codec guide (5 Viewers)

[einstein72]

It would be great if you explained the alternatives under setup -> VMR9 Advanced settings;
- Nonsquare mixing?
- Filtering types? Which does what?

Info from MS developer:

Nonsquare mixing:
Previous versions of the VMR-9 always composited the input streams using a square (1:1) pixel aspect ratio (PAR), even when there was only a single video stream. If the input stream had non-square pixels, this caused an unnecessary scaling operation. Scaling should be avoided as much as possible, of course, because it degrades the final image quality.

In non-square mixing mode, the VMR-9 selects one input stream to be the target size and PAR. The VMR's mixer does not scale the video from that stream or from any other streams with the same image size and PAR. Streams with a different size or aspect ratio are scaled to match the target PAR and letterboxed to fit the final output image size.

 

[Spragleknas]

to be honest i haven't really thought about it.

i am currently researching the best methods for deinterlacing other than letting your video card do it.

will add it to the guide when i figure out what the best solution is. That being said i am open to suggestion.

Good info about deinterlacing:
http://100fps.com/

 

[Darre]

Yap that was a good read =)

 

[Goose]

updated first post

hi guys i updated the first post to reflect the changes i have made to the guide

@ einstein non square mixing and the filtering types are now explained in recent svns in the configuration menus where they show up.

 

[lm]

First off, thanks for your efforts goose.... signing your name to a guide like that is sort of committing to answering a lot of questions, so thanks!!!

For me, I have no video complaints, but I am struggling with getting the audio stuff working. I was expecting (hoping?) that there would be a way to get some tricky multichannel enhancements happening... like stretching a stereo MP3 or TV broadcast out to 5.1, or to somehow stretch a 5.1 track out to 7.1, and then my 'holy grail'... to have all this stuff switch automatically (MP sees the MP3 is stereo, and reconfigures to synthesize my favorite 7.1 sound field, later, it sees the source is a 5.1 DVD, and leaves it alone). Is this stuff just a matter of learning how to do it, or is it not possible yet. Also, I'm wanting to do this with optical, but I'm starting to wonder if ffdshow, 7.1, and spdif don't all go in the same sentence? And could you please expound a little further in your guide on how exactly haali is used?

Again, superfluous thanks to goose, and all the dev team... THANKS!

 

[Goose]

lm

ffdshow definitly lets you widen an audio source to whatever the channels you want. Basically you just setup the mixer with whatever speaker settings you have. Once you configure this stuff it will automatically get converted to your channel setup.

If you wish to only mix certain tracks then you will have to make some profiles. select "profiles/ preset settings make a couple of profiles and then select "preset autoload conditions" then pick the amount of channels you want it to act on. eg. you want one preset for stereo sources that changes it to 7.1 go into a preset you made and change on number of channels match to 2. thats it. Then because you don't want a 5.1 stream mixed create another preset where you have on channel match and then put in 6. Then remove the tick from the mixer section.

you are right it seems 7.1 and optical don't work out with ffdshow unless the source is already ac3 or dts and ffdshow doesn't have to modify the track. So this means remixing 2 channel to 7.1 over optical isn't going to happn.

another cool thing you may wish to do though is under mixer - output and look at the ac3 spdif encode mode. this will let you encode your he-aac files for instance to output them over your optical spdif straight to your amp.

About haali what do you want to know, it is a splitter for several container types such as .mkv and .ogm. Thats all it does.

BTW i only know what i know about ffdshow from playing with it. You may wish to ask the guys that maintain it if you have any further questions regarding the nitty gritty of it. http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/phpBB2

 

[childe]

Hi, I really hope you can help me, as I am going crazy!

A few months ago I installed MP on one of my PCs and eventually got it to play all my video files with AC3/dolby digital via SPDIF from my sound card. I am now trying to do the same on another PC. I have the same OS (MCE2005), Power DVD 7 and ffdshow beta 2 installed. Try as I might, I cannot get AC3 from Media Portal. It works fine from Power DVD and from MCE, but not from MP. All I get is stereo.

I have ffdshow configured exactly the same as on the other PC (I think), and have set ffdshow as my codecs in Movies, Movie Player. In desperation I tried uninstalling ffdshow on my first PC then reinstalled it (accepting all the defaults), just to check if ffdshow is the problem.

Guess what? No AC3/Dolby. I then tried various combinations in ffdshow, including changing AC3 and DtS to SPDIF, with no luck. So I could not even replicate what I had before.

Fortunately I had taken a Ghost image before uninstalling ffdshow, so was able to restore my previous state, and all is now Ok again on my first PC, but I am no nearer to fixing my new PC.

I have just noticed that my old PC has MP 0.2.3.RC3, whereas my new on has 0.2.3.0. It is the "latest" version off this website. Is this the problem? I tried installing the latest stable update patch, but after doing this MP would not open, so I had to do a clean install of MP.

Can anyone help? I am really frustrated and have spent hours on this. I have also tried AC3 Filter, with no luck.

Thanks

OK - I have sorted it, thanks to another post in a different thread. I had forgotten to configure the MPA Decoder in DirectShow Filter Control (in MP Configuration) to use SPDIF. All sorted now, thank God!

 

[kike_1974]

Great work, I like your guide. One question:

I've configured everything as it is explained in your guide. Everything been decoded with ffdshow right now (and MPV filter for mpeg2). But now, I'd like to add hardware acceleration for h264 and mpeg2. What shoud I do? Is it enough to change the MPV Filter to any other like purevideo?

In that case, how do I know which formats (avi, mkv, etc.) uses each filter? how can I know if hardware acceleration is working?

I think this information could be added to your guide, as I think it would be very useful for many people.

 

[Goose]

kike_1974

yeah you just need to switch to pure video decoder. the only real way you can check is with task manager or perfmon. I have ordered a 2600xt for my media centre (really cheap) so i will have a bit more of a play in the near future. Also the guide will have some content for vista owners.

 

[kike_1974]

Thank you.

Then, don't have I to set in the FFDshow codecs H.264 and MPEG2 to disabled? So, even with them set to libavcodec, the purevideo filter takes preference?

I don't understand very well the difference between a filter and a codec...