Airw0lf
2nd September 2005, 09:27
Hi all,
I hope this post is not too offtopic, but I guess that most of the regulars here would have some advice for me.
I recently downloaded a sample HDTV .ts clip to try and learn a little about the format (Broadcast HDTV is a long, long way away in my country...) It is a native ATSC transport stream, and I have so far tried to play it in Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player 10.
1.) Media Player Classic can open the .ts using the MPEG splitter, and decodes the MPEG-2 stream using the built-in filter. Playback is mostly good, except I occasionally get a bunch of dropped frames at once. This happens maybe every 60 - 120 seconds or so. So the average framerate is about 28 fps instead of 29.97. Seeking is also not so good.
I had a feeling that part of the problem would be with the MPEG splitter, and found a little tool called HDTVPump (http://www.dvbportal.de/projects/hdtvpump/index.html). It also says that "The filter uses the push mode to ensure smooth playback of HDTV/SDTV files."
Unfortunately, after installing HDTVPump, MPC would refuse to play .ts files. ("Failed to render the stream"). So I was forced to try WMP10.
2) Playback works in WMP10, but I had a few problems. Firstly, the player crashed with an error in NeAudio.ax (Nero Audio Decoder). Obviously the Nero Decoder had some strange problem with the 2 Channel AC-3 stream... I renamed NeAudio.ax to something else and got the file to play. The performance was HORRIBLE. The picture was scratchy, and the framerate was very low. The audio decoder was listed as "-" (unknown? But I WAS able to get sound) and the video decoder was the Nero Video Decoder. Maybe the problem was also being caused by the absence of a "proper" AC3 filter. I don't know.
So the question is, what is the recommended setup? WMP10 + HDTVPump + Commercial MPEG-2 decoder? If so, what is the best decoder? I have seen mention of Elecard, but I get the feeling that this is a commercial decoder.
Finally, let me state that my PC specs should definitely be up to scratch. (P4 3.4 Ghz, 1 Gig DDR2 RAM, Geforce 6800 PCI-X.) I have been able to play WMV-HD 1080i clips almost perfectly. Even with DXVA acceleration disabled, CPU usage rarely exceeds 50%, and there is rarely more than 1 or 2 dropped frames over an entire clip of several minutes.
Update: Even with the FFDShow Audio Decoder (AC3) and Video Decoder (libmpeg2) and HDTVPump, the performance is still very very bad. Media Player Classic on its own is still light years ahead, but not quite perfect!
I hope this post is not too offtopic, but I guess that most of the regulars here would have some advice for me.
I recently downloaded a sample HDTV .ts clip to try and learn a little about the format (Broadcast HDTV is a long, long way away in my country...) It is a native ATSC transport stream, and I have so far tried to play it in Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player 10.
1.) Media Player Classic can open the .ts using the MPEG splitter, and decodes the MPEG-2 stream using the built-in filter. Playback is mostly good, except I occasionally get a bunch of dropped frames at once. This happens maybe every 60 - 120 seconds or so. So the average framerate is about 28 fps instead of 29.97. Seeking is also not so good.
I had a feeling that part of the problem would be with the MPEG splitter, and found a little tool called HDTVPump (http://www.dvbportal.de/projects/hdtvpump/index.html). It also says that "The filter uses the push mode to ensure smooth playback of HDTV/SDTV files."
Unfortunately, after installing HDTVPump, MPC would refuse to play .ts files. ("Failed to render the stream"). So I was forced to try WMP10.
2) Playback works in WMP10, but I had a few problems. Firstly, the player crashed with an error in NeAudio.ax (Nero Audio Decoder). Obviously the Nero Decoder had some strange problem with the 2 Channel AC-3 stream... I renamed NeAudio.ax to something else and got the file to play. The performance was HORRIBLE. The picture was scratchy, and the framerate was very low. The audio decoder was listed as "-" (unknown? But I WAS able to get sound) and the video decoder was the Nero Video Decoder. Maybe the problem was also being caused by the absence of a "proper" AC3 filter. I don't know.
So the question is, what is the recommended setup? WMP10 + HDTVPump + Commercial MPEG-2 decoder? If so, what is the best decoder? I have seen mention of Elecard, but I get the feeling that this is a commercial decoder.
Finally, let me state that my PC specs should definitely be up to scratch. (P4 3.4 Ghz, 1 Gig DDR2 RAM, Geforce 6800 PCI-X.) I have been able to play WMV-HD 1080i clips almost perfectly. Even with DXVA acceleration disabled, CPU usage rarely exceeds 50%, and there is rarely more than 1 or 2 dropped frames over an entire clip of several minutes.
Update: Even with the FFDShow Audio Decoder (AC3) and Video Decoder (libmpeg2) and HDTVPump, the performance is still very very bad. Media Player Classic on its own is still light years ahead, but not quite perfect!