madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[Boltron]

I have a Darbee. I like it. I use MC17 with LAV and madVR. My TV is a LG LE8500 (calibrated, full array LED with local dimming). Although my playback picture quality was top notch, the Darbee actually improves the image by making it sharper and it does this cleanly with no artifacts. I use HD mode at 50%.

It's actually pretty remarkable that a sub $300.00 video processor can do this. To my eyes, it is a noticeable improvement.

[oddball]

Well what I was wondering is if something similar can be achieved in software like MadVR (if it is permitted by IP law that is). MadVR already uses sharpening algorithms but if this method could be put in an an additional image enhancing method I would be VERY interested to see the results.

[Boltron]

There is a better (90+ page) thread on AVS http://www.avsforum.com/t/1399154/darbee-vision-darblet

I wouldn't be surprised if madshi could ultimately do as good or even better. A big advantage the Darbee has is that it is placed at the end of the line just before the TV so all sources besides the HTPC benefit. Check the thread, tons of info there.

[janos666]

I just noticed I have a madVR - crash report.txt file on my desktop, so I thought I should send it to the developer.

I noticed the MPC-HC hanged a bit during some file openings but I thought it's the Samba file sharing server to blame.

[dansrfe]

Does anyone know if there is shortcut to change ReClock to original speed for videos that are filmed at 25fps (mainly music videos). I've set ReClock to PAL SpeedDown by default and since most of the 25fps material that I watch is movie content that works well but for music videos it just increases the speed to 25.714fps.

[6233638]

Originally Posted by nevcairiel

You don't need a 10-bit card to play 10-bit content. With proper dithering and a good screen, you won't see much of a difference.

While it may not matter for playback of these “10-bit” encodes, there is a very obvious difference between 8-bit and 10-bit sent to a good display when using external LUTs for calibration.

While you can’t compare 8-bit and 10-bit using madVR, I have done so with external devices. At least on an LCD, LCoS or CRT display, the differences should be quite apparent. Less-so for Plasma or DLP displays.

I believe Madshi said that there was a way to get 10-bit out of the consumer cards a while back by putting them into a specific output mode, and it was under consideration back when “exclusive mode” was being worked on, but nothing seems to have come of it.


P.S. these new anti-ring options look really interesting, but I don’t have access to a machine that can run madVR at the moment. Hopefully I will be able to get testing this weekend…

[Thunderbolt8]

Ive been trying out the display changer on my new laptop and new tv and it has worked pretty well so far. Im using 1080p23, 1080p25, 1080p50, 1080p59.
1080p23 and 1080p59 run a bit smoother than p24 and p60 respectively. and also the automatic detection of 25 and 50 fps seems to work flawlessly, in case of some sources which are identified with a movie fps of 25.000 by madvr, the TV refresh rate is automatically set to 50fps, because they stutter all the time at 25fps while running completely smoothly at 50. others are kept at 25fps, all smooth as well.

there has only been one exception so far. had a BD movie with a movie fps of 29.97 which also needs a bit of deinterlacing which madvr doesnt recognize correcly by its automatic settings.
when I then add 1080p29, 1080p30 (or other way round) to the display changer line, then it wont run smooth in both cases. when I remember correctly, playback stutters even more with p29 even though its a tiny bit closer to 29.97fps than setting p30. p30 plays somewhat okish, but beings to drop A LOT OF frames when I activate madvr deinterlacing. but when I (let madvr) set the refresh rate to 59p or 60p instead and then activate deinterlacing, its running perfectly fine without dropping and stuttering.

so Im basically wondering why playback stutters with p29/p30, either by default or by activating deinterlacing. and why madvr unfortunately in this case seems to be unable to figure out the preferred refresh rate of p59/p60 so that I have to delete p29/p30 from the list of resolutions because otherwise I'd have to change it to p59/p60 manually for that movie.

[omarank]

Hi Madshi

It seems you are working on scaling algorithms these days. The anti-ringing filter option is really impressive (especially for Lanczos). I think this is the right time to make a suggestion for an optional method of chroma upscaling/ resampling. Although I don’t have a technical background in this area and my understanding of image scaling is also limited, yet I think I can suggest you a way of upscaling chroma in linear light. I am not sure if this is worth the effort, but I think I should express what I have in my mind.

If I understood correctly, the issue which prevents you from providing the option of chroma upscaling in linear light is that you need to convert Y’CbCr image to R’G’B’ before you can scale the image in linear light, and to do that conversion you need both chroma and luma information for the full resolution. That’s why you have to upscale chroma in the first step and you can’t do that in linear light. I think there is a way to deal with this issue.

I will take the example of a Blu ray content which has chroma information for 960x540 resolution and luma information for 1920x1080 resolution.

