Interlaced TV-out from Matrox G550

[Steve Horn]

I have just built a new PC (with quiet fans) and I would like to use it for video and audio playback The graphics card is a Matrox Millennium G550. My current machine has a G400-TV card and I was thinking that it would be nice to separate capture and playback on to different machines

I use TV-out for playback of interlaced MPEG2 files of music performances captured from TV broadcasts (capture by G400-TV, mpeg coding by TMPGEnc). I use Dual Head Clone with a desktop of 800x600 to choose a track in Windows Explorer, then DVDMax takes over to display the video full-screen - it is a great system.

But when I play interlaced mpeg-2 files on the new machine, the TV-out picture looks de-interlaced. For example a guitarist's hand strumming strings is smeared on the G550 and clear on the G400-TV. On both machines I installed the Ravisent DVD player software that came with the card.

I have tried many of the adjustments on the G550 (including setting ‘Use field-based scaling’ in the DVD Max settings) but nothing has improved the picture (I started with every setting the same the settings on the old machine).

Does anybody know what I need to do to get a proper interlaced tv-out picture from the G550. I do not like the 'detached' feeling you get when watching deinterlaced TV so I have to get it working one way or another. If necessary I will swap the G400-TV into the new machine.

[dZeus]

enable 'field based scaling' in the DVD-MAX properties, and play the interlaced MPEG2 contents back with WinDVD and all de-interlacing checkboxes (there are 3 of them) disabled. Make sure you shut down and restart the windvd aplication after changing the de-interlace settings.

However, playing back progressive material with dvd-max set to field-based scaling looks like crap.

... if only there would be a media player which would set the tv-out to the optimal setting as according to the content..

[Steve Horn]

Thanks for your help.

Where are the deinterlacing checkboxes in WinDVD? I am using the trial version of WinDVD 4. The only control for deinterlacing that I can find is on the 'Display' flyout control panel on the right of the main panel. It has one dropdown box for Deinterlacing which can be set to 'Auto', 'Advanced', 'Force Bob' or 'Force Weave'. However the setting is not stored. When I close down then reopen WinDVD it is always set to 'Auto'.

[dZeus]

afaik, it's in the configuration menu in the display tab. There are 3 options: high quality, low quality and custom quality. If you set it to custom, you can select the amount of deinterlacing done.

[Steve Horn]

There is no 'display' tab anywhere that I can see. The only thing marked 'display' is on a flyout menu which appears when you click a small arrow to the right of the InterVideo logo on the gold coloured main control panel. But, as I said above this does not have the options you describe.

Are you talking about WinDVD 4?

[dZeus]

ok, I just tried WinDVD Platinum (4.5) and WinDVD 4, and the option seems to be missing.

I'm sure it was still there in WinDVD 3.x and below, in the display tab of the setup/preferences menu.

Perhaps you can still disable deinterlacing through a registry key? like with DVDGenie?

[Steve Horn]

Tanks for going to all that effort, it is much appreciated. I have posted a question about this to InterVideo (WinDVD) tech support.

I'll post a message when I have found a solution.

[Randy Simons]

I was just playing with ZoomPlayer (freeware), it seems to be able to use WinDVD's/PowerDVD's CODECs and also lets you adjust those interlace settings from it's Player Options -> External menu. Haven't checked it atm, I'm still trying to figure out why I can still play MP3 files while there are no codecs left to decode the MP3 files! (I want to use hardware MP3 decoding..))

[Steve Horn]

Thanks for pointing me to ZoomPlayer.

The controls you mention did not solve my problem but there is a lot of useful information in ZoomPlayer and its web site. Maybe if I can understand some of it I will be more in control of what is going on in my machine with it plays video files.

My biggest problem is to find a CODEC that will not deinterlace the output to the TV socket of a Matrox G550. Then I can work with ZoomPlayer to get that CODEC to play the files.

Still no reply yet from Matrox Tech Support (I suppose the holiday period is affecting things).

Thanks again.

[Steve Horn]

The message from Matrox Tech support is that none of their current cards support proper interlaced movement on the TV out socket. See the thread on

http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/Forum12/HTML/004957.html

I will be writing up my experiences in a new thread.

[Steve Horn]

Forget everthing I said about DVD quality and the G550.

Saar contacted me and explained how to get interlacing working on the G550. In brief, using PowerDVD ( I downloaded a trial version), Video mode has to be set to Force Weave. Apparently 'Weave' means Interlace. I did not know that.

Force Weave on WinDVD 4 also provides interlacing but you have to set it every time you open WinDVD. PowerDVD remembers the setting between sessions.

At first sight the quality is very similar to the G400-TV playing mpeg-2 files, but the desktop is not as clear on the G550 as the G400TV.

I will do more tests tomorrow.

[Steve Horn]

Good News! Over the weekend I found that there IS a way to get a properly interlaced output from the TV-out socket of the G550 when playing interlaced MPEG-2 files. Thanks to Saar for sending me information about this by e-mail.

Use PowerDVD or WinDVD 4 and set Video or Interlace to 'Force Weave'. Apparently 'Weave' means 'Interlace' (earlier versions of these programmes may use a different name). To set this in PowerDVD 4, right click the big display rectangle, select Configuration then Video | Advanced | Screen Tab | Video Mode select Force Weave. Power DVD remembers this setting between sessions.

In WinDVD 4 click the small arrow beside the Intervideo logo near the right of the gold control panel. This opens a flyout menu. Select Display then De-interlace Force Weave (I am doing this from memory because I have de-installed WinDVD). You have to set this every time you run WinDVD because it reverts to 'Auto' on startup.

In Matrox Display Settings: DVDMax:

Use DualHead DVDMax - checked

Preserve Source Cropping - unchecked
Scale only on page flip - checked
Use field-based scaling - unchecked

Aspect Ratio - Always scale to full screen

When playing an interlaced source - and with interlacing working correctly - the TV-out video quality from the G550 is excellent and looks identical on my TV to the pictures from the G400-TV.

[Saar]

hi!

maybe this will be usefull:

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39123

[vitvip]

Thanks to all contributors, I got interlaced MPEG2 working after fiddling with the settings all day long. My card is not G550, it's G450. However, only one DVDMax setting is crucial in my case:

Use field-based scaling - unchecked

And I don't think it takes PowerDVD/WinDVD. Media Player Classic with deinterlacing set to Weave works just fine. I have a couple of MPEG2 codecs installed, not sure which one is used.

Regards,
Vitaly