I was able to test these files while local to the server so playing them at full quality wasn’t an issue. I did not notice any banding from either file, at full quality or 720p. My Dashboard does toggle the (hw) when I turn hardware transcoding on and off, and if I play a file without HW it spikes my CPU to near 100%, while with HW it drops to near zero.
I also went back to the files I originally saw banding on and the banding still appears, so it looks like it is something to do with those type of files. The question I have now is why does it happen with 1.32.8.7639 but not 1.32.5.7349?
Something I forgot to mention, a few weeks ago I also tried the workaround you mentioned in one of the troubleshooting threads:
But after moving the .so file and adding the i965 entry in Preferences.xml I saw the same kind of vertical light banding in another file. I took the entry back out of Preferences.xml and the artifacts went away.
So now it’s starting to look like an issue with these more modest quality files and i965?
Below are clips from my Dashboard showing the two test files being played in both PMS versions, as well as a CPU comparison between HW enabled and disabled, and debug logs:
1.32.5.7349
h264 direct HW
h264 720 HW
h264 direct no HW
h264 720 no HW
hevc max HW
hevc 720 HW
hevc max no HW
hevc 720 no HW
1.32.8.7639
h264 direct HW
h264 720 HW
h264 direct no HW
h264 720 no HW
hevc max HW
hevc 720 HW
hevc max no HW
hevc 720 no HW
CPU no HW
CPU HW
