Acer Timeline 1810TZ video flicker/choppy issue, wrong driver?

Hi guys

I just bought an Acer Timeline 1810TZ a few days ago. I'm having problems with video flickering when I play .avi files and every other file format in VLC media player, I tried a few other players and it's the same issue. I'm pretty sure it's the video drivers I'm using but I don't know how to fix it. I did a clean install of Windows 7 ultimate the day I got it. The image and audio speed is fine on the screen but there's flickering lines across the screen when the camera moves around.

Is there any way to fix it? Help much appreciated, it's not fun watching flickering movies.

I have installed the Mobile Intel® GS45 Express Chipset drivers just as recommended on this forum http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=413140

Here a screenshot:

 

hi - i have a similar issue. i'm using an HP pavilion dv6 laptop running windows 7, home premium 64 bit. i have 4gb ram, and intel core duo 2.2 ghz processor. video card is mobile intel (R) 4 series.

video playback is usually fine, but it seems as though when there is a sudden noise (a lot of action) and fast moving images, i get a horizontal flicker line across the screen. it's only really visible in full screen mode. this is an issue as i am trying to use extended screen to run movies / you tube etc on an HDTV using an HDMI cable - and this is when it is most visible - and annoying. still images, sound, and most video is ok. as i said, it is when there is a lot of action that flickering horizontal line appears - it seems that youtube is especially problematic. i don't know if the sound issue is relevant as it is probably a coincidence.

any help would be most appreciated.

ian

 

It's actually recommended to download the drivers from acer support as they have been tested with your model. The newest drivers from Intel don't always work properly as they have not been tested for that paticular notebook setup. To be on the safe side, you typically should only update when acer rolls out the new driver after being tested even if they are slow to do so.

 

may be its because the vlc player doest use enhance video rendering...

 

Well acer doesn't even list the model in their driver list when I go to their site?

I don't know why but the Timeline series isn't on the list so I just grabbed the drivers from here. The same issue happens with all players, quicktime, smplayer, vlc.. etc. But the weird thing is when I play Bluray movies they run fine.. no flicker in the video whatsoever.

 

You wont see timeline, it is listed under Aspire on the site. I checked your model and it is there.

 

i notice we are both using mobile intel 4 series video cards... do you think this is significant? i recently downloaded the latest driver for this from intel. it didn't improve anything.

 

could you expand on this? i have the issue with all players, not just VLC, but would like to know more about this!

 

You should also try using Media Player Classic. Much better in my opinion. I have a Timeline 5810tz with the GMA 4500m driver 8.15.10.1855 and VLC played a particular 1080p mkv horribly. I switch to MPC and it plays the same file flawlessly.

 

MPC didnt help fix the problem, but it does have a handy tearing test screen to confirm that tearing is the problem.

can anyone offer common solutions to tearing issues?

cheers

 

I have only problems with some 1080P and one 720p (60fps) clip.. if i eneble DX-VA CPU usage is fine and video playblack is all distorted.. if i disable DX-VA celeron 723 CPU can play it smooth (100% usage)

I tried win7 microsoft codec, cyberlink both wmp12 and mpc-hc and cyberlink powerdvd 9 have the same result, atm i am using last intel driver from windows 7 update
first time i used newest one from intel site and distorted video playback (dxva) + HDD access produced bad crc files so i had to do clean install

 

try mirillis splash player............

 

i use vlc for playing divx,xvid videos and i faced tearing in fullscreen mode but not in wm player .. then i came to know that its the videorendering problem..
vlc uses default (or overlay) and wm uses enhanced video rendering (best for playback uses gpu efficiently)...

