How To Improve Standard Video Quality

Hello all. I watch videos on my AO751h via Media Player Classic and ffdshow. However, the quality is awful. Videos run smooth but look very pixelated.

Someone posted a suggestion which involves tweaking the codec to resize to the screen resolution, which helps a lot in terms of quality but makes most videos (especially widescreen) run choppy.

I'm just wondering if there is another way to make standard videos (fullscreen and widescreen but not HD) look nice while running smooth.

Thanks!

 

I'm watching mpeg 4 HD video directly from an on-board race car camera using Cyberlink Power DVD 8 that came with the netbook. It looks smooth and the audio is good. However It looks terrible in Quicktime. Media Player Classic Home Cinema worked fairly well for a while but now gives errors and won't start since I installed Trend Micro Internet Security. That's OK.....PowerDVD works better.

I wish that there was a way to view internet video with a .264 viewer that took advantage of the AO751h's graphics system. Then I could watch Vimeo HD.

BTW i have a AO751h-1351 White. I'm wondering if maybe we should all be giving the model designation suffix when discussing our issues. There may be differences that are not being given due consideration.

 

Sorry. I got carried away with HD. I know you are having problems viewing SD. I would think that a player that worked well with HD would be a snap in SD.

 

Here's the advice I got from bols a while ago:

* For making SD (low resolution) AVI videos look better, use FFDShow as the codec. Go to the ffdshow enable the "resize&aspect"-tab in the configuration, with settings "resize to screen resolution", Luma method "bicubic", Chroma method "Fast bilinear". and Luma sharpen at appx. 1.00. If you enable too much, the CPU will bog down, and the video will start stuttering..but if you get it right, it will look a LOT sharper. I also have the "Resize if" set to "x<720 and y<480" or something like that, or it will use too much CPU on higher-resolution videos.

It generally works great for SD fullscreen videos, but stutters a lot with most SD widescreen. However, I've been playing around with it all night, and finally discovered the nifty "pan&scan" feature on MPC. Now I've got it set to always resize to screen resolution (1366x768) and if the video is stuttering I just decrease the pan&scan until it runs smoothly. I mapped the decrease pan&scan to 9 and the increase pan&scan to 0 to make it easy. The quality is so much better and I can handle increasing the black borders to increase smoothness.

HOWEVER, I can't help thinking there must be an easier way, especially because with the right codecs and video format this netbook can play flawless HD! Anyone?

 

I simply use MPC-HC to view SD widescreen videos, with no bad pixels:

http://i38.tinypic.com/2v2eexg.jpg

 

shadz - Is it full screen? How did you do it?

 

Yes, it is full screen.

Simply download the MPC HC http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/, and use it. The most important thing to do is use the VMR 9 renderless with 3D surfaces and the VMR 9 mixer mode on (this you can activate on "Options>Playback>Output"). If you want to see with SUBTITLES without tearing, also enable the D3D Fullscreen (control+c to exit).

Obs: on the internal filters (options), I disable the OGG, Matroska and MP4/MOV (Source Filters), and on the Transform Filters, I disable MPEG-1 VIDEO and the two H264 (this for the HD video with cyberlink codec).

 

Hey shadz! Thanks for the advice - it totally works! The only thing is that I am now getting some horizontal tearing. Anything I can do to fix that?

 

Scratch that - I checked "locked back-buffer" and now it works flawlessly. Thanks again!

 

gashlycrumb, good advice!
To eliminate tearing, I always check the "D3D Fullscreen".

Where is located the option "locked back-buffer"? Thanks!

Edit: Maybe someone or some admin can do an fixed topic with all explanation to watch HD videos and SD videos flawlessly. It would be very good for all 751 users.

 

I found "lock back-buffer" under Playback --> Output --> Just under the Direct3D Fullscreen checkbox. I have no idea what it does, but in combination with your method it makes SD video look great and run flawlessly!

 

Hmm, very interesting. What version of MPC HC is yours? My is 1.3.1249.0, and under the Direct3D Fullscreen checkbox is located "VMR9 Mixer Mode".

Thanks for the advice. =]

 

1.2.908.0. I suppose I should update. But I just got everything working so well!

 

Great thread and good work guys! Maybe you should make a propper "How-to" and make it sticky?

 

This cured my stuttering problem... but now the video is playing slower than the audio. Any ideas? I've set all the options suggested in this thread, here's my experienced:

-Without Direct3D Fullscreen enabled, the video stutters unless it's at 50% zoom.
-With Direct3D enabled, the video plays smoothly, but slower than it's supposed to in combination with the audio.

I have literally tried everything to get HD videos to play and I'm sick of thinking about it, but I got this netbook specifically for entertainment during travel.

Also, does this issue only happen to some people, or does it happen to everyone with a 751?

 

Using this method I can play 720p movies ok...

this is under XP

Install the GMA500 Graphics drivers (should already be installed)
Install PowerDVD (should already have been installed)
Install "Haali Media Splitter"
Install Media Player Classic - Home Cinema
Set out put to DXVA9 renderless or something like that
Under External Filters, add, the powerDVD h.264 filter.

thats it! you should be able to play most h.264 videos
I cant seem to get AC3 audio to play though, anyone know how to do that?

Jeremy

 

Oh, I forgot to mention... I kept getting the Blue screen of death until I disabled Direct Draw and Direct 3D using the DirectXDiagnostics (an addon for directX ?) not sure why this helped.