madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[Shiandow]

Originally Posted by madshi

I'm pretty much torn on using gamma vs linear light for downscaling. I believe most studios downscale their 4K masters to 1080p for Blu-Ray in gamma light. So using SuperRes with gamma light downscaling should produce more correct results. However, if the Blu-Ray master was originally only 2K and no downscaling was applied by the studio then things might be different.

Linear light is closer to what would happen if you use optics to downscale an image, so I think that would be the most natural. If you artificially downscale an image in gamma light, then this causes some artefacts which you might be able to fix using SuperRes. But for an image which hasn't been downscaled artificially, and doesn't have those artefacts, trying to 'correct' those mistakes will cause artefacts. So in my opinion gamma light shouldn't be used by default, because it tries to fix something which might not be wrong.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Shiandow

Linear light is closer to what would happen if you use optics to downscale an image, so I think that would be the most natural. If you artificially downscale an image in gamma light, then this causes some artefacts which you might be able to fix using SuperRes. But for an image which hasn't been downscaled artificially, and doesn't have those artefacts, trying to 'correct' those mistakes will cause artefacts. So in my opinion gamma light shouldn't be used by default, because it tries to fix something which might not be wrong.

The right default setting should be the one which applies to the majority of content rendered through madVR. So was the majority of content downscaled in gamma light at some point? Or was it not? I find it hard to say, but I suppose that probably 99% of all DVDs were downscaled in gamma light. For Blu-Ray it's more difficult. For older movies which got a 4K scan it's probably gamma light. For newer movies which have a 2K DI it might depend on at which resolution the film was scanned, or which resolution the digical camera recorded in. So it's really difficult to tell... Maybe a good default setting would be to use gamma light for SD content and linear light for 4K content? Not sure about Blu-Ray, though...

[CiNcH]

In order to analyze this further, could you try (in the situation where the problem occurs) to press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Pause/Break maybe 3 times, with a couple seconds delay? With a bit of luck you might get 3 freeze reports on your desktop then, which will tell me what all of the threads in the DVBViewer process were doing (full callstack). That can be a great help finding a deadlock.

Here we go...

madVR - freeze report

This time, screen was black when it froze. So it is timing related when the freeze happens on a channel change.

In order to make the freeze reports as useful as possible, could you do this with a DVBViewer build for which you have the Delphi "map" file? I'm not sure if you have access to such a build (I don't). But if you do, the freeze reports will also contain detailed callstacks for all DVBViewer's threads etc. Also please download the matching PDB files for LAV, so we get the full callstacks for LAV, too. Thanks!!

I don't have access to such builds. I would have to talk to Griga/hackbart.
I also don't know where to get that for LAV.


I now tried again in windowed fullscreen mode. It feels much more stable, but not entirely. But the error seems a bit different there. I get a madVR crash report which I am also attaching. One time I also saw an OSD appear in the top left area with red font which said something like "GPU dither texture failed". It was flashing for a short amount of time only, so I failed to read the exact wording.

madVR - crash report

[Serhiyko]

Originally Posted by madshi

Ah yes. Newer madVR builds don't fully rerender the paused video frame all the time, to save resources. If you use the built-in subtitle renderer then madVR does not know that you changed the subtitle track, so I don't know that I need to rerender the video frame. I'm not sure if I can solve this without pushing GPU power through the roof again in paused mode. And frankly, I don't think this is important enough to make compromises with high GPU power in paused mode.

So there is no way to instantly hide/display subtitles in paused mode? Okay then, I'll just revert to the older version where this was still possible by pushing GPU power through the roof

Originally Posted by madshi

Then I'm not sure where the problem comes from. For me, the MPC-HC screenshot function usually outputs the original unscaled frame. This might depend on the exact madVR settings, though. E.g. I could imagine that this might not work as intended when using DXVA anything. In any case, I'll revisit the whole screenshot stuff at some point in the future, giving you more control over what exactly you want to get (before scaling, after scaling etc). For now it is as it is.

I've tried different settings without any success. Whatever it is, it's something that was introduced in madVR v0.88.9

[MysteryX]

Originally Posted by madshi

Samples? The more the merrier...

Here's a video where cropping doesn't work

https://www.spiritualselftransformat...ncoder-old.mpg

[madshi]

Originally Posted by CiNcH

Here we go...

This time, screen was black when it froze. So it is timing related when the freeze happens on a channel change.

Thanks. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything suspicious in the freeze reports. All threads seem to be alive, more or less.

Originally Posted by CiNcH

I now tried again in windowed fullscreen mode. It feels much more stable, but not entirely. But the error seems a bit different there. I get a madVR crash report which I am also attaching. One time I also saw an OSD appear in the top left area with red font which said something like "GPU dither texture failed". It was flashing for a short amount of time only, so I failed to read the exact wording.

madVR - crash report

I have my doubts that this build will help, but it's worth a try:

http://madshi.net/madVR893e.rar

Originally Posted by Serhiyko

So there is no way to instantly hide/display subtitles in paused mode? Okay then, I'll just revert to the older version where this was still possible by pushing GPU power through the roof

Probably using XySubFilter would work around the issue.

