• 1
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9(current)
  • 10
  • 11
  • 15
Req native resolution ( disable upscaling ) option
+1 for hoping someone with coding knowledge picks this up and makes the necessary tweaks to get it included in XBMC!!
Reply
I do too, but I’m not holding my breath. This feature has been requested many times of just about every media player platform that I’m aware of and you only have to look at this one thread with over 23,000 views to gauge the level of interest. But here we are with not one software/hardware media player offering this feature – even the recently announced and expensive PCH A410 pro media player aimed at audiophiles lacks a source direct option. The Oppo players do, but with ISO playback removed (+ Cinavia issues) they can’t be labelled as proper media players.

I think one of the issues is the difficulty of implementation. I naively thought it would just be a question of switching off the scaling function but it’s clearly much more complex. I get the impression that the development team are currently unable devote the required time to implementing what is considered (wrongly IMHO) a niche feature of limited appeal.
Reply
I have done some tests on this comparing my WDTV and Raspbmc - both connected to a Panasonic 1080p plasma.

The WDTV is capable of outputting at both native resolution and framerate or upscaling. To be honest, I don't remember if this is part of the Western Digital original firmware or exclusive to B-Rad's WDLXTV alternative, but it's definitely there. The OSD and subtitles scale with it fine too. It's a very useful feature.

Unfortunately, I don't have any way of giving proper quantitative results but my experience is undoubtedly Panasonic TV upscaling > WDTV upscaling > Raspbmc upscaling.

The difference between the Pi and the TV is noticeable although small at 720p but significant and obvious for SD content like DVDs.

(As a slight aside, I have also compared with a PS3 which does a noticeably better job than the TV or media devices on DVD content. I assume it's just a level above in terms of power.)

Right now, this is stopping me from switching to XBMC. I'd love to join the community and as a developer myself even start to dip my feet in with contributing my own changes but this is currently a deal breaker for me. If I had any knowledge of the languages and paradigms being used here to pick up where adam.h left off I absolutely would but right now that's a long way outside of my skillset as a lowly web developer who has never worked on a project of this sort. It's also not very promising in terms of the community that his pull request was closed.

Finally, just my two cents on a couple of points I've seen raised in this thread:

The user experience is jarring if there is a resolution switch: This is already happening for the refresh rate match which I consider essential in terms of playback quality. A second or two of weirdness at the start is absolutely worth it for improved playback quality for a 2h+ film to me.

There are users running XBMC on machines that wipe the floor with my TV's upscaling: Sure, but low power devices like the Rapsberry Pi are growing as a percentage of users all the time. Right now, this is their major flaw.

In summary: +1 Big Grin
Reply
(2013-10-29, 14:23)dmnc Wrote: The difference between the Pi and the TV is noticeable although small at 720p but significant and obvious for SD content like DVDs.

Perhaps links to photos of the screen with different inputs would help the argument.
If you run (command line) omxplayer from raspbian with -r option you get "native" resolution, so you can compare that to the output without -r.

Personally I struggled to see a difference, but I'm willing to be convinced.
Reply
I hope this feature will be looked into sooner or later again. Now since XBMC is capable on running on less powerful systems (raspberry pi, android, ..), software upscaling is just wasted resources on these systems.
Same goes for the software de-interlacer of XBMC. This is irrelevant when XBMC would be capable of feeding interlaced resolutions directly to my TV.
Why do we have TVs with hardware upscaler chips that could do the business just fine or even better. Various image improving my TV is capable of for SD content doesn't come into effect cause it believes everything it gets is 1080p.
I'd say for XBMC, which primary purpose is to work attached to a TV this feature should be considered. My satellite receiver supports auto resolution switching just fine.
Reply
(2013-10-29, 15:14)popcornmix Wrote:
(2013-10-29, 14:23)dmnc Wrote: The difference between the Pi and the TV is noticeable although small at 720p but significant and obvious for SD content like DVDs.

Perhaps links to photos of the screen with different inputs would help the argument.
If you run (command line) omxplayer from raspbian with -r option you get "native" resolution, so you can compare that to the output without -r.

Personally I struggled to see a difference, but I'm willing to be convinced.

Photos don't really do this justice and I can't get my TV to take a screenshot, though I have a new camera and so can try again. Is it possible through the Pi to get a screenshot of both pre and post upscaled images at least? That would be a start.
Reply
Hopefully the images below will support the case for the superior deinterlacing\scaling capabilities of dedicated off board video scalers and hence the desirability of a 'video source direct' option.


