Need Help with home cinema setup

[kiki4431]

Hi

I need some help with properly setting up home cinema.

 

I have:

Grunding 49" GRUNDIG 49GUB8960 HDR TV

Onkyo HT-R395 5.1 AV reciever

PC specs: AMD Ryzen 3600

                 MSI Tomahawk B450

                 EVGA RTX 3070Ti FTW3

                (BIOS and Drivers all up-to-date)

                 (The cable layout: PC is connected to the TV via 2 3m long HDMI 2.0 cables, with a HDMI 2.0 repeater in between (Transmedia 4K HDMI 2.0 Repeater), the TV is connected with reciever with another 3m 2.0 cable (used only for ARC                         from TV, and the PC is connected with the reciever via 10m 1.4 HDMI cable (used to transfer only audio from PC while video is being transfered to TV via a seperate cable), there is also DP to HDMI adapter on this because the GPU                         has only one HDMI and 3 DP) - everything here works well, I get HDR with 4k and 60 Hz as well as 12 bit color and 4:2:2 sampling, also I get 7.1 channel audio as reported from windows, even though my reciever only has 6 chanels                         (5.1))

                Windows 10 Home 2004 (can't get it to update, keeps saying that I have a better driver installed already, I am not even trying to update a driver but windows itself) - anyway;

                MPC-HC - latest version (using it to play 4K HDR movies)

                MADVR encoder (working with MPC-HC)

Also using program Media Info to analyze the movie bofore playing, even though I don't really understand all the details, which after about one year of using the setup, I decided to try and improve my experience with it.

 

As I said, the setup works, there is nothing obviouslly wrong with it, except, I just feel that I am not getting what I should be, and when setting up the movie to watch on TV, I either keep doing it wrong or missing something, because I don't understand all the details provided by media info and there are so many options in MAD VR/MPC-HC/GPU driver/TV/reciever, I am just not sure what to do with all of them, so I am asking for help from someone who has better understanding of different settings, and formats.

 

The thing with HDR in my case at least, most movies look washed out- they are HDR according to media info, and my GPU switches to HDR mode according to MPC-HC status monitor (the window that opens when pressing Ctrl+J) - I get "NVHDR"- I don't enable windows 10 HDR mode in settings, as that makes things even worse., other movies look better, not sure if they are "good" or if those "bad" are supposed to be washed out.

Also audio doesn't seem to be right when it comes to channel layout, with that I may hear audio coming from wrong speaker, compared to where audio should be played according to events in the movie.

again that might be because I have set up my windows audio to output 7.1 audio to 5.1 reciever, should I change that? (as right now the 7.1 channel output makes my reciever just mix together the side and rear speakers, so when using the test sample, I get both left side and left back on left surround speaker, and right side+rear on right surround speaker.)

 

as for video, I followed many suggestions on various forums and sites on how to set up MAD VR and MPC-HC for 4k HDR, but all that didn't change anything.

the nvidia driver control panel has it's own settings, right now for my TV I have:

desktop color depth (highest 32 bit) - can't change

output color depth (10 bit) - can change to 12 - but most of movies I watch are 10-bit, will I lose quality or gain it if I change that, as for my experience, it didn't do anything either way.

output color format (YCbCr 4:2:2) - can change to 4:2:0- as most of the movies according to media info are 4:2:0, so should I match that?

                                                      - can also change to RGB this will allow me to set dinamic range to full instead of limited as it is now, not sure what this does

                                                      - finally 4:4:4 won't work, probably due to badwidth limitations

dinamic range (limited) - again not sure what it does

 

 

there is also a whole set of audio details the media info provides, for exmple I have multiple audio options randing from different formats of 7.1 to 5.1

 

is there a difference between audio formats, for exmple:

ID :	3
Format :	MLP FBA 16-ch
Format/Info :	Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation
Commercial name :	Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID :	A_TRUEHD
Duration :	2 h 16 min
Bit rate mode :	Promjenjivo
Bit rate :	3 .141 kb/s
Maximum bit rate :	5 .394 kb/s
Channel(s) :	8 kanala
Channel layout :	L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb
Sampling rate :	48,0 kHz
Frame rate :	1 .200,000 FPS (40 SPF)
Compression mode :	Lossless
Stream size :	3,00 GiB (4%)
Language :	Engleski
Default :	Da
Forced :	Ne
Number of dynamic objects :	11
Bed channel count :	1 kanal

or:

ID :	4
Format :	DTS XLL
Format/Info :	Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name :	DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID :	A_DTS
Duration :	2 h 16 min
Bit rate mode :	Promjenjivo
Bit rate :	3 .995 kb/s
Channel(s) :	8 kanala
Channel layout :	C L R LFE Lb Rb Lss Rss
Sampling rate :	48,0 kHz
Frame rate :	93,750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth :	24 bita
Compression mode :	Lossless
Stream size :	3,81 GiB (5%)
Default :	Ne
Forced :	Ne

 

 

 

both are 7.1 but channel layouts are different, there is also different bitrates,sampling rates, the first one also has 11 dynamic objects, what is all this, and which one is better?

 

I also have an option for 5.1 channel, should I chose that?

ID :	5
Format :	AC-3
Format/Info :	Audio Coding 3
Commercial name :	Dolby Digital
Codec ID :	A_AC3
Duration :	2 h 16 min
Bit rate mode :	Ustaljeno
Bit rate :	448 kb/s
Channel(s) :	6 kanala
Channel layout :	L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate :	48,0 kHz
Frame rate :	31,250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode :	Lossy
Stream size :	438 MiB (1%)
Language :	Engleski
Service kind :	Complete Main
Default :	Ne
Forced :	Ne

 

this one seems worse , there is less data being transfered according to bitrate, and compression mode is lossy.

 

Please help

 

Best Regards

[circeseye]

ok number one, turn down the 12 bit. your tv doesnt support it anyways. if you use 8bit you can do 444. it says 10bit, 8bit+fsr
as for the player you basically over messed up the settings. also did you get the player with all the codecs? i use it at default settings and it plays 4k content nicely. didnt need madvr.

did you get it here. this is the one being updated
https://www.codecguide.com/

 

 

you might want to uninstall the player with settings wiped and reinstall from that site grab the codecs pack.

oh and the codecs come also with LAV its pretty damn good. give it a go

 

 

as for the formats. you have a 5.1 avr...so use 5.1 audio. anything in movies under 5.1 your avr will adjust accordingly. if the movie says it plays 7.1 or atmos your avr will downgrade it to 5.1.

 

 

last thing "IF" after doing this and its still washed out. it may be your repeater causing issues. youd be better off using a single optical hdmi. better signal quality at distance over 10m on hdmi 2.0 instead of 2 copper hdmi and a repeater

[BuzzingBee]

I'll try my best to help as I'm no expert in this and I could be wrong in some areas, you can possibly wait for HT guys to help you out. For now...
 

HDR: Double check if 'use Direct3D 11 for presentation' is ticked on. When I tried ticking off it shown dull and washed out colours even when my TV indicating 'HDR'.
 

Video: I'm curious why you need HDMI 2.0 repeater in between as your GPU has HDMI 2.1 which can support 4K 120Hz RGB 4:4:4. I'll assume there's a good reason to have it, so in that case leave it at 10 bit 4:2:2 if your PC is purly for home theatre. It's not necessary to match format to 4:2:0 but you could do that as you wish, as 4:2:2 would have no effect on video quality. As for dynamic range, limited range means the darkest colour would be 16 levels above absolute black, and white colour would be 20 levels below full white, hence 16-235 range. You can set to full range on your GPU and on Madvr settings.

Audio: It's best to match your speaker settings to your setup, so set your speakers to 5.1 not 7.1. As for audio format it's probably better to have a read yourself what they are: https://www.the-home-cinema-guide.com/surround-sound-formats.html
There's two ways: On your Audio Decoder properties check if every bitstreaming formats are enabled. Doing so would allow AV receiver do the work; the problem is it won't affect your windows speaker and volume settings.
Or you can disable all of it, then it would output in PCM instead and that's when setting your speakers to 5.1 matters and you can adjust volume on your PC. I don't recommend doing that for 7.1 / Atmos system, as you would have to really determine speaker output and switch between 5.1 and 7.1 gets very annoying, and it doesn't support Atmos.

