E-AC3/DD+ with Cineplyr HDDVD decoder through mpclassic help?

[Cableoz]

After countless hours of trial and error, reading doom9 and other forums and scouring google 'till my eyes are googled out, I'm posting here in exasperation. Sorry if this kind of thread offends, but I'm desperate.

My computer is hooked up to a Denon A/V receiver + speakers through S/PDIF - which is how I play all music and DVD's etc on this system. I have a HD .mkv rip which has 1560kbps E-AC3/DD+ 5.1 audio which I eventually managed (after hours of frustration) to get working through media player classic/zoom player etc by installing the Roxio Cineplayer with HDDVD decoder package, disabling AC3 filter, and fiddling with ffdshow until it worked.

Unfortunatley the Roxio/Sonic software installed its own CDRom driver (pxhlpa64.sys) which totally fricked up Vista 64, made DVD drives invisible and wouldn't even boot without turning off driver signing, so I uninstalled everything roxio/sonic related and had to manually remove Registry keys to get my DVD drives back. This of course made the video with DD+ audio stop working.

Since then I've just installed the HDDVD decoder package that came with the program (without installing the cineplayer itself). I've managed to get stereo output, and even had ffdshow audio OSD say 6channel 1560kbps LCPM (which caused freaky sound) - but nothing I've done has managed to get the DD+ playing on my system in proper 5.1 again :( I must have uninstalled/reinstalled codecs many times, tried out 150-200+ options and opened/crashed media player classic as many. Also tried other players - VLC plays video fine but won't let me use external filter - zoom / kmplayer/gom etc can't get to work.

I know E-AC3 file/decoding has a very small user base, and most people just re-encode to standard AC3 (or other) - but I did get this working before and am totally stumped. Although tech savy, I have little knowledge of proper codec configuration and setup - mostly I just install codec packs and hope everything works.

Any advice on how to get this working again, what to try etc would be greatly appreciated. :thanks:

[ACrowley]

Goto you System Settings /Sonic Cineplayer DVD Decoder and set it to 5.1

In mpc otions simply add and SonicCinemasterAudioDecoder and set it to prefer

[Cableoz]

In the Sonic options I can set the audio output to Stereo and it decodes to 2 channel fine (getting proper voice and stereo effects - which is ok); setting output to S/PDIF produces a light on my receiver but not sound, and setting the decoder to 5.1 Dolby Digital causes media player to crash. Setting the audio decoder to use system settings doesn't produce 5.1 output either. Renderer has been set in MPC to either Directsound: Realtek Digital Output or just Realtek Digital Output.

Only external filter selected in MPC is Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.2.

The other thing is that MPC is the only program I can get to use the Sonic Decoder so far .. zoom, Kmplayer, gom, vlc etc produce no sound no matter what I try.

A big issue is that after changing the decoder settings I need to wait for a few minutes or else opening up media player and playing the file will cause it to crash (and get data execution prevention message). Also I can have a file be playing fine in MPC, stop the file, close program, reopen it and it will crash. I've probably crashed MPC more times trying to get this to work than I have all media players before in my entire life.

I'm not sure if this is a decoder issue, a format issue or even a Windows Vista 64 issue?

[ACrowley]

- SonicAudioDecoder cant output AC3 from EAC3. No build in AC3 on the fly Transcode. So SPDIF or DD 5.1 Output wont work on DD+

-Use Default Sound Device in mpc to avoid Problems withg your onboad sound. No need to change it

-Set Sonic simply to 5.1 ,Windows Setting to 5.1 and your Soundchip to 5.1

Question :
When you open a DD+ with mpc, Take a look to Play-Filters.
Which Filter/Decoder appears there ?

And have a correct Source Filter installed ?
Or you can use latets mpc Build with proper DTS/AC3/DD+ Source

[slaman]

Great thread...

I have a few questions:

For stuff encoded with AC3 - I want to output using AC3Filter and output to SPDIF

For stuff encoded with DTS - I want to output using AC3Filter and output to SPDIF

For stuff encoded with DD+ - I want to output using Sonic Cineplayer

In order to do this, what "merits" should I be setting in MPC-> Options?

