5.72 & Pal@pal

[prr]

Matrox promised for sure to fix PAL@PAL playback issues in the last driver. So the driver was delayed and delayed, I guess because they really wanted to keep their work this time. Now after a half year pause, the driver is out...
My question to the audience -- is the PAL@PAL playback finally fixed for good?

[dZeus]

In Win2k with a G400:

hmm... I occasionaly see a dropped frame (like once ever 30-60 seconds), but it's nowhere as bad as it used to be on my machine with the 5.52 and earlier drivers, where I would get periods with like 100 dropped frames over a 20-30 seconds period every 6 minutes. So it's a huge improvement over the previous drivers, but not 100% perfect yet

Then again, I've got a SBLive! with great drivers... I'll get a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz / Videologic Sonic Fury soon, and I'll report the changes (if any) with PAL to PAL when I can test it with this card.

[prr]

Checked the new drivers as well.
They did not fix the "always scale to full screen" bug!!! #$%

[dZeus]

yes they did.... I found out that they accidently switched around
the aspect ratio detection method "based on video source size" and "based on video window size"... if you set it to source size, everything works ok

[prr]

It seems to work...
But shouldn't the "based on video source size" be for full-screening 720x480 and 720x576 clips?

[dZeus]

as far as I understand the switches in the DVD-MAX settings panel, "preserve aspect ratio, detect based on video window size" should be interpreted as (when a TV is hooked up as secondary output device):
"assume that proper viewing aspect ratio of video is the one that the video window uses". Example:

When viewing 480x576 SVCD MPEG2 video source, WinDVD will use a 4:3 aspect ratio video window on playback (which is correct). If you've set the tv aspect ratio to 4:3 in the DVD-MAX settings panel as well, it will not change anything to the video stream and pass it directly to the TV (at least, when the TV standard is set to PAL, which, in this case, uses the same amount of display lines as the video source). Why? because it 'knows' that the aspect ratio is 4:3 already (hence the based on video window size), and it also 'knows' that the tv also has a 4:3 aspect ratio.

If you set it to "detect based on video source size", it will think that the aspect ratio is 1:1.2 (576/480). To make that fit on a 4:3 tv screen while preserving the aspect ratio, it will add black borders which will make up 37.5% ( = (768-480)/768 . 768 if you could define the horizontal resolution of a tv in pixels.. but you can't, hence the percentage ) of the total horizontal resolution.
Of course, if you set the video aspect ratio detection to video source size, it will render the example incorrect on tv, since it doesn't use 'square pixels'.

In fact, you should use 'detect based on video window size' in nearly all cases, since it will properly output all video formats, as long as the player or codec also can detect that the video source doesn't have 'square pixels', and can adjust the video window according to the aspect ratio flag.

Conclusion:
I'm not really sure what 'detect based on video source size' is really usefull for .

[prr]

I remember reading from somewhere, that "detect based on video source size" is meant to be as a workaround for (mainly) DVD software, that can't use aspect ratio correction.
So If You are playing NTSC DVD and window size is 720x480 (instead of x540), DVDMax does the stretching for You.

It seems to me, that current "based on video source size" setting functions as "... window size" used to and "... window size" functions as always scale to full screen.

[dZeus]

Originally posted by prr
I remember reading from somewhere, that "detect based on video source size" is meant to be as a workaround for (mainly) DVD software, that can't use aspect ratio correction.
So If You are playing NTSC DVD and window size is 720x480 (instead of x540), DVDMax does the stretching for You.

I think you're mixed up with 'always scale to fullscreen' which is the mode of operation that does what you describe:

it will 'assume' the videosource as having the same aspect ratio as the output device.

It seems to me, that current "based on video source size" setting functions as "... window size" used to and "... window size" functions as always scale to full screen.

I agree on that

[dZeus]

as rene told me by icq as well, there's a brief flash on the monitor when you play back a video through dvd-max.. it wasn't there with 5.52 and earlier drivers.. I'm not sure about 5.71, but this flash is quite annoying anyway

[prr]

But I think everyone would agree that if the flash is what brings us the better PAL playback, let it flash