SAF v4.00 ''stable'' (StandAlone Filters) - DXVA ready (H.264 and VC-1). (1 Viewer)

[hoborg]

A small warning about the ffdshow as audio codec. Seems that it is not compatible with all AAC streams that are broadcasted. So, in case that you have issues with live.tv or recordings and the audio type is AAC please try Windows 7 audio decoder or the Monogram's AAC decoder (that ships with MP).

0002528: Changing dvb-t mux from mpeg2->h264 fails. - MediaPortal Bugtracker

FFDShow AAC is disabled by default in SAF (monogram AAC decoder is used).

After reading thru the first post (quickly) at least following points needs some clearing

- XP are much, much faster then Vista

Not true. Especially when Windows 7 and Vista are both waking up much faster from the S3/S4 states (pretty important for a HTPC). In general Vista is slower, but even it can be tweaked to reach the XP speeds by disabling extra

- My experience is different. Vista is horrible, Win7 is much better then Vista, still not fast as WinXp.
S3 resume takes ~3s on my XP based HTPC.

- DXVA + DVD navigation (highlighted buttons) works only under XP (does not work on Vista or Win7) - by other words XP is best OS for DVD playback. (EVR problem related i think)

Works as well with Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Might be a issue with Cyberlink's codec? But not a general issue in any way.

- not true. IF DXVA + EVR is used for DVD, navigation butons are not highlighted - no problem in software mode (tested on Cyberlink, Elecard and MS DVD decoder DXVA decoders).

*MPC-HC (Gabest) "Mpeg2DecFilter.ax"
Doesn't support VC-1 interlaced encodings.

- of course, it is software only based MPEG-2 decoder, SAF do not use it.

@s_behn,

it's a known problem. 1080i channels need either a dedicated graphics card starting from ATI4350 or maybe in your case the better alternative a athlon II with hyperthread 3 or 4. Then it'll work.

Then i prefer to finally deactivate my ATI card and exclusively use my GF 8600GT even though that was never the point of buying this board...

Not all GPUs that are DXVA capable are offloading all the decoding. For example Nvidia 8800 has only minimal offloading possibilities with H.264 content (mainly causing almost as high CPU usage as in software mode).

Great... which actually means this is the reason why i have 60% CPU usage using my GT8600 with activated DXVA to view some 1080p material.

This hardware mess really is what bothers me most regarding HTPCs...

Tip: ATI 4550 (passive) - i had it too.

Both Vista & Windows 7 have many media playback improvements (more accurate times, much more glitch resistant frame scheduling, no need for complicated exclusive DirectX usage that causes issues with MP and 3rd party programs. Possibility to use DirectX 9Ex, allowing much fine grained control over the D3D and device loss, even allowing to change refresh rate during video playback ) that are far more important that few percent performance hit that Vista has when compared to XP.

Tourettes, as i wrote my HTPC is XP based with ATI 4550. On my working machine i have Win7x64 + ATI 4770 so i can compare picture quality, etc.
I can say i am not able to see any diference comparing EVR with VMR9 at all, all my media work perfectly on HTPC, no glitches, freezes, etc. (same on Win7 using SAF).
Live TV (analog) is so good too (but i am using GB-PVR for it, not MP).

I will not remove XP from my preaty stable HTPC even by force
I moded my XP installation on HTPC a lot - there is no one "windows" sign, no messages, logos, - nothing. I believe this is possible on Vista/Win7 too, but i think it will be more complicated to do it.

 

[bart0190]

I just tried to overclock a little my HT via FSB. (20%)
--> still have the same slight stuttering in Full HD.
I think I will try the recommendation of Hoborg with the ATI 4550 as I don't think it is SW-related as CPU load is low and SAF + PDVD codec + CCC work good for less calculation-intensive content.

 

[S_Behn]

I just tried to overclock a little my HT via FSB. (20%)
--> still have the same slight stuttering in Full HD.
I think I will try the recommendation of Hoborg with the ATI 4550 as I don't think it is SW-related as CPU load is low and SAF + PDVD codec + CCC work good for less calculation-intensive content.

Try it and report

 

[Karup]

Hello

I have a problem with a lot of my MKV.
If I start it then nothing happens a few seconds (~20).
Then I hear the sound but my screen is totally green.
I made everything as written in the manual at the first page here.

Windows Vista
ATI Radeon 3500 with driver 9.10

SAF-Log.txt

 

[hoborg]

Hello

I have a problem with a lot of my MKV.
If I start it then nothing happens a few seconds (~20).
Then I hear the sound but my screen is totally green.
I made everything as written in the manual at the first page here.

Windows Vista
ATI Radeon 3500 with driver 9.10

SAF-Log.txt

SAF log is ok. Please chceck graphstudio is HMP-HC decoder is realy in use durning MKV playback.

