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[wer]

At glynor's urging, I'm starting this thread in the hopes of getting a solution to my Red October problems.  

First the facts:
MC 16.0.179 [updated to 181]
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium
Core i5 @ 3.3Ghz, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4670, Catalyst 11.10, 3100 JRmarks in MC benchmark.
Dedicated HTPC, no extra crap installed except VLC, dbPowerAmp, and MPC-HC with MadVR
My video collection is ripped DVDs, as single VOBs or MPEGs.  (standard def)

I have 3 problems that together have resulted in my not being able to use MC to play video:

1. Windows Merit based renders video fine, but I can't get it to bitstream the DD and DTS embedded soundtracks.  That's a dealbreaker.

This caused me to switch to RO Standard...

2. Red October Standard worked for months, but somewhere in the MC upgrade chain developed a stutter.  Now it bitstreams the audio perfectly, but the video framerate is choppy; looks like 15 to 20 fps.  Unacceptable. (see this thread: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=66832 )  Changing the audio output mode as suggested in that thread had no beneficial effect on the problem.

Matt then kindly suggested I try Red October HQ...  That worked for a while, but then a hardware problem forced me to replace my Radeon video card with a Radeon HD 4670.  So...

3. MadVR in Red October HQ locks up (gives a black screen with the blue windows ring) when outputing video on the TV-out of the ATI card.  Some points on this issue:
  - Happens in both MC and MediaPlayerClassic-HomeCinema with MadVR installed.  Clearly a MadVR issue not specific to MC.
  - If I plug in a DVI monitor as the primary display and output to that, MadVR plays perfectly.
  - If I make the S-Video TV connection the primary (or only) display, MadVR gives a black screen while the audio plays perfectly in the background.  Software now unresponsive, and the only way to stop or get out is to kill the app from the task manager.
  - So MadVR plays perfectly on one output of the card, and total fail on the other.  Unfortunately this is a dedicated HTPC so the TV-out MUST be used.
  
  I've tried every setting in MadVR I could find, to no avail.  I contacted madshi about the MadVR issue, but haven't heard back yet. Also tried every combination of Windows Merit Based and RO standard, but couldn't get to where I needed to be.
  Jim trotted out that old chestnut "upgrade your video drivers" and I did.  Now running at 11.10 with the exact same issues - no change at all.
  
 
 So there you go... Sorry this is so long, but glynor wanted the gory details.  If any one of these three problems could be solved, I'd be able to use it for my ripped DVDs and all would be well.  Obviously MadVR gives the best output quality so it would be preferred to get RO HQ working, but I'd settle for anything at this point.  
 
 I think I stuck a nerve with kind glynor by implying I found RO unreliable, which was contrary to his experience.  I think it's great what JRiver is trying to do with RO, to be able to play anything without any fuss, the same way VLC can, but for me it's been twitchy.  I wish I could get it working reliably so that I could enjoy MC for video as well as audio.
 
 In doing another round of troubleshooting in preparing for this post, I think I may have finally fixed #2, the stuttering in RO Standard.  A reinstall of .179 did nothing.  But I again uninstalled MC, and then installed .181 from scratch.  This time, RO Standard gave the "downloading components" message when starting to play a video. (It did NOT give that message with a reinstall of .179)  After that, RO Standard seems to play without stuttering now.  It would be nice to get MadVR and RO HQ working, but this is a start if it sticks.
 
 It would be VERY nice if there were some way to "reset" Red October other than to go to this length.  (I've seen the situation before where video playback in MC will somehow get broken, and the "fix" is to upgrade to a newer version, which seems to reset the MC playback chain.)  So right now, RO-STD seems to "just work" again, and RO-HQ is broken because of the MadVR problem.
 
 Thanks to everyone for their kind assistance and patience.
 
 

[jmone]

You can force MC to redownload the filters it uses by going to C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 16\Plugins and deleting the relevant folder.

[glynor]

This sounds like it should absolutely work in RO Standard.  It should even work fine in Red October HQ, I'd guess.  You might have trouble with HD stuff in ROHQ with that hardware (though I don't know for sure, that's a pretty good system) but I not with SD content ripped in VOBs.

I haven't finished reading this in detail, because it is 2:30 in the morning, but can you post your relevant settings from Options -> Audio and Options -> Video in detail?  Thanks.

Also, I agree with Nathan that you should force MC to re-download the filters using his suggestion.

