Problems with sound using XviD DSF

[Mikele]

I can hear some pops and clicks in the sound (like when a CD audio track has been ripped with errors) when I play a Divx or XviD movie through the XviD DSF (at least with all the March builds, including 17/03). If I switch to Divx5 filter, the sound is ok. I always use Zoom Player but I've also tried BSPlayer and Mplayer2. Did this happen to anyone else?

[Nic]

Could you tell us some more info? (as its a really weird problem ???)
Does it only happen when using some post-processing features?
Whats your operating system & PC?
etc.

Cheers for any info.

-Nic

[Mikele]

I've found the problem: it's Vobsub. Or at least the XviD DSF + Vobsub combination. What got me confused is that the problem doesn't show with Divx5 DSF + Vobsub.
Anyway, here's my configuration: Abit KT7-RAID, Thunderbird 1.1, 512 mb Pan-Ram, SB Live 1024, Teppro TNT2 M64, WinXP Pro. It would be great if someone else could try this to find out if it has anything to do with certain hardware configuration or if it's a software issue.

Here you have two samples:
The beginning of Tron with Divx5 + Vobsub (http://mikele.org/Tron-Divx5_DSF.mp3)
The beginning of Tron with XviD + Vobsub (http://mikele.org/Tron-XviD_DSF.mp3)

I hope you can reproduce this, I'd like to determine if it's a XviD or a Vobsub problem, but I don't think I can do that :(

[ultimatebilly]

I have exactly the same problem, it only occurs when I enable one of the post-processing features in the Xvid DS-filter. When they are turned off, there is no problem at all; it is really weird. I think it is a software-issue, some dsf-interference when post-processing in Xvid is enabled, but I dont know...

[rui]

Mikele, when you say Vobsub, you mean when burning the subs into the avi, or by using direct vobsub?
I normally burn my subs into the avi, and till today didn't had any problems when watching those xvid movies (with almost all the Nic and Koepi's builds that came up until today). I use all deblocking options enabled for post processing.
Also, i use Vobsub 2.14, but with 2.05 (the version that came with Gnot .023), didn't had any problems also. But i didn't tried any other vobsub versions besides these two.

Beware, i am not saying that you guys don't have problems, i am just saying that all causes should be investigated besides vobsub or xvid ds filter.

[ultimatebilly]

Hi rui!
It happens in fact only when you use directvobsub to either display external .sub-files or .srt-files that are included in the .ogm (because I use Win98, the SubTit-filter doesn't work for me). It occurs only if you have turned at least one post-processing-option on, regardless of which one it is...
I think with burned-in subs it cannot occur, because in this case the subs are part of the picture, and the normal picture works flawless for me, only have problems when I want to display subs...

[rui]

@ultimatebilly:
I saw that you use ogm format.

@Mikele, do you also use the ogm format?

[ultimatebilly]

I did some testing to see if I can delimit the circumstances under which these sound-problems occur. I first tried to find out if its a problem with the vorbis-sound I use in my movies, but muxing the avi with a wav-file or an ac3-file made no difference. To ensure that it is not a problem with the ogm-container, I muxed the wav I had created with virtualdub with the movie, and experienced the same problems with the resulting avi. I tried to mux the avi with an ac3 with Nandub too, but this didn't work for some reason, the film was played back ways to fast... Anyway, I think we can now be pretty sure that this problem is not due to the sound-format or the container...

[ultimatebilly]

Because I was curious if the same problems would exist when you use ffdshow to decode the video, I downloaded it and discovered something quite strange: Everything plays fine with subtitles, even when post-processing is enabled, the sound-problem starts in the moment you add noise to the movie... Funny, huh?

[rui]

Resuming: you have problems when using directvobsub and enabling post processing with Nic's ds filter, and noise with ffdshow filter, correct?

Maybe it's some problem with directvobsub, since i always burn the subs in the avi, and till today didn't had any bugs like these.

Hope not, because i was planning on using directvobsub instead of burning the subs :eek:

[Nic]

Hmmm... weird problem.

I dont use subs so im only guessing. Could it be a CPU usage problem? whats your CPU usage when your getting these pops & clicks. I only mention this because ffdshow & xvid dont have anything in common (code wise, obviously) so they should not share any similar errors. I know the noise filter & post-processing will cause a rise in the CPU usage....(overlay text will also be CPU intensive)

(You could try making a clip which is quite low res (i.e. 480xXXX ) & see if the problem still occurs?)

