Which one directshow filter to resize the image ?

[jazzzy]

I'm looking for some filter that will enable me to watch videos in the resolution same as desktop or resized to window size. Right now I'm using GOM player and it's feature 'full screen streched' but GOM is not a player I like and would like to use everyday. I love CinemaPlayer which is based on directshow filters but this player is no longer maintained and so I'm looking for ways to achieve my goal. I've tried ffdshow and it's feature to resize BUT it takes too much CPU and calculating power from my older graphics that it's pointless, I'm loosing about 40-50% frames.

[Kado]

Have you tried media player classic homecinema?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Well, usually resizing is not the job of a (decoder) filter, it's the job of the video renderer! Using a good renderer (such as Haali's Video Renderer) should make any "software resizing" (e.g. ffdshow's resize feature) superfluous. So you should try Media Player Classic (maybe the "Home Cinema Edition") together with Haali's Video Renderer. Make sure you set "Output" to "Haali's Video Render". Also note that Haali's Renderer has options to adjust the sharpness...

Media Player Classic - Latest build by CLSID:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=205650&package_id=245753&release_id=540363

Haali Media Splitter (inlcudes Haali's Video Renderer):
http://mirror01.x264.nl/x264/MatroskaSplitter.exe

[jazzzy]

So you should try Media Player Classic (maybe the "Home Cinema Edition") together with Haali's Video Renderer. Make sure you set "Output" to "Haali's Video Render". Also note that Haali's Renderer has options to adjust the sharpness..

I don't know why but under CinemaPlayer and for example AllPlayer the renderer is VMR7 but under MPC it is Haali however picture is black

I've configured MPC to play the videos like I need (with VMR7 renderless) but I don't ask you about what player to use, I want to keep using CinemaPlayer (as I still haven't found any better player) which has no 'output' options and no smart 'strech to window'

Enabling resize in ffdshow would be a solution if not my weak graphic card

BTW: Is there a way to tweak the MPC GUI ?

[Kado]

the picture is black because you graphics card is quite old! probably does not have shaders (haali requires shader model 1 at least do render video).
Use VMR 9 renderless instead and use 3d surfaces along with bilinear resizer, because the others use pixel shader 2 that you don't have (except for nearest neighbor).
what's your graphics card?

[jazzzy]

what's your graphics card?

Riva TNT2 Model 64, pending switching to something newer, maybe Radeon 9550Pro

but please answer me how Haali can do better for me, does it work in conjunction with ffdshow resize and keep system resources low ?

[Kado]

Well that's old indeed. I had one of those in my old piii as well.
You have two ways to resize a video: with software or hardware.
ffdshow uses software, i.e. your cpu to do the resizing,
and haali uses your graphics card saving you cpu power do do other stuff like the video decoding.
In order for haali do work properly you need a graphics card with shader model 2 or better (directx 9 support) like a geforce fx or radeon 9500 or better.
Although haali works with shader model 1 (dx8 like geforce 4 ti) but you won't get it's full features , see here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1071341#post1071341).
Also see here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1069590#post1069590) how to configure it.

I recommend you get a direct x 9 capable card.

Basically you don't do any resizing in ffdshow because haali can do it for you in hardware saving cpu power.

[jazzzy]

Well that's old indeed. I had one of those in my old piii as well.

it's fine for divx movies but certainly not for newer games


ffdshow uses software, i.e. your cpu to do the resizing,
and haali uses your graphics card saving you cpu power do do other stuff like the video decoding.

and that's the part I don't get, I've browsed Haali configuration options and can't find resize options so in order to get this done I have to enable this feature somewhere. I doubt graphic card drivers will include this so I have two options : 1. player with this function 2. using ffdshow

CinemaPlayer does not have option 1 so I'll have to go with 2
but from what I understood you are saying that Haali can do resizing using graphics hardware and ffdshow only does software calculating. We are getting to a point : if I have powerful graphic card I won't need Haali because default renderer in conjuction with ffdshow will do the job. I would certainly use Haali in the future as I see it great but I'm still blind how to configure Haali to do resizing when I'm not using ffdshow nor 'strech to window' capable software player.

[Yong]

i think haali video renderer will do resizing when u play ur video at fullscreen mode ,automatically ;)

[jazzzy]

i think haali video renderer will do resizing when u play ur video at fullscreen mode ,automatically ;)

any example ? I've tried a moment ago and it didn't strech the image by default, I had to enable this option in MPC

[Kado]

you are missing the point here.

ffdshow is a video decoder and post processor
while haali renderer is the video renderer.
every video renderer does resizing automatically but haali uses shaders and thus providing superior video quality for resized videos.
example:
if you force ffdshow to resize a video from 700x400 to 1024x576(supposing that this is the full screen resolution)
then the renderer will not have to do any resizing.
but if ffdshow feeds the video at 700x400 and you put it in full screen the video renderer will resize it to 1204x576 (the full screen resolution).

every renderer requires some specific hardware capabilities from your graphics card, like 3d surfaces or shaders, and every renderer resizes the image if the window size is not the same as the original frame size.

it doesn't matter if your graphics card is good or not if you are using ffdshow to resize the video.

i'm recommending haali because it provides superior video quality because it uses shaders and bicubic resizing along with some more stuff.

to sum it up:
you use ffdshow resizing if the video renderer provides poor resizing quality.
you use haali to save cpu power while having great resized videos if you have a gpu with the minimum requirements (PS2.0).

another example:
if you resize a 720p video to 1080p (assuming that 1920x1080 is the full screen resolution) with ffdshow it will require a very powerful cpu while you can do the same using your gpu and haali with minimal cpu impact.
remember that every renderer does resizing automatically.