 

[Synthetic]

I lost track of all the changes made to the new versions, but installed beta20test3 recently. Is there a solution for playback of wmv in Windows 7 already? I updated MP to newest SVN, and SAF as said to beta20, but I can't play any gametrailers (Playback not possible message in OnlineVideos, simply nothing happens in MyTrailers plugin). I read through the information on the first page again and added FFDShow audio as Postprocessing to get Passthrough.

 

[rasmuskarlsen]

When i install this codec pack, for some reason, the CLVsd.ax, does not get installed!? So i cannot select the cyberlink codec in mediaportal configuration!?

Where can i get "CLVsd.ax" and install in manually!?

I have tried downloading the latest PowerDVD9, and installed that, and then try to grab the file... But it's not located in: c:\windows\system32\CLVsd.ax ?

 

[hoborg]

When i install this codec pack, for some reason, the CLVsd.ax, does not get installed!? So i cannot select the cyberlink codec in mediaportal configuration!?

Where can i get "CLVsd.ax" and install in manually!?

I have tried downloading the latest PowerDVD9, and installed that, and then try to grab the file... But it's not located in: c:\windows\system32\CLVsd.ax ?

Yeou need to *unlock* SAF, check PM

 

[tourettes]

FFDShow AAC is disabled by default in SAF (monogram AAC decoder is used).

Good to know, so it is not an issue (I'm not using codec packs so what could I know )

After reading thru the first post (quickly) at least following points needs some clearing

- XP are much, much faster then Vista

Not true. Especially when Windows 7 and Vista are both waking up much faster from the S3/S4 states (pretty important for a HTPC). In general Vista is slower, but even it can be tweaked to reach the XP speeds by disabling extra

- My experience is different. Vista is horrible, Win7 is much better then Vista, still not fast as WinXp.
S3 resume takes ~3s on my XP based HTPC.

Well Vista and Windows 7 might be slow on some specific systems, but in general those arent. Codec quides shouldn't be based on one system results. I bet most of the codec pack / SAF users aren't sharing the same system specs as you are having.

- not true. IF DXVA + EVR is used for DVD, navigation butons are not highlighted - no problem in software mode (tested on Cyberlink, Elecard and MS DVD decoder DXVA decoders).

Well, I can sure say that navigation works with Windows 7 and Windows Vista with EVR and Cyberlink or MS MPEG2 decoder combinations. I personaly have been using that combination for 1,5 years without issues (same goes again for many other users). Again, we shouldn't make any generalizations based on personal experiences. MP's DVD navigation is known to work in Windows 7 & Vista with HW acceleration.

- of course, it is software only based MPEG-2 decoder, SAF do not use it.

My bad, I was meaning that MPC-HC H.264 codec SAF uses is not supporting VC-1 interlaced content, but I'm not even sure if Cyberlink is currently used for the non-tv H.264 content when installing SAF (sorry again).

Both Vista & Windows 7 have many media playback improvements (more accurate times, much more glitch resistant frame scheduling, no need for complicated exclusive DirectX usage that causes issues with MP and 3rd party programs. Possibility to use DirectX 9Ex, allowing much fine grained control over the D3D and device loss, even allowing to change refresh rate during video playback ) that are far more important that few percent performance hit that Vista has when compared to XP.

Tourettes, as i wrote my HTPC is XP based with ATI 4550. On my working machine i have Win7x64 + ATI 4770 so i can compare picture quality, etc.
I can say i am not able to see any diference comparing EVR with VMR9 at all, all my media work perfectly on HTPC, no glitches, freezes, etc. (same on Win7 using SAF).

Again only one personal opinion. I guess you haven't studied the changes between Xp and Vista / Windows 7 that MS has been introducing in the media playback area. Lot of things have been improved. If some PC has managed to play the content with no issues on XP, others might haven't and they have bigger changes to do so with Windows 7.

And the benefits of DirectX 9Ex are pretty good ones (but not for everyone). Just think of those users who have issues with HDMI connected TV turned of causing MP to stop audio playback as D3D device is lost It is only XP related issue, cured (actually working around the bad MP design / architechture) by DirectX 9 Ex.

I will not remove XP from my preaty stable HTPC even by force

No one is forcing you to do that, but you shoulnd't be telling the half truth as huge amount of users are taking your words as the 100% truth.

Hopefully this post doesn't sound too agressive, but I hopy you'll see the responsibility you have gained. You are responsibe for giving the information for a huge user base, so the information shoudldn't be biassed in neither direction. You alre almost a role model for users as I think many of them are even thinking that you have wrote to code for some of those codecs So, please keep in mind that you should provide much wider view than the personal few PC experience.

 

[csapollo]

Hoborg - I've made a few posts about issues with the PDVD MPEG codec during Live TV whilst DXVA was on, I didn't really have much response in this thread and have been troubleshooting it for the last few weeks.

I read today in one of the SVN threads, that DXVA MPEG playback under Win7 is still broken. I did not know it was broken in the first place..

*sigh*

EDIT:

Here are a few comments under 24047:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...9-19-18h-revision-24047-rar-72991/#post531246

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...9-19-18h-revision-24047-rar-72991/#post531275

etc