My HTPC System:
Intel Core i5-4670T(2.30GHz) HD4600 graphics
ASRock Z87E-ITX motherboard
8Gb RAM
Windows 8.1
XBMC 12.2 Frodo (now XBMC Gotham – recent monthly build)


For the XBMC set of images below, the set-up was:

HTPC – Lumagen XS – Pioneer 1080p display

XBMC was set to an output 1080p and various deinterlace options were tested with the ‘Auto’ setting giving the best results (and which are shown below).

For the ‘source direct’ option the same video file was streamed through an Oppo93 BR player (set to video source direct of course) and the set-up was:

Oppo-93 – Lumagen XS – Pioneer 1080p display

In both cases the Lumagen was set to output 1080p

The test file was a 576i ts file from the end section of this thread.

Images were taken using a SLR and using identical settings. These were cropped in Photoshop but nothing else was done to them.

First a couple of images from the file played by the Oppo on source direct:

http://i.imgur.com/NeXjPFD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uqEquFN.jpg


The input\output stats being received and sent to the display by the Lamagen confirmed the correct input\output



Now, here are the corresponding HTPC (XBMC) images of the same scenes in the video.

http://i.imgur.com/HwqfkLP.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/JU5d48p.jpg


Throughout the video there were banding artefacts on the lower rim of the guys specs. I should mention that these artefacts are MUCH more noticeable when the image is moving. Overall, the video from the Oppo appeared smoother and more detailed than that from the HTPC.

Again, the input\output stats being received and sent to the display by the Lamagen confirmed the correct input\output


I know it is only one test but it does provide some evidence of the superior image rendering power of scalers such as the Lumagen and why many of us would like a source direct option.
Reply
Hi MadScientist, I am really impressed to see how different these images look like. There is a clear improvement in quality when using an external dedicated player.
What would take to get this quality without and external source but using XBMC only? Is it actually a limitation in the XBMC player that can't be improved, or at least, not without extensive work?

Thanks, Lola.
Reply
Hi Lola. Given sufficient processing power, it's feasible for a HTPC to run the required scaling and delinterlacing algorithms to produce excellent results. However you must bear in mind that the likes of Lumagen have been perfecting their proprietary algorithms for many years so it’s not surprising they do good job. In addition, separate scalers also provide calibration for your display(s) which can be used by several sources, not just the HTPC. In summary, although not cheap, they are worth having if high PQ is important to you. The scaler must be allowed to do all the work though – hence the request in this thread.
Reply
Thank you for your detailed explanation MadScientist. That was very helpful! I hope this request gets implemented sooner or later.
Reply
I was a Lumagen user in the past (previous generation of products). Considering I moved for the overwhelming majority to progressive content, I decided that I wasn't interested in having another box below my TV.

While I understand the request and for what is worth I "morally" support it, I disagree on the whole "considering this a niche feature is wrong" (albeit in posters' humble opinion). Dedicated video scalers *are* a niche product. I don't need detailed stats to imagine that the installed base of XBMC dwarfs that of all the dedicated videoscalers on the market combined. Passionate users are a vocal minority, and that's their strength.

Also, as MadScientist rightly pointed out, it's not a matter of raw power, it's more a matter of algorithms finely honed by Lumagen (and others).
While I agree that small low powered boxes are going to be more and more common... are they going to be more and more common for people with dedicated video scalers? I kinda doubt that.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first (usually it's enough to follow instructions in the second post).
Reply
Dedicated video scalers may be a niche product but smoe AV-amps now embed honorable scalers as well. And they are more mainstream.
Reply
Small AV-amps most definitely do not exceed the capability of good VDPAU or DXVA scalers.

In those products you have, for the price of a graphic card or little more, amplification, scaling, switching... there's a limit to what a little money can buy. On a good graphic card you pay for a dedicated GPU and nothing more. In a cutthroat market where margins are razor thin, I might add.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first (usually it's enough to follow instructions in the second post).
Reply
Well, but there are also not so small scalers out there, aren't there?

It would be a nice option to have native output, I agree (but unfortunately am not a coder).
Reply
yes, obviously in some cases xbmc might actually do a better job at rescaling than a (budget) tv does.
It isn't only about the actual scaling anyway. XBMC does a pretty good job at it. The image processing for SD content in higher tier TVs doesn't come into effect with XBMC 'disguising' all content in 1080p.
Besides there would be a speed benefit to just output native resolution for lower end XBMC devices like android or raspberry if they aren't required to upscale content anymore.
Reply
  • 1
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9(current)
  • 10
  • 11
  • 15

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
native resolution ( disable upscaling ) option9