PDVD11: playback becomes jerky after 30mn in some movies

[crisliv]

Hi

I've been using ReClock with no issues with PDVD10 for a long time, and enjoyed long hours of stutter free playback.

But lately, I have upgraded to PDVD 11, and cannot reach the same perfectness.

Some movies are perfectly fine (ex: Transformers 3), and some others (ex: Start Wars) will start fine, but the playback will become very jerky after 20-30mn. And when that happens, the only way to solve it is to do a Pause - Play, then the playback is fine again for another 30mn, and becomes jerky again.

I noticed several differences between the "good" movies and the "bad" movies.

For good movies, when I start the playback, the sound will start, stop during 1-2sec, and then start again (sometimes with a very slightly different pitch). I understand this as ReClock coming into play, and taking hold of the audio clock. Which is fine.

For bad movies, when the playback starts, the sound just starts- no pause during 1-2sec.

Am I the only one to have this issue? Please help, I regret the perfect days...

Attached are the logs - transformers 3 which is ok, and starwars, which is not ok.
Config: nVidia GT430, audio in analog (ALC892), WASAPI exclusive

 

[Jong]

If judder happened randomly after 0-30mins on all movies i would say you have vsync issues and you should look to use Reclock's vsync feature. With PDVD though this only works with Blu-ray in disc mode - not files and not DVDs (with TMT it works for DVDs and Blu-rays in disc mode).

If really it consistently happens after 30 mins on some movies and not on others it sounds like a PDVD bug to me. Very odd.

 

[crisliv]

Hi Jong, many thanks for your answer. No, does not happen randomly for all movies, only for some.

Some movies play perfectly until the end (Transformers 3 for ex). And for those, there is the small sound cut at the very beginning, which seems to say that ReClock starts doing its work of taking control of the audio clock.

For others, like Start Wars, it happens after around 30mn (each time at more or less the same moment of the movie). And when it starts, it gets awful either for some minutes and then back to normal, or gets back to normal if I pause-play. For those specific movies, when I start them, I don't have any sound cut, which seems to mean that ReClock does not control the audio clock. But I may be mistaken.

I've tried many things, including re-installing my HTPC from scratch. Nothing will help...

 

[crisliv]

Anybody? Is anyone successfully using ReClock with PDVD11 on all movies? If yes, would you mind sharing info about setup and settings? Maybe should I try to move from nVidia to ATI?

The behavior I'm seeing is pretty consistent: it will systematically become very very jerky after 30mn of movie, only for some movies.

I would appreciate any help...

 

[SamuelMaki]

Anybody? Is anyone successfully using ReClock with PDVD11 on all movies? If yes, would you mind sharing info about setup and settings? Maybe should I try to move from nVidia to ATI?

The behavior I'm seeing is pretty consistent: it will systematically become very very jerky after 30mn of movie, only for some movies.

I would appreciate any help...

Try jRiver (30 days trial)... Or use mpc-hc and madVR... You can have better quality and ReClock works fine with those...

 

[crisliv]

Try jRiver (30 days trial)... Or use mpc-hc and madVR... You can have better quality and ReClock works fine with those...

I'm already using mpc-hc + madVR for mkvs, and it's perfect, works like a charm. But I don't use it for Blu-Rays.

Tried both PDVD11 and TMT5, and cannot reach perfect playback, lots of jerkiness...

 

[Jong]

TMT5 working perfectly here, but using ATI (5750) with Cat 11.10.

Latest mpc-hc is now great for playing the main movie of Blu-ray. But I do like to be able to play the whole disc, incluidng menus and extras, so I empathise with your need to get this working. But I can only imagine this is a PDVD11 issue. I cannot see how Reclock could cause certain movies only to judder after 30 mins. It doesn't make much sense to me. I did look at the logs. I wouldn't claim to be an expert (much was written before even James took over) but I have worked with a lot of them and there is nothing obvious there.

 

[crisliv]

Many thanks for looking, Jong. Btw have you tried Star Wars? I have to try more movies, but in some (most) I don't have the issue with PDVD.
I actually have issues with TMT5 after some time too. It's really weird. I'll try to come back to ATI and see if that fixes it for me.

I tried jRiver, and although the playback seems perfect, same as mpc-hc: still no support for menus, which is a blocking point - I don't even know how to chose the version when there is the theatrical and a director's cut.

 

[Jong]

yeah at the moment I think they all just play the longest playlist - so probably the extended edition, where that exists. They are all working on simple menu systems for selecting other items though, and of course there is SlyPlayer :aiee:. Eventually there will be alternatives.

One of the main things I like about TMT, for Blu-ray and DVD discs (and PDVD, but only for Blu-ray) is that if the video driver is set to output YCbCr, they pass YCbCr straight through from the disc to HDMI with only the necessary chroma upsampling and without intermediate conversion to/from RGB and no colour processing. In some ways this is better than MadVR, although it lacks MadVRs chroma upsampling improvements.