 

thanks for the suggestions, but still no joy with any media players. the problem must lie deeper. does anyone know of problems with the mobile intel 4 series display adapters + windows 7? i think this is the common link here. i also notice this person on the the intel board with the same problem:

http://communities.intel.com/message/79673;jsessionid=008CF9DF1F38F310C99C2615813C347F.node5COMS

 

hmmm recently i found glitch (little) while playing 1080p(1920 x 816) h264 video..
i played in all player i know but the result was same ..
and then i got this new ffdshow dxva decoder its new ......
it played without glitch in media player classic....(set video renderer to evr(as in image)

 

update: have had some success with VLC player - changed video output settings from default to Direct x. then messed around with the video output settings - triple buffering, hardware conversions... (?) etc. it has improved a little, but still choppy... I know it can be better!

 

thanks again - that helped a LOT. it is much better, using the MPC settings, but still having better results with VLC overall.

 

what type of video were u playing?

 

AVI file -

mpc player is showing a consistent horizontal tear only on fast panning scenes. VLC doesn't, but has the occasional flicker.

youtube still tears a lot, but i suppose this is fairly normal?

 

hmmm.... thats weird if its avi it must hve divx or xvid ..it hardly take cpu usage but then why is that tearing????????????????
may be some other issue (like hardware).??

 

yeah - i hope it might be a driver issue - but i have the latest update from intel. cpu is fine. i hope it is not a hardware issue!

 

try using old intel drivers..
i heard that there is campatiability issue in 1810t...
i hvnt had any problem with new driver in my 4810t ..

 

i am running HP pavilion dv6. i sort of hijacked this thread as i was so excited to hear about a similar problem to mine (sorry). i don't have an option to roll back driver for my graphics adapter in device manager. is there another way?

 

Hi, how & where exactly do you disable DXVA usage? Is there anyway to tell if it is available (i.e. that the appropriate HW & drivers & codecs are properly installed)?


Re: another 1810TZ owner struggling with "complex" videos (eg. the infamous Planet Earth from Pole to Pole 1080p mkv).

Otherwise, "standard" 1080p wmv & divx seem to run fine; in an attempt to determine if WMP12 is making use of DXVA, I compared CPU usage when running a 1080p wmv in WMP12, MPC-HC & DivX 7.2. which used 25%, 45% & 60% respectively.

Ironically, playing a "divx" encoded video took less CPU when playing it back with MPC-HC (45%) then with DivX 7.2 (95%!!!). Unfortunately I was unable to play divx files on WMP12 for comparision...

 

just uninstall the intel drivers from control panel/uninstall a program..
then download old driver ..and install...

 

as of now the dxva h264 decoders (for 4500mhd) are of
>cyberlink h264
>microsoft decoder
>ffdshow dxva decoder
>mirillis decoder
>arcsoft
etc....

except microsoft decoder in all other decoders we can disable dxva....

 

MPC-HC (newest beta) show in down in status DXVA and for cyberlink codec if used you could force dxva or disable it in his properties.. right click -> filter -> cyberlink
microsoft DTV-DVD can not be reconfigured it use dxva by default

also you need only media splitter and EVR output to make dxva to work

Planet Earth from Pole to Pole 1080p mkv -> plays here 95% speed with wmp 12 + micorsoft decoder in dx-va (CPU is 40% used and i think 4500HD is having trable decoding it by hardware??? )
and in MPC-HC + cyberlink dxva i get garbage while playback

 

nice player
results so far:

usual 720P movie = gr8 playback just 18% CPU (celeron single core)
Planet Earth from Pole to Pole 1080p mkv = its switch to CPU mode and playback is choppy
mine MP4 720P (59fps) file = DXVA working no video glitches but the video and sound have short pauses and CPU usage is ~25%

btw i am afraid to put latest intel driver because last time i had corrupted files and had to do clean win7 reinstall

 

The KMPlayer" (KMP) it will play MKV`s that VLC wont touch (slideshow), with it`s own binary codecs the video is decoded solely by the CPU. KMP can run with external decoders like CoreAVC, which is presently the fasest SW decoding solution. KMP has a vast array of options and settings and does take some understanding to get the best out of, however the picture quality is outstanding and it will play many files that other media players wont open or refuse to play. As also mentioned MPC HC will also do very much the same plus or minus some features and is also an excellent choice.