Originally Posted by Serhiyko

I've tried different settings without any success. Whatever it is, it's something that was introduced in madVR v0.88.9

Hmmm... Try enabling "linear light" for "image downscaling". Does that fix the problem?

Originally Posted by MysteryX

Here's a video where cropping doesn't work

Hmmmm... Seek quickly into the middle of the sample, before madVR has time to detect the black bars, then it will work. The problem is that the right bar is not static, it gets bigger and smaller all the time. madVR detects it correctly at the start of this sample, but then after that it keeps moving, and not only that, the video image gets smaller, and it's only one edge out of 4. These are all bad circumstances, because this is exactly the type of situation where false positives can occur. Just imagine a movie which happens to have a scene where the right image border has a black object, covering most of the right image border. That could look like madVR like a new black bar. But actually it's part of the image. Because of that in circumstances like this (valid detection is active, only one edge has a black bar, and the black bar grows bigger, and it changes size all the time) madVR is extra careful not to produce a false positive.

Practically, if I tune the detection to detect this sample, I could introduce false positives in other movies.

Do you have samples which have bigger black bars, ideally symmetrical ones (top + bottom, or left + right), which madVR doesn't detect?

[CiNcH]

I have my doubts that this build will help, but it's worth a try:

http://madshi.net/madVR893e.rar

Got stuck again . Now there is always a black screen for some reason. Again the "deadlock" is released when bringing the task manager to the front via CTRL+ALT+DEL, kicking madVR out of FSE.

[madshi]

Argh. Ok, so right now I don't see much hope for me in finding the cause without being able to reproduce it somehow. Is there any chance this can be reproduced with video files (instead of live TV)?

[CiNcH]

I am afraid not. I never tried to simulate channel switches with Files...

[MysteryX]

Originally Posted by madshi

Do you have samples which have bigger black bars, ideally symmetrical ones (top + bottom, or left + right), which madVR doesn't detect?

Oups, I actually didn't send the one I wanted to send.

This is the one that really is causing issues. De-activating and re-activating auto-crop doesn't help with this one.
https://mega.nz/#!CNRzTADb!oQ-rHUvsY...gADlv8rA0zUNYs

[madshi]

Originally Posted by CiNcH

I am afraid not. I never tried to simulate channel switches with Files...

Oh well. My brother has a Dreambox connected to SAT, which I can access via LAN. Is there any way I can make DVBViewer treat the Dreambox as a Sat receiver? Maybe that would allow me to reproduce the problem?

Originally Posted by MysteryX

Oups, I actually didn't send the one I wanted to send.

This is the one that really is causing issues. De-activating and re-activating auto-crop doesn't help with this one.
https://mega.nz/#!CNRzTADb!oQ-rHUvsY...gADlv8rA0zUNYs

Euh, those ugly subtitles! I'll have a look at this, but my best guess is that the subtitles are to monstruous for the current madVR detection code. I expect there to be some black pixels somewhere in between those subtitle letters in each pixel line. Otherwise to madVR it looks like real image content and not subtitles. But I'll see what I can do...

[Serhiyko]

Originally Posted by madshi

Probably using XySubFilter would work around the issue.

Does it allow to show/hide subtitles with keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys)?

Originally Posted by madshi

Hmmm... Try enabling "linear light" for "image downscaling". Does that fix the problem?

Yes

[CiNcH]

I can't think of something useful with the Dreambox either, as long as E2 devices do not feature a SAT>IP server. I am currently trying to reproduce it with two recordings of the channels and a playlist...

[chros]

Originally Posted by chros

Strange, again, I'm using DXVA copyback, and player crashes with NNedi3.

Regarding cropping black bars: is there any settings (if not can you add one) for configuring not to crop black bars IF black bars are less than 2-4-6-8-10-..-15 lines? (I just realised yesterday night with a bluray remux, that it cropped 1 pixel from the side, resulting 1919 wide picture )
Thanks

Originally Posted by madshi

Do you get a crash box looking similar to this? http://madshi.net/exc-ss3.gif
If so, please press "show bug report", then Ctrl+C, then you'll find the crash report in your clipboard. Upload it somewhere for me to look at.

1. Yes, I do have, here's the log, thanks: http://pastebin.com/YCsxfMDv

2. about my 2nd question: I made some test and everything seems to be good with these madvr settings under zoom control:
- x disable scaling if image size changes by only: 25 lines or less
- x automatically detect hard coded black bars
- x if black bars change pick one zoom factor: which doesn't lose any image content
- x notify media player about cropped black bars: no more than once every 2 sec
- x keep bars visible if they contain subtitles: forever
- x crop black bars

That means, I don't need any further option about this And the top setting solves the problem with some strange fullHD videos that aren't fullHD (scaling wise, and MPC-HC doesn't scale it either!)! Awesome! Thank You!

