Media Player Classic for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray

[sarah99]

have been playing around with MPC to play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
I think I have finally got it sorted, and the filter list took some playing around with to get all the different combinations working.
You will need some way to decrypt your files first (I used AnyDVD HD)

HD-DVD .evo files DTS, DD+
Blu-Ray .m2ts files, mpeg2, VC1, mpeg4 AVC

You need (I'm not telling you how to register filters on your PC)
Windows Media Player 11
cl264dec.ax (Video)(cyberlink H264/AVC Decoder from PowerDVD Ultra)*
splitter.ax (Haali media splitter (AR) from Haali Matroska splitter)
cinemaster audio.dll (Audio)(Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder v 4.3 from Cineplayer Codec Pack) **
ffdshow.ax (Audio)(ffdshow audio decoder from FFDshow)

Media Player Classic settings

select view/options/External filters/
Add filter ....... Haali Media Splitter (AR), set merit 00900000, set prefer
Add Filter ........ ffdshow audio decoder, set merit 00700000
Add filter ....... cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder, set merit 00900400
Add Filter ........ Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.3.0, set merit 00805000
Add Filter ........ ffdshow video decoder, set merit 00800000 (added to stop ffdshow taking over MPEG-4)
Add Filter ....... Sonic Cinemaster Video Decoder, set merit 00700000 (late fix to stop Cinemaster Video taking over from ffdshow video)
** Add Filter ........ Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (pdvd7), set merit "prefer" (try this for some hardware acceleration in XP)
** Add Filter ........ Nvidia Video Decoder, set merit "prefer" (block cyberlink) (try this for h/w accel in XP or Vista if you have Nvidia Purevideo)

select view/options/Internal filters
deselect anything mpeg , matroska from the source list
deselect anything AC3, mpeg from the transport filter list

select view/options/output
Select the options you like the look of (I used VMR9 renderless)

Here are some screen shots showing each combination of filters in action, just drag and drop the big files into MPC.

HD-DVD .evo (most common VC1 with DD+) 2 Fast 2 Furious **
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/155/evoddplus2fastmz7.th.jpg (http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=evoddplus2fastmz7.jpg)

HD-DVD .evo (VC1 with DTS-HD) Rambo First Blood
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5964/evodtshdfirstdb4.th.jpg (http://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=evodtshdfirstdb4.jpg)

Blu-Ray .m2ts (most common MPEG-2) Planet of the Apes
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1266/m2tsmpeg2planethc9.th.jpg (http://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=m2tsmpeg2planethc9.jpg)

Blu-Ray .m2ts (VC1) Starship Troopers
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2793/m2tsstarshipvc1ee2.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=m2tsstarshipvc1ee2.jpg)

Blu-Ray .m2ts (MPEG-4 AVC) Pirates of the Caribbean *
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2342/m2tsmpeg4avcpotczd0.th.jpg (http://img525.imageshack.us/my.php?image=m2tsmpeg4avcpotczd0.jpg)


"Print Screen" will give a desktop screen grab then paste into "Paint" to save at your set screen resolution.
"File / Save Image" in MPC will give a full 1080 grab

If any of your files don't work, take a look to see what filter you have different to mine. Ordering filters is dead easy really, you have to put them on the External list before you can move them up or down in priority.

Tested on Vista 32 and Windows XP and works perfectly but takes plenty of processor power.
This solves all the Nvidia/PowerDVD green screen problems too.

PS
I am assuming you have Windows Media Player installed (v11), it won't work at all on PCs without this installed.
Cinemaster codecs v4.2 won't work either!

Advantages of using MPC
You don't have to waste time with menus, trailers and adverts
You can zoom the movie to get rid of the black bars (numpad key 9)
You don't need an approved graphics card

Disadvantages of using MPC
Minimum processor Core2 Duo (any one will do)
No Dolby TrueHD tracks available using Haali splitter

I have been experimenting with Vista and XP,
Xp will play "2 fast 2 furious" on a C2D with 60% CPU perfectly
Vista will play "2 fast 2 furious" on a C2D wit 100% CPU and stutter

My conclusion is stick to XP!

