I am running Windows Media Center edition 2005 on a box with a GeForce 6600 GT screen card. Regular DVD, TV, Xvid etc. plays smooth in MCE.
For some strange kind of reason WMV-HD did not play smooth when played back directly from a WMV-HD DVD.
I am not talking “not smooth” as in dropping frames and struggeling with CPU load. On my box WMV-HD 720p plays with 40% CPU-load and 1080p plays with 75% load. I am talking “not smooth” as in the way video plays when your mother-in-law would say “So what is the problem, this looks perfect”, but YOU can clearly see that this is not right. It is not smooth.
Could look a bit like the trouble you would have if you use the wrong methods when you convert from NTSC (30 fps) to PAL (25 fps).
It took some time before I managed to fix the problem, but it is now fixed, and this is my theory:
MCE 2005 works 100% in WMR9-mode when rendering video. On my GeForce 6600 GT this works very well. However, windows media player 10 defaults to video overlay. This is no problem, because MCE runs smooth on top, utilizing VMR9-video rendering.
But, when inserting a WMV-HD DVD MCE2005 actually quits and starts a special instance of windows media player 10. If you have left windows media player 10 the way it was installed by default, it now plays using video overlay. And, apparently – on my system overlay will not play completely smooth.
I went into the Windows Media Player 10 settings and changed the following:
Tools->Options->Performance->Advanced->
Uncheck “Use overlays” and check “Use high quality mode”
For my system, this fixed the problem and WMV-HD now plays smooooooth!
Update:
I just installed an update from Microsoft and the CPU load went from 75% to 45% when playing WMV-HD 1080p. You find the update here:
Update to enable DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) of Windows Media Video content in Windows Media Player 10
And the thread over at AVSForum about this patch here:
WMP10 Patch for WMV Acceleration
eirikso 
Hi there,
My live TV ( etc. ) was interlaced ( scanning alternate lines seperatley ) until I applied your recomendation ( Tools->Options->Performance->Advanced-> Uncheck “Use overlays†and check “Use high quality mode†)
Now it works perfectly ( but this may affect your theory as to what’s happening )
Many thanks for this post.
//ark
Very nice that this post could help. Maybe the change from overlay to WMR9 also does something to the deinterlacing? I must admit that I have no idea. Video playback on computers is complex stuff…
As long as it works – we’re happy! 🙂
Hi , I hope you dont mind but i have a question and this is the only place I find where there is a real exchange between real people concerning WMV HD. My problem is that I got a DVD with a WMV HD media on it . when I try yo start it , it starts at first then says “software block unknow publisher”. I trust the publisher so how to I unblock the software?
Thanks for any help you may have.
Craig
I would love to help, but I’m not sure what the problem could be…
Do you have a firewall or something installed on the computer where you try to play the DVD?
I also have a 6600gt and since updating to WMP 10, all the videos I play on my computer have *wavey* lines in them. I mean every kind of file and every kind of video player (avi, wmv, mpg, or rm played in WMP, VLC, Real, etc..). The only exception was Quicktime played everything fine. I’ve been able to fix this by going into each app and deselcting video overlay, but it’d be nice to know what happened there.
Not very easy to understand exactly what’s happening here… Anyway, it seems like HD plays best without overlay.
it’s a shame this option has dissapeared in wmp11 vista version … stand alone WMV HD videos play smooth in Media Center, but are totally not smooth in WMP11 (100% CPU) (especially with 60fps wmv hd videos)
try this video :
http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_6599_en.html
Hehe. The usual story. You upgrade to the latest version and get something that’s worse…