If needed, you could also try just completely uninstalling MC, rebooting, and then reinstalling it with a current build.  This isn't usually necessary, but it could help.  Just don't remove the settings (unless we get there).

We might find it in the Options -> Audio and Options -> Video setup minutia, but... It also sounds like it could be borked video card drivers.  There are some hard-core ways to remove ATI drivers and then re-install from scratch.  Have you tried them?

[mbagge]

.....when outputting video on the TV-out of the ATI card.....
and
If I make the S-Video TV connection the primary....

I wonder why you are using the "Integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder" S-Video output in the first place. Your Readeon HD 4670 has DVI, HDMI and Displayport outputs that would make sense to use in this context.
As I remember s-Video does not support screen resolutions much higher than 800x600. (I might be wrong). Do you by any chance have the opportunity to connect your TV with anything else than S-Video ?
Then you could have the S-Video output when using your htpc in tv-tuner mode and DVI/HDMI/DP when in dvd-mode. Of course this would force you to change the input channel on your TV.

[JimH]

It also sounds like it could be borked video card drivers.  There are some hard-core ways to remove ATI drivers and then re-install from scratch.  Have you tried them?

As glynor says, video drivers would be the first place to start.

16.0.181 is the most current build.

[wer]

As glynor says, video drivers would be the first place to start.

You'd suggested drivers in your post the other day.  As I said in my post above, I _did_ follow your advice and install new video drivers, and got the exact same result.

[wer]

I wonder why you are using the "Integrated AMD Xilleon™ HDTV encoder" S-Video output in the first place. Your Readeon HD 4670 has DVI, HDMI and Displayport outputs that would make sense to use in this context.
As I remember s-Video does not support screen resolutions much higher than 800x600. (I might be wrong). Do you by any chance have the opportunity to connect your TV with anything else than S-Video ?
Then you could have the S-Video output when using your htpc in tv-tuner mode and DVI/HDMI/DP when in dvd-mode. Of course this would force you to change the input channel on your TV.

My Radeon HD 4670 has 2 DVI and 1 S-Video, and that's it.  S-Video supports up to 1024x768.

[wer]

You can force MC to redownload the filters it uses by going to C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 16\Plugins and deleting the relevant folder.

Thanks very much jmone!  This is great info that I & others can use in the future.

Because it's a fresh install, the plugins directory only has the following: aac_encoder, ffdshow, h264_encoder,lav, lav_cuvid, madvr, mp3_encoder, mp4_muxer

Would it be safe to just delete them all?  It looks like just mp3_encoder might not be Red October related...

[wer]

Glynor, thanks... When you finish reading you'll see I got RO Standard working by totally uninstalling & reinstalling JRiver.  That one was a Media Center problem, not a video driver problem.  Next time I'll use jmone's method for an easier fix.

Also, I heard from madshi, and his initial thinking seems to be that MadVR might not be able to read vsync, which would indicate a fundamental incompatibility between MadVR and S-Video outputs on ATI cards.

Does anyone have MadVR outputting over the S-Video output on their ATI Radeon card?  If even one person does, my problem there should be fixable. 

[JimH]

You could use a DVI to HDMI convertor.

I agree that S-Video isn't a good choice unless you have no others.

[jmone]

If you are using S-Video, I'd not bother with the overhead of madVR as I doubt it will look any "better" over EVR using this connection type.

[wer]

I should have been more clear so that you didn't think I was pursuing S-Video out of whim... It's a standard def video stack.  There are no HDMI or DVI ports.  The only inputs are S-Video and component.  I know of no current video cards that output component video.  (I've already tried converters to go from DVI to S-Video and they have their own problems.)

I didn't expect greater sharpness or anything of that kind from MadVR, since upconversion is not needed.  What I'd hoped for from MadVR was elimination of any jitter, judder, or other framerate related issues.  I understand it excels in that area.  (and yes I have videoclock turned on in RO-STD; it seems ok as far as I have seen so far).  Remember I only started using RO-HQ in the first place at Matt's suggestion when RO-Std broke.

Thanks everyone... Madshi is looking at my MadVR log, so if there's a solution for that I'll let you know.  Otherwise RO-Standard wil suffice as long as framerate issues don't cause problems.  I certainly have no complaints about RO-Std not looking "good enough" in terms of sharpness/color/etc; it's good.