[kiki4431]

2 hours ago, circeseye said:

ok number one, turn down the 12 bit. your tv doesnt support it anyways. if you use 8bit you can do 444. it says 10bit, 8bit+fsr
as for the player you basically over messed up the settings. also did you get the player with all the codecs? i use it at default settings and it plays 4k content nicely. didnt need madvr.

did you get it here. this is the one being updated
https://www.codecguide.com/

 

 

you might want to uninstall the player with settings wiped and reinstall from that site grab the codecs pack.

oh and the codecs come also with LAV its pretty damn good. give it a go

 

 

as for the formats. you have a 5.1 avr...so use 5.1 audio. anything in movies under 5.1 your avr will adjust accordingly. if the movie says it plays 7.1 or atmos your avr will downgrade it to 5.1.

 

 

last thing "IF" after doing this and its still washed out. it may be your repeater causing issues. youd be better off using a single optical hdmi. better signal quality at distance over 10m on hdmi 2.0 instead of 2 copper hdmi and a repeater

I don't use 12 bit, as I think it would make no difference since the movies are 10 bit, plus it puts extra unnecesarry load on bandwidith.

strange if my TV doesn't support it but my drivers make it an option, but where did you find the spec about 8-bit, even I don't know it, I thought the screen was 10-bit at least, (1.7 billion colors - thats 10-bit, that is what Grundig says)

 

I used LAV before, but then I read that you need to use MadVR for proper HDR, so I switched, mad VR offers certain setting regarding HDR, so following suggestions here:  https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/394116-New-PC-pls-recommend-me-a-media-player-etc-to-test-4k-hdr-playback/page2, and on some other forums and youtube I ended up with settings attached.

 

that was all last year, just after thanks to your help, the audio problem was solved, in this topic:

In the meantime, I switched to a more modern GPU, and that changed certain things, as I didn't have to relly anymore on Win10 HDR, but rather I could use Nvidia HDR, for some reason with my previous card (RX560), I couldn't get AMD HDR to work, the image quality improved slightlly, but I still think it can be better.

 

I didn't updated LAV since.

 

bassically I use madVR for everything even non-HDR, I just made a .reg file that changes settings regarding satturation and other stuff on MPC-HC, when on 4k, I would activate setting tat are in attachment as screenshot, and when watching a non-HDR like 1080p movie, I would use a file that changes settings back to 0 (default)

 

IDK, if madVR isn't necesary for HDR, I could switch back, as you suggest, if it makes things batter.

 

I don't think the repeater is to blame, as I also have a 4k HDR main monitor, switched that from 1080p , to prevent conflicts regarding resolution, it's connected with my GPU directlly via 2m DP cable. - the image quality is the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kiki4431]

3 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

I'll try my best to help as I'm no expert in this and I could be wrong in some areas, you can possibly wait for HT guys to help you out. For now...
 

HDR: Double check if 'use Direct3D 11 for presentation' is ticked on. When I tried ticking off it shown dull and washed out colours even when my TV indicating 'HDR'.
 

Video: I'm curious why you need HDMI 2.0 repeater in between as your GPU has HDMI 2.1 which can support 4K 120Hz RGB 4:4:4. I'll assume there's a good reason to have it, so in that case leave it at 10 bit 4:2:2 if your PC is purly for home theatre. It's not necessary to match format to 4:2:0 but you could do that as you wish, as 4:2:2 would have no effect on video quality. As for dynamic range, limited range means the darkest colour would be 16 levels above absolute black, and white colour would be 20 levels below full white, hence 16-235 range. You can set to full range on your GPU and on Madvr settings.

Audio: It's best to match your speaker settings to your setup, so set your speakers to 5.1 not 7.1. As for audio format it's probably better to have a read yourself what they are: https://www.the-home-cinema-guide.com/surround-sound-formats.html
 

I need a repeater because of limitations of HDMI 2.0 regarding distance, the max lenght of a cable is 5m, however, my PC is in completelly different room than my Home Theatre system, which means that I need at least 4m to connect the PC and TV, and that's by going directlly, no turns, or curves just a straight run through the wall is 4 m, if I count in the turns, cable needs to make, since I can't just leave it hanging , it would take about 7 m, but, I made some ugly shortcuts, and managed to make it fit to 6m, but I can't go less than that, and since the max distance is 5m, hence the need for repeater., and though GPU does support 2.1, my TV as far as I know doesn't, so it won't work., setting the dinamic range to full requires to ditch the YCbCr entirelly, for RGB, IDK if RGB is better than YCbCr, or vice versa, or if RGB is worse if dinamic range justifies the change.