 

[crisliv]

I finally appeared to fix my issue , it turned out indeed to be a vsync problem, even though I was having this problem only with some movies. So Jong, you were right right from the beginning, I'm sorry I did not follow your advice.

What worked for me was to turn on VSYNC Correction by ticking "Use with VMR9, EVR or Haali renderer" AND "Use with DXVA (not recommended)", with VSYNC target position at the middle, see attached.
I did not try an entire movie, but after 40mn, no jerkiness, and I believe not a single frame drop.

What's weird is that if I enable it for all other renderers, no impact on PDVD11 but MPC-HC gets frame drops. Indeed, in that case, madVR is displaying "1 frame repeat every 1.25 minutes", and I do get some visually, even though the counter does not increase and stays at 0.
If it is disabled, it displays "1 framedrop every 4 hours". And playback is perfect.

A question though: why is "Use with DXVA" not recommended? What are the consequences?
Another question (might seem dumb): what is causing VSYNC problems? Why do I get them, and (probably) not others? Or maybe you all have enabled VSYNC correction? And do you know which renderer PDVD uses?

 

[Jong]

I finally appeared to fix my issue , it turned out indeed to be a vsync problem, even though I was having this problem only with some movies. So Jong, you were right right from the beginning, I'm sorry I did not follow your advice.

What worked for me was to turn on VSYNC Correction by ticking "Use with VMR9, EVR or Haali renderer" AND "Use with DXVA (not recommended)", with VSYNC target position at the middle, see attached.
I did not try an entire movie, but after 40mn, no jerkiness, and I believe not a single frame drop.

What's weird is that if I enable it for all other renderers, no impact on PDVD11 but MPC-HC gets frame drops. Indeed, in that case, madVR is displaying "1 frame repeat every 1.25 minutes", and I do get some visually, even though the counter does not increase and stays at 0.
If it is disabled, it displays "1 framedrop every 4 hours". And playback is perfect.

A question though: why is "Use with DXVA" not recommended? What are the consequences?
Another question (might seem dumb): what is causing VSYNC problems? Why do I get them, and (probably) not others? Or maybe you all have enabled VSYNC correction? And do you know which renderer PDVD uses?

Vsync correction will not work together with MadVR. MadVR is one of the very few renderers that implements its own, working, vsync correction.

When a renderer fixes vsync itself and you turn on Reclock vsync correction the effect is to cause "rolling sync" (try searching this forum), where Reclock continually tries to adjust vsync itself (unless its target happens to be in the same place as the renderer is targetting). Reclock adjust sync by making the frame rate slightly faster/slower than is right for the hardware refresh rate until sync is right and if it is doing this all the time you get judder every few secs/minutes (depending on the rate of "roll") when the time the frame is presented goes through vBlank.

You can use other renderers with mpc-hc and use Reclock vsync correction. personally I use the EVR Sync renderer in fullscreen exclusive mode with all of its vsync options turned off, but I understand if you prefer MadVR.

Madshi has made sure MadVR does vsync right, so you do not need Reclock vsync correction. Some HTPC front-ends like MediaPortal are also trying to fix it, although last I heard their implementation was not perfect - might be by now though.

For Blu-rays both PDVD and TMT seem to use "EVR onto an overlay surface", at least that is what Arcsoft call it and PDVD's renderer behaves the same. Reclock identifies it as EVR, but it bypasses normal Windows desktop colour processing and prevents windows screenshots. It seems to be something to do with the way they implement the protected video path. TMT uses the same for DVD but PDVD does not. This means you cannot use PDVD for anything other than Blu-ray discs with reclock vsync enabled unless (and I don't know if PDVD allows this these days) you can use PDVD with Aero enabled. Aero allows Reclock vsync to work with conventional EVR where otherwise it would not.

There is absolutely no reason why DXVA is not recommended!! I have suggested James remove this warning, but my guess is now it will never happen! Support for DXVA was introduced by James at my request 2 years ago and it works perfectly. I think the reason why it is "not recommended" is mostly because James has never tested it himself, so cannot verify, and also, possibly, because it is not possible to use Reclock's onscreen vsync tools in DXVA mode. This makes it tricky to set up.

Good question why others do not see this issue. As far as I can see none of the big commercial players are free of vsync issues. At best they seem to try to time vsync at the start of playback and then hope times do not drift over the length of a movie to where judder might start. Much of the time they do not even seem to try and just chance to luck. I guess it never used to matter, with people watching short "RealPlayer" clips on their grotty old PC monitor. My guess is some might be lucky, but most just are not that bothered. When I occasionally mess up my settings during some rebuild or test and judder occurs during a movie my wife still never gets why I have to pause and set things right!! It just doesn't bother her.

 

[crisliv]

Well first thanks a lot for this extensive answer, it sure clarifies a lot of things, and at least it appears to me like there's no magic and there are reasons behind things...

I'm quite lucky that there is a different setting to enable/disable VSYNC correction for MPC-HC and PDVD, I would not have liked to change the setting manually depending on wether I play an mkv or a movie...