Step 1: Consider only the luma information from the content and use that to create a black-and-white image of resolution 1920x1080. Do the conversion to R’G’B’ and downscale this black-and-white image in linear light to 960x540 resolution (which is the resolution of the available chroma in the original content). Convert this downscaled image back to Y’CbCr (actually Y’ only).

Step 2: Combine the chroma information of the original content with the luma information of this downscaled (in linear light) black-and-white image to create a color image of resolution 960x540 in Y’CbCr.

Step 3: For the above color image of 960x540, do the conversion from Y’CbCr to R’G’B’ and upscale in linear light to 1920x1080 resolution. Convert this upscaled image to Y’CbCr.

Step 4: Consider only the chroma information from the above upscaled (in linear light) image and combine it with the luma information of the *original* content. In this way you will get a Y’CbCr image which has both chroma and luma information for the full resolution, and the chroma has been scaled in linear light.

Certainly this will be too taxing on the GPU, but anyway this will be an optional method and powerful GPUs like GTX 680 might be able to handle it.

By the way, there is one issue with madVR which you might be aware of. MPC-HC crashes when I open any still image using madVR as a renderer. I have attached a crash report here. It looks like madVR doesn’t support viewing of still images. I was wondering if that be ever supported.

[vomanci]

Hi, new here. One question. Do i have to calibrate my display (using Windows 7 internal calibration) for my Samsung P2250 monitor in order to get better colours ? I tried it but it seemed to me the model pictures are the same as the ones after i shoul calibrate (no noticeable differences in colour/brightnes/gamma).
Thank you.

[pururin]

Originally Posted by omarank

By the way, there is one issue with madVR which you might be aware of. MPC-HC crashes when I open any still image using madVR as a renderer. I have attached a crash report here. It looks like madVR doesn’t support viewing of still images. I was wondering if that be ever supported.

I can open still image just fine with madVR+MPC-HC, I use JanWillem32's MPC-HC tester build though.

[mark0077]

Originally Posted by dansrfe

Does anyone know if there is shortcut to change ReClock to original speed for videos that are filmed at 25fps (mainly music videos). I've set ReClock to PAL SpeedDown by default and since most of the 25fps material that I watch is movie content that works well but for music videos it just increases the speed to 25.714fps.

Hi, I have always had the same "issue". I have

1) Files that either do or don't need de-interlacing where I need to manually decide this, and
2) Files that do or don't need PAL Speed Down, where there is obviously no way to really "detect" this other than knowing its originally 25fps or not.

I have a couple of .reg windows registry files that change the reclock options like PAL Speed Down, aswell as some lav filter .reg files for de-interlacing settings (as I do some avisynth processing after decoding and before madVR so can't use madVRs shortcuts), and through XBMC external player, I call a .bat file which loads these .reg files before playing any movie. Its horribly cumbersome and I'm finding it very hard to maintain. I hope theres an alternative to Reclocks PAL Speed Down in the near future, that can be triggered by keyboard shortcut, just like I recently asked can de-interlacing settings in LAV Filters somehow be changed on the fly. Not sure if thats currently possible or not yet.

PM Me if you want the .reg files I use anyways.

[mirkosp]

Alright, I think I have an (odd?) bug report here (using 0.82.5). I'm not entirely sure it's a bug on madvr's end tbh, but oh well, here we go.
Basically, it seems that madvr will always read rgb32 from vsfilter and xyvsfilter as if it was tv range rgb32, whereas I'm quite positive it always overlays as 0-255 rgb.
As far as I know, madvr assumes pc range rgb if it isn't sure about the rgb range, which means that if it's reading it as tv range, there's something in vsfilter's output that makes madvr think it's tv range.
This is further confirmed, as if I try to send rgb32 directly from lav or ffdshow, it correctly reads it. I tried sending both 16-235 rgb and 0-255 rgb from lav, and it works correctly in both cases.
However, if there's vsfilter or xyvsfilter in between, it's going to always read it as 16-235.
As a further check I tried to have lav send 16-235 rgb data to vsfilter and then have madvr render. It turns out that the video itself is rendered correctly, but the overlayed subtitles are stretched in range and don't match the video's colours.
I have typeset the subtitles on 0-255 rgb32 in aegisub with colourpicking to make sure I got the right colours.
If I get lav to send 0-255 rgb to xyvsfilter, both video and subtitles get stretched from 16-235 to 0-255, but the colours do match.
Using evr cp or haali, I get the video displayed correctly (this is to be expected, as they always assume 0-255 rgb in input).