3 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

There's two ways: On your Audio Decoder properties check if every bitstreaming formats are enabled. Doing so would allow AV receiver do the work; the problem is it won't affect your windows speaker and volume settings.
Or you can disable all of it, then it would output in PCM instead and that's when setting your speakers to 5.1 matters and you can adjust volume on your PC. I don't recommend doing that for 7.1 / Atmos system, as you would have to really determine speaker output and switch between 5.1 and 7.1 gets very annoying, and it doesn't support Atmos.

I didn't quite understand this, where can I find this setting.

[BuzzingBee]

6 hours ago, kiki4431 said:

I need a repeater because of limitations of HDMI 2.0 regarding distance, the max lenght of a cable is 5m, however, my PC is in completelly different room than my Home Theatre system, which means that I need at least 4m to connect the PC and TV, and that's by going directlly, no turns, or curves just a straight run through the wall is 4 m, if I count in the turns, cable needs to make, since I can't just leave it hanging , it would take about 7 m, but, I made some ugly shortcuts, and managed to make it fit to 6m, but I can't go less than that, and since the max distance is 5m, hence the need for repeater., and though GPU does support 2.1, my TV as far as I know doesn't, so it won't work., setting the dinamic range to full requires to ditch the YCbCr entirelly, for RGB, IDK if RGB is better than YCbCr, or vice versa, or if RGB is worse if dinamic range justifies the change.

I don't think it matters as madVR convert YCbCr to RGB anyways.
On madVR setting go to your monitor model > properies and set first option PC levels (0-255).
On your GPU setting, set RGB output to full range.

As for audio setting you can find it on View > Options > Internal Filters and on bottom there should be LAV Audio decoder setting button.

[kiki4431]

6 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

On your GPU setting, set RGB output to full range.

OK, now I am locked to 8-bit mode, had to change that because RGB with full range and 10 -bit, would not be accepted, the driver would after 2 sec. revert it back into YCbCr 4:2:2, I had to change 10-bit into 8-bit first, but now I can't get back to 10 bit, the option isn't there.

 

madVR is already at 0-255.

 

the audio is curerntlly at this:

 

so the bitstreaming is disabled for all

[BuzzingBee]

I apologise if I cause any headache in regards to colour space as I said earlier I could be wrong. 

 

Basically you're coming across HDMI 2.0 limitations so now you have options:

 

1. YCbCr 4:2:2 limited range 10 bit. It would make your video playback accurate but your PC desktop won't as it would display in 16-235.

 

2. RGB full range 8 bit. Generally you set bit rate depending on your display support, but according to guide, 8 bit vs 10 bit is nearly virtually indistinguishable due to madvr's dithering algorithm. It also would make your video's black and white level clipped as 16 level would be shown as 0 and 235 as 255, but otherwise accurate within 16-235. 

 

3. You could try turning down framerate to 24-30hz for 10 bit RGB full range, but using at that framerate is too sluggish and annoying. 

 

As for audio you can tick all 5 boxes on bitstreaming so that it would play Dolby, DTS etc on your AV receiver. 

[kiki4431]

3 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

I apologise if I cause any headache in regards to colour space as I said earlier I could be wrong. 

 

Basically you're coming across HDMI 2.0 limitations so now you have options:

 

1. YCbCr 4:2:2 limited range 10 bit. It would make your video playback accurate but your PC desktop won't as it would display in 16-235.

 

2. RGB full range 8 bit. Generally you set bit rate depending on your display support, but according to guide, 8 bit vs 10 bit is nearly virtually indistinguishable due to madvr's dithering algorithm. It also would make your video's black and white level clipped as 16 level would be shown as 0 and 235 as 255, but otherwise accurate within 16-235. 

 

3. You could try turning down framerate to 24-30hz for 10 bit RGB full range, but using at that framerate is too sluggish and annoying. 

