Display problems when playing subtitles with VSFilter

[CptRobby]

For some reason, I'm having trouble with playing subtitles. At first, I thought that this was a corruption of the video when I encoded it, and I ended up re-encoding 4 times all the way through (twice using GK, and 2 more times with VirtualDubMod) before I found out that it was only doing it when I had the subtitles running (either playing because the files are the same name, or embedded as part of an MKV). Basically what's happening is the video is very green with shadows of the characters appearing at a right facing 40 degree angle. (Think of a TV with a bad signal and the color adjusted too far to the green)

I've tried it on two computers and gotten the same results...My favorite player is TCMP. I've also tried it in WMP and I could get it to play without the subs, but when I had the subs loading, it wouldn't play (no error or anything, it would just sit there like it was playing, except no forward movement or A/V of any kind). I've used SRT, SSA, and VS formats, no difference. I played other files I'd already done before, and their subs worked fine. I took the subs from one of those and played it with this video and it gave me the same problem. I took the subs I'm working on right now and played them with another video and it worked just fine. So I'm thinking it's somehow related to the video...

Anyone have a problem like this before? I'm actually working on two projects right now, both of them having the same problem. They are both films by Miyazaki: "Totoro" and "Whispers of the Heart". I've cropped/resized the video to 460 by 228 because the original video was LOADED with borders on all sides (imported discs).

Thanks in advance,
Robby :)

[mic]

Just guessing, but are you using a video format that requires the size be some multiple of 16?

[CptRobby]

Well, I'm not sure what formats require what...First I tried using DivX...Then I tried XviD...Haven't tried any others...I think the VirtualDubMod says that DivX requires multiples of 4...
But if that were the cause, wouldn't it give me problems regardless of whether I were using subs or not?

[mic]

I could be missing something (wouldn't be the 1st time :confused: ) but from the tests you've run, I'd think it had to be a problem with your video encode -- subs are good -- player, codec, vsfilter appear to be set correctly.

If you encoded the other video and it works, then I'd think either something broke since the last time you encoded a video, or you changed something related to the encode settings. You mentioned that you cropped the video. divx will work with multiples of 4, but the User Guide recomends 16.

But, all in all it's still a guess -- I am/was hoping someone that uses vsfilter might have encountered this and might provide a better answer. And if you didn't encode the video that works, then the problem could be elsewhere with your encoding setup -- if something's broke, repeating the encode won't help.

[CptRobby]

OK...Well I'll try encoding it with a mod16 resolution then and I'll let you know if it works...It's atleast better than nothing...lol

Thanks,
Robby :)

[CptRobby]

Well...Not sure why...but that seems to have fixed it...

Think this might need to be put in a faq somewhere if VSFilter is like that....oh well...

Thanks for your help mic,
Robby :)

[mic]

Lucky Guess :D
Glad it worked :)

[gURuBoOleZ]

Few words to say that I exactly have the same issue, occuring only with unusual resolution (i.e. multiple of 4 or 8).
I'm using embedded subtitles in matroska files.

mka + subtitle ON => weird image
mka + subtitle OFF (VSfilter not loaded) => image is correct
mka without subtitles => image is correct

In other words, the problem apparently lays on VSfilter side (and not XviD).


I found a way to enjoy my movies without reencoding them: I'm now using ffdshow subtitle filters. It's not perfect (text disappear from time to time), but the display problem is gone.

[Episodio1]

I had similar problems. There are a few buggy VSfilter releases (all VSfilter releases are here (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84359)).

New releases dont work for me depending on the resolutions. I believe Im using 2.28 (I dont know where to look at the version) and it works fine.

You have to register the DLL in /system32/.... Run:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\vsfilter.dll



You can change DLL version every time you want.

[Pirks]

Few words to say that I exactly have the same issue, occuring only with unusual resolution (i.e. multiple of 4 or 8).
I'm using embedded subtitles in matroska files.


This bug was already submitted (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1338536&group_id=82303&atid=565649)

I have same trouble, except that it exhibits itself in "diagonal" form - two green diagonal lines across the video, plus those "ghost shadows" from the first post in this thread. Switching to VSFilter 2.28 fixes that. Haven't tried other versions between 2.28 and 2.36.

2.36 exhibits this bug and SourceForge bug report above says about 2.35 and 2.34. And 2.28 does not have this bug. Changing video resolution to multiple of 16 fixes that as well.

Does anyone know if Gabest still appears on this forum? Does he monitor any threads here? I'd like to know the status of VSFilter development. Since it's a long time since the last time VSFilter was updated, I feel that he might have dropped bug fixing and development. I wonder how may I contact him, he stopped answering MSN messenger a long ago :-(


I found a way to enjoy my movies without reencoding them: I'm now using ffdshow subtitle filters. It's not perfect (text disappear from time to time), but the display problem is gone.

How do you do that? I can't do that with Haali splitter, it won't connect subtitle output to anything but DirectVobSub. What DirectShow filters do you use to connect MKV subtitles to ffdshow filters? Some other MKV splitter, not Haali's?

[gURuBoOleZ]

How do you do that? I can't do that with Haali splitter, it won't connect subtitle output to anything but DirectVobSub. What DirectShow filters do you use to connect MKV subtitles to ffdshow filters? Some other MKV splitter, not Haali's?
I can't be precise. Since I got problems (exactly the same symptom you've precisely described), I have installed/uninstalled/reinstalled several filters (ffdshow, vsfilter, haali splitters, special pack...) on a system I always kept clean. Now it's a real mess, and I don't even know what is running and what isn't. It's maybe why the ffdshow display is not perfect (as I said already said it). So if you can't make it work, don't try :p

P.S. I haven't tried vsfilter 2.28 now, but I'll report the result as soon as I can test it. Thanks for the trick :)

[LeMoi]

I have the same problem :(, and with VSFilter 2.33, i don't have the green line but some 'interlaced' elements at the left side of the video
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/6628/bugmodulo4qq.jpg

[Pirks]

I have the same problem :(, and with VSFilter 2.33, i don't have the green line but some 'interlaced' elements at the left side of the video


Try VSFilter 2.28 or later, maybe 29, 30 or 31, does it help?

[LeMoi]

It may have something to do with ffdshow, i tried with NeroVideo Decoder and i don't have that any more, but now there is a big green line at the bottom :(
http://xs54.xs.to/pics/05453/snapshot20051109135654.jpg

[Pirks]

It may have something to do with ffdshow, i tried with NeroVideo Decoder and i don't have that any more, but now there is a big green line at the bottom


Try VSFilter 2.28 with NeroVideo Decoder, does it help?

[LeMoi]

I've tried vsfilter 2.36, 2.36+fix, 2.33, 2.32, 2.31, 2.30, 2.29 and 2.28, always the green line :(

[Episodio1]

"always the green line "

And if you deinstall ffdshow and use XviD codec itself ( http://koepi.org ) ?

[LeMoi]

It's H.264 video :s (x264 or ND)

[darkavatar1470]

Maybe you can force output colorspace to RGB on decoding of the video stream...

btw, last time I got a green bar on the bottom, using libavcodec to decode (Xvid) solved the problem... and this only happens on mod4 rez, so I'm always encoding in mod16 now...