M11x to TV Issue?

I just purchased a Samsung UN46D6420 LED TV less than a month ago.

I have an Alienware M11x notebook that I connect to it via HDMI.

When I play movies from the Alienware notebook to the TV I notice occasional horizontal lines on the TV (they are blurry)
They are not present on the notebook screen.

I have connected this computer to a Plasma screen with a different HDMI cable.
The lines are still there, so it's not the TV or HDMI cable.

I put these same movies on a USB flash drive and connected the USB drive to the TV and the lines ARE NOT there.

So it clearly has to be something to do with my computer. Probably something simple that I missed.

1.) I'm wondering if it has to do with some settings on my computer configured improperly
2.) May need graphics card update?

The notebook is is roughly 2 months old.

I can only get a native display of 1366 x 768 on my notebook with a refresh rate of 60 Hz

While my TV is full 1080p - 1920 x 1080p
So if my notebook can only do the above resolution - is that causing an issue?


Help/Advice appreciated.

 

Do you have both screens enabled at the same time?

 

Yes, I do...
Well both screens are turned on if that's what you mean.
If it isn't what you mean - can you be more specific and I will check settings.

 

windows key + P for projector only mode as a test.

 

I decided to re-visit this thread.
I was using a media player for a while, so I didn't bother playing around with the notebook settings. I also didn't want to tie up my notebook to watch movies.

I hit the Windows Key + P for Projector Mode. Don't have the blurry lines across the screen anymore. Seems to be pretty good, though I do notice slight chop in some films every so often. Will have to test out further when I have the time.

I believe that my notebook is using Intel HD graphics to play the movies. I wonder if there's anyway to disable the Intel HD graphics and enable the NVIDIA GPU instead? As I think It would probably be better at handling this sort of task.

I'm using Zappiti right now. I wonder if I should get XBMC instead?

Thanks!

 

So can anyone shed some light on how I disable the Intel HD graphics and enable the NVIDIA GPU all the time?

 

Likely you have R2 or R3 so use the white listing feature as you cannot disable Intel.

If you have an R1 you can.

 

I have an R3
What is this "white listing feature" ?

I found out how I can enable the NVIDIA GPU for whatever programs I want, but I was hoping to be able to just disable the Intel entirely.

Would the NVIDIA GPU work better at playing 1080p movies on the laptop/tv you recon?

 

yup. using the nvidia control panel you can set particular programs to use a specific GPU. That is all you can really do and at which point disabling intel would do nothing... BUT you can't disable anyway.

Either card should handle HD fine. I don't have the R3 though.

 

What is the length of HDMI cable you are using?

 

I can't be for certain Dash...
But I think It's a 6 footer HDMI cable.
I'd have to check on that later to confirm.
Why is that?

 

Was curious if that was possibly causing the tearing.

Try using VLC instead of media center. Its way less of a resource hog than WMC.

 

Do you have Aero enabled or disabled?

Also, many videos will still seem choppy due to the common 23.976fps and 60Hz monitor frame rate mismatch.

 

@Dash - Well I have 2 of the same cables - I could swap one out for the other.
Is there a specific length of cable I should want when connecting the computer to the TV? Like I said - I believe they are 6 foot cables. But I will confirm later tonight.

@Namaiki, sorry I feel so out of place on this forum in terms of computer knowledge. What is Aero? And do I want it enabled or disabled? (Would google, but going to work shortly.)

So why is there a "mismatch" ? The M11x can't do 23.976fps at 60Hz?

Thanks for all your help guys - you rock!

 

60 isn't a multiple of 24, so when it's played some video frames/images will stay on the screen for a slightly longer time than others causing a jerky motion for some scenes where the camera moves in a sweeping or constant motion.

Anyway, definitely stay on projector mode and check that you have Aero enabled. Press Windows Key + Tab on your keyboard, do the windows do a 3D flip or does nothing happen? If Aero is enabled(recommended) a 3D flip will happen and your windows will probably have some transparency enabled.

 

@namaiki

When I press Windows Key + Tab the windows do show up in a 3D sort've way. I can press tab which will cycle through the windows - though I don't think I notice any transparency.