With the SU3500 the best solution is to use DXVA utilizing the GPU and significantly reducing CPU load during decoding/playback.

"SPlayer" is an Open Source project and fairly easy to set up, it will default to hardware acceleration (GPU) and is literally developing by the day. dont be put off by it`s developmental stage as it`s very stable and quality of the decoded image is impressive.

"Splash Player" will also use the GPU automatically for decoding and is by far the simplest set up, this too is in development although not a the same rapid pace a SPlayer, and does not offer as many options.

My solution for my 3810T (SU3500 Vista SP2) & Samsung X420 (SU7300 Windows 7) is KMP and SPlayer, I can playback 720p perfectly on both and 1080p guaranteed on the far more powerful X420. KMP is by far the more tweak-able thanks to it`s myriad's of options, SPlayer is new and moving fast in the right direction.

I find now that I am using SPlayer more and more, even as I type, I am watching a full length 720p MKV on HDTV that is being decoded by SPlayer and a humble Acer Aspire One AOA-150, the original 8.9 inch Netbook, 1.6Mhz Atom CPU GMA-950 XP Home SP3 and the picture quality is perfect no dropped frames or stuttering, which speaks volumes...

All the above players utilize Binary codec`s and do not interfere or replace the system codec`s.

 

SPlayer average CPU utilization (GPU Accel on) 50% - 60% 720p full size windowed, without GPU acceleration +35%
KMP average CPU utilization 70% - 90% 720p full size windowed
SPlash lite CPU utilization (GPU Accel on) 45% - 55% 720p full size windowed

Same media played on Acer Timeline 3810T (SU3500)

Best GPU accelerated video I have seen so far is with SPlayer under EVR+GPU, KMP will match and can exceed, only you will be pushing the CPU (SU3500) to the max. Drawback is video can stall/freeze under EVR (infrequently) VMR9 is fine, I generally use EVR (C/A) as the renderer on Windows 7 and VMR9 (HQ Subtitles) on Vista SP2, this results in smoother playback, VMR9 is also no issue on Windows 7

Both KMP and Splayer (no GPU Accel) have performance options Super Speed (KMP Alt+F) and Performance (SPlayer) these will greatly assist in smooth playback, at the cost of more advanced features.

Windows 7 uses Windows Media Foundation (WMF) and Media player I am pretty sure is doing more than meets the eye with video processing resulting in a very high quality image. Unfortunately there is no surport for the MKV container, Divx have a solution for a WMF plugin to play MKV`s and no doubt others will follow, although at present subtitles are still a big problem.

Use the latest CoreAVC 2.0? I have had success with 1.95 & 2.0 on Netbooks with KMP, yet Core (1.95) practically brought my corporate Dell (D620) video (MKV) to a halt. KMP`s own binary Codec`s works reasonably on it.

one thought is Anti Virus I am running ESET NOD32 which helps keep the overheads down.

 

The KMPlayer:
By tuning the player you can literally get picture perfect playback, the problem with SU3500 is that it can be overloaded fairly easily, so it is best change the settings one at a time and see the result.

For better picture quality: F2 Preferences
For SU3500 or Atom etc; General, Work Priority set to High, this will reduce stuttering

Video Processing;
Change the renderer from Overlay Mixer (Default) to either VMR9 Renderless (HQ Subtitles) or Enhanced Video Renderer (C/A) Latter offering the best quality. the renderers are Microsoft; XP, DX9, and Vista respectively (EVR wont work on XP without NET 3.0 installed)
Post processing check MPlayer, Accurate deblocking, Nic`s, Nic`s first, PP7 Deblocking and Soft Threshold
Sharpen check Asharp (A.=Adaptive) and High quality block filtering
Reduce/Add Noise check Denoise 3D

Subtitle Processing;
I just change the font to Microsoft Sans Serif and size to my liking

The KMPlayer is one of the great secrets of video playback, most think of VLC etc KMP can literally work magic allowing you to play media files other players refuse to or are simply unwatchable.

