phoneguyinpgh

[phoneguyinpgh]

Michael,

I removed CCC 11.8 and installed 11.9, no joy.  I removed CCC 11.9 and installed 11.2, still no joy.  For both changes I uninstalled CCC and uninstalled the driver from device manager and started over w/ no “quality” driver installed.  Also, once the ATI driver was installed, I did a re-calibration w/ the video calibration files to set the black, white clipping and color clipping levels. 

I didn’t read your post until I did all the driver changes, but once I was on 11.2 I checked the frame rate. The frame rate is occasionally, and very briefly, changing from 59.9401 to 29.97.  The brightness flashes seemed to be occurring at the same time as the frame rate changes.  Is this coming from the network as part of the video signal?  Is it improper deinterlacing?  Or is it a hardware issue that I will just have to live with?? 

Also one other thing I noticed while installing various CCC versions and setting up the display again, I could not obtain correct pixel mapping unless the pixel format was set to RGB 4:4:4.  I don’t know if that might have something to do with it, but it was peculiar that the pixel format needed to be RGB on my TV (it’s a cheap Insignia from Big Box).

Update:  I checked the frame rate on the bedroom HTPC and it also changes from 59 to 29 but no flashing brightness.  The bedroom TV is an LG.  Could it be the cheaper TV in the living room that is the issue??

[phoneguyinpgh]

Every time I notice the brightness flashing I get out of MC and check CC and the dynamic contrast is still off.  What is throwing me is it is only certain channels and some programs on those channels flash more than other programs.

I noticed it quite allot on the Discovery channel this weekend, particularly during Storm Chasers while watching in my living room.  I recoded the program with my bedroom HTPC and it flashes when viewing the recorded program on the Living room but not the bedroom HTPC. Both with 5450s but the bedroom is using CC 11.2 while the Living room is using CC 11.8.  Should I uninstall 11.8 and try 11.2???

[phoneguyinpgh]

Mike,

My brightness pulsing issue has returned.  It is only on certain channels, most notably the Discovery channel during programing and commercials.  On other channels it only seems to occur on commercials and not the main program.  I have my nominal range registry entry set to 1, dynamic contrast is off, dynamic range is set to full.  My CC for my 5450 is up to date.  Is there anything else I should try?

[phoneguyinpgh]

[quote=NitDawg]

I haven’t used Shark codecs as much as I used to since going to 64-bit…since one of the primary reasons was to get MKV playback both on my main HTPC and xbox360 extender. It works great on 32bit Win7, but on 64-bit you have to go into the Shark control panel and check back and forth to get smooth playback on both. I ended up converting my MKVs to M2TS to get around this issue. Lots of options with Shark though, I still would be interested in hearing how people here use it in their setup!

[/quote]

 

What did you use to create the M2TS files??  What are you using to play them back?

I installed the Shark007 codecs to get MKVs working as well for BR rips.  It seems to be working ok, albeit with a few hickups here and there.  If there is something that will work better I’m all for it.

[phoneguyinpgh]

[quote=babgvant]

It tells the MC EVR presenter to set 0-255 instead of 16-235 on the samples.  This is a consistent issue with AMD’s GPU drivers.

FWIW, I like to turn off most of their VPP.  The defaults blow out the colors and perform way to much NR; it’s great for HQV, but in practice it looks over processed.

[/quote]

I agree.  The default ATI PP is far too agressive.  I wish it were set off by default.  Also don’t forget to turn off “dynamic contrast”, it was causing my brightness to flash up and down on some programing.  Turning “dynamic contrast” off and setting the registry value above solved the issue.

[phoneguyinpgh]

Aaron,

One more question if I could;  With regards to the i3-2100, how is the stock heatsink and fan in-so-far-as cooling capacity and low noise??

[phoneguyinpgh]

Good point.  I’m browsing Newegg now.  Thanks.

[phoneguyinpgh]

Can’t argue with that.  How is the Intel GPU quality compared to the 5450?  Is it easy to configure?  I connect direct from my HTPC to my TV via HDMI for video and use optical SPDIF for DD and DTS audio.  I’ve also almost exclusively used ATI graphics cards.  Just a creature of habit I guess.

[phoneguyinpgh]

[quote=Aaron Ledger]

If you do go with a new platform, it is very difficult to beat an Intel board. The stability and support are top notch. I’ve got 4 DH67BL boards so you can see that I am sold on them 🙂

[/quote]

 

Aaron,

What MB/CPU combo would you recomend??  I’ve been an AMD guy for the longest time, just can’t beat the $$/CPU ratio.

[phoneguyinpgh]

Well the issue occures when it wakes up from sleep, so disabling sleep would deffinately clear that.  It is an old Athalon X2 5600+ that has been in the machine for over 4 years.  I did notice the heatsink and heat pipe for the chipset was rather hot.  I just have to watch my money for a while so if the PSU works, great.

[phoneguyinpgh]

I have a spare PS from my WHSv1.  I’ll give that a try.  If it still is having issues,  I’ll have to go for the new MB/CPU/RAM.

[phoneguyinpgh]

Thanks, I will check that out.  Other than the hanging wake-ups I haven’t had any issues with it.

[phoneguyinpgh]

Sorry, I don’t do any commercial scanning or removal, I just use my skip button, so I can’t offer any advise on that.

[phoneguyinpgh]

I am just doing a straight SMB file copy from the desktop to the server.  But I think I figured it out, when I was getting the 380Mb/s transfers I was watching TV at the same time.  My Ceton tuners are hosted on my WHS.  So I think that may have been slowing down my transfer speed.  When I was getting the 900 Mb/s transfers I was listening to OTA radio and doing no other computer tasks.

[phoneguyinpgh]

You shouldn’t need to create a shortcut on your desktop or map them as a network drive unless you are using some program that requires a drive path name, such as making a playlist in Winamp or making a remote back-up of a running data file.

If you need to do any work in those directories, just open the launch pad, and open the shared folders.  If your sign in credentials give you read/write access, you’re golden.  Just use them like any other directory.

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