23.976 Playback and HD-Audio Bitstreaming

[therock003]

I just found out that below i3 you dont get true 23.796 and HD-audio for bitstreams. Something about intel drivers not allowing it. Why's that and how can i go around it

I have a celeron 1007u and plan on getting a Win tablet with ATOM.

-How can i see what the current framerate, and how can i set 3:2 Pulldown on MPC
-How can i see if i'm bitstreaming right now

[Cornucopia]

Utter BS, especially since many setups use 3rd party sound & video cards (= 3rd party drivers) . Cite a valid, authoritative source.

Scott

[jagabo]

This "rumor" probably has something to do with the fact that the integrated graphics in Intel chips before Haswell would output 24 fps when set to 23.976 fps:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7007/intels-haswell-an-htpc-perspective/4

Any GPU will perform 3:2 frame repeats with 24 fps sources on a 60 Hz display.

[therock003]

What is an acurate way to determine if i'm getting the exact 23.976 with my current setup?

[hello_hello]

You probably would be. As per jagabo's link I don't think the issue was ever with the frame rate. It was with the refresh rate.

I'm not even sure it was a new problem. I don't have a huge experience with a wide variety of monitors or video cards, but the NTSC refresh rate is 59.940Hz and for PCs the standard is 60Hz. I think newer OS's can connect at either refresh rate but running XP I only have a 60Hz option. It might also depend on the video card and drivers. Mine's pretty old.
I can't remember if I'd normally gave a 23.976Hz refresh rate option when connected to the TV as I never use it. I'd need to check. This PC's connected to the TV via a VGA input so it's like a PC monitor and I only have a 60Hz option.

Anyhow..... if you're using MPC-HC and the MadVR renderer you can press CTRL+J while a video is playing and you'll get something like this:



It'll tell you the current refresh rate, frame rate, and give you an idea as to the number of frame that need to be dropped or repeated if the two don't match. You need to use CTRL+J while the video is playing, then after it's run for a little bit press CTRL+R to reset the statistics if you want them to be accurate.

ReClock might be something to consider if you use a DirectShow media player as it'll automatically adjust the frame rate to match the refresh rate for smoothest playback, so the actual refresh rate doesn't matter so much. It just runs in the background doing it's thing. I live in PAL land so mostly I use Reclock to change the frame rate of 23.976/24fps video to 25fps and leave the TV refreshing at 50Hz. That way, every frame is shown for exactly two screen refreshes and everything is nice and smooth. This might be what it'd tell you though if the refresh rate is 60Hz. Obviously 24 doesn't go into 60 the way 25 does into 50, so that's the reason for using 23.976/24Hz for those frame rates. Assuming your TV/Display gives you those options. I think for notebooks and tablets etc the display is probably fixed at 60Hz.

[therock003]

I'm on PAL as well, but i'm not using madVR or ReClock. Any other way to make sure what hertz is being displayed on the TV? Going from the mpc view->Statistics, it doesn show any dropped frames. Except only a few every time the file starts or resumes


[Attachment 31877 - Click to enlarge]

Does that show anything? 3 Frames are dropped when file was started, if i pause and resume another 9-10 frames are dropped. While on playback it reports no dropped frames

[hello_hello]

There's probably other ways but they're the ones I know. I think the EVR renderer tells you if you use CTRL+J. How accurately, I don't know.
Other than that, try MadVR. It just consists of a bunch of files you put somewhere and then register them so MPC-HC can use it as a renderer. You don't have to keep using it and if you want to get rid of it, I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of unregistering it and deleting the MadVR folder, wherever you put it.

[jagabo]

CTRL+J in MPCHC isn't useful for determining the exact refresh rate. When the refresh rate is set to 59.94 Hz it reports 59. So you can't differentiate between is 59 Hz, 59.5 Hz or 59.9999 Hz. The same is true for 29.97i (I've checked). And I assume for 23.976p.

It's possible to get a more exact value using DirectX. But I don't know of any programs that do that.

[therock003]

Does it really matter though? Can you notice the difference or is it just crazy talk for enthusiasts

[jagabo]

The difference between 59.94 fps and 60 fps is one frame out of every thousand. If that one frame happens to fall during a smooth panning shot you may notice a small jerk. Ie, if you are playing a 60 fps video with a 59.94 Hz refresh rate one frame will be dropped every thousand seconds. If you're playing a 59.94 fps video with a 60 Hz refresh rate you will get one duplicate frame every thousand seconds. This extra/missing frame would be very hard to detect when playing 23.976 or 24 fps material with frame repeats.

[hello_hello]

Does it really matter though? Can you notice the difference or is it just crazy talk for enthusiasts

Maybe if you're trying to fit 23.976 frames into 24 refresh cycles, or 24 into 23.976, which is what I think was originally being referred to, but if the monitor is refreshing at 60Hz then it's not likely to cause a noticeable problem in relation to smooth playback. It already won't be smooth anyway.

I have two PC's connected to my TV. One is connected video the VGA input so it can only connect at 60hz (PC monitor mode). The other is connected via HDMI so it can run at any standard refresh rate, although I leave it on 50Hz and play most video at 25fps. Every so often though I'll play a 50fps video using the 60Hz refresh rate and now and then I'll notice little "jerks" in slow steady movement such as camera pans.

[jagabo]

Yes, playing 50 fps video with a 60 Hz refresh results in 10 little jerks every second because every 5th frame is duplicated to turn 50 frames into 60.

People like being able to set the graphics card to 23.976 or 24 Hz output when the monitor supports those rate natively to eliminate the 3:2 pulldown/duplicate judder.

[therock003]

This is my TV. Does it support 24p playback?

http://panel-tvs.tech-specs.com/panasonic-tx-p50u10e-n51863853

It has a 100hz refresh rate. It lists 400 (i thought it was 800) since it has a technology called something like intelligent frame creation

Anyway its a PAL system so it shouldnt have issues with 25p playback. But what does actually happen when trying to play files that are 23.976/24 and 29.97

Most of the files i'm playing are either 23.976 (70-80%) and the rest are 29.97. I rarely get to play 25 frame files

[hello_hello]

Plasma panel refresh rates were often show inflated. It's explained here. For example my Plasma is 600Hz but the actual refresh rate is a maximum of 60Hz. ie the pixels can switch on and off at a rate of 600Hz but the image itself it only refreshed at 60Hz.

The trouble is, I think all manufacturers use fake refresh rates now. I don't know how Panasonic do it so 400 might men a real refresh rate of 100Hz. And it think 100Hz PAL TVs should be able to do 120Hz for film/NTSC frame rates.

Unless your TVs connected to your PC by VGA you can probably connect at 24Hz, or 23.976Hz, or both, Have a look in your video card's control panel or Windows Display Properties for a list of available refresh rates. Your TV probably won't automatically switch refresh rates according to the frame rate though, you'll need to set up the player to switch refresh rates, and if you enable the "intelligent frame creation" option in the TV you'll probably have to use 100Hz or 120Hz because if the frame rate is the same as the refresh rate so TV can't put fake frames in between the real ones.

I know the second and third links appear to be for the P42S10 model but that's where the first one takes me, so I assume it's the same manual?
http://www.manualslib.com/products/Panasonic-Tx-P50u10e-3194236.html
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/649700/Panasonic-Tx-Pf42s10.html?page=45#manual
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/649700/Panasonic-Tx-Pf42s10.html?page=60#manual

You should have a list of available refresh rates like this somewhere in your video card's control panel: