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Hi markfilipak,

I have the same question and wonder if you ever got to the bottom of it?

In order to achieve smooth playback of blu-ray discs, it will be necessary to match the refresh rate of the monitor to the frame rate of the video (or a multiple of it). So it's important to know accurately what the frame rate is.

Hi tcdaly,

Did I get to the bottom? No, but I think I've figured it out.

The PowerDVD programmers are truncating the frame rate from 23.976 to 23, then adding 2 decimal places (to 23.00) because they think they should.

The clue: While PDVD is playing a film with a Dolby audio stream rate of 192 K-bit/sec, it displays an audio rate is 0.1 M-bit/sec instead of 0.192 M-bit/sec.
[EDIT: ... Woops! That's my Panasonic Home Theater that does that, not PDVD. ...So, no, I don't know whether 23.00 frame/sec is really 23.976 frame/sec.]

Though Cyberlink-Hicham referred me to "our Customer Support Team", they just used the opportunity to stonewall and try to bully me into upgrading. If they gave better support, perhaps I would upgrade.

Regarding controlling your monitor's frame rate, good luck.

Kindly let me know how it goes. My monitor only works at 60Hz or 120Hz. I can't even tell whether that's interlaced only or whether its also progressive. I think morons write the manuals.

Hi markfilipak,

Thank you. I think you must be right about the truncation to 23.

Frustratingly, most monitors seem to be fixed at 60Hz these days. There are a few that aren't that are marketed as 'gaming' monitors. I've got one that will sync between 50 and 75Hz at 1920 x 1080 (graphics card allowing). I created a custom screen mode for 2 x 24 = 72 Hz and ran test videos within PowerDVD. There are some useful test files here: http://kodi.wiki/view/Samples
The 24 and 23.976 fps versions ran judder free.

So I've got a set-up that seems fine for watching BluRay films. In your case you should find 120Hz works for 24 fps?

Well, video "engineers" have made such a mess of all this, I've given up (I'm an Electrical Engineer, BS 1977).

If 120 Hz was actually 120 frames/sec, and if 24 frames/sec was actually 24 frames/sec, and if I could get my home theater to do a 5x pull-down, then all this would work. But I don't have any way to monitor what's actually happening, and if I attempt to set my home theater to output 24 frames/sec I have no way to know that it's actually doing it (and anyway, when I attempt to play the next disc, my home theater has reset it's mode back to 30 frames/sec and I have to change it back to 24). It's all too much.

I agree it's a total mess. The PC industry seems to have simply adopted the US TV standard of 60/30 fps and made everyone else put up with it. I guess many users don't notice/don't care about juddery panning shots, but I find it really annoying.

One test I've seen to confirm frame rate involves taking a photo of the screen, running a test video, with a 1 second delayed exposure: http://uk.rtings.com/tv/tests/motion/24p

Quote: I agree it's a total mess. The PC industry seems to have simply adopted the US TV standard of 60/30 fps and made everyone else put up with it. I guess many users don't notice/don't care about juddery panning shots, but I find it really annoying.

One test I've seen to confirm frame rate involves taking a photo of the screen, running a test video, with a 1 second delayed exposure: http://uk.rtings.com/tv/tests/motion/24p

Ah! I think I see. I think you want to play BDs on your PC (laptop?) and you are attempting to use PDVD to pipe it to home theaters via HDMI. I gave up on that. PDVD is a sow's ear. I think Cyberlink doesn't care.

My recommendation is to rip (gasp!) and then do the fix-up with a tool that can handle it. Otherwise, you're just chasing your tail.

By rip, I don't mean piracy. But it's truly misguided that movie studios don't give people any alternative.

Oh, PS: The PC industry is not to blame for this mess. It's the movie studios via the video engineering standards groups.

Yes, I'd like to play BDs on both my desktop PC and laptop's built-in screen. I think I've solved the former case with the method described earlier (although it's hard to be 100% sure without burning the test video onto a disc, which I can't do as I don't have a BluRay burner). I'm currently stuck with the latter case, as my laptop comes with refresh rates of only 40 and 60Hz. The graphics software won't let me create custom modes. I still partially blame the PC industry, as if they were more concerned my laptop would surely come with presets of at least 48, 50 and 60Hz.

