[Karnis]

Following up on my original post, I wanted to get synced playback & smooth video performance across a variety of sources...1080 24p, 1080 30p, and 480p.
Source material was as follows...

Blu Ray MKV 1080 24p rips (all menus removed, movie only):
Man Of Steel DTS HD
Batman Begins Dolby True HD
Black Hawk Down PCM 5.1

Blu Ray MKV 1080 30p rip (input codec lists as 29.97 fps but windowed output is 59.94 fps:
Rush Clockwork Angels DTS HD

1080 30p mp4 videos I shot of my band
480p NTSC band videos AVI converted to mp4

All have perfect audio sync & smooth video playback. The Rush concert in particular has that classic HD "looking out the window" video look. All video looks basically just like my Sony Blu Ray player.

Equipment list as before in my previous post.

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, Intel HD graphics 9.17.10.2932, HDMI out to Denon 3310 receiver, Sharp 1080p 70"
Dell Inspiron 660, Intel Pentium CPU G2030 @ 3 GHz, 8 Gb RAM (<<< as you can see, fairly unremarkable PC specs)

Display resolution is set to 1920x1080, 59.97 Hz

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

First and foremost, no Windows 7 AERO desktop!

XBMC settings:
Video Playback:
Adjust display refresh rate to match video = on start/stop
3 second pause
Sync playback to display = on
A/V sync method = video clock (drop/dupe audio)

Acceleration:
Render method = DXVA-HD
Decoding method = Hardware accelerated
allow hardware acceleration (DXVA 2) = on

System settings:
video output
display mode = fullscreen
vertical blank sync = always enabled

audio output
audio output device = wasapi-HDMI
enable passthru = on
passthru device = wasapi-HDMI

Finally, XBMC on my system acts like my Sony Blu Ray player, with synced audio & smooth video across a variety of sources. I can assure you, the results are not a placebo.

For my system, disabling Windows 7 AERO desktop were the key factors, along with using the video clock (drop/dupe), which improved 30p video playback. I haven't had any audio glitches, clicks or dropouts yet.

I'd also like to mention I can also play 2K material (Gravity trailer) and 4K (Elysium trailer), but that is more of a driver function than an XBMC function.

Sorry PAL users, I don't have any 50 fps material to test with.

As always, I can only speak for performance & results on my particular system. YMMV

I will mention that my Sharp 1080p HDTV has a mode called "Game" which is straight vanilla monitor setup, no movie mode, no frame doubling to 120 fps, none of that useless crap.

I hope this helps others with similar setups achieve improved playback & performance!