3. 1 more thing popped in my mind about cropped black bars and profiling by size : will this work/detect screen changes on the fly?
Thank you once more!

[CiNcH]

Ha! I succeeded! Easily reproducible here... Exactly same symptoms as with live channel switching.

Add the following two files (10s each) to a DVBViewer playlist, then play it.

Sky Atlantic HD
Sky Comedy

The files will alternately be played back.

As I said it requires FSE here. When video freezes, the problem will persist until you kick madVR out of FSE via CTRL+ALT+DEL. So the duration of the single files should not matter. You will hear that the files are still alternately being played back when video hangs, as audio still works.

[Shiandow]

Originally Posted by madshi

The right default setting should be the one which applies to the majority of content rendered through madVR. So was the majority of content downscaled in gamma light at some point? Or was it not? I find it hard to say, but I suppose that probably 99% of all DVDs were downscaled in gamma light. For Blu-Ray it's more difficult. For older movies which got a 4K scan it's probably gamma light. For newer movies which have a 2K DI it might depend on at which resolution the film was scanned, or which resolution the digical camera recorded in. So it's really difficult to tell... Maybe a good default setting would be to use gamma light for SD content and linear light for 4K content? Not sure about Blu-Ray, though...

Well even if it was downscaled in gamma light at some point, using SuperRes with linear light isn't incorrect; it'll just look like an upscaled version of the image. It might deviate from the original a bit, but that's because the downscaled version deviates from the original (because of the 'incorrect' downscaling).

[yok833]

Good news Madshi !!!
I was affected by the black screen & freeze at launch with nnedi3 activated and I have found the solution to make it work (1st time for me )!!!
I was using the internal LAV filters of MPCHC and by uncheking all the internal filters and using the last Lav Filters 0.66 as external filters ..... everything work again !!!

Hope it will help the other people concerned...

[6233638]

Originally Posted by madshi

What do you need that for?

In short:
My TV has to be in Game Mode or Graphics Mode when on the desktop. (full chroma res, low latency, but less accurate picture)
It has to be in Movie Mode when watching full-screen videos. (more accurate picture, though it drops chroma res to 4:2:2 and latency increases by ~100ms)

I don't know how or where it is specified, but the picture mode does change on the TV if it's set to auto.
On the desktop, it uses Graphics Mode, when I launch a game it enters Game Mode, if I play a video in WMP it enters General Mode.
You can manually change the Content Type in the NVIDIA Control Panel, and Movie Mode/Photo Mode also work; though I've not seen it switch to them automatically.

With JRiver using madVR though, I get:

• Windowed Mode: Graphics Mode
• FSW Mode: Game Mode
• FSE Mode: Graphics Mode

With HDMI-CEC control to switch the TV off/on when Windows sleeps/wakes the display, the only thing I use the TV remote for now is to switch modes.
If madVR could control the Content Type reported to the TV (I've no idea if this is possible) then it could switch the TV into Movie Mode when entering FSE playback and I'd never need the TV remote again.

Originally Posted by madshi

What color does the pillarboxing have? This sounds extremely weird. Do you have a screenshot?

It's not one color, there are images in place of blank pillarboxing.
Imagine something like this:


Or sometimes they repeat the edges of the video in the pillarbox with a gaussian blur over them, which I find very distracting. This was the first example I found on YouTube (03:50)

It is unfortunately common for videos which are, for example, commentary over 4:3 footage.
It's not something that I think madVR should be detecting and isn't, but something which could also make use of the crop and aspect ratio features via file tags.

Originally Posted by madshi

Oh well. Not sure what to do now.

I think it could be a useful sub-option, if you add "only clean-up cropped edges".
Instead of a toggle, perhaps that would have to be a drop-down for "clean only affected edges" (which could be 1-4 edges) and "clean edge pairs" (top & bottom, left & right).

I understand the desire to simplify the controls, but I don't think the Zoom Control options are complex, just numerous - and I think it needs that flexibility to suit everyone's preferences, or all types of content.

[yok833]

Originally Posted by yok833

Good news Madshi !!!
I was affected by the black screen & freeze at launch with nnedi3 activated and I have found the solution to make it work (1st time for me )!!!
I was using the internal LAV filters of MPCHC and by uncheking all the internal filters and using the last Lav Filters 0.66 as external filters ..... everything work again !!!

Hope it will help the other people concerned...

Hummm I have been too fast.... CUVID is the real problem that create the freeze and black screen.... using DVXA copy back in LAV fix the problem....and create it when I revert to CUVID...
(Once you change cuvid to dvxa cb it is important to kill the 2 madvr & mpchc apps open in the task manager or it will not work)

[XRyche]

Originally Posted by madshi

When you rename the files, you don't need to run the batch, anymore! The batch tries to rename the files, nothing else. So if you renamed the files manually, you've already done what the batch file was supposed to do. By manually renaming the files you've already activated debug mode, and you should get a debug log on your desktop.

Okay I finally understand now. Here's the log : http://www.mediafire.com/download/09...NEDI3-+log.txt . Thanks for being so patient.