reinstalling.

[-freddan-]

Hi there!

I always play my movies from the harddrive, so that can´t be the problem....Maybe the OS. I use Windows XP Home addition..

[obelix]

Do you use the XP Videodriver or some Detonator?

[-freddan-]

hmm....that I really don´t know.....how do I find out?

You mean what driver I use for my videocard?
I guees thats the driver that comes with the card....some nvida driver.

[vinetu]

Hi freddan,
You didn't notice what is your sound card!
... what is in case of videoonly files?
... and how frequently it is ? (every second or every minute or ONLY on "high motion" scenes?)
I have similar problem ,but not with DivX4 ,so I'm interested in Your problem. (forgive my curiosity
:) )

vinetu

[gregor7777]

I have a GF3 ti200 as well, and if you use the standard drivers with XP, or sometimes even the drivers that came with the card (depending on which one it is) can cause poor playback. The ones that come with XP are PISS POOR. I would suggest going to nvidia.com and getting the 23.11 series of detonator drivers. They are the best, and most recent certified drivers.

[-freddan-]

Oblelix>> I just installed the detonator drivers....i can see no difference in preformance...
By the way....if I encode a movie at bitrate 1700kb/s and compare it with the same movie at 2300kb/s the problem is almost gone..
Should I need that high bitrate to get rid of the problem??

Oblelix and vinetu>> The problem is still there even without sound.
I have soundblaster 5.1. I will try to explain the problem more to you (sorry for my bad english, hope you can understand me)
The problems appear every time there a camera movement you could say.
I looks like the picture freezes for a very very short while...

Gregor 777>> As above....it doesn´t make any difference here....unfortunatly..

[vinetu]

Hi again

I'm not speak english too,but who care ...

freddan:
A small portion of questions:

0.Open Your avi file in VirtualDub and press F5(preview) ... This should play PERFECT! even with sound...?-this is the most important question!!!

1."if I encode a movie at bitrate 1700kb/s and compare it with the same movie at 2300kb/s the problem is almost gone.." - is this
meen that at higher bitrates playback is smoothness but not perfect ?

2.the freezes are with DivX4 only?( what about DivX3 or MJPG or DV 720x576 ?)
( MJPEG codec PicVideo at www.jpg.com , DV codec Mainconcept at www.mainconcept.com)

3. Are You use Mplayer6.4 or 8.0 ?

and last (for now) I HIGHLY recommend You to install DIVXG400 (if You are not already)
You can find this GREAT filter at www.tac.ee/~prr/videoutils


vinetu

[-freddan-]

Hi there...

I´ve just tried with virtualdub..
It looks a bit better, but the problem is still there...
How should i explain it...almost as "choppy" as it can get when
you play a movie in slowmotion....and it happends in camera movement.
Maybe it´s my eyes that fool me, but people that has been here has said the same thing......it´s real strange...
I will try to encode a movie in different bitstream to find out where the problem is.....also compare with dvd-output.

your question nr. 1 i can´t really understand what you mean.
What I ment was that it all looks great with that high bitrate (2300 kbit/s) no problem with smoothness or quality.....but I have to make more encoding....and do it with the same movie to be sure it wasen´t a one time thing.....

2. Haven´t tried any other codec....maybe I will later on..

3. Don´t use Mplayer, I use Powerdivx new generation...

4. I´ve just downloaded the filters.....thank you..
But I´m not so good at this : )
What should I use them for??

By the way....I will try to play the movies on another computer to find out if the problems is still there..

[vinetu]

Hi freddan,

Very strange results with VirtualDub ...

Don´t use Mplayer, I use Powerdivx new generation...
in Your second post You say :
""As player I use powerdivx, it works best for me...
...
In MEDIAPLAYER the smoothness is even worse... ""

I've try to ask You the MEDIAPLAYER version You use, because
The Playa,WMP6.4 and WMP8.0 builds different DirectShow graphs,so
You should have 3 different "choppy" or not choppy results .

4. I´ve just downloaded the filters.....thank you..
But I´m not so good at this : )
What should I use them for??

DIVXG400 can do a lot of things.
In your case it should "force" overlay playback mode,but as You say that VirtualDub cannot play,then this is no more the goal.

BTW ,is the postprocessing level of DivX4 playback filter is at 0 ?

... and ... Let see the other codecs capability

vinetu

[-freddan-]

Hi!

Sorry I didn´t that Mplayer ment Mediaplayer : )
I use Mediaplayer 8.0....
It worked at the start, but now it´s not possible to even watch.
Though I think it´s something wrong with the program, it doesn´t just happend with DivX movies I found out.

I have my postprocessing values as 0.....yes..

I´m gonna look at DIVXG400...thanx...

[vinetu]

Hi freddan,

If the next test failed then there is something wrong with the computer hardware or
drivers for system devices ... BTW what model is the motherboard ?

The test :
make a DV video file using mainconcept DV codec (must be 720x576 - just resize to that resolution a scene with a lot of camera mouvments
and or smooth panorams ),then open that DV avi with Windows Media Player 6.4 ( "START"->"RUN" then type mplayer2.exe - or find the file
in \Programs Files\Windows Media Player\) - if the the computer work as expected, this DV.avi should be played without any freezes ???

vinetu

[-freddan-]

Hi!

The motherboard - "GA-8IDX series, P4 titan motherboard"
That´s all i can make out of it...

What is mainconcept DV codec??
Can I use any other program to play it then Mediaplayer maybe?
Mediaplayer has totaly crashed here, and I don´t know how to fix it.
Windows won´t let me install other version...

I will have to do more tests, maybe I can find out were the problems are....Take a lot of time to encode though : )

By the way....how good should an encoded movie look?
I know it´s hard to explain, but do you se difference from dvd to divX if you´re using good quality?

Once again....the problems I got with smoothness isn´t a big problem. I can watch the movies, and it looks quite good.
It just bugs me that it sometimes doesn´t...
The problem appear to be bigger when watching on a TV.
I guess it´s just because the screen size is so much bigger..

[-freddan-]

the problem could very well be the hardware.....or some driver..
it doesn´t seem like there´s very many others that have my problem, so probably it´s not the encoding....
I really don´t know....gonna have to get some videofile that doesn´t come from this computer....I don´t trust that my DVD-player gives me clean views...

[vinetu]

... may be new Windows will clean the motion ... :rolleyes:

[-freddan-]

It´s very possible : )
Gonna look at some of the movies on another OS.