 

As for audio you can tick all 5 boxes on bitstreaming so that it would play Dolby, DTS etc on your AV receiver. 

Ok, switched back to YCbCr 4:2:2 limited 10-bit (if by PC desktop you mean standard applications and general use, I don't really care, as I mainly watch movies on my TV and that's it.

 

I don't understand, if I set to 8-bit full range, why would just the two ending levels be affected, (16 as 0 and 235 as 255), I mean won't the range fully extend to cover all 255 levels, allowing me to see all of it rather than just the 16-235 levels in between with 16 represented as 0 and 235 represented as 255, what hapens to the rest of it?

 

as for framerate, I have it set to 60, however no movies in my library are above 24 according to Media Info, so I might be wasting bandwidith here?, again as I only watch movies and they are all 24 anyways, (actually I don't know if any movie is 30 let alone 60 FPS), and I am not using TV for anything else pretty much, I could turn it down, unless ofcourse that makes the movies themselves sluggish?

 

I did change audio as reccomended, changed 7.1 to 5.1 in windows sound settings, and also using a 5.1 audio option on movies themselves rather than 7.1. I also enabled all 5 in bitstreaming. Now my AV reciever shows a little D logo, which by manual means it's recieving a Dolby Digital encoded signal. it didn't show that before, whole time it's also set to just play the sound directlly no extra proccessing. I did watch one movie with these changes, and it was good, regarding audio, I don't know what exactlly changed in audio proccesssing by AVR.

What about other settings are they fine, or should I change them?

[BuzzingBee]

10 hours ago, kiki4431 said:

Ok, switched back to YCbCr 4:2:2 limited 10-bit (if by PC desktop you mean standard applications and general use, I don't really care, as I mainly watch movies on my TV and that's it.

 

I don't understand, if I set to 8-bit full range, why would just the two ending levels be affected, (16 as 0 and 235 as 255), I mean won't the range fully extend to cover all 255 levels, allowing me to see all of it rather than just the 16-235 levels in between with 16 represented as 0 and 235 represented as 255, what hapens to the rest of it?

 

as for framerate, I have it set to 60, however no movies in my library are above 24 according to Media Info, so I might be wasting bandwidith here?, again as I only watch movies and they are all 24 anyways, (actually I don't know if any movie is 30 let alone 60 FPS), and I am not using TV for anything else pretty much, I could turn it down, unless ofcourse that makes the movies themselves sluggish?

 

I did change audio as reccomended, changed 7.1 to 5.1 in windows sound settings, and also using a 5.1 audio option on movies themselves rather than 7.1. I also enabled all 5 in bitstreaming. Now my AV reciever shows a little D logo, which by manual means it's recieving a Dolby Digital encoded signal. it didn't show that before, whole time it's also set to just play the sound directlly no extra proccessing. I did watch one movie with these changes, and it was good, regarding audio, I don't know what exactlly changed in audio proccesssing by AVR.

What about other settings are they fine, or should I change them?

I don't have the knowledge to know why madVR decide to clip 15>0 and 235>255, but it's not a huge deal since you're going for limited range on your GPU settings you don't need to worry. It's possible to set limited range on madvr settings to avoid 16 & 235 level from clipping if your GPU setting is on RGB. Honestly clipping isn't a bad thing as it's more of personal preference, and as previously said the levels between 16-235 is maintained so it is still accurate, just the darkest and brightest level are affected. 

 

Glad you got your audio set up properly, and you're good for now. If you have time you can read your AV receiver manual to see its features and find out which may interest you. For example you can use surround upmixer when playing stereo content.

[kiki4431]

ok I will now try to experiment, with different settings in driver, also I will update LAV I watched a movie and image was great, colors and all on YCbCr 4:2:2, 10-bit, but than again some movies don't look as great, maybe they are just made that way, I don't know.

 

the AVR does provide plenty of features, I just need to understand what all they do, there is several surround profiles Dolby PLII movie, Dolby PLII music, NEO6 Cinema, etc. (by the way what is the difference between NEO6 and Dolby, there are different profiles for each like music, movie, game, which one is generally better?), I am aware of surround upmixing, I use it every time there is stereo input, so it makes it 5.1 (All chanel stereo it's called) than there is direct mode which I use for most my movies, it will just play whatever it's recieving from PC.