I still also recommend Splayer as it will cut CPU usage significantly (as long as your HW is compatible), and at the rate it`s developing may be the one to watch.

All this said and done I found the picture quality under DXVA to be reasonably good as presently decoding purely in SW by the CPU still offers the best picture quality versa hardware decode using DXVA, my money is still on Splayer, although the developer could bring down the CPU utilization, that being said for those that have right hardware the player has a good balance as it does not overload CPU or GPU, the playback is very smooth with great quality.

DXVA is possible with KMP, however you will need components of MPC HC and several other SW packages. Personally I prefer to have one player for SW decode and a second for DXVA. KMP will not develop DXVA playback at present as is not native to the player. SPlayer will continue to develop its implementation GPU decoding as it is integral to the player.

For those that are really struggling, Netbooks etc, use the KMPLayer and CoreAVC 2.0 as an external decoder this is by far the fastest/lightest solution for H.264 HD video decoding and you will be able to playback 720P on the Atom CPU

 

hang hang.....
this player aalmost made my comp hang 4 times and had to restart..

 

Thanks for the heads up!

Yes, I read about that "tweak" and although my 1810TZ came with PDVD8, it's an OEM version that can play H.264 files, but doesn't have the actual 264 filter "files" in question...

Oddly enough, I had no success playing that video with WMP12 (WMP12 reports error C00D11B1) and could only play it with MPC-HC - but barely ranging between 11~19fps...

I had some fun yesterday & compared a few players on a few of my systems playing that h.264 mkv video as well as others. Attached, my results.

I'm comparing the 1810TZ to a more robust, nVidia-equipped Notebook (Dell XPS M1330) and my PC which is equipped with an nVidia 9800 GTX. The comparison uses MPC-HC, WMP 12&12, DivX 7.2 & Power DVD 7&8. Clearly the PC won all battles followed by the M1330 and last but not least the 1810TZ.

Concentrating on the 1810TZ, it was a mixed bag. If I'm going to watch WMVs then it might as well be with WMP12. For H.264, MPC-HC was the only player I have that could play back both a DIVX and the H.264-MKV (DIVX PLUS?) file although the 19Mbps mkv could only be rendered at 11~19fps which is not viewable.

What was really interesting is that MPC-HC played the "divx" file using only 45% CPU while DivX Player 7.2 need up to 95%!!! As a matter of fact, DivX makes little use of graphics acceleration regardless of codec! This was not the case with my PC so I guess DivX only supports a limited range of GPUs... :-/

A short description of the test files:

I used the "Terminator 2" 720 & 1080 demo files which I found on Microsoft's site. The 720 is a standard, 1280x720 6.9Mbps format, while the 1080 has an odd 1440x1080 8.3Mbps format - which looks correct (16:9) in WMP & MPC, but wrong in DivX Player 7.2

The dvx file is from DivX's site and is H.264 1920x1080 6.0Mbps.

Finally, the famous mkv file which is 1920x1080 19Mbps. I think my "raw" AVI files (when porting video from my camera) is 25Mbps, so this mkv file is almost using the same amount of bandwidth

EDIT: That mkv file id 19Mbps average... I saw it hit over 40Mbps...

 

First off, thanks for the loads of info & recommended players *REP*

Unfortunately, I'm not a video expert and I just assume not go to deep into the tweaking options... :-/

Lastly, I would rather use DXVA then CPU because that's what it's there for & there will always be some background tasks that occasionally need CPU resources and may cause the video to stutter at times... . I'd just assume use WMP 12 (as boring as that may sound) if it plays well - and it does play well - for the 1080/720 WMV formats. But as you noted above, it does not work with MKVs... . I also couldn't get it to play a dvx (H.264) video... I did manage to get WMP 11 (on the Windows XP platform) to play the same dvx file on my other systems (equipped with nVidia GPUs).

