Question about FFDshow performance

[Delerue]

Is it true that FFDShow is the fastest decoder pack? I'm trying to watch really heavy HD movies (HDWMV like this (http://outerspace.ig.com.br/videos/callofduty3_1.wmv) and HDMOV like this (1080p version) (http://www.apple.com/trailers/imax/imaxdeepsea3d/hd/)), but I discovered that FFDshow can't handle it well, and that DMO for HDWMV and CoreAVC for H.264 are faster. I'm thinking if there's a way to configure FFDshow for better performance or if exists a faster codec pack, specially for H.264 and HDWMV decoder. Any kind of information will be great. ;)

Thanks for your cooperation
Best Regards

P.S.: I'm using a Sempron64 running at (real) 2.4 Ghz, with 1 GB of DDR440 and GF4 MX4000 128 bits (@355/@380), running in MPC version 6.4.9.0.

[foxyshadis]

The fastest AVC decoder by far is CoreAVC; ffdshow just doesn't compare at this point. However, it's $10. Nero's decoder is pretty good if you already have the package, but newer versions can only be played within Nero's Showtime player. Neither GPU nor SMP optimizations in non-lavc decoders will help you out though. FFDShow got a lot faster around March; as long as you're using a build since then you have the current performance.

FFDShow's wmv support has always been slow and buggy; using it on windows when the MS codecs are already freely available is pointless. A new vc-1 decoder has shown up and will soon be in FFDShow, which should eventually be less buggy and much faster, though it isn't fully optimized at this point.

[Delerue]

Thanks a lot, foxyshadis. I understood that CoreAVC is the best way to watch H.264 videos, and that Nero is great to xVid videos (Divx too?). The only thing I didn't understand is what's the fastest codec to play HDWMV videos. Is it the Windows default codecs? And what about DMO or VC-1 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/codecadvancedsettings.aspx)?

[foxyshadis]

All MS WMV codecs are DMOs with DirectShow wrappers, they're still the same codec. (They just use a different internal interface.) VC-1 codecs are just the latest release of the official codecs (which is still in beta stage, I think? or maybe that's just WMP11). They're definitely the fastest WMV decoders right now.

Nero actually works on h264 videos too, besides xvid & divx, if you have at least v6.6. Only the v7 one is faster than ffdshow though, and I think that one's been locked to Showtime in recent versions. (Can't use it in other apps.)

[Delerue]

Man, I don't have words... Thank you very much. Now I can watch all HD movies perfectly. :cool:

MPC + CoreAVC + Nero = rules
:)

[_xxl]

1).ffdshow is open source!
2).ffdshow is the best way to watch H.264 videos!
3).Please donate to support open source software!

[foxyshadis]

ffdshow is hardly the best way to watch 1080p, unless you have a core 2 like me, and even then it stutters a lot....

[bond]

ffdshow also must use m$' decoder for decoding wmv9 as the opensource wmv9/vc-1 decoder in libavcodec is not yet ready

[Delerue]

1).ffdshow is open source!
2).ffdshow is the best way to watch H.264 videos!
3).Please donate to support open source software!

You can try FFDshow and then compare to CoreAVC. After that, tell me what's the best. ;)

[check]

The blistering speed of CoreAVC has made the AU$15 I spent on it well worth it :)

[Dark Eiri]

You can try FFDshow and then compare to CoreAVC. After that, tell me what's the best. ;)

I tried both and I must tell: CoreAVC is OUTSTANDING better than ffdshow ^^
A LOT faster.