[sarah99]

added this fix for some HD-DVDs (The Reaping)

Add Filter ........ Sonic Cinemaster Video Decoder , set merit 00700000 (else this takes over some HD-DVDs)

[jay2000]

I think it plays better with VLC

[bbaythav]

I'm trying to play the Bluray movie, Blood Diamond, after decrypting it, but it does not work with Medai Player Classic. I tried playing the other director's clips and they work just fine. Thus, how do you change the combination of filters? Or do you think there is a problem with the main movie clip since the director's clips work? Thanks!

[sarah99]

I would need a snap of your active filters when playing that movie to have any idea what was going wrong.

[bbaythav]

Here's a snapshot of my external filters:

http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h46/bbaythav/?action=view&current=ExternalFilters.jpg

Thanks!

[sarah99]

I need to see your "active filters" ..... like in my thumbs

[bbaythav]

Sorry. Here they are:

http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h46/bbaythav/?action=view&current=ActiveFilters.jpg

[sarah99]

Set "Cinemaster Video Decoder" to BLOCK on your external filter list

[bbaythav]

Still doesn't play. Why would the director's cuts play and not the movie?

[foxyshadis]

It's probably MPEG2 whereas the other is VC-1 or H.264. Ah, according to blu-ray.com it is VC-1. You probably need an updated Sonic decoder pack, or installing WMP11 should also include the needed codecs.

[bbaythav]

Thanks. I installed WMP11 and it works.

[sarah99]

PS
I am assuming you have Windows Media Player installed (v11), it mostly doesn't work at all on PCs without this installed.


You didn't read the first post!
The "WMVideo Decoder DMO" codec (plays VC-1) in WMP11 is substantially different to that same codec (doesn't play VC-1) in WMP10
I have just highlighted that part of my post so others don't miss it.

[tHe_BiNk]

Okay I used this, and it worked (on Swordfish (MPEG2) m2ts)

But now .mkv files (x264) do not play anymore. Any suggestions how to solve this?

I can see the movie when I pause it, but it does not play at all! Haali media splitter icon appears, in the right lower corner. It appears that "Cyberlink H264/AVC" wants to play the video but it does not work.

/edit

Okay blocking "Cyberlink H264/AVC" works, now it does play. But is there a way around this problem? And Swordfish still plays, but that is probably because it is MPEG2, I assume.

[sarah99]

Cyberlink h264/AVC is the only codec to play Blu-Ray MPEG-4/AVC coded movies. If you want to play them you need it, if you don't then block it.

[slaman]

Thanks! Got it working... a bit choppy on my machine, but I'll overclock it again to get smoother playback.

Anyway to get menus/navigation of the HD DVD through MPC?

[slaman]

Or, at the very least - create a playlist of evo files?

[sarah99]

Just select playlist and add whatever you want.

[slaman]

Just select playlist and add whatever you want.

Didn't notice the playlist feature in MPC ;)

Anyways - I have PowerDVD 7.3 - which plays both BluRay and HD DVD... and it seems to have registered a filter called

CyberLink HD DVD Navigator

Is it possible to get MPC to navigate HD DVD and BluRays like it does for DVDs using this filter?

I tried adding the filter with a merit of prefer, but no go. I'm not sure which file to open (which HD DVD file is the navigation file? On DVDs, it was VIDEO_TS.IFO)

[slaman]

Secondly, for some reason, all the filters/merits that I set are lost randomly... I've even tried backing up the .ini file... no go.

Any ideas?

[sarah99]

MPC keeps merits in its own part of the windows registry.
PowerDVD blocks most of its filters from use by other apps.

[slaman]

MPC keeps merits in its own part of the windows registry.
PowerDVD blocks most of its filters from use by other apps.

I see - so my attempts to have two MPC's - one for HD DVD playback and one for regular playback... is a non-starter since they most likely share registry entries...

PowerDVD 7.3 filters appear under the "External Filters" section in MPC as registered... I can add them and set merits for them. I guess it's just figuring out which ones are correct.

My work-around is to just use PowerDVD for HD content :/

[Inventive Software]

Didn't MPC at one point store it's settings in an .ini file?

EDIT: It does. Try that and see whether multiple MPCs work.

[Leak]

I see - so my attempts to have two MPC's - one for HD DVD playback and one for regular playback... is a non-starter since they most likely share registry entries...
Not if you check "Player > Other > Store settings to .ini file" in both - of course, you'll only be able to associate one of them with each filetype, but it should work; it does for me, at least.

np: Nightcats - Inside (Kompakt Total 8 (Disc 1))

[slaman]

Cyberlink PowerDVD consistently reboots my computer when I try to play an HD DVD, looks like I'm back to using MPC.

Any ideas of what needs to happen to support HD DVD navigation in MPC (like DVD navigation?)

[slaman]

I have a Core2 Duo 2.13GHz CPU overclocked to 3.2GHz and still get occassional bumps and skips.

Is that expected while playing back an HD DVD?

How powerful a system do you need? :o

[slaman]

CPU usage is at maximum 52% during the "stutter" - it looks like a game looks when VSYNC isn't on...

I'm not sure why I'm getting the stutters - maybe it's not CPU related and instead just a frequency thing?

When I right-click during playback, I get the following filters:

Video Mixing Render 9
AC3Filter (to enable SPDIF throughput)
WMV Decoder DMO

ideas?

[slaman]

Ok, so I've figured out a few things... MPC playback of HD DVD causes stutters in a few scenes, whereas PowerDVD doesn't...

I wonder why?

PowerDVD resets my computer without fail after 30 seconds, so I can't use it to watch my HD DVDs!

[sarah99]

PowerDVD 7.3 filters appear under the "External Filters" section in MPC as registered... I can add them and set merits for them. I guess it's just figuring out which ones are correct.

You can see them, you can select them, buy they don't work.

I have a Core2 Duo 2.13GHz CPU overclocked to 3.2GHz and still get occassional bumps and skips.

Is that expected while playing back an HD DVD?

I have a core2duo e4300 running at 1.8GHz and it can play all HD-DVDs at about 60-80% CPU, your problem is elsewhere (anti-virus software?)

"Haali media splitter (AR)" & "Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder" should be in your list of filters!

[slaman]

You can see them, you can select them, buy they don't work.



I have a core2duo e4300 running at 1.8GHz and it can play all HD-DVDs at about 60-80% CPU, your problem is elsewhere (anti-virus software?)

"Haali media splitter (AR)" & "Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder" should be in your list of filters!


I'll shutdown the AV software and see if that helps anything... I defragged my HD yesterday as well to see if it was a disk access problem.

Haali media splitter (AR) doesn't appear explicitly on the list, but the icon appears in the tray, so I know it's being used.

Finally, the only reason I use AC3 Filter over Sonic Audio decoder is because I don't know how to enable SPDIF throughput... all my DTS gets converted to Stereo

[sarah99]

You are using the wrong Haali filter, you should use the (AR) version, both would be in your external filter list.
Using the non (AR) version, that only appears in the tray, can cause crashes if you try to change audio tracks from the tray.

But I suspect the AC3 Filter is causing the problem (although I can't be entirely sure as I use 6 channel analogue audio outputs so I can listen to DD+). Very few HD-DVDs have a DTS audio track so you can only have a very limited selection of HD-DVD.

To use internal filters to send to SPDIF, internal filters, transform filters, double click on DTS .... but it won't do DD+ which is what HD-DVD uses most of the time.

[slaman]

You are using the wrong Haali filter, you should use the (AR) version, both would be in your external filter list.
Using the non (AR) version, that only appears in the tray, can cause crashes if you try to change audio tracks from the tray.