Do you think it has something to do with the Intel 4500M, or the fact that I have a 64-bit OS, or is there a possibility that I am missing a CODEC?

Thanks for any info / suggestions that you might have

p.s. I'd be interested to know which one of your players accels with this 19Mbps mkv file going around ("Planet Earth From Pole to Pole). If I could only find the link again for you...

EDIT: Found it

 

u can play mkv file in wm12 ..just install haali splitter ...
and right now downloading planet earth mkv....
let me check it..

 

cool
Just one question... did you use the default options when you installed it?

It wants to replace system splitters for MP4, OGG, MPEG-TS and will "disable" MPC's internal mkv splitter... :-/

The only ones not "checked" are AVI & MPEG-PS...

Heeeeeelp ;p

 

just tick on mkv option rest all not..because only mkv is not handled by wm12....
and about planet earth mkv it played in wm12 without any problem..!!!!!!!!!!!
but using ffd dxva in mpc it didnt and also in splash player it played without using dxva so glitch was der and used 100% cpu usage ...
so the winner is wm12 (used just <40 % cpu with just <500mhz speed)
and a hint please use high performance in power option...

 

OMG, what a difference... thanks (REEEEEP)!!!

Actually, I followed this guide (also contains links to great test videos, including the Earth mkv)! Now I can play the Earth mkv in WMP12 *and* it is using under 20% CPU...! This may actually be the very first case of DXVA in use!

MPC-HC has not improved though* - I might even suggest it's gotten a bit worse... :-/ Oddly enough, the bitrate "counter" is now way off, showing averages of 2410/56Kbps instead of the former 19600/448Kbps...

Either the counter does not work with external splitters, or Haali's decoding tha data in a ver funny way... quality looks ok, though... .

In any case, a major improvement for WMP12! Many thx again for the solid recommendation

EDIT: *P.S. I didn't try his Reg. tweak, which may force MPC-HC to use DXVA...

 

anytime

 

This is freakin' awesome! Needs to be added to the first post of the tweaks thread.

 

Good news, that Reg. entry does do the job - now MPC-HC uses DXVA when playing mpeg4 files and drastically reduces cpu utilization

HOWEVER... the first time I play a test mkv file, it's perfect. Then the player goes to $hit and the 2nd time around I've got dropped frames, stuttering and interruption in sound... and the only way to clear it up is to restart the Notebook

Not quite there yet but a step closer...!

Copy & paste the following in a text file (using Notepad) and rename the text file with a .reg filetype:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Gabest\Filters]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Gabest\Filters\MPC Video Decoder]
"CompatibilityMode"=dword:00000016

Right-click on the file and select Merge with Registry (or something close to that).

The above simply adds a key word in the right area of the registry. I don't think it's possible to mess up your Registry doing this but *disclaimer* use at your own risk etc.

I'd be curious to see if your results are better than mine so far...!

 

hey anyone tried this?
just do as it is shown in pics..its using microsoft dtv dvd decoder in mpc hc...

go to options >internal filters and disable dxva
then go to external filters >add filters>select microsfot dtv dvd decoder
then tick on that and tick prefer
then while playing any h264 video check whether its using microsoft dtv dvd decoder as shown in fig..

 

Yeah boiiiiiz! That did it

Now the Earth vid plays using DXVA and ~25% CPU avg. and that without the sound stutter and huge frame drops experienced when trying to "force" MPC-HC to use DXVA via "compatibility mode"

Now I have subtitles if & when needed and I can even manage that killer anime test too (CPU is higher though due to the Karaoke, but it's still in nominal range).

