SAF or ffdshow? (1 Viewer)

Disore

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I'm in the process of installing MediaPortal on my HTPC but am lost regarding decoders. I would like to play common formats and containers (including mkv), but there seems to be two strong contenders:
What is your experience regarding best picture quality? Paying for e.g. PowerDVD if their decoder is better isn't a problem. :D
Best regards,
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pilehave

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  • April 2, 2008
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    I'm in the process of installing MediaPortal on my HTPC but am lost regarding decoders. I would like to play common formats and containers (including mkv), but there seems to be two strong contenders:
    What is your experience regarding best picture quality? Paying for e.g. PowerDVD if their decoder is better isn't a problem. :D
    Best regards,
    Disore

    You don't need to use anything but the trial-version of PowerDVD to get the decoder :)

    What graphics card do you own? My own integrated Radeon 3200 won't play nicely with the oooold Catalyst 8.5 driver you need to get SAF working (on ATI). Also, if H.264 TV is important you may need to reconsider as SAF doesn't support HDTV.
     

    Disore

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    February 27, 2009
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    You don't need to use anything but the trial-version of PowerDVD to get the decoder :)
    Didn't know that...
    I just entered my system spec in my forum profile. I have a GeForce 9300 on my Asus P5N7A-VM motherboard and downloaded the latest NVidia drivers.

    HDTV isn't requested yet, but who knows :D
     

    Spragleknas

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    FFDSHow -> No DXVA -> More CPU usage -> More heat -> More noise
    + DXVA in general gives better PQ IMO.

    Give SAF a go. I did (today) and so far so good :)
     

    Paranoid Delusion

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    Give SAF a go

    I agree, prefer the picture to cyberlinks h.264 codec as well.

    Mines a real mixed bag of codecs, tv\dvd is cyberlink's mpeg2, h.264 is mpc\coreavc and ffdshow, deals with all audio.

    But then we do some testing, so need to know what the current main codecs perform like, for the average htpc, pretty sure a combination of cyberlinks mpeg2 which has the best aspect ratio detection, and MPC-HC's codecs (SAF) are good for most users and thanks to hoborg, simple to setup.

    And the good news is they all give dxva to supported formats, thats another thing that lets the cyberlink h.264 decoder down, any file not dxva compliant just will not play, where it does with MPC codec.

    Regards
     

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