[Kado]

any example ? I've tried a moment ago and it didn't strech the image by default, I had to enable this option in MPC

use "touch video from inside" option, it's in play=>video frame

[jazzzy]

I see the difference between renderer and video decoder
and want to make some things clear :

you are mostly focusing on image processing while in fullscreen mode and I need to go one step further

I want to play any video (doesn't matter what resolution) in fullscreen, fullscreen that covers 100% of visible area.
Haali will do resizing from original resolution while I'm in fullscreen but to get fullscreen streched (without keeping aspect ratio) I need to have an option in media player that will instruct Haali how to do it. MPC and GOM both have it and it's working fine with every single video renderer. CinemaPlayer has only 'adjust to window' and it doesn't work like I need it to so to view every single video in fullscreen 1024x768 I need to use some filter that will do the job or tell Haali what to do.
You see I don't like black stripes and my video player hasn't got this nice feature to strech image.

[Kado]

Then force an aspect ratio with ffdshow resizer, I think that for 1024x768 its 4:3.
In ffdshow resize use "specify aspect ratio" and use values of 4:3
and put resize always. then the video will have the same apsect ratio as your display and finally the video render will only have to resize to fullscreen filling the entire screen.

In my case I prefer to see the video with it's original aspect ratio (my screen is 1680x1050 16:10) and I don't mind the black borders, but some people force stretch to window to avoid burn-in in plasma screens.

Instead of using "specify aspect ratio" option use the other one below with the sliders.
Nevermind the edit above

[jazzzy]

Then force an aspect ratio with ffdshow resizer, I think that for 1024x768 its 4:3.
In ffdshow resize use "specify aspect ratio" and use values of 4:3
and put resize always. then the video will have the same apsect ratio as your display and finally the video render will only have to resize to fullscreen filling the entire screen.

yes, this is a kind of solution that suits with only one drawback that the picture will be always in 4:3, even when not in fullscreen so to check how does it look in native aspect ratio I would play in not ffdshow based player and I would have to make ffdshow default decoder for mpeg etc.

BTW: What do you think about CinemaPlayer ?

[Kado]

Never used it before. I only use MPC HC. tried several others like mplayer, vlc, winamp,WiMP, bsplayer,kmp (I liked this one too) etc ...
But in the end I stayed with MPC because of the superior configurability, simplicity, custom filter priority etc.

[jazzzy]

But in the end I stayed with MPC because of the superior configurability, simplicity, custom filter priority etc.

well it is very poor in options while in fullscreen mode, for example you can't drag&move the picture, open different file/subtitles or easily move to the certain point of file

but what sucks the most are subtitles options, you can't use them with default renderer and certain options are not remembered like for instance colour

no osd etc. etc. but I find it very useful when playing flv and changing different options in 'output' menu

[sheppaul]

This is a feature dependent upon a player using pan & scan. I've seen it in KMP (Screen Controls - Full Screen:Overscan), BSplayer (movie mode), GOM. Zoom player must have it too.

[jazzzy]

This is a feature dependent upon a player using pan & scan

pan & scan is rubbish

Zoom player must have it too.

who cares about Zoom player ?
I've managed to switch to KMP however it will gain the full functionality of CinemaPlayer after few GUI modifications

[sheppaul]

pan & scan is rubbish
But it is surely a kind of pan & scan.

who cares about Zoom player ?
Am I saying something wrong? What's up?

[jazzzy]

But it is surely a kind of pan & scan.


I would not argue about that, like for me pan scan is more zooming than resizing


Am I saying something wrong? What's up?

nothing wrong, just ZoomPlayer is so weak player that it's not so important

[Kado]

well it is very poor in options while in fullscreen mode, for example you can't drag&move the picture, open different file/subtitles or easily move to the certain point of file


Wrong! Use CTRL + NUMPAD arrowrs to move the picture in fullscreen or windowed, and just the numpad arrows to dimension the picture. The position bar appears in fullscreen as well.

but what sucks the most are subtitles options, you can't use them with default renderer and certain options are not remembered like for instance colour
no osd etc.

MPC uses hardware accelerated subtitles with his internal subtitle renderer for superior quality that require a compatible renderer, then or you use a proper renderer or use vsfilter in the graph.

Also osd is available for VMR9 and EVR.
Why would I be using the default renderer if others can provide far superior quality and features? Also the default renderer depends on your operating system(vmr7 for xp, evr for vista etc).

