29/59 Problems on Intel and ATI

[foo32]

Hopefully everyone's up for another revisit of the 29/59 topic. I've run into the problem on two different machines, and after searching everywhere, it's time to give up and ask for advice.

ATI: I'm testing out the new Gigabyte Brix (Seen here). It's using the Radeon 8510G GPU. In general, it works fine, it handles 1080i and Blu-Ray fine. But it does a terrible job with the 29/59 problem. I can correct the light/dark changes by using YUV for the pixel format, but it still suffers from terrible video stutter. I have all the GPU specific settings disabled in the Catalyst drivers, including dynamic contrast. Replacing the GPU is out, of course. Has anyone found any solutions in this situation?

Intel: I'm using a Haswell-based Pentium chip, the G3220. This is one of the chips that uses Intel's HD Graphics, with the same video decoder as the Haswell-based Core chips. They've even enabled Quick Sync in the most recent driver. Media Center works fine, except with 29/59 again. If this was a Core GPU, it would be easily fixable by disabling Contrast Enhancement in the Graphics settings. However, they've removed that option from the Pentium graphics settings, which is incredibly frustrating. Is there any other trick to disabling Contrast Enhancement, such as a registry setting? I'm going to spend some time with it later, but I'm hoping someone has beaten me to it.

Thanks!

[richard1980]

If your GPU is not powerful enough to handle switching between interlaced and progressive flagged content, there is nothing you can do except replace the GPU. Please note that the ability of the hardware can be impeded by the code in the software, so different driver versions may produce different results.

[Roginator]

Your cheapest solution may be to give up and get one of the recent XBox 360s... either the slim or the E. You can use them wired or wirelessly if you have a good router and a reasonable distance.

[adam1991]

How ironic. The final solution to allow him bragging rights about his NUC box is for him to get something bigger and more power hungry, with a power supply the size of his NUC box.

"I coulda had a PC!"

[foo32]

Hah, so true, Adam. Both GPU's should be powerful enough to handle the content, but no luck so far.

I'm going to try doing a registry snapshot before/after enabling contrast enhancement on my Core i3 machine to see if there's any obvious registry entries I can try on the Haswell machine.

[foo32]

For anyone reading this in the future, here's a solution for the missing "Contrast Enhancement" option for non-Core processors with Intel HD Graphics, like the Celeron, Pentium, etc:

Go into the registry and search for EnableACE. This is Intel's registry entry for enabling Automatic Contrast Enhancement. By default, it's enabled (DWORD=1). You'll find two or three entries, typically in these locations:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Intel\Display\igfxcui\Media
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\Display\igfxcui\Media
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\Display\igfxcui\MediaKeys

Change them all from 1 to 0, then reboot. You may not need to change all three, but I didn't take the time to experiment further.

Also, if you want to disable Film Mode Detection, do the same for EnableFMD.

No progress on the ATI problems so far.

[mike_ekim]

For anyone reading this in the future, here's a solution for the missing "Contrast Enhancement" option for non-Core processors with Intel HD Graphics, like the Celeron, Pentium, etc:

Go into the registry and search for EnableACE. This is Intel's registry entry for enabling Automatic Contrast Enhancement. By default, it's enabled (DWORD=1). You'll find two or three entries, typically in these locations:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Intel\Display\igfxcui\Media
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\Display\igfxcui\Media
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intel\Display\igfxcui\MediaKeys

Change them all from 1 to 0, then reboot. You may not need to change all three, but I didn't take the time to experiment further.

Also, if you want to disable Film Mode Detection, do the same for EnableFMD.

No progress on the ATI problems so far.

Did this fix the problem with the Haswell? It took me for-ev-er to find out how to fix it with my Haswell i3 (stupid custom UI) but I haven't had any 29/59 problems since I made the fix.

[foo32]

Mike, I've had mixed results so far on the Intel Haswell. It seems better than before, but not perfect for channels with really bad 29/59 problems. What fix were you testing for your Core i3?

[mike_ekim]

FYI my problem was not only due to 29/59 but 29/59 made it a lot worse.

Mike, I've had mixed results so far on the Intel Haswell. It seems better than before, but not perfect for channels with really bad 29/59 problems. What fix were you testing for your Core i3?

In the 'Intel HD Graphics control panel select 'Video'. Then, in the upper right hand corner click on the word 'Video' and a drop down box appears. It took me FOREVER to figure out that there was a drop down box!

Anyways, from that drop down box select 'Image Enhancement' and then click 'Advanced'. You will now see the option to turn 'Contrast Enhancement' on or off. Turn 'Contrast Enhancement' off. This fixed my 'flickering' problem completely. Hope this helps. FYI I typed up the instructions based on my work laptop, but I think my home desktop is the same.

[kmp14]

Just to chime in, I have a dell xps 18 all-in-one. It also has onboard Intel graphics (HD 4000), and the pic was horrible - pulsing, pumping contrast on most shows. Sure enough, I found out about the Contrast Enhancement, but I did not have an option to disable it in Intel's config software. As mentioned earlier in this thread, I found EnableACE in the registry, set it to 0, and now the pic is beautiful. I wonder why the latest Intel graphics software does not have the option exposed? Anyway, I figured I would get it out here in case someone searches on the XPS 18.

[foo32]

kmp, I'm glad to hear the info helped!

Mike, that's exactly the same setting that I changed in the registry, so it makes sense that it's working. I really don't understand why they hide it for non-Core processors, but it's Intel, so...