But I suspect the AC3 Filter is causing the problem (although I can't be entirely sure as I use 6 channel analogue audio outputs so I can listen to DD+). Very few HD-DVDs have a DTS audio track so you can only have a very limited selection of HD-DVD.

To use internal filters to send to SPDIF, internal filters, transform filters, double click on DTS .... but it won't do DD+ which is what HD-DVD uses most of the time.

Haali Media Splitter (AR) is in my external filter list, and I've even added Haali Media Splitter to the list as blocked... when I playback, it still only appears as the icon. Don't think this is the problem though, because in your images (the first one) it doesn't appear either.

As for AC3 Filter, I have tried both ffdshow audio decoder and the sonic decoder - both have the stutter...

my only guess is the source - I need to test it out on another source file - will have to do that once I get one.

[Demi9OD]

Is there any way to do light post processing on HD/Blu Ray with FFDShow? Every time I have it process the raw frames from wmv9 or decode itself, the framerate is weird and I get large jumps and skips.

[amdxp]

I have installed Nvidia Purevideo decoder and i think that i have now not so good the quality in hddvd movies. What you think guys? Do i need that Nvidia purevideo to watch hd movies?

[slaman]

I have installed Nvidia Purevideo decoder and i think that i have now not so good the quality in hddvd movies. What you think guys? Do i need that Nvidia purevideo to watch hd movies?

I don't think that PureVideo can decode HD, only SD... I could be wrong though.

[sarah99]

PureVideo only works when playing Blu-Ray MPEG2 (as far as I know)

[IanD]

As for AC3 Filter, I have tried both ffdshow audio decoder and the sonic decoder - both have the stutter...

my only guess is the source - I need to test it out on another source file - will have to do that once I get one.
I found enabling overlay in MPC to be the smoothest for playback: VMR7/9 renderless caused a very stuttery effect for me and VMR7/9 used more CPU and was not quite as smooth.

The other interesting effect I noticed is that I use a C2D CPU and whilst the CPU loads on the cores look the same on the level meter, the individual core graphs of load show one core is about 3 times the other. Consequently, whilst overall load is showing say 50%, one of the cores is actually around 80%: this could mean that one core may be overloaded even though the average load seems to be quite low. I'm not sure why the cores are unevenly loaded, unless WMV9 decoder only uses 1 core and the audio decoder the other. May be an explanation for why you see stuttery results.

[foxyshadis]

It's just the way Windows handles heavy loads when you have lots of threads/processes, the main pegged thread will jump from core to core. The only useful number is the aggregate %. And yes, the WMV9 decoder is single-threaded, though that's supposed to change sometime.

[IanD]

Is there any way to do light post processing on HD/Blu Ray with FFDShow? Every time I have it process the raw frames from wmv9 or decode itself, the framerate is weird and I get large jumps and skips.
I managed to do it by manually adding the ffdshow raw filter in graphedit after the WMV9 decoder filter, but I didn't notice any jumps or skips. Maybe it can be added as part of the MPC preferred filter chain.

I was actually adding noise to the Last Starfighter (seems to improve the plasticky look due to excessive NR), although I haven't watched much of it.

I did notice it increased the CPU load by a fair amount, so maybe you are running into CPU overload situations when adding post processing.

[IanD]

It's just the way Windows handles heavy loads when you have lots of threads/processes, the main pegged thread will jump from core to core. The only useful number is the aggregate %. And yes, the WMV9 decoder is single-threaded, though that's supposed to change sometime.
With the new 163.71 WHQL Nvidia drivers, if I activate WMV dxva using the WMV Powertoy, the WMV9 decoder gets accelerated and now both cores read the same low level (8500GT).

However, I get system lockup and instability after a short while and a blue horizontal bar in the MPC window at the bottom (very similar to the grey bar when decoding 1088 versus 1080 mpeg2 material that I recall from ages ago).

