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locohost · (This post was last modified: 2009-10-08, 23:06 by locohost.)

I'll admit it took a lot of searching these forums and a lot of fiddling but I've finally got it working smoothly! If your having trouble with XBMC, keep searching and keep fiddling, you will eventually have an absolutely amazing home theater setup! Big Grin

My AV hardware is...

* XBox/XBMC with Monster Lightwave HD AV (optical) cable
* Yamaha 6.1 HT amp
* 61" Samsung 1080P LED DLP
* Networked (wired) PC/Win7 with 2 1TB drives
* XBMS streamer service

My XBMC "Player" settings...

* Render method: Hardware overlays
* Resolution: NTSC 16:9
* Flicker filter: Off

At first I had to spend a lot of time just trying to figure out how to get connected to my media. I had various issues with slow networking via Samba so I switched to XBMSP. This works really well and is easy to setup and hook to in XBMC Video. My second huge issue was stuttering, faded (kinda soft muted picture), and really annoying tearing during video playback. I got rid of the stuttering and faded video by switching from the recommended "High Quality Pixel Shader" to "Hardware Overlays". I guess it has to do with increased rendering speed. I'm not sure, but it worked. I fiddled with the Resolution setting until I came upon "NTSC 16:9" which displays a perfectly dimensioned image on my TV. These two settings immediately removed the stuttering and cleared the picture up perfectly so that was all good. However, I still had the damn tearing which I just couldn't tolerate. So I searched some more and found someone who blamed his HD box/cable (the one with the black box and separate cables). I -was- using this exact HD box/cable device! His solution was to switch to the Monster Lightwave cable so I thought I should give it a try. I bought one, hooked it up and it holy crap did it work! No stuttering, clear picture and best of all the tearing stopped! The video is damn near perfect and the surround sound booms. It looks and sounds like a DVD playing locally. So kudos to Monster! Cool

So anyway, I just wanted to share my really positive XBox/XBMC experience and what worked for me in case someone searching later can use this info.

Thanks to everyone posting and replying and helping here!

Mark Big Grin

Follow up edit: Most of the big fancy skins either do not work on XBox (not enough memory I think) or barely/sorta/appear to work and are a complete pain in the ass. Set your skin to "Mayhem" and leave it alone.

joazito · 2009-10-09, 00:12

Just making sure, but you do have 720p enabled somewhere right?

**natethomas** · 2009-10-09, 02:22

Ha ha ha. ... monster cable... ha ha ha.

stoli · 2009-10-09, 02:49

mason · 2009-10-09, 12:31

good one

locohost · 2009-10-09, 14:06

joazito Wrote:Just making sure, but you do have 720p enabled somewhere right?

Yeah, should have put that too. 720 and 1080 both are checked

locohost · 2009-10-09, 14:10

natethomas Wrote:Ha ha ha. ... monster cable... ha ha ha.

Hmmm, must be an inside joke Huh

I changed no settings, just swapped the AV cable and the tearing went away. So that proves one of two things 1) Monster makes really good cables or 2) the old HD AV box-n-cables thing is very bad. My first thought was that the Monster cable is better. Am I wrong?

joazito · 2009-10-09, 15:30

Disregard them. It's a common theme to say monster cables are overpriced pieces of not-so-special cables. But in this case, I think you got a good deal (since it works better).

mcborzu · 2009-10-09, 15:38

It's just that Best Buy sells HDMI Monster Cables for 50-70 bucks when you can get HDMI cables off Newegg for like 3-5 bucks....

joazito · 2009-10-09, 15:40

Just one more thing: I don't think it's correct to indicate all skins except mayhem don't work well on the xbox. Some don't, but several work extremely well. See http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55069 and http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=53231

locohost · 2009-10-09, 15:44

joazito Wrote:Disregard them. It's a common theme to say monster cables are overpriced pieces of not-so-special cables. But in this case, I think you got a good deal (since it works better).

Ah I see. So I'm silly for giving Monster kudos. Whatever Rolleyes

Thanks for explaining Joazito Big Grin

You know, the cable wasn't even expensive. $28 on eBay.

This does intrigue me though. I have another HD AV "box" that I'll try. Perhaps the first one was bad. I also have other component cables of both the "cheap" unshielded and "expensive" shielded variety. I'm going to run some more tests with different cables just to see how they affect the video.

I'll post my results for anyone who may be interested.

Mark

locohost · (This post was last modified: 2009-10-09, 16:20 by locohost.)

mcborzu Wrote:It's just that Best Buy sells HDMI Monster Cables for 50-70 bucks when you can get HDMI cables off Newegg for like 3-5 bucks....

Oh yeah I know. I buy pretty much all of my cables at mycablemart.com. However, this particular cable is specific to the XBox so I can't get a generic version just anywhere. A company called "Psyclone" makes (or made) one too but I couldn't quickly find that version for sale.

Big Grin

locohost · 2009-10-09, 16:25

joazito Wrote:Just one more thing: I don't think it's correct to indicate all skins except mayhem don't work well on the xbox. Some don't, but several work extremely well. See http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55069 and http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=53231

I tried a lot of different skins MediaCenter, MediaCenter_Redux, MiniMeedia, Rapier, Aeon, and probably another couple I don't recall. I run MediaCenter on my Windows/XBMC box and I really like it. However most of these skins either don't work on the Xbox at all or have rendering issues that make them a PIA or completely unusable. Mayhem and the other basic skin (don't remember name) are the only two that seem to work flawlessly.

I'll check your link now Big Grin

**natethomas** · 2009-10-10, 02:07

The joke is simply that. Monster cables are notoriously overpriced for what you get. The fact that you got a cable with good shielding for a reasonable price that fixed your problem is much more interesting than the brand of that particular cable.

Furthermore, while I don't know a whole lot about analog cables, I guess I haven't heard of degradation resulting from bad cables that includes video tearing. Everything's possible, but I'd guess this was a case of simply having a terrible cable with a bad connection to begin with.

mcborzu · 2009-10-10, 02:39

I actually bought $50 cables from Best Buy(and I knew better),but I got my HDTV on a Friday and football was on Sunday I just didn't have the patience...

I'm using the Psyclone cables on my XBOX, those work great...

Yea, if you want no headaches at all the default PM3 works great...A couple of skins MiniMeedia, Transperancy!, Rapier, and Alaska(if you shrink the filter.png to 960x540) have worked great for me so far.