Other than that, im stumped. :)

-Nic

[ultimatebilly]

Unfortunately, I dont have much time atm, I will try a clip with low resolution in the weekend.
Just compared the CPU-usage briefly with different settings: (after Windows told me that my CPU-usage doesnt differ at all, regardless what I'm doing :), I downloaded a tool called Active CPU)

Xvid dsf w/o DVobSub: w/o Postprocessing ~ under 40%
with Postprocessing ~ under 55%
Xvid dsf with DVobSub: w/o Postprocessing ~ under 60% few disturbances
with Postprocessing ~ under 80% much disturbance

ffdshow w/o DVobSub: w/o Postprocessing ~ under 30%
with Postprocessing ~ under 40%
ffdshow with DVobSub: w/o Postprocessing ~ under 50%
with Postprocessing ~ under 60%

ffdshow with DVobSub&Noise&Postprocessing ~ under 65% much disturbance

I think I should format my harddrive soon, my 1.1 ghz athlon (384 MB SDRAM, Geforce 2MX) doesn't seem to perform this good anymore...
I hope these figures are correct, I only watched a very short piece of a movie with each setting (will repeat it when I have more time). I think the CPU-usage could very well be the problem. I listened very close to Xvid dsf without postprocessing and with DVobSub enabled and heard some noise-problems here too (although there were only very few cracking noises), sorry that I said it were no problem without postprocessing, just didnt hear it sooner...
So it seems Mikele and I will have to get faster machines :)

[ultimatebilly]

I tested the clip with lower resolution (in fact 352x144) and this one played fine with subtitles. Seems that each time the CPU-load goes over 65%, the problems start...

[duartix]

Last time I checked, vobsub (used as a directshow filter for displaying subtitles) was ripping me from 100K to 200K of system memory each time a subtitle was displayed.
From my very quick tests I believe it's the Outline Font feature that's doing it. Why I never bothered to bug report it? Well that has probably to do with the fact that now it's ffdshow that is doing that job so...

Rui, I can't believe you are hard burning the subtitles in the video.:eek:

Pro's:
1 - You have to do nothing to show them.
(This is not actually a Pro because either using directvobsub or ffdshow you still have to do nothing if the subtitle has the same filename as the video) so I give you:
2 - You don't need to install anything on the client.

Con's:
1 - You can't take them off (awfull badly translations make me shiver)
2 - You can't make them smaller, can you?
3 - You can't make them bigger, can you?
4 - You can't make them yellow, can you?
5 - You can't have several languages.
6 - You get little artifacts around the subtitle, don't you?
7 - You are probably messing up the motion vectors when all the background except for the subtitle is moving and thus make the video harder to compress, not to mention plain texture data which from my photo editing experiences will take at least a 2% increase without anti-aliased text.
So, Rui what you are going to do ;) is take any chapter from a movie with a moderated amount of subtitles and compress that video (just the video) with a tipical constant quantizer. With and without subtitles. Now tell us about those filesizes...
I for one am waiting.:D

[rui]

@duartix: Call me lazy ;)

But thanks for pointing out the pros and con's.

É bom ver mais portugueses por aqui. Sempre segui os teus posts com interesse. A título de curiosidade, sou de Braga. :)

[saVe]

@mikele, ultimatebilly:
what soundcards do you use?
all my videos used to be out of synch and the sound was really ugly and full of clicks when i had an onbord soundcard. then i upgraded to a soundblaster card and never had that problem ever since.

it seems that onboard sound chips don't perform very well at all because they kind of can't run at full speed when the cpu is heavily used. i think this has something to do with interrupts, but i'm no expert at that...

hope this helps somehow.

[ultimatebilly]

Yes, I'm in fact using an onboard-soundcard...
Well, then I think it is more than time to get the 5.1-channels-soundcard i planned to buy...
But I think this will have to wait until after my removal... :(

[avih]

i have onboard cmedia 8738 (5.1). i capture with different codecs (i.e. not only pcm), and get no clicks, and sync is perfect. i use the latest drivers from cmedia's site.

cheers
avi.

[saVe]

maybe it depends on the manufactor of the sound chip or the board...

i have an msi board, so i'm prepared for everything ;)