looking for video card with best HDMI picture

[Chasseur]

I just ordered a 5550 card. I will give some feedback after testing.

[Chasseur]

I installed my Radeon 5550 and connected HDMI. Now I have a few questions:

1- With DVI, the recommended resolution was 1360×768, while it’s 1280×720 when using HDMI. Should I try to force to the native resolution for 1:1 pixel mapping over hdmi, or should I stick with 720p?

2- Should I check the Use GPU scaling box? And use ITC?

3- When playing a bluray, I don’t have any sound during the movie, only a noisy isshhhh. I do have sound in the bluray menu. Maybe bitstreaming is not working? Or a codec is missing? I use TMT3 for bluray playback.

[Chasseur]

I retested part 3, and I sometimes have the audio in the movie. If I don’t, I can stop the movie, restart it, and it might work. Maybe a bug somewhere with the drivers…

[mikinho]

For #3, what version of TMT3 and what movie?

Older versions of TMT3 had this issue with Avatar, Red Cliff, …well lots of different movies.

When it is playing you can also chance the audio track to see if others were.

[Chasseur]

I installed the latest version of TMT3 about 1 month ago, so it’s not really old.

It seems to happen when a switch occurs, like when jumping from disc menu to movie. Maybe it’s switching from 2.0 to 5.1 audio, or something like that.

It was working correctly with my onboard sound card. I’m now using the ATI HDMI audio.

I’ve seen the problem with the movie The Warlords.

[Chasseur]

WOW!
Now I have a picture that looks almost like the original source from my HD-DVR.

I turned off most of the processing (noise reduction, edge, etc.). But the most important was to set Limited RGB (16 to 235) instead of Full RGB (0-255). Now the blacks are black and the whites are white.

The last thing: I’m not able to set the resolution to native 1360×768 60Hz. I’m now configured at 1280×720 60HZ with some overscan. CCC offers 1360×768 30 Hz, but not 60 Hz…

It was available via DVI, but not with HDMI…

[autoboy]

I think you can force it in the drivers by clicking some options in the ATI drivers that says something like Force resolutions not supported by this tv.  I’m not in front of my HTPC now but I’m sure you can find it.

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

Does that one have the ESVP on it in CCC?  The reason I ask is because I read that entire Anand article and made particular note of this:

[quote]Enthusiasts can turn it off and tweak things if they want to, but AMD looks to have done a solid job profiling their cards – if you try to outsmart ESVP, you’re probably going to be dropping frames in doing so.[/quote]

I’ll definitely be keeping this in mind when I next upgrade my GPU.

[Chasseur]

The ESVP setting is available in CCC. I have it checked, but don’t see any differences.

I believe that if you enable too much video processing functions, ESVP will prevent frame drops by disabling some processing.

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

My interpretation was that when you turn on ESVP, the software will quietly disable unsupported features, including resolutions, which is why I got a little concerned about trying to enable a mode which was disabled.

[Chasseur]

I believe that almost every video processing features are available on all 5xxx cards. However, if you turn them all to the max, low end cards, like the 5450, won’t be powerfull enough to perform everything without dropping frames.

By checking ESVP, the driver will silently disable some video processing to prevent frame dropping.

I’m not 100% sure about this, but that’s how I understood this feature.

[htpc_user]

[quote=”Chasseur”]
WOW!
Now I have a picture that looks almost like the original source from my HD-DVR.

I turned off most of the processing (noise reduction, edge, etc.). But the most important was to set Limited RGB (16 to 235) instead of Full RGB (0-255). Now the blacks are black and the whites are white.

The last thing: I’m not able to set the resolution to native 1360×768 60Hz. I’m now configured at 1280×720 60HZ with some overscan. CCC offers 1360×768 30 Hz, but not 60 Hz…

It was available via DVI, but not with HDMI…
[/quote]

Years ago I bought my son a 37″ HP LCD, and it only had component and HDMI inputs.  I connected his PC to it with a DVI-to-HDMI cable.  I could only set the resolution at 1280 x 720 even though the “MAX supported resolution” was 1360 x 768.  It was explained to me on here something about only being able to do 1280 x 720 through HDMI.  The card he had at the time was a Geforce FX5700 so I had to live with the overscan, but since I went to an x1800xt and now a 8800GS, I can adjust the screen position to where everything fits perfectly.  It lowers the resolution to something crazy (like 11xx by 6xx), but at least I can see everything on the screen now.

[Chasseur]

I don’t understand why I’m able to use 1360 x 768 60Hz when connected with DVI, but not with HDMI.

1360 x 768 30Hz is available, but not 60Hz.
Maybe there is a way to force it, but I haven’t found it yet…

[Naylia]

Are they separate DVI and HDMI ports on the TV? If so, the TV broadcasts to the video card which resolutions are supported. When connected via DVI or VGA, most TV manufacturers consider this a PC input and they configure it to offer many resolutions. But when you switch to HDMI, the manufacturers consider this a Consumer Electronics connection, and usually stick to only 4 or 5 standard options (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) and that’s it.

[Chasseur]

That’s right. I can use 1360×768 via HDMI2, but only 720p via HDMI1.

However, the picture is better via HDMI1 in 720p because I can set the pixel format to Ycbcr instead of RGB.

So I prefer to use 720p in HDMI1 and sacrifice pixel mapping… 🙁

[Author]

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