I got a Zotac ZBOX to make an HTPC recently, and performance of the machine itself is exceptional; performance of XBMC Eden on it is not, at least in terms of video output. My resolution is 1080p over HDMI, which is working great, so is hardware acceleration as near as I can tell, CPU never goes above 35%; the problem is in rendering of my videos to my TV. I got this box to take the load off my aging XBox setup and so I could (eventually) render HD content if I ended up with any in the future. But I expected that the new and better/more powerful hardware would mean that SD content would at least look as good as it does viewed using the XBox. This is not the case and I believe I know why: variable output resolution, or lack thereof.
So here's my question: Is it possible to get XBMC to output video at the resolution of the file being played, similar to how the old XBox version does? In other words, the XBox is capable of up to 1080i output, but if you play a 720x480 video, it outputs at 480p; if 1280x720, it outputs at 720p, etc. - instead of upscaling, it renders the video at original resolution, even though the XBox's resolution in XBMC is set for 1080i (this is evident in the interface which is output at HD res, and comparing that setting info to the codec info for any video being played). My HTPC on the other hand upscales all content to 1080p... so my SD videos look like crap on the new hardware compared to how they looked on my XBox, defeating part of the purpose of having the HTPC.
FWIW I've got the video output tweaked to be the best it can be on my TV with these conditions (pixel shaders, DXVA2, color/brightness/contrast, stretch16x9 and calibrated video output), but as most of my video library is made up of XVID AVIs with SD content, needless to say I was disappointed in how blocky the output of the new tech/software looked compared to the old tech/software. And no, reripping or redownloading in a higher resolution and/or H264 encoding is not an option. This is what I have to work with.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, full K-Lite suite for 32- and 64-bit, XBMC 11 Eden, resolution at 1920x1080 60Hz. So is there a way to make XBMC do this?
Thanks in advance for your insight...
- Edgewalker
So here's my question: Is it possible to get XBMC to output video at the resolution of the file being played, similar to how the old XBox version does? In other words, the XBox is capable of up to 1080i output, but if you play a 720x480 video, it outputs at 480p; if 1280x720, it outputs at 720p, etc. - instead of upscaling, it renders the video at original resolution, even though the XBox's resolution in XBMC is set for 1080i (this is evident in the interface which is output at HD res, and comparing that setting info to the codec info for any video being played). My HTPC on the other hand upscales all content to 1080p... so my SD videos look like crap on the new hardware compared to how they looked on my XBox, defeating part of the purpose of having the HTPC.
FWIW I've got the video output tweaked to be the best it can be on my TV with these conditions (pixel shaders, DXVA2, color/brightness/contrast, stretch16x9 and calibrated video output), but as most of my video library is made up of XVID AVIs with SD content, needless to say I was disappointed in how blocky the output of the new tech/software looked compared to the old tech/software. And no, reripping or redownloading in a higher resolution and/or H264 encoding is not an option. This is what I have to work with.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, full K-Lite suite for 32- and 64-bit, XBMC 11 Eden, resolution at 1920x1080 60Hz. So is there a way to make XBMC do this?
Thanks in advance for your insight...
- Edgewalker
