MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality (2 Viewers)

[davidf]

I've opened a new thread already Over here

 

[tourettes]

Even when the testing activities are quite minimal (based on the missing feedback) here's a new build to be tested.

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/637138-post3.html

Fixes:

• DVD menus can trigger main movie to nave no sound and then hang (WASAPI only)
• Removed the audio buffer flush when pausing audio, this allows audio to continue sooner after the resume is done. There is still small glitch - amount is equal to the audio device's latency
• Introduced preroll samples. This will remove the need for dropping the first audio samples to match the device latency
• Reduced amount of the audio samples that are dropped when discontinuity in the stream is detected (valid samples from "past" are renderer)

 

[tourettes]

About the volume control for WASAPI exclusive mode; I did implement the IBasicAudio interface to the Audio Renderer. It will log the audio / volume change requests (and does nothing more ). Unfortunately it seems that MP1 is not using the volume controlling correctly, it seems to use OS mixer directly instead of the IBasicAudio interface from the audio renderer. This means that it would require C# side changes to support the volume control in MP1 for WASAPI exclusive mode (and this is not most likely going to happen since I want to keep the MP side intact from the renderer work - after all this renderer is mainly for MP2...).

btw. the logging for audio / balance level changes work nicely in GprahStudio.

 

[mironicus]

AW: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

Volume control within Mediaportal is very important for me. I think most users will miss it if they use the MP Audio renderer (so they would not use it at all).

Maybe a little workaround can be made? The FFDshow audio decoder has a volume control built in, so if you want to change the volume the decoder could be used for this.

 

[tourettes]

Re: AW: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

Volume control within Mediaportal is very important for me. I think most users will miss it if they use the MP Audio renderer (so they would not use it at all).

Digital volume control is always a compromise. If you would reduce the volume to 50% then you would be taking the half of the signal to noise ration. Not a good thing for quality point of view. If you accept such, then few dropped frames is not a big deal either and default direct sound audio renderer is a usable solution.

Maybe a little workaround can be made? The FFDshow audio decoder has a volume control built in, so if you want to change the volume the decoder could be used for this.

It is not the volume conrol. It is doable on the renderer side, but the MediaPortal C# side code itself is the issue. It isn't using the IBasicAudio interface so the renderer cannot see any volume conrol request since the OS mixer is used directly (and of course that will fail wehn it comes to WASAPI exclusive).

So, writing a hack where audio renderer would control volume from a different filter wouldn't help the issue at all.

If this audio renderer would be used in the official 1.2.0 (or any future 1.x.x release of MP1) then the IBasicAudio interface behavior would of cource be modified, but as long as this renderer is for testing only in MP1 (and allowing geeks to have perfect video playback ) and targeting MP2 then I won't make any changes to MP1 code (since keeping the test binaries would become a daily job for me - rebuilding the core for every SVN revision).

 

[mironicus]

AW: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

I would be very glad if the audio renderer and the modified dshowhelper.dll could be added to the svn.

There are already two branches now. The 1.20 does have those new changes from ajp that are also in beta state and does also have some bugs. The audio renderer should be added too so you'll can make your changes and improvements within the svn.

 

[robyf]

Using last binary (but also with v6) I have the problem that often microsoft h264 decoder reports bias 1.04, and this also on my main htpc, where there should be no performance problems. After a while the render resets hitself (causing sometime an audio hole of 5/6 seconds) and then detects the correct bias. So it's not possible to use microsoft decoder and cyberlink gives also bad results on this system. Tourettes, do you think there is a way to fix this problem?

I post audiorenderer log.

 

[tourettes]

Using last binary (but also with v6) I have the problem that often microsoft h264 decoder reports bias 1.04, and this also on my main htpc, where there should be no performance problems. After a while the render resets hitself (causing sometime an audio hole of 5/6 seconds) and then detects the correct bias. So it's not possible to use microsoft decoder and cyberlink gives also bad results on this system. Tourettes, do you think there is a way to fix this problem?

Unfortunately I have no control over the MS video decoder and what frame rate information it is passing to the EVR presenter.

 

[tourettes]

Re: AW: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

I would be very glad if the audio renderer and the modified dshowhelper.dll could be added to the svn.

There are already two branches now. The 1.20 does have those new changes from ajp that are also in beta state and does also have some bugs. The audio renderer should be added too so you'll can make your changes and improvements within the svn.

ajp's changes have been tested for almost a half a year which is much more than the audio renderer.

Also as you can see from this thread the audio renderer receives currently really minimal testing interest. With such it really isn't possible to even think about having the 1.2.0 containing the audio renderer.

 

[Owlsroost]

Re: AW: MediaPortal Audio renderer - better video playback quality

I would be very glad if the audio renderer and the modified dshowhelper.dll could be added to the svn.

There are already two branches now. The 1.20 does have those new changes from ajp that are also in beta state and does also have some bugs. The audio renderer should be added too so you'll can make your changes and improvements within the svn.

My understanding is that the v0037 version of the dshowhelper will be in MP 1.2.0

Tony