As I said, I doubt it's a bug with madvr, as I tested that, when reading rgb32 directly from lav, it gets it right in both tv and pc range cases. But as far as I know, if madvr isn't sure of the range, it's going to assume pc range rgb, which means it's sure vsfilter's output is 16-235, which I'd like it not to do, since I'm positive vsfilter will always overlay 0-255 even with 16-235 input (as the 16-235 rgb32 from lav -> vsfilter -> madvr test showed to me).

[nevcairiel]

LAV sets special flags that let madVR know if RGB is limited or full range, so comparing any other output to LAVs output is not useful in this situation.

[mirkosp]

Well, I probably haven't specified it well, but as I said, ffdshow rgb32 -> madvr (without vsfilter) is shown correctly. I'm using cccp's ffdshow, which means that it doesn't have any special flag to the best of my knowledge, and also means it's outputting 0-255 rgb afaik. I might be wrong tho.

[THX-UltraII]

How can I try to reduce presentation glitches? I have like 5 presentation glitches in 15 minutes or so.

[mark0077]

I have mpc-hc set to open files in fullscreen by default, and use madVR in exclusive mode. This works great BUT the first time I play a file after the PC boots, playback starts and I can hear audio, but madVR seems to be still initializing or something, ie i see a black screen for maybe 2-3 seconds. madVR reports 0 dropped frames so I really don't know whats going on for those few seconds.

Closing mpc-hc and reopening the file, this doesn't happen so its like it only happens the first time I play a file back after restarting the PC. I'm using Nvidia GTX 295 in Windows 7 64bit. Anyone else experience this and know of a way to get around it? Its just annoying as I often find myself closing and replaying these files especially if they are some very short clips that I don't want to miss 1 frame.

[druneau]

Originally Posted by mark0077

I have mpc-hc set to open files in fullscreen by default, and use madVR in exclusive mode. This works great BUT the first time I play a file after the PC boots, playback starts and I can hear audio, but madVR seems to be still initializing or something, ie i see a black screen for maybe 2-3 seconds. madVR reports 0 dropped frames so I really don't know whats going on for those few seconds.

Closing mpc-hc and reopening the file, this doesn't happen so its like it only happens the first time I play a file back after restarting the PC. I'm using Nvidia GTX 295 in Windows 7 64bit. Anyone else experience this and know of a way to get around it? Its just annoying as I often find myself closing and replaying these files especially if they are some very short clips that I don't want to miss 1 frame.

I have my MadVR set to switch refresh rate between 100hz and 120hz depending on content. But only switch on oppening a video. So the first time I open a 25fps clip and my desktop is running at 120hz it switches. When I close the video my desktop stays at 100hz. Stays there until I open a video that runs at 24/30fps.

I mention this in case you have a smililar setup, and upon booting your desktop is at a different refresh rate than madVR is/wants to use. Could explain the black screen with audio + no dropped frames.

[mark0077]

Hi. Thanks for that but I have no refresh rate switching at all. I use 60hz all the time and interpolate everything to that before it reaches madvr. Not a big deal of course. Just invade anyone understands what's going on I would love to see can I get around it.

[BetA13]

Originally Posted by THX-UltraII

How can I try to reduce presentation glitches? I have like 5 presentation glitches in 15 minutes or so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BetA13

I use fullscreen Exclusive mode..And when i go fullscreen, (no matter what kind of movie, mkv, xvid, high low bitrate) i get Presentation Glitches..1 - 2 in 30 secs..

Madshi:

I guess you're an NVidia user? This problem mostly affects NVidia, unfortunately. For me using the DX11 render path in combination with the "limit render times to avoid glitches" helps quite nicely.

BetA13:

Thanks for ur tips, the presentation glitches are mostly gone now with dx11 path and limit rendering times.
Only one or 2 glitches in 1 - 1hour and 10min.

its totaly ok for me

Also the new anti ringing is really nice..rendering times stay around 5ms..(+-0.20ms)


Thanks..

Greetz BetA

[Pat357]

Originally Posted by mark0077

Hi. Thanks for that but I have no refresh rate switching at all. I use 60hz all the time and interpolate everything to that before it reaches madvr. Not a big deal of course. Just invade anyone understands what's going on I would love to see can I get around it.

A lot of things can cause this, but now you tell us you are interpolating frames.....
How is the interpolation done ? Let me guess.... SVP.. Interframe ?
If the interpolation is done by SVP or Interframe, take in mind that the first time you start a video,
a lot of system files are loading to memory and the Avisynth environment including FFDshow has to be initialized.
When you load the second video, thing are going a lot quicker because the required files are already in memory/cached.

Further you might check the way how Avisynth loads the file (AVIsource, FFMS2,...) you want to watch.
Some source-filters need to build an index from your multimedia file. This alone can already explain the delay you see.
The second time, the app. can decide that rebuilding the index is not needed (because it's still fresh and up-to-date).