Oh well, it's some progress, but a multi-threaded WMV9 decoder would be good: one of the cores is hardly getting used whilst the other is getting dangerously close to very little headroom.

[Shakey_Jake33]

With the new 163.71 WHQL Nvidia drivers, if I activate WMV dxva using the WMV Powertoy, the WMV9 decoder gets accelerated and now both cores read the same low level (8500GT).
In general, should WMV acceleration be enabled or disabled? My mind says enabled, but it's curious that 's disabled by default, and not an option in the driver CP.

[slaman]

If I do this, can I not load .sub files then?

I'll test it out when I get home though.

I found enabling overlay in MPC to be the smoothest for playback: VMR7/9 renderless caused a very stuttery effect for me and VMR7/9 used more CPU and was not quite as smooth.

The other interesting effect I noticed is that I use a C2D CPU and whilst the CPU loads on the cores look the same on the level meter, the individual core graphs of load show one core is about 3 times the other. Consequently, whilst overall load is showing say 50%, one of the cores is actually around 80%: this could mean that one core may be overloaded even though the average load seems to be quite low. I'm not sure why the cores are unevenly loaded, unless WMV9 decoder only uses 1 core and the audio decoder the other. May be an explanation for why you see stuttery results.

[foxyshadis]

You can't use mpc's built-in subtitles, but you can use vsfilter or ffdshow to display them.

[Shakey_Jake33]

Following these instructions, I can get .evo files from HD-DVD's playing lovely.

However, I have .m2ts with 96/24 Stereo LPCM sound, and they play with no sound :(

[bullet_ballet]

I cannot, for the life of me, get MPC to use Sonic Audio Decoder to play audio in my evo files. It defaults to ffdshow, and if I block/disable it it then uses Cyberlink. If I block that, it uses something called "AC3 Filter (low merit)". I am using Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.2 and not 4.3.

[Edit]
It was the fact that I was using 4.2. After installing 4.3 audio works perfectly.

[damngod]

Hey, I also have a problem with Sonic Audio Decoder (4.3). MPC crashes when I change the audio track. Playing the movie with the first (default) one is perfect but once I select another one, there is no sound and I got an error related to cinemasteraudio.dll. Using both version of Haali Media Splitter makes no change at all.

Any idea ?

[sarah99]

Hey, I also have a problem with Sonic Audio Decoder (4.3). MPC crashes when I change the audio track. Playing the movie with the first (default) one is perfect but once I select another one, there is no sound and I got an error related to cinemasteraudio.dll. Using both version of Haali Media Splitter makes no change at all.

Any idea ?

Change the audio track from the Haali filter WITHIN the play window, only using the tray icon causes the problem.

[ekonsoda]

Everything works nice, except for one thing. Ho do I use S/PDIF on DD+ and DTS-HD in EVO files? The Sonic audio decoder doesn't seem to support this, and no other decoder handles DD+. DTS-HD works with m2ts files, using MPC's built in DTS decoder, but this does not work with EVO files. With evo's, dts playback is either choppy, out of sync or just plain weird (audio artifacts or whatever you can call it). It works with sonic audio decoder but like I said, no S/PDIF.

[Shakey_Jake33]

S/PDIF won't work because DD+ cannot be sent over S/PDIF. Nor can DTS-HD actually (unless it's extracting the DTS Core track).
To send as 5.1 over SPDIF, it needs to be transcoded to AC3. Both ffdshow and AC3Filter can do this, but I've had no luck using them with the Sonic Audio Decoder.

[ekonsoda]

Sorry, I wasn't being clear enough.

I am only looking to get the core mix out of DD+ and DTS-HD over S/PDIF, as I do with PowerDVD. And like you say, Sonic Audio Decoder does not work with AC3filter so no transcode there. If only the PowerDVD audio decoder was usable in directshow applications. And btw, why isn't sonic audio decoder doing S/PDIF?

And why isn't the bulit in DTS decoder working for DTS-HD in EVO's when i works with m2ts files?