ReClock DirectShow filter : try it !

[Airw0lf]

Hi guys, I installed ReClock for the first time a few minutes ago, and I have two questions.

I just installed v0.99 and I am wondering how I can access the ReClock properties window via the start menu as mentioned in the documentation. The ReClock folder in the start menu only contains a link to the readme and to the uninstaller. I'm guessing someone must have forgotten to put the link in the new build. Could someone post what the shortcut normally points to so that I could make it myself? I need this when I'm playing DVDs in PowerDVD.

Also, does ReClock have an effect on TV Tuners? In other words, when I'm watching TV via the ATI DirectShow TV App, is ReClock working in the background too? In such a case, I wouldn't really want ReClock to be enabled, since TV viewing has worked near perfect (touch wood) for me in the past...

[mwillberg]

Let me say, great work! I _love_ the smooth playback. Always thought I had some problems with my system (even though I've had several GFX and sound cards) since the playback has never been 100% smooth on TVs. Well now it is!

However, I noticed 2 issues that I haven't read about in neither the readme nor this thread:

1) When first playing a file, the sync is off. I'd say the sound lags by up to 500ms. The timing gradually improves, and after about 30s it is no longer noticable. This happens with both 25fps and 23.976fps clips.

2) Ok, I read and understand that AC3-passthrough is experimental, but I assume you still want feedback. Works fine for me, except I get a huge memoryleak. About 10MB/minute. The exact same graph with ReClock uninstalled doesn't show this, but I can make a list of all filters in use if necessary. Just to clear up, this _only_ seems to happen with AC3-sound, not with MP3 and Vorbis.

My system (or the parts that might be useful to know):

Windows 2000 Professional SP2
DirectX 8.1
Duron 800mhz
ATi All-In-Wonder 128 hooked up to a PAL television
Soundblaster Live 5.1 Player with optical addon
ZoomPlayer used for playback.

[Ewi]

Hi!

At first: I like your filter VERY much. Thank you.

But I think I have a serious bug here:

I'm using ReClock 0.99 with Zoomplayer 2.90 under WinXP SP1. I have problems using the latest Xvid DSF from Nic (I have them from Koepis Page)(XviD-Dec-291202.exe).

Always I start an Xvid coded movie I get a (forever repeating) popup message saying "Invalid floating point operation" from Zoomplayer (as you can see in the Screenshot). But the movie starts and you can hear sound for 1 second or so.

http://www21.brinkster.com/gunter123/crash.html

I have to hardkill Zoomplayer via taskmanager.

All other sources work fine (DivX502,MPEG1,MPEG2,WMV). If I change the 4cc code in my Avi to DIVX/DX50 the file plays fine (now decoded by DivX5 filter for sure).

For a short test I used WMP8 to play these Xvid files. Same behaviour: Crash after 2 seconds. Here is a message, too, but it pops up for a millisecond and does not remain onscreen, so I don't know what WMP8 is saying.

If I uninstall Reclock everything is fine...

Thank you in advance...

P.S.: If further reports on this are useful I would be glad to help

[Airw0lf]

mwillberg - regarding your first point, I think you will find that the answer is in the readme.rtf:

"- When your run ReClock for the first time for a specific resolution and refresh rate, the reference clock will be inaccurate during the first minutes of playback while being corrected. This can cause jerky playback at the beginning of the movie. The time to obtain an accurate clock will depend on many factors (initial error of clock, PC speed, …). After this adjustment, ReClock will store the correction in the registry, so when you will open another media, the clock correction parameters will be retrieved."

Try playing those files again, if the registry settings are present after running for the first time, you shouldn't have too many more problems.

[mwillberg]

@Airwolf:

Thanks for your answer.

However, I had one of the files running for 8 minutes, stopped, and started playing it again. Still desynced. And I just checked the registry, the settings for my current resolution _are_ there.

So that's not it I'm afraid, but I apologize that I didn't make myself clear about this in my first post.

[ogo]

Wow lots of reports

Ok here we go ...

oddball> Maybe you should try without DIVXG400

billou2k> Really i don't know for the XBOX (i don't have one). Knowing if the XBOX uses DirectShow to render DVD's would help, but i doubt it does.

Chibi Jasmin> Yes there is a problem for NTSC between 23,976 and 29,97fps content. The frame rate detection code for DVD is based on MS provided objects, but they just provide NTSC/PAL info, so it's just a choice between 25 and 29,97fps. Maybe Gabest has some lights on this ? If i don't find a way to differentiate 23,976 and 29,97 i'll remove frame rate detection for NTSC DVD. For your question about ZP SystemClock, well it's just a clock based on the PC system clock, and this clock is synced to nothing. So it's a matter of luck. If the system clock runs at a speed that is closer to the video card clock than the sound provided clock, then you will get less video stuttering. If not you will get the reverse result. There is not synchronisation process in this.

ppera2> Please send me your logs by email (c:\reclock_log.txt)

gabest> Could you help me for the NTSC DVD framerate issue ? The locking problem was mainly interaction between the graph and my renderer. I cannot query other interfaces and call methods from the filter graph from the renderer when i want (especially before the rendering starts) without going into locking issues (the debugger just tells me it stuck into some NT API call). Starting with 0.99 i use a separate thread for this and it's much better.

