I am posting this in order to save a bit of my sanity and get some feedback from people that are into the subject for a longer period than me.
Last week I downloaded the demo of MC17, with the intention to evaluate it and potentially buy it as a one-stop shop for managing both audio and video playback.
The platform I am using is the following:
Windows 7 SP1 64 Bit Ultimate
Nvidia GTX 570 with latest drivers downloaded and installed from nvidia.com
Soundblaster X-Fi (connected via TOSLINK to Emotiva UMC-1).
Video output:
DVI 1: To Samsung computer monitor (1920 * 1200 32bit/59Hz)
HDMI: (As a secondary display) To AVR Emotica UMC-1 which outputs to a Panasonic Viera TC-42LD24 (1920 * 1080 * 24bit * 60Hz)
Before installing MC17, I was using
Foobar2000 for music reproduction (using WASAPI)
MPC-HT for video reproduction using LAV Video/Audio/Source Splitter v0.40, madVR 0.79 for rendering and ReClock for audio reproduction.
Here are the steps I followed:
1 .Installed MC17
2. Switched to Red October HQ
3. Changed audio renderer to ReClock (would love not to, but it seems that Audio rendering in JRiver is not done via WASAPI if audio device used for video playback is different than the one used for music reproduction)
This did not work as expected, as LAV Audio decoder was sending 32bit sound to Nvidia HiDefinition Audio output - and sadly, it does not support it.
4. Changed to Red October HQ with additional filters and manually configured LAV Audio decoder to send up to 24 bit
Success, playback was doing OK.
After that point, I played a bit with up sampling and cropping using madVR, having a variety of results.
And here starts the actual problem. At some point, while I was playing back a video in the TV (connected via HDMI to UMC-1), I switched desktop resolution from the context menu provided in MC17 to use 1920*1080*32*60. Playback froze. TV started flickering.
From that point onwards, whenever I tried to use the TV as a secondary display (i.e. power up the AVR with the TV switched on), TV (and PC monitor) continuously flicker without producing any output to the screen.
At some point, the video card stopped even producing any output to its HDMI. Please also note that I conducted all tests using both the miniHDMI to HDMI as well as a DVI to HDMI output from the Nvidia GTX 570.
I tried the following:
1. Switch to Red October HQ (without filters)
No Success, HDMI (and secondary DVI) out
2. Switch to Red October standard
No Success, HDMI (and secondary DVI) out
3. Clean uninstall MC17 and reinstall (without CCleaner and with CCleaner)
No Success, HDMI (and secondary DVI) out
4. Uninstall Nvidia driver (using safe mode and Drive sweeper for a definite clean install) and reinstall (both current version of driver and beta)
No Success, HDMI (and secondary DVI) out
5. Complete uninstall of MC17
No Success, HDMI (and secondary DVI) out
6. Uninstall my own version of madVR
Some Success, secondary DVI is now producing signal but still continuous flickering.
7. Manually change refresh rate of secondary DVI (UMC-1 + TV) to 50Hz from 60Hz
Success, I can now reproduce video in the TV, using EVR as renderer
8. Reinstall madVR, try to playback 1080p Video using MPC
Success, Video is played back as expected
9. Try to playback 720p video
Failure, output to secondary DVI is against lost
10. Connect via DVI to HDMI Nvidia GTX to AVR
Partial success. Still I get flickers while using 1080p60 but 1080p50 seems to be working OK.
To my perspective, this does not seem to be a hardware issue but rather a software issue. I am about to clean install OS but before doing so, does anybody here have any ideas/proposals/positive thoughts that could save me the trouble of clean installation?
Many many thanks