A couple of open questions for the meister

1. I also have "internal" filters H264/AVC ( FFmpeg) & VC1 (FFmpeg) wich are (still) checked by default. I noticed they are not on your list (screenshot)? Why don't you have those and should I leave them checked, or should I clear them too (as we did for H264/AVC (DXVA), etc.)?

2. divX... plays great in MPC using the internal filters however it seems to work mainly with cpu (~ %45). Can/should we use Microsoft's decoder for divX formats too? After all, isn't DivX also a form of H.264?

Thanks again for all the help

 

divx is h263 format......same as xvid...
but even divx has new h264 format but comes in mkv container .

 

Well Y&N, right? A quick look to Wikipedia:

DMF container (.divx) combines DivX or AVI with MP3 audio
DivX Plus HD uses the Matroska container (.mkv) => H.264 video and AAC audio

Regarding my other question, what did you do with the other internal (FFmpeg) filter options... :-?

 

like?
u mean other decoders in ffmpeg?

 

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo :cry:

I don't believe it... it's an audio-related & not a video decoder problem... I made the mistake of introducing an extra variable; I did all my testing this morning using my Bluetooth Stereo headphones. Everything was running smooth as silk - AVI, MP4, MKS, DFM, everything. Then my BT heaphones ran out of juice... so I switched to standard heaphones and... the stutter & frame drops were back, just like before the DTV-DVD mod...

Sorry about that screw up Sigh, back to the drawing board...

EDIT: Err... I still have no idea what's tripping up MPC-HC... turns out the problem is intermittent and can also happen when using Bluetooth headphones, so that's a dead-end. Even worse, the problem can also transpire in WMP12, just not nearly as frequently... and in both cases, only with H.264 files (not AVI nor WMV).

Well, I'll keep on hacking away. Until then, WMP12 will be my main player for mkv & wmv and Powerdvd for everything else...

 

You might be as well to start again from scratch, as something is definitely wrong in the system, I am watching "Hurt Locker" 720p at 21,135Kbs, 23.98 fps (8Gb file Windows XP) played back by early Acer Aspire one Netbook, on an external LCD HDTV although the Atom CPU (N270) is touching 100%. Decoding is all SW with The KMPlayer and external Codec CoreAVC 2.0, if this can playback, the 1810 with the SU4100 should have no problem.

I can also playback the same files on a Acer 3810T with a SU3500 CPU, although I generally use DXVA on this one, single core, single thread and all that and a heavier OS, Vista Home Premium.

Personally I am waiting on the development of playback of MKV`s with Microsoft Media Foundation in windows 7, before I affect the system codec, and present the solutions bar one involve using DirectShow. My Samsung X420 is powerful enough (SU7300 & Windows 7) to decode using player`s own binary codec`s or I can use DXVA with Splayer, which so far has been hassle free.

 

Depending who you ask or what your ultimate goal becomes, iso images will playback much better (especially in Media Center with a plug-in) than mkv. I have done test with blurays that I have and will back it up as an image and a file to examine the best playback. Typically iso. wins performance wise, same as playing the actual disk, but the only bad thing it takes up a larger chunk of hard drive space,. If you happen to already have the mkv. and nothing else, you may want to try a conversion as well to a lower bit rate and/or convert to 720p. I just wish Microsoft would put more effort into playback of mkv. files, even if it is not native playback, but then again open source is a hard pill for them to swallow.

 

Hi,

the only problem I'm having is with MPC-HC. Windows Media Player 12 plays mkvs without stutter or sound issues at very low CPU levels (thx to its native use of DXVA). MPC-HC however seems to be the only player that is willing to deal with subtitles, so I'd like to get it working properly.

The Notebook setup (SU4100 + 4500MHD) itself is more than capable of playing 1080p content - as long as a player that can make use of DXVA is available. Playing 1080p content without DXVA is a hit or miss, some videos playing fine with 50% max cpu and others stuttering like mad with close to 100% cpu utilization.

The anime video that I mentioned in my above post will kill your Atom-based Netbook, guaranteed