[roads]

I would like to ask what are the settings to go on an up to date machine. I cant seem to find the best settings with a coreI7 8GB Imac. The playback settings are quite confusing and there are other settings like vsync that make the settings more complicated. So I can find a nice playback but still sometimes it jitters a tiny bit. So what settings are best?

[bobo1on1]

Vsync is to prevent tearing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing
Nobody likes tearing, so turn on vsync.

Render method you can leave on auto.

"Adjust display refresh rate to match video" automatically adjusts the refreshrate to the video fps to prevent telecine judder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine#Telecine_judder
It currently only works on windows and linux.

"Sync playback to display" is to solve small timing differences between the monitor and playback fps, which can cause periodic video jitter, you can read about it more here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Videos_Settings

Depending on which version of xbmc you're using and which operating system you have, there are also options to turn on hardware decoding using VDPAU, DXVA, VDA or Crystal HD, preferably you want that on.

When changing these settings, don't change them all at once, change one at a time and check if video playback still works by playing some different videos (possibly an xvid, a dvd and 1080p h264), that way if something doesn't work, you know which setting caused it.

[toby77jo]

and which method to use, audio, video drop/drupe, etc which one is the one that works best?

[bobo1on1]

Resample works best, but doesn't work with spdif passthrough.

[roads]

Thanks bobo, i read that its not working with spdif passthrough but what does that mean for video playback?
I also found that I have to set my projector to 24p 1080p without 96hz4to4. I always had it on pal or ntsc and got small jitters from time to time. Now its completely fluid.