VC-1 Decoding (1 Viewer)

[bluesk1d]

Hey gang. I am new to MediaPortal but I am loving it! My thanks to all the contributors! I am coming from a NMT Popcor Hour A-110 so the level of eye candy and functionality of MP is totally blowing my mind. The only positive thing about the NMT is that it flawlessly plays back any container/format you can imagine in 1080p without any fuss.

My question is in regards to the other (less common) Blu-Ray/HDDVD standard video codec, VC-1. Before I had my NMT, I ripped my HDDVDs and BDs and encoded them into VC-1/WMA Pro 5.1 in an asf (.wmv) container since that is your only choice for HD with 5.1 on the Xbox 360. I see the options to select your choice of h.264 decoders but where do you tell MP what decoder to use for VC-1? If there is no such option, what decoder does it use by default? These files are hit or miss and choppy at best in MP. Since I am entirely too lazy to re-rip and encode all of these movies in h.264, I would like to get this figured out! Thanks for any info.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Well the mainstream codecs used are FFDShow Tryouts, MPC-HC, or paid for codecs CoreAVC, PowerDVD7\8\9 (early versions 9 trial only)

The MPC-HC can be found in SAF or Vista Codec Pack, these will give you dxva, only if your rips are in the correct format, as your 9300 supports Cuda, might be worthwhile trying the CoreAVC codec and enabling this to see if the files play any better.

 

[Spragleknas]

According to a thread given by rtv, CUDA + CoreAVC seemed to give inferior PQ.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

I read about that and there was nothing conclusive about it one way or another.

 

[Dr Tone]

Hey gang. I am new to MediaPortal but I am loving it! My thanks to all the contributors! I am coming from a NMT Popcor Hour A-110 so the level of eye candy and functionality of MP is totally blowing my mind. The only positive thing about the NMT is that it flawlessly plays back any container/format you can imagine in 1080p without any fuss.

My question is in regards to the other (less common) Blu-Ray/HDDVD standard video codec, VC-1. Before I had my NMT, I ripped my HDDVDs and BDs and encoded them into VC-1/WMA Pro 5.1 in an asf (.wmv) container since that is your only choice for HD with 5.1 on the Xbox 360. I see the options to select your choice of h.264 decoders but where do you tell MP what decoder to use for VC-1? If there is no such option, what decoder does it use by default? These files are hit or miss and choppy at best in MP. Since I am entirely too lazy to re-rip and encode all of these movies in h.264, I would like to get this figured out! Thanks for any info.

The default VC-1 decoder is Microsoft's. No need to specify anything else, it just works out of the box. It is their codec after all.

 

[bluesk1d]

Thanks for the replies guys. I understand the myriad of codecs available and the pros and cons of each but how do you tell MP which to use of the ones you have installed (like you do with h.264 in the options)?

I wonder if it is actually using MS' decoder by default since there is significant skipping and video tearing in MP where there is none in other players (like WMP which I know is using MS' decoder).

 

[Dr Tone]

Thanks for the replies guys. I understand the myriad of codecs available and the pros and cons of each but how do you tell MP which to use of the ones you have installed (like you do with h.264 in the options)?

I wonder if it is actually using MS' decoder by default since there is significant skipping and video tearing in MP where there is none in other players (like WMP which I know is using MS' decoder).

Here's my rule of thumb. Get the video file playing properly in Windows Media Player(in your case is already happening). Do this for all the different combinations of video/audio and container.

Then click the check box in media portal configuration to use "Automatic decoder settings". If it still doesn't play properly in mediaportal, then you have some other issue and you might want to open a bug report and give the devs a sample of the file or something.

What you are seeing media portal may not necessarily be a vc1 problem...

 

[bluesk1d]

Ill give that a try but I'd really like to know if that option is buried somewhere if its not in the GUI. It would be nice to be able to set the VC-1 decoder like you can with h.264.

And regarding CoreAVC, I am not seeing any reference to it decoding anything other than AVC. Is it just not documented that it will also decode VC-1?

 

[Dr Tone]

Ill give that a try but I'd really like to know if that option is buried somewhere if its not in the GUI. It would be nice to be able to set the VC-1 decoder like you can with h.264.

And regarding CoreAVC, I am not seeing any reference to it decoding anything other than AVC. Is it just not documented that it will also decode VC-1?

It's not an option buried some place and coreavc doesn't do VC-1.

There aren't other VC-1 decoders for a reason...

 

[bluesk1d]

What reason is that?

For anyone else with similar issues, MP does not use MS VC-1 decoders by default. MPC-HC plays back these files with the exact same behavior. The only thing that can play these files worth beans is WMP. There is no xml or other config file that can be edited to force the use of another installed decoder?

I went ahead and switched to CoreAVC 1.9.5 with CUDA support for h.264. Stellar performance.