[xbmcliveuser]

I'm posting this for my son who is running Ubuntu 11.04 with XBMC (NOT XBMC Live, just in case anyone is confused by my nickname). He previously used it with a Sony TV and everything worked great. Recently he got a new TV, which he didn't care for for several reasons so he wound up exchanging it for a Panasonic TC-P55VT30 TV.

I should mention that his old Sony would not do 24p at all - it just didn't support it. Both of the new TV's he's tried do support 24p and that is part of the problem, apparently. With both of the new TV's he has seen three separate but possibly related issues:

1. When playing movies in 24p mode (which, apparently, XBMC automatically switches to when playing a movie) he sees momentary freeze-ups at various places throughout the movie. This did not happen with his old TV, which as I say did not support 24p.

2. When viewing anything in 60p mode he sees what he terms "sparklies" - there may be another term for it that's used in these forums and if so we'd like to know what it is, but the issue is that at certain places on the screen where there is a transition between light and dark he sees brights pinpoints of light. As an example, in XBMC's clouds graphic (in the weather) he sees "sparklies" around the edges of the clouds. As you can imagine this is very annoying and again is not something he experienced with his old TV. This is not an XBMC problem per se, but he's been unable to find any explanation of why it happens or how to fix it, so any thoughts on that would be highly appreciated. He does not see the "sparklies" in 24p mode.

3. Finally, in an attempt to solve these issues, he followed the instructions in this thread to create an xorg.conf file (we also tried the judder fix in this thread, but it doesn't seem to help with the freeze-ups). And as an experiment, he tried disabling 24p mode by removing that setting from the Modes statement, to try and force the system to only use 60p (since he didn't see the freeze-ups with the old Sony that only did 60p). But for some reason, it appears that XBMC doesn't honor the settings in xorg.conf. We can't figure out how it happens, but in XBMC only the TV still switches down to 24p mode when a movie starts to play. Of course at this point we would still have the sparklies at 60p but if staying at 60p resolves the freeze-ups then we will look for a solution to the sparklies.

In case it matters, the HTPC computer is an Asrock Vision 3D and the NVIDIA driver version is 270.41.06. Both of those were the same when the Sony was connected.

This is driving him crazy (especially since it all worked great with the old TV) so if anyone can help us solve even one of these issues it would be extremely helpful. If we could resolve all three, that would be great. Any thoughts?

[bobo1on1]

Regarding changing to 24p, turn off "adjust refreshrate to match video".

The sparklies, are they changing or static? It might have something to do with the sharpness setting on the tv.

[LB06]

Sparkles are usually an issue with either the cable or the hdmi input. It's perfectly possible that they won't be there at 24p, since 60p uses a lot more bandwidth. I would suggest trying another cable, another input and a combination hereof.

[xbmcliveuser]

Thank you all for the help and suggestions. Here is a report on the progress (or lack thereof) we have made so far.

First, turning off "adjust refreshrate to match video" did work to keep XBMC from forcing the movie into 24p mode.

But the sparklies remain. In talking to my son, he assures me he did try both a different HDMI cable and using different HDMI inputs on the TV, none of which made any difference. He did say that all the sparklies appear to be red and they are always in the same place on any given static picture (such as the clouds). He does see them both inside and outside of XBMC — for example we brought up a browser window and looked at some HDR photos and saw the sparklies in a few of those. Changing the sharpness setting on the TV makes no difference at all. Going into the NVIDIA settings and reducing the gamma or the brightness does reduce the sparklies somewhat, but they don't completely go away until the picture is so dark as to be unwatchable (even then we're not sure, we stopped trying that when the picture got too dark to be watchable, and some of the sparklies were still there).

Any other thoughts on a possible fix for this? Thanks again for the suggestions so far.

[LB06]

It's starting to sound like a problem with the TV. Does this problem also occur with different sources?

[xbmcliveuser]

It's starting to sound like a problem with the TV. Does this problem also occur with different sources?

So far it has only been observed with the Home Theater PC. Satellite receiver works great with no sparklies.

[LB06]

Try connecting other sources that also output at 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz.

[xbmcliveuser]

Try connecting other sources that also output at 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz.

I asked him and he said that's what his satellite receiver outputs, and he's had no problem with that.

[Burning-Ranger]

how long is the HDMI cable?
...i had the same with a cheap 10m cable!

[xbmcliveuser]

how long is the HDMI cable?
...i had the same with a cheap 10m cable!

It's only a 6 foot HDMI cable and he tried two different ones. Now today he says he's seeing a new artifact, a vertical line or bar (not exactly sure, and haven't seen it myself) in the picture at certain points. I think that he's finally had it trying to make this TV work and plans on returning it.

[Devaron]

This indeed sounds more like a hardware issue then software. Maybe it's the HDMI port the cable is plugged into. Do the artifacts change or "jump around" when you (gently!) wiggle the HDMI cable?

[xbmcliveuser]

The plot thickens. Before he bought the Asrock Vision 3D, he ran XBMC on an Acer Asprire Revo under Ubuntu Karmic. So he hooked up that old system and NO sparklies. So it is not the TV. Of course the Asrock is probably running a different version of XBMC, definitely a newer version of Ubuntu, and a different version of the NVIDIA driver (we did try updating the NVIDIA driver to the very latest Linux version and that had no effect).

This is the sort of problem that could really drive someone crazy, particularly after what he spent on that Asrock Vision 3D.

[xbmcliveuser]

Well, how is this for a kick in the head.

My son finally got frustrated and returned the new TV and hooked his old TV back up. We then copied back the old xorg.conf file for his old TV, which had worked great previously.

When he turned on this old TV, he still saw the red "sparklies" - they weren't as bad as on the TV he had returned, but they were still noticeable.

Since he'd had no problem with the "sparklies" when using that TV before, he got to wondering what was different now. And then he remembered that before, he hadn't had a long enough HDMI cable to reach from the Asrock Vision 3D to the TV, so he'd used an HDMI switch in the middle of the run to extend the cable length.

So, he got out the HDMI switch and inserted it again and… NO sparklies!

So my theory is that the Asrock Vision 3D is overdriving the HDMI output and the HDMI switch and extra length of cable attenuates the signal just enough to solve the problem, at least on his old TV. Whether it would have worked on the new one we will never know, because he had already returned it by the time he figured this out.

Now, I will just add my two cents' worth. He paid a lot of money for that Asrock Vision 3D and it has NOT met his expectations. It was a pain to configure it under Ubuntu in the first place, and it really hasn't performed that much better than his old Acer Aspire Revo (which cost about one third the price) did. About the only major differences was that the Asrock had enough additional CPU power to run Hulu Desktop without making the video look like a fast slide show. But unless you want to pay for Hulu's subscription service (which he doesn't), that's really not a big deal. Now that we've figured out that the Asrock's overdriven HDMI output is the likely culprit in all the issues he's had, I would just say that if I were reviewing the Asrock I would not give it the same glowing reviews that's it's received in some of the trade publications. My recommendation would be that if you primarily want to run XBMC, stay away from the Asrock Vision 3D - it's not worth the price they're charging for it!

[LB06]

:S

[X3lectric]

it certainly is not worth the money for sure, but it isnt for everyone to take on Linux + XBMC either. Not that Im implying anything with that comment, its just a general observation.

Its rare to see any LCD TV's that dont support 24p but that depends on the buyer to check and know that true film is 24p by default.