encoding or hardwar problem?

[pago cruiser]

Encoding or CRT vs LCD Problems ?

I posted the following over at Doom9, but the moderator bumped it to the hardware forum, which I do not think will yield any answers... This might just save some others from a lot of grief down the road...

I'm using GK.27 and DivX Pro at work and at home. I have an ancient 17" Hitach CRT at work, but a (relatively) new 15" Cornea and KDS LCD at home. Reso on the Hitachi is set at 800 x 600.

After encoding a movie (this has happened several times now, so it is not a particular movie problem), some are now displaying perfect on the Hitachi, but really ghosty on both of my LCDs! Screen reso settings on the LCD's does not seem to matter. For instance, the last movie I did was at 576 x 288. Perfect playback on the CRT, but terrible on the LCD's. I then re-encoded at 576 x 272, and playback on the LCD's become "normal".

This has happened with increasing regularity, and on some movies I now have to encode at X (512 or 576, etc) x 240 in order to get un-ghosty playback on the LCD's. No other encoding changes were made.

Is this a problem with DivX and LCD's in general? I have not yet seen a thread regarding this topic, but I would have really been pissed to have done a couple hundred movies and then discover that half of them are crap when played back on a LCD...



Mod: If you need to move this ok, but it still may be an encoding/LCD compatability problem...

[khp]

I'am afraid I don't have any answers, I'am just a bit curius, and have a few q's for you.

Are you using DVI input on the LCD's ?
Does it happen in both full screen and 100% zoom ?
Do you see any ghosting, if you pause the movie ?
Do you see any ghosting, if you view the movie in virtualdub ?

[techno]

have you tried updating your computer drivers and monitor drivers (if they have them)?

I have noticed too, sometimes that some movies play not so good on some LCD's....sometimes even lowering the res can improve it...some how ?????

[pago cruiser]

Wow, hard to believe that there is not more interest in this topic, or that I am the first person to go thru this... Anyhow, some more info:

1. Both machines are P3, with one having a 1.0 and the other a 1.4 GHz CPU. Bith using W2kSP3, and the latest VIA 4in1 drivers (4.38 I believe), but ther're at home now, and I'm not....

2. For Video Drivers, one machine has an ATI AIW Radeo PCI using the MMC 7.6 (This seems to be the best for me to capture MPG Video). The other machine is using the Twister On-board Video, with shared Ram set at 64M. There is NO difference in DivX playback between the two machines, relative to this ghosting. What looks good on one looks good on the other, and crap on one is crap on the other.

3. Using SVideo connections on both Flat Panels, as neither came with DVI connections. Besides, my computers lack DVI... But honestly, with a good encoding, I could not ask for anything better than what these displays show. And I don't do Doom, etc, so I never see the 50 FPS problems...

4. Yep, the ghosting is there on "Pause".

5. Yep, the ghosting is there on "Full" and "Zoom".

6. Nope, the ghosting is NOT there when viewed in VDub!

Maybe that last item will give some braniac a clue as to whats going on...

[khp]

This tells us that the problem is caused by the DirectShow decoder or the video render filter.

A few more things to try...

Try turning down the hardware acceleration on your graphics card (Control panel->Display->settings->advanced->troubleshoot)

Try playing around with the following settings 'Smooth playback', 'YUV Extended mode', 'Overlay extended mode' and 'Double Buffering'. In the quality settings tab in the divx decoder properties page. ('Start menu'->Programs->'Divx Codec'->'Decoder configuration'), the player must be restarted after each change.

Try installing the FFDSHOW decoder filter, and enable divx playback with that filter ('Startmenu->Programs->ffdshow->codecs. and check divx5 to enable ffdshow for divx playback. Uncheck divx5 to turn divx5 playback over to the divx5 decoder again.

Try using the DivX player that comes with the divx5 codec.

[Enchanter]

Re: pago cruiser

Set BOTH your 17in CRT and 15in LCD at a resolution of 1024x768. This resolution is best suited for the given size of each monitor.

[pago cruiser]

Sorry so long to reply. Our MIS Morons hurried out the door so fast going on vacation, and tripped over the power cord for our server... So the whole hospital lost Inet and email for days...

After taking khp's advice and downloading the FFDSHOW decoder filter and installing, it SOLVED the "ghosting" problem in LCD Monitor playback. What a relief!

It is a little odd though, as when I bring up WMP with a "ghosty" movie, it is still ghosty for about 5 seconds. Then the FFDSHOW decoder wakes up, and the ghosting dissapears. But I can live with that...

Thanks all.

BTW, the DivX player built into DivX Pro did NOT exhibit the ghosty playback.