[circeseye]

1 hour ago, kiki4431 said:

ok I will now try to experiment, with different settings in driver, also I will update LAV I watched a movie and image was great, colors and all on YCbCr 4:2:2, 10-bit, but than again some movies don't look as great, maybe they are just made that way, I don't know.

 

the AVR does provide plenty of features, I just need to understand what all they do, there is several surround profiles Dolby PLII movie, Dolby PLII music, NEO6 Cinema, etc. (by the way what is the difference between NEO6 and Dolby, there are different profiles for each like music, movie, game, which one is generally better?), I am aware of surround upmixing, I use it every time there is stereo input, so it makes it 5.1 (All chanel stereo it's called) than there is direct mode which I use for most my movies, it will just play whatever it's recieving from PC.

your not the only one where movies look great but then theres others that kind of dont. especially dark scenes. but i blame how the movie is encoded

even at 4k 10bit 444 hdr 120hz

 

dts neo6 and dolby are personal preference. myself i prefer dolby. only time i use dts is if thats the only encoding the movie has. (theres a few)

[King_PIN]

I remember playing with all the different Audio modes on receivers and going nuts trying to figure out which one I wanted.  Now I press Direct twice so it goes to Direct Auto and let it do it's own thing.  

Direct and Direct Auto are different and many people don't know about Direct Auto.  

 

I only do upmixing on music once in a while but I prefer 2.2 or 3.2 for music.  

[kiki4431]

On 11/23/2021 at 10:45 AM, King_PIN said:

I remember playing with all the different Audio modes on receivers and going nuts trying to figure out which one I wanted.  Now I press Direct twice so it goes to Direct Auto and let it do it's own thing.  

Direct and Direct Auto are different and many people don't know about Direct Auto.  

 

I only do upmixing on music once in a while but I prefer 2.2 or 3.2 for music.  

I didn't know about that, I will try that, although the manual doesn't mention it.

 

 

[kiki4431]

Hello

 

Sory for bringing this older thred back, but I just want to update what I found out thus far.

 

So after spending some time experimenting I may have found the culprit behind "bad" image and color problem.

 

so I was playing some HDR capable games (AC Odisey and Cyberpunk 2077) both have HDR settings, now I have ASUS VG289Q1A 4k HDR monitor connected with DP cable to my GPU, when I was setting those games uo, I had HDR options be either grayed out (AC Odisey) or anavailable at all (cyberpunk), I was searching and changing settings in driver and windows to no avail, so  I thought there must be a conflict of some sort, so I started to disconnect stuff, first, since I didn't need it at the time, the AVR, (no change), than the TV - and now HDR is available, both in games and windows (there are no HDR options in windows settings when both TV and monitor are connected simounteniouslly), and HDR than works, so I thought maybe my monitor is causing the same problem to my TV, I watched some movies with my monitor pluged in, and than I disconnected it and compare, the image was significantlly better without my monitor pluged in.

 

Funny thing that MadVR shows HDR enabled in it little widget screen in MPC-HC regardles of my monitor being connected or not, bt the colors are certanlly better if only my TV is connected.

So the TV and monitor aren't on very friendlly terms when it comes to HDR if I disconnect either of them the other one will have full HDR support but if both are connected the HDR is not available at all. anyone had something simmilar, if so How did you fix it. - to me it seems stupid having to constantlly disconnect and reconnect devices, I don't wan't to damage my ports, so how else to fix this.

 

both my TV and monitor when connected are also set to "duplicate" image in windows settings, if I use extend option, then it wont work at all, my AVR (since it's recognised as a third monitor is set to extend)

[BuzzingBee]

Windows doesn't support HDR when duplicating displays, you'll have to extend display to get it to work.

[kiki4431]

33 minutes ago, BuzzingBee said:

Windows doesn't support HDR when duplicating displays, you'll have to extend display to get it to work.

Well, I didn't know that, not sure why there is no support even if both are same resolution and HDR capable. Anyway setting Extend to all required some management with scaling but bassically it worked, now I just need to confirm if HDR is present when in such configuration.