[sheppaul]

I would not argue about that, like for me pan scan is more zooming than resizing
Zooming is not different from h/w resizing.

[jazzzy]

Wrong! Use CTRL + NUMPAD arrowrs to move the picture in fullscreen or windowed, and just the numpad arrows to dimension the picture. The position bar appears in fullscreen as well.

yes but you can't just grab the picture with mouse and move up or down, if you don't know the combination you need to search for it



Also osd is available for VMR9 and EVR.
Why would I be using the default renderer if others can provide far superior quality and features? Also the default renderer depends on your operating system(vmr7 for xp, evr for vista etc).

that's not the point, I meant that if you don't select right renderer you won't see subtitles at all and here you just load subtitles (you can do that with from fullscreen) and watch them, simple as can be

[Kado]

I would not argue about that, like for me pan scan is more zooming than resizing

I see zooming and resizing as the same thing because they both are done by the renderer and using the same resize algorithm.

yes but you can't just grab the picture with mouse and move up or down, if you don't know the combination you need to search for it

Not all players work the same way, and I don't see much use for video draging unless you are dimensioning the image to remove hard encoded black borders.

that's not the point, I meant that if you don't select right renderer you won't see subtitles at all and here you just load subtitles (you can do that with from fullscreen) and watch them, simple as can be

if you install vsfilter/vobsub while you are installing other codecs like ffdshow (ffdshow also has a internal subtitle renderer) you get high quality, ass/ssa styled,srt, sub, txt etc subs out of the box.

does cinemaplayer supports ass/ssa subtitles from it's internal subtitle renderer "out of the box"?

I prefer quality over anything else and you never get that without tweaking the settings but that's just me, what you like may be different.

I'm gonna check cinemaplayer....

[Kado]

Tried it and... I still prefer MPC HC.
The options are quite slim, there's no internal support for ass/ssa styled subtitles, you can't change the video renderer (was this the reason you were always talking about the default renderer?), you can't select you prefered directshow filters and give them custom priority, you can only drag the video vertically and resize it while in mpc you can move and dimension the video (even if aspect ratio gets changed by the modifications) freely with precision, you don't have customizable hotkeys, does not have a navigation menu for matroska/ogm/dvd navigation (can it even open dvds? because I dragged a video_ts.ifo file and it did nothing), depends completely on external directshow filters and those are all options that were available on the last mpc build provided by gabest on mid 2006 when mpc development was "halted".
Then you have more stuff provided by clsid, casimir666 and _xxl for the mpc homecinema edition like bug fixes, built in dxva support for h264, file position memory, osd, evr and evr custom presenter renderers support, vmr9 video properties control etc.

Reasons far more than enough for me to keep using MPC HC.
Some features may require recent hardware like some renderers using shader model 2 for high quality resizing but you still are able to choose it instead of using just one renderer.

Again this is just my opinion...
Also I can't see the text on the menus of the cinemaplayer... (using vista x86)
http://pwp.netcabo.pt/kado/cp_nc.jpg

[jazzzy]

Tried it and... I still prefer MPC HC.
The options are quite slim, there's no internal support for ass/ssa styled subtitles, you can't change the video renderer

what are you talking about ? it's like expecting VW Beattle to behave like a Mercedes S classe

dude, this player was written 3 years ago and yes it has evolved since then BUT development has ended which is clearly stated so in terms of simple very functional player it's still the best

two years ago you might get satisfied with installation of a codec pack and playing your videos superb, and that was the only player so powerful in subtitles options that resulted in very nice
rendering


Then you have more stuff provided by clsid, casimir666 and _xxl for the mpc homecinema edition like bug fixes, built in dxva support for h264, file position memory, osd, evr and evr custom presenter renderers support, vmr9 video properties control etc.


that's why I've switched to KMPlayer which has almost the same options as MPC but tons more things to configure and select but yet is more better looking and user friendly, you have in fullscreen everything that MPC is missing and right click menu gives you ability to fast switch for instance renderer


Again this is just my opinion...
Also I can't see the text on the menus of the cinemaplayer... (using vista x86)

I'm not using Vista but you may try other beta like beta7

http://www.cinemaplayer.net/download/CinemaPlayer16beta7.zip

I'm stick to 1.5beta9 as I like that older version

I don't see much use for video draging unless you are dimensioning the image to remove hard encoded black borders.

and I do, when watching 16:9 video on 4:3 monitor I can just drag the picture to the top of the window and place subtitles at the bottom which results in separating subtitles from video and having better movie experience

from time to time I also turn on 'black background' for subtitles to cover hard encoded subtitles which happen in Anime

[Kado]

MPC was started in 2003 and development was "halted" in mid 2006.

KMPlayer is sure nice but has way too many things to configure while mpc is more simple in my view.

The text still does not show with that version.

I suppose you don't have many matroska files with h264 and ass/ssa subs right? because they look nice when they are on the location where the author put them, over the video frame.