For some reason, I can only choose AC3Filter (then DD+ wont play) and if I choose only Sonic Cineplayer, AC3/DTS won't output via SPDIF

Is there a way to output to SPDIF using Sonic Cineplayer (for AC3/DTS only)?

[Cableoz]

No matter what I try, I can only output DD+ in stereo.

Setting the Sonic Audio decoder to stereo works fine, with proper downmixing (it seems). Setting to prologic also just downmixes. Setting the decoder to use system settings, output via S/PDIF or 5.1 doesn't work.

In the filters in MPC the only audio things are: "Default Directsound Device" and "Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.2". The other filters are "Video Renderer" and "ffdshow video decoder". Enabling other audio filters (like the ffdshow or ac3 etc) only causes freaky or no sound or the video to not play.

I am assuming that by setting everything to 5.1 (including windows and soundchip) you mean analogue output avoiding S/PDIF?

I've even downloaded a supposed Vista compatible MPC (that works without turning off Vista Aero) and another "media player home cinema" (that also works without turning off aero).

I'm not exactly sure about 'correct source filter'. MPC has internal filters, and enabling/disabling DTS/AC3 source filter doesn't make a difference. What is the latest mpc build with proper DD+ source? Information I can gather seems sketchy at best :(

[madshi]

The Sonic E-AC3 decoder is bad, anyway, cause it always enables DRC. You might want to try the Nero HD DVD plugin instead. You'll need to rename mplayerc.exe to recode.exe to make the Nero filters work in MPC. And this hack only works for Nero 7 but not for Nero 8. So it's not a nice solution, either. Furthermore the Nero E-AC3 decoder also applies DRC right now. However, I'm planning to do a little tweak which allows us to switch DRC off for realtime playback in MPC/ZoomPlayer.

Finally, maybe we'll get the open source E-AC3 decoder from Google Summer of Code into a DirectShow filter soon.

[Cold0ne]

The way I get E-AC3 movies going, the easiest way I think, is to use Sonic Decoder 4.2 [warez instructions removed by avih] install it, then in Media Player Classic go to options, External Filters, Add filter select Sonic Audio Decoder, click ok, then make sure you check the option "Prefer" or else it wont use it. now exit MPC and start the video which uses E-AC3 sound, it should work. This is the most convenient and easiest method i think, as I like to use MPC to play all my movies.

[ACrowley]

The Sonic E-AC3 decoder is bad, anyway, cause it always enables DRC. You might want to try the Nero HD DVD plugin instead. You'll need to rename mplayerc.exe to recode.exe to make the Nero filters work in MPC. And this hack only works for Nero 7 but not for Nero 8. So it's not a nice solution, either. Furthermore the Nero E-AC3 decoder also applies DRC right now. However, I'm planning to do a little tweak which allows us to switch DRC off for realtime playback in MPC/ZoomPlayer.

Finally, maybe we'll get the open source E-AC3 decoder from Google Summer of Code into a DirectShow filter soon.


Hopefully you will have succes :)
Because currently we have NO DirectShow EAC3 Decoder with the ability to disable DRC/DialNorm/Gain
Nero = DRC/DialNorm
Sonic = Mix of DRC/DialNorm/gain

[Gannjunior]

at the end, if i want to decode e-ac3 in my mkv file by KMP, which is è better?
tnks!

[Blue_MiSfit]

The way I get E-AC3 movies going, the easiest way I think, is to use Sonic Decoder 4.2 [warez instructions removed by avih] install it, then in Media Player Classic go to options, External Filters, Add filter select Sonic Audio Decoder, click ok, then make sure you check the option "Prefer" or else it wont use it. now exit MPC and start the video which uses E-AC3 sound, it should work. This is the most convenient and easiest method i think, as I like to use MPC to play all my movies.


BLATANT rule 6... that doesn't fly around here...