If I plug the laptop into an external monitor I get more options, but that's not very helpful when on the train etc.

By fix up, do you mean convert the ripped video file in some way?

Most Blu-rays run at 23.976 fps, UK uses 24 fps and are region "B".
There is the odd one that is 24 fps and is region "A" eg "The Christmas Candle" (converted for North America, but left at 24 fps)

If Power DVD (what ever version) reports 23, it's actually 23.976 fps, there is no such thing as 23 fps.

Just like my NVIDIA control reports either 23 or 24, also 30, 60 and 59 fps (59.94 fps).
It reports this and gives these choices because that is what my projector can deal with.

Most displays are capable of accepting 23.976 and 24 fps, if they can't, then 3/2 pull down is used so they can be played back at 30 and/or 60 fps.

Frame judder occurs from a bad 3/2 pull down process.

It's also a natural occurrence from too low a frame rate used and it's very noticeable when the camera pans.
The industry could go to 48 fps, but everyone would complain that it's too smooth and unnatural looking.

As you know Power DVD has an auto frame rate detection and this pop up tells you that your frame rate doesn't match your display, would you like to change it.

IMO, this function is not very good and I don't use it, tick the box not to show this again and close it off. It tells me this even though I know for a fact that my frame rate in te NVIDIA control panel is correct for the Blu-ray.

By disabling the auto frame rate function in Power DVD the 3/2 pull down process is totaly done by the video card on your PC and it should be much better

Quote: Most Blu-rays run at 23.976 fps, UK uses 24 fps and are region "B".
There is the odd one that is 24 fps and is region "A" eg "The Christmas Candle" (converted for North America, but left at 24 fps)

If Power DVD (what ever version) reports 23, it's actually 23.976 fps, there is no such thing as 23 fps.

Just like my NVIDIA control reports either 23 or 24, also 30, 60 and 59 fps (59.94 fps).
It reports this and gives these choices because that is what my projector can deal with.

Most displays are capable of accepting 23.976 and 24 fps, if they can't, then 3/2 pull down is used so they can be played back at 30 and/or 60 fps.

Frame judder occurs from a bad 3/2 pull down process. (not realy frame judder, but jerky and not smooth)

It's also a natural occurrence from too low a frame rate used and it's very noticeable when the camera pans.
The industry could go to 48 fps, but everyone would complain that it's too smooth and unnatural looking.

As you know Power DVD has an auto frame rate detection and this pop up tells you that your frame rate doesn't match your display, would you like to change it.

IMO, this function is not very good and I don't use it, tick the box not to show this again and close it off. It tells me this even though I know for a fact that my frame rate in te NVIDIA control panel is correct for the Blu-ray.

Quote: ...By fix up, do you mean convert the ripped video file in some way?

Yes. There are tools (that I don't use) that I think will convert peanut butter & jelly to mac & cheese (and vice-versa).

For example, start with 1 second of video, read in at 24p & sampled at 48p (that's simply doubled), thus:

2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2

Then generate a 12p stream that's just the temporal interpolation of the 24p, thus:

1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Then combine the streams, thus:

2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2

And play it out at 60p.

Now, I don't know what tools to use, and I don't know how to get them to do what I outline above, but my understanding is that all this exists. I think judder would be pretty much undetectable.

Quote: ...If Power DVD (what ever version) reports 23, it's actually 23.976 fps, there is no such thing as 23 fps.

PDVD actually reports it as 23.00 fps.

Yes, that's normal.

Quote: Yes, that's normal.

Sorry, but 23.00 frame/sec is not normal.

I'm not sure what you mean by "it's not normal"
That's the whole idea about Power DVD matching the refresh rate or fps of a given Blu-ray.

I just don't agree that it works very well, as I said it wants to change it even when I know the refresh rate/fps is matched.

Allot of the problem comes if you watch the trailers, there frame rate can be 30,59.94 or 60 fps and I think Power DVD can't deal with that very well.