Recommended versions of x264 and FFDShow

[vlada]

Hello,
I have one suggestion for you: There are many versions of x264 codec and FFDShow decoder. And I personaly have experienced many problems with some of them. AFAIK there is no official version of x264 and the latest official version of FFDShow is very old.

So I would suggest to make a sticky with recommended version (and maybe settings) for both programs. You might know this from HydrogenAudio and I think it should be here too.

The recommended version should be quite new, but it should be good tested also. It would be a subject of discussion of course.

Btw. I have problems with latest x264 builds (528, 529, 530). They produce video, which can't be played in MPC (with FFDShow 2546) neither in VLC 0.8.5. I tried MP4 and MKV output from MeGUI 0.2.3.2155 (with standard AE preset). Now I'm trying VfW version in VirtualDub. What might be wrong with these builds? Or am I doing something wrong?

I tried also reinstalling FFDShow and now it refuses to decode any video (of course I have allowed it). Audio decoder works.

These 2 problems made write the request for a recommended version sticky. What are your opinoins?

[GodofaGap]

I think the recommended version for x264 should always be the latest one. Bugs in older revisions only get fixed by putting out a new revision, so there is no guarantee a 5 week old version of x264 is any stabler than the newest one, while there is the guarantee that you always will keep the problems with the old one since they never get fixed.

For ffdshow I don't know, but personally I haven't seen any reason to upgrade from Milan's latest version yet.

I think the best thing you can do is, if you have a setup that works (especially on the decoding side) don't upgrade it until you read something in the changelog that makes it worth upgrading. You don't have to install a new ffdshow everyday just because someone compiled the most recent SVN.

PS. For me x264 rev 530 works fine with ffdshow and VLC.

[shon3i]

For ffdshow I don't know, but personally I haven't seen any reason to upgrade from Milan's latest version yetNow have many reasons, but for more info look ffdshow thread.

[Sharktooth]

x264 works fine... just finished one encoding and everything works as expected... including ffdshow (my own build).
i think your system could be messed up.
i wish to remeber you to UNINSTALL any previous version of ffdshow and x264 before any update.

[shon3i]

Vlada & Sharktooth check this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=833602#post833602), i haved same problem which is soloved with new version of ffdshow.

[futurex]

x264 has been stable for me for a while but can't say the same about ffdshow

[vlada]

x264 works fine... just finished one encoding and everything works as expected... including ffdshow (my own build).
i think your system could be messed up.
i wish to remeber you to UNINSTALL any previous version of ffdshow and x264 before any update.

Yes, you are right. My system was somehow messed. I tried the movies at home and they all played in both VLC and DirectShow.
It is very strange that even VLC refused to play the movies since it shouldn't be affected by DirectShow system. I'll try to do some more tests to analyse the problem.

Anyway back to my basic topic - I think it would be very usefull, especially for unexperienced users, to have a "stable" branch of FFDShow. What do you think? Is it even possible?

If somebody asks me what should he use to decode movies, I'll tell him to install FFDShow. But try to find it using Google - You'll get milions of older and newer versions and it is very difficult to choose the right one. It confuses many users.

[lazyn00b]

Agreed on FFDshow. There have been way too many dodgy FFDshow compiles floating around the last few months. A sticky thread with links only to versions carefully compiled with reliability and compatibility in mind would be very welcome. An FFDshow sticky post could probably be updated about once a month and that would be fine. The key is to always have the recommended version in the first post so that you don't have to go searching around for it!

x264, on the other hand, is under daily development anyway - it probably would be counter-productive at this point to try to specify a "recommended" version.

[foxyshadis]

Really, most people have the least troubles with the last one Milan posted, although it has no multithreading or debanding, and not many now. In general anything compiled with GCC 3.4.x and/or MSVC 7.1 is more stable than GCC 4.x or ICL, so watch the scan the last page or two of the ffdshow threads for those and it'll be fine.

vlada: the first two results after the ffdshow site itself are free-codecs and afterdawn, which sometimes post dodgy/buggy versions but at least usually have several newer ones. A year ago it was much harder to find up-to-date builds, though, yes.

As for x264, when you update make a short test. If by chance it fails, switch back to the old one and contact akupenguin or wait a few days and it'll probably be fixed. (Keep your old ones!) Otherwise, the latest build (bob0r's or sharktooth's) is always the most recommended, since x264 is very good about remaining stable through its revisions.

[Livesms]

Can you tell which ffdshow build has correct postprocessing by default with H264.

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=819640&postcount=1

and my quest:

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=837917&postcount=8