Xine and VC-1 codec (.evo/.m2ts)

[chavonbravo]

I am trying to get xine to play back vc-1 video files from hddvd/blurays (already decrypted of course), and have absolutely no luck. Mplayer has no problem with this, as long as you indicate to use ffmpeg's vc1 and not the win32 dll (why doesn't the dll way work?).

Just for the hell of it, I patched up xinelib to use the wvc1dmod.dll for vc1 files, and I get the same result as mplayer...black screen.

And when xine utilizes external ffmpeg (same ffmpeg version as mplayer), it gives back a message about not finding the vc-1 codec within ffmpeg...makes no sense.

Relevant output in bug-report for xine when using ffmpegvideo:
ffmpeg_video_dec: couldn't open decoder
video_decoder: no plugin available to handle 'Windows Media Video VC-1'

Please, if anyone has any idea why this occurs, or if you have successfully done what I'm trying to do with xine, let me know. I know mplayer can be used, but for what I want, I need xine to play it back.

[WalterK]

I have compiled the xine-lib although i haven't tried for vc-1 support according to the README and INSTALL docs although it does support external ffmpeg it is not recommended since the static ffmpeg xine uses is of a stable build and not taken from the svn source of ffmpeg.
I remember running into to problems when i tried to compile against an external svn build of ffmpeg, yes the libraries compiled and installed correctly but when trying to play some formats like H264 i ran into to problems/errors with media playback.
It could just be a matter of the code base for vc-1 not included yet in xine itself while it is for ffmpeg.
I had to wait until xine caught up to h264 for correct playback to finally take place.

Edit
hmmm seems the latest version of the xine library 1.1.5 uses external ffmpeg by default now at least according to the changelog.
Of course it doesn't list if there is vc-1 support for xine-lib, in gstreamer that didn't appear natively until gstreamer 0.10.14.
I am going to try a vc-1 encoded file with totem-xine and see what if anything will playback, i will use the default libraries that come with my distro.

[WalterK]

Ok heres what i have found out.
Using the Official MS WMV-HD VC-1 Showcase http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx downloaded 3 of the 1080p videos , played them through two media players and two libraries.
1) Totem-gstreamer with all the free/opensource plugins including gstreamer-ffmpeg , the three files all played back smoothly with no errors/audio sync issues
2) ffplay (ffmpeg media player) This version of ffplay is NOT compiled from svn and came from my distro's repo, all three files played smoothly but no audio was heard.
3) Totem-xine with all the free/opensource plugins, all three files had problems playing there were audio sync issues and audio stuttering, this was using the latest xine-lib with extra codec plugins like libxine1-ffmpeg, including the w32codec pack.

So i believe its a xine-lib problem and not something associated with ffmpeg.
Since gstreamer and ffplay were able to play the videos smothly although in the case of ffplay no audio was heard.
My current system is AMD X2 6000+ 3.1ghz dual core, 2gb of PC5200 Ram
And my distro is ubuntu 8.10 beta.

[chavonbravo]

Just recompiled xinelib hg and latest ffmpeg snapshot, still same issue. :( oh well, I posted this up on the xine-devel list, hopefully someone more knowledgable than me will help out. Thanks for your help.

[zambelli]

Ok heres what i have found out.
Using the Official MS WMV-HD VC-1 Showcase http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx downloaded 3 of the 1080p videos , played them through two media players and two libraries.
That's not the best example. The videos on the WMV-HD showcase website are all VC-1 Main Profile (aka WMV9, aka WMV3) encoded.
BluRay and HD-DVD videos are all VC-1 Advanced Profile (aka WVC1).