So then what do you do to solve the 60Hz at 23.9fps issue? You can't bump up the refresh any higher on the notebook. So am I screwed because of that?

@Dash - This is close to my HDMI cable that goes from my notebook to the TV. It's a 6 footer. Though mine says on the HDMI cord "HDMI cable with Ethernet" but on the site it doesn't say that. So not sure It's the exact same. It still says "DX-AV008"

Dynex 1.8m (6 ft.) High Speed HDMI AV Cable (DX-AV008) : HDMI Cables - Future Shop

 

Any thoughts Namaiki or Dash?

 

You can't really do anything about the jitter/judder issue if it really is that.

If I understand, it's not lagging or tearing but the video isn't smooth at times? Is CPU usage normal? (lower than 80% usage)

 

@namaiki

I'm not sure I know the difference between "jitter/judder" "Lagging or Tearing"
when it comes to video playback. If you could explain, that would be of great help. Basically when the camera moves across a scene in a movie I notice slight hiccups in the smoothness of transition. It's a very subtle "jitter" I guess you could say. A slight stutter. Can happen a 2-3 times over a short period of time. But, during action scenes where there's a lot going on I don't even seem to notice this. It's odd.

I'm not sure how I check what my CPU usage is during the video playback?

I'm using Zappiti and recently got into using XBMC. I'm kinda playing around with different options. Zappiti uses Media Player Classic Home Cinema, and not sure on XBMC.

I notice XBMC has this option "Adjust display refresh rate to match video"
So that might take care of the issue if it has to do with FPS?
Either way I'm going to play around with it on the weekend.

 

"Lagging" is that the video is not in sync with the sound. (Like you hear someone say something and then you see the mouth move seconds or perhaps a fraction of a second later)

"Tearing" is like you see the screen has only been half updated. e.g Screen tearing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jitter/judder. I still can't recall which is which, but you could say that when the camera moves across it's not smooth "sliding" but it's kind of jerky here and there.

You can check CPU usage with Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) on the Performance page.

If you are using MPC-HC and using it's EVR Custom Presenter(View-> Options-> Output), try press Ctrl+J and give me a screenshot of the information and graph that it shows you. Perhaps the green and red lined graph will match up with the jerkiness in the video that you are seeing.

It might help. If it's like ReClock it will probably just make the jerkiness more consistent and more bearable.

 

Where's the best/clean site to get the most recent MPC-HC?
I usually use downloads.com for stuff like this, but I have a feeling that they do not have the most recent MPC-HC..

 

If you are looking for the standalone version, then from the official MPC-HC website: Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player

 

Thanks for that.
I looked at that site before, but wasn't sure if it was legit lol.

What do I do with the standalone filters? Should I get them?

 

You generally don't need to download them.

 

Odd, Zappiti (media program) Similar to XBMC - Uses MPC-HC to play media (Movies/TV shows) yet it cannot detect the latest version of MPC-HC 1.6.2.
It instead prompts me to install version 1.6.0

Is there a big difference between the 2 versions? I was figuring that possibly this would have been the result of the stutters (running a lower version) but I don't seem to have the option to run 1.6.2.

 

Sorry, no idea, but it probably doesn't show up since 1.6.2 was only released a few days ago on the 26th.

 

I'm now experiencing a slightly different but maybe similar problem. When I plug in my monitor I have to use extend desktop or clone display, I cannot use the monitor only, as soon as I select it, it starts flickering like crazy usually only showing the top 1/6 of the screen and you can see my desktop icons moving around like it is changing resolutions. It was working fine just last week, and I'm thinking it's a driver issue since I just installed the NVIDIA 301.42 drivers a few days ago.

Edit: Updated Intel HD Graphics drivers and it fixed the issue.

 

You mean projector mode?
Projector mode worked for me on 301.42 I believe.
But then I also set the programs I was using to run NVIDIA only. *Shrugs*

 

Okay this is still happening to me. Doesn't matter where I set it, with Windows Key + P until I get to "Projector Only" it will still flicker like crazy, and same with setting to external display only in Intel GMA Control Panel. I'm uploading a video of it right now, and I will add it to this post when it's finished.

M11x R2 Intel HD Graphics Driver Issue Monitor Flickering on Vimeo

 

dump that 301 driver