Need help w improving setup (PC-to-TV)

[br@dley86]

EDIT: I initially attached dxdiag with only 1 display (DVI Monitor) and not both, so I enabled multiple display, restarted pc, and now dxdiag should reflect both displays with HDMI connected display being what i'm trouble-shooting. I mention below how maximizing a browser streaming "HD Tv Content" from comcast forces the tv to auto-adjust to a different setting while displaying the message "optimizing for hdr uhd experience" (paraphrasing) and I did NOT do that for this dxdiag so you can see how the monitor is being connected/recognized without forcing that adjustment that occurs when maximizing streaming video in firefox/chrome for comcast (video players do not force the same adjustment for this tv)


Hi friends thanks so much to everyone who contributes, posts, and helps out others in their spare time. My specific situation SHOULD not be very complicated, perhaps i've overcomplicated it - but i'll do my best to explain what i'm trying to accomplish, and what my current setup methods are as well as the biggest problems i'm having.

I'm having issues with playback when "projecting" my NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti to my SAMSUNG QN65Q60RAFXZA Flat 65" QLED 4K Q60 Series (2019) and while i have had problems with all sorts of different cables, i bought a newer one which is JSAUX 8K Long HDMI Cable 15ft, 48Gbps 8K & 4K Ultra High Speed HDMI 2.1 Braided Cord, 4K@120Hz 144Hz, 8K@60Hz, HDCP 2.2 & 2.3, HDR 10, eARC Compatible with Laptop Monitor UHD TV PS5 PS4 Dolby But simply upgrading the cable did not help with anything despite my naive hope.

The problems i'm having with video playback do not occur when previewing or watching the videos on my DVI monitor (obviously not HDR) when i initially preview them, so i'm able to verify the SDR videos on my DVI/gaming monitor to know it's not them being improperly encoded. In fact, I had much less issues playing on an older TV we had 5+ years ago.

My partner and I enjoy watching mostly older and some new Horror/Scifi films that are only available to watch digitally, and prefer to have subtitles because many films are foreign or even in our primary language as my partner is hard-of-hearing.

Even though my hardware on both ends claims to support 4k/HDR/UHD/DolbyV I have yet to see that be the case. It can play 2160p films just fine but they have to be (muxed? converted?) to SDR. This is not being done by me but I know other individuals are not having the problem I am with these files on their respective setups.

The problems happen the absolute worst if I am to watch a amazon Prime video rental. Youtube rentals are pretty bad, also but not as bad as amazon. This is both through Chrome and Firefox browsers which are up-to-date and I update the K-lite codecs every month. (again using almost entirely MKV or MP4 @ 1080p x264) sound is not an issue. I have the best luck with "Remux'es" in 1080p/2160p but the problems i am going to mention still sometimes occur with them, lately more noticibly but that could be because i'm hyperfixated on the errors.

I understand a bit about the degredation that occurs when films or some videos are displayed and how it causes boxing/artifacts and just overall shittyness that doesn't seem to occur when watching a Bluray or DVD rip even if it's the same container and file format. So I expect to see a bit of this, but it's also now happening more noticibly with Bluray and DVDrips which were previously much more crisp and didn't have all of these horrible issues that are almost always occuring in "shadows" or areas where the white/black "moves" constantly and makes less lit or nighttime scenes often unbearable.

Using MPC-HC and K-lite may be my problem. My TV settings may be my probolem (i keep everything on default and the only thing i toggle is what Samsung ideitifies as "Dynamic" or "Standard" picture modes as some look better for different films... but not "that" much better. Everything i'm mentioning hear, again is happening with non HDR/UHD video files - I have never been able to get true HDR/DV videos to play (with subtitles) with this setup dispite the hardware capabilities being there. It was too frustrating so I figured i'd just go with SDR and the larger size files that eatup alot of HD space.

For what it's worth, Japanese Anime video files play very crisp/fine and projecting my (comcast) tv in firefox/chrome looks fine when I make it fullscreen and those are supposedly in HD according to the provider.

if I have to disable "multiple display" temporarily while I game on my monitor thru the DVI output which plays games and videos perfectly, and then I re-enable multiple display, I will notice that the mouse trails differently, slower and more scattered, but that's the way my Nvidia control panel outputs to the tv by default. IF I OPEN UP MY BROWSER AND WATCH HDTV in FULLSCREEN, the samsung tv flickers and displays a notification that it is "optimizing for dvr UHD picture quality" and when the video returns shortly after, the FPS are smoother and the mouse no longer trails/lags. I'm assuming this has to do with refresh rate or resolution but I think it's weird that the video players themselves will not cause this same type of automatic adjustment. So even if i'm going to watch something in MPC-HC, and i've just reenabled the second display (Samsung TV we're troubleshooting) I will go thru the motions of loading up HDTV thru my browser on fullscreen to force the TV to adjust, then close out and launch the video files from a player as this smoothes them out and makes the framerate look better, but it doesn't fix all the crappy blocking/poor display of edges and black/whites.

Also, the couple times i've paid for rentals from amazon or youtube with the same setup where the Xfinity streaming TV forces the adjustment, and without using that to force the adjustment the videos are ALMOST UNWATCHABLE. I don't even know how to describe it but everything is under-overlit and the colors literally hurt my eyes, it reminds me of when some videos were on CD's back in the 90's and early 00's with weird framerates, no crispness, and just generally shitty looking. All the while, i'm paying for an "HD Rental" and i've had this occur over several differnt rentals both using Chrome, Firefox, & even the crappy Amazon Prime app in Windows10 which is my OS.

I'm sorry for the very lengthy and possibly divergent post but I figured the more information the better. If you think i've missed something in the initial FAQ's or troubleshooting, please just tell me which FAQ and I will be so greatful, any sort of troubleshooting or straightforward instructions to fix at least some of these issues would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to attempt to attach DXDIAG i don't know if that will be helpful but I know that A/V troubleshooting sometimes benefits from it. Thank you very much anyone who can help!