I tried other values of VSYNC target, and got back much more jerkiness, so I believe that setting it in the middle works well in my setup. It also appears to solve the issues I had with TMT5, which is great, now I have the choice! Now that I have both working without jerkiness, I can focus on finding which one provides the best image quality.

Good thing to know about PDVD for BR or DVDs, I guess I'll continue playing DVDs with MCE native support.

About the other players - yes, when will we get a BR player that focuses on quality instead of MovieLive things?

There is absolutely no reason why DXVA is not recommended!! I have suggested James remove this warning, but my guess is now it will never happen! Support for DXVA was introduced by James at my request 2 years ago and it works perfectly. I think the reason why it is "not recommended" is mostly because James has never tested it himself, so cannot verify, and also, possibly, because it is not possible to use Reclock's onscreen vsync tools in DXVA mode. This makes it tricky to set up.

I can't use onscreen vsync tools with PDVD either. The box is grayed out. And what do you mean when you say "but my guess is now it will never happen!"? Does this mean that James has stopped the development of ReClock?

My guess is some might be lucky, but most just are not that bothered. When I occasionally mess up my settings during some rebuild or test and judder occurs during a movie my wife still never gets why I have to pause and set things right!! It just doesn't bother her.

Yes, true. I play BRs on a videoprojector, and it's far easier to notice jerkiness or judder on such a big screen. But still, my wife never notice the occasional frame drop I was trying to fight. But she noticed very much the jerkiness I was talking about on this thread, it was really awful, like if the movie was shot at 5-10fps.

 

[Jong]

Onscreen Vsync tools will not work if Reclock cannot get between the decoder and renderer and that is true with DXVA enabled and also with protected mode video such as blu-ray on PDVD. Yes, James has said Reclock is finished. We might well get another version if PDVD12 or TMT6 need a change in location for its dll patch. But, if much more is needed than that I suspect it won't happen.

It is a side effect of Reclock that if vsync is not right and judder occurs, Reclock makes judder much worse. Judder happens when frames are presented too close to Vsync and small variations in the time they arrive cause the frame to be sometimes skipped (2 frames in one Vsync interval) and sometimes repeated (one frame right at the end of one interval and the next doesn't arrive until just after the next interval has finished). If the player clock is not that accurately aligned with the refresh rate, playback will only be in this state for a brief time - a frame or two, but wil repeat (say) every few minutes. If the player clock is very accurate, as with Reclock, most of the time all is great but when frames ARE presented close to Vsync the player can stay in the judder state for ages. This is why Vsync correction was essential when Ogo wrote Reclock. So, for all Reclock's good things, without working Vsync control it makes judder much worse. Average users won't be using Reclock, so are most likely to see just the odd frame or two drop/repeat every few minutes. They most likely won't see prolonged bouts of judder you can see with Reclock without Vsync correction, so they may never notice. On the other hand, us perfectionists who want standalone player standards and can't stand any judder need Reclock AND working Vsync correction.

 

[crisliv]

OK thanks for the vsync tools explanation, it makes sense. And I understand now why the jerkiness I saw in Star Wars after 20mn took so much time to go away.

And wow, that's bad news, what will we all do without ReClock? I guess our hopes now lay in a player like SlyPlayer, which would have a ReClock-like feature built-in. I'm not expecting any of the Arcsoft, Cyberlink or similar, to do something there, not anymore, after having witnessed their lack of focus on video quality. I guess that people wanting a perfect playback is still a too small market for them to consider.

 

[Jong]

Fortunately I don't see anything breaking Reclock in the near to medium future (who knows long term!) - TMT5 and PDVD11 are pretty much functionally complete for Blu-ray and are just obsessively adding more "social bloat" from year to year and Win8 doesn't look like it should cause any problems. But we willl see.

 

[SamuelMaki]

Maybe you guys can try jRiver 17... It has VideoClock, which is (as I can understand) enhanced version of ReClock... It has been developed with madshi to support better his video renderer madVR, and as far as I can tell, it is a little better IMO. JRiver has 30days trial, which includes all the features... I have changed to jRiver from potplayer+reclock+madvr combo...

 

[crisliv]

Maybe you guys can try jRiver 17... It has VideoClock, which is (as I can understand) enhanced version of ReClock... It has been developed with madshi to support better his video renderer madVR, and as far as I can tell, it is a little better IMO. JRiver has 30days trial, which includes all the features... I have changed to jRiver from potplayer+reclock+madvr combo...

Oh I've tried. Playback seems fine, even though I did very little testing. But it suffers from at least a couple of flaws which made me uninstall:
- i'm looking for just a player (using MB as main interface for movies). Maybe I could have found a way to use just the player part, auto launched when I mount an ISO or when I insert a BR, and closed upon some keypress in my remote
- it does not support BR menus, and that's a must have: first test with Avatar, and I couldnt choose the version (theatrical or directors cut), so does not seem better than MPC-HC for BR playback

There is currently no alternative to PDVD, TMT or WinDVD players for this...