Strange DivX Problem

[badass101]

Hi everyone,

I have a really strange one here.
I'm doing some video work for plasma screen display, and i've encoded my video into DivX with a res. of 768 x 460 (to scale to 1280x768)

When the video is played and the fullscreen mode is switched (in WMP), sometimes the video goes very pixelly (including the divx logo). About 10 seconds into the video, the scene fades out and a new one starts. At this point, the screen (usually) flashes green for a split second, and then the video is back and running fast and nicely resized (not blocky).
It's almost like a new overlay is created.
Also, while the video is blocky the framerate is poor and the drive is thrashed to death.

The main problem is the schedulling application we are using on the plasma (which i wrote, it uses a WMP9 video control) exhibits these symptoms every time the file is played. I've tried other bitrates/resolutions (within 20/30 pixels) with no change.

The graphics card is a PixelPerfect card (outputs specific plasma screen resolutions). It is basically a PowerVR Kyro II card.
The system is a P4 1.8Ghz Shuttle, with Win2K pro.
Oh, and DirectX 9 (latest version.. b??)

Please, can anyone suggest anything that I can do to force the 'better' overlay from the start?
Please don't suggest moving away from WMP, as it's a core of the project.

Many thanks,

Craig Atkins

[Gazorgan]

It takes a lot of horse power to do your scaling. An Athlon 1.4 Ghz may not be enough horsepower. 768x460 is just a wierd resolution. It's also not 4x3 or 16x9, but something in between. I know it matches your display, but so what? Go for a true 16x9 and deal with a little bit of letterboxing.


Try making a test WMV file in 1024x768 and see if the problem goes away? There are some nice Lord of the Rings trailers in that resolution.