Airw0lf> There is not access to properties from the start menu. You must have the filter running to access its properties from you media player. Maybe i'll add a switch in the start menu to enable/disable reclock. I doubt reclock has any effect on tv tuners.

mwillberg> Yes the sounds can get off sync sometime at the beginning of playback. It can occurs if you sound card clock run at a speed that is very far from the reference clock provided by reclock. For AC3 you're right, there is a HUGE memory leak It's solved in the next version. Speaking of AC3 did you notice little drops in sound or bizarre things in sound ? I ask you that because of the way i use to resync AC3 sound (it's explained in the changelog). Could you send me your logs ? I'll check if there is a problem with sound.

Ewi> Yes i reproduced your problem. Not my fault here It's a bug in XVID decoder filter. As you may know floating point registers are shared with MMX registers, and XVID filter forget to restore the floating point registers before to call the reference clock. I have a workaroung for this in the next version of reclock (available tonight), but i will send a mail to Koepis. It was working without reclock, because the default clock does not use floating point like me ...


So next version will be out tonight with
- a fix for memory leak in AC3
- a workaround for crash with xvid
- a solution for NTSC DVD (either automatic framerate detection removed, or something else)

Cheers,
OGO

[Ewi]

@ogo:

Oh!!

Excuse me for blaming you. It was not my intention to make a false alarm here. It was only my conclusion cause it was working without Reclock.

Thank you very much for resolving this issue this fast....

[Chibi Jasmin]

Originally posted by ogo
Chibi Jasmin> Yes there is a problem for NTSC between 23,976 and 29,97fps content. The frame rate detection code for DVD is based on MS provided objects, but they just provide NTSC/PAL info, so it's just a choice between 25 and 29,97fps. Maybe Gabest has some lights on this ? If i don't find a way to differentiate 23,976 and 29,97 i'll remove frame rate detection for NTSC DVD. For your question about ZP SystemClock, well it's just a clock based on the PC system clock, and this clock is synced to nothing. So it's a matter of luck. If the system clock runs at a speed that is closer to the video card clock than the sound provided clock, then you will get less video stuttering. If not you will get the reverse result. There is not synchronisation process in this.

Well, mayb an override button for the detected frame rate is always nice (just in case, the detection is screwed for whatever reason, not to say it ever was screwed except for this ntsc thing).

Okay, I will just forget about the zoom player clock thing then...

[Airw0lf]

ogo - thanks for your prompt reply. I think an enable/disable shortcut would be nice, it would help people a little with debugging. They wouldn't have to manually register/unregister the filter every time...

And a question for everyone in here more or less - has anyone got reclock working with DVD playback under ZoomPlayer, or is this not possible? (I think I saw a message to this effect way back on the first page of the thread, but I'm not sure I understood it right.) In any case, here's my situation: playing in DVD mode does not bring up the ReClock filter in the filters menu. However, if I rip a DVD to hard disk and manually load a .VOB file, then I can get ReClock to work. ReClock appears automatically for any other type of file too. (MPEG, etc)

Thanks, and sorry if this is a stupid question. I've only just started using Zoom Player for DVD playback, I've used PowerDVD in the past. The only problem with PowerDVD is that you can't bring up a filter menu, so there's no way to check up on ReClock!

[ogo]

Ok, as said this morning version 0.99b is available on my website. It fixes the leak in AC3, DVD NTSC is back in manual mode, and XVID no longer crashes.

ogo - thanks for your prompt reply. I think an enable/disable shortcut would be nice, it would help people a little with debugging. They wouldn't have to manually register/unregister the filter every time...

Yes it's on my TODO list

And a question for everyone in here more or less - has anyone got reclock working with DVD playback under ZoomPlayer, or is this not possible? (I think I saw a message to this effect way back on the first page of the thread, but I'm not sure I understood it right.) In any case, here's my situation: playing in DVD mode does not bring up the ReClock filter in the filters menu. However, if I rip a DVD to hard disk and manually load a .VOB file, then I can get ReClock to work. ReClock appears automatically for any other type of file too. (MPEG, etc)

Yes you can do it. It's simple : Go to Player options->Manual filters, then check "Use Custom Audio in DVD mode" and highlight "ReClock Audio Renderer". You're done

Thanks, and sorry if this is a stupid question. I've only just started using Zoom Player for DVD playback, I've used PowerDVD in the past. The only problem with PowerDVD is that you can't bring up a filter menu, so there's no way to check up on ReClock!

PowerDVD and WinDVD don't use ReClock. Either they load their own renderer or they use the default one.

[mwillberg]

@ogo:

Thanks for fixing the memory leak, now I will be able to watch for more than a few minutes (only have 128MB in my movie-computer)...

No, I can hear no artifacts in the sound at all. When I checked the log I saw the drop/repeat happens quite often, and no, I cannot tell. Sounds perfect with my amp anyway.

I wasn't sure if you wanted me to send you a log of the AC3-problem or the sync, so I did both. I deleted the registry-settings and the log, then I ran an OGM-file containing XviD and Vorbis two times, and then an AVI containing XviD and AC3. After that I quit ZoomPlayer.

Funny though, I kept regedit open the whole time, and the settings weren't saved until I closed ZoomPlayer. Even if I did a full stop (and thereby closing the file) between running the clips. Is that normal?

The log is sent to your email.

Please keep up the great work, this is definitely the best improvement for PC-video in a long time!

[Airw0lf]

ogo - keep up the good work. Now I've got DVD and ReClock working in ZoomPlayer. For those who might need it, this is how you unregister the ReClock filter:

regsvr32.exe /u "C:\Program Files\ReClock\ReClock.ax"

If you want to turn it back on, use

regsvr32.exe "C:\Program Files\ReClock\ReClock.ax"

Your install path may vary, so change the path as required...

[Ewi]

I don't want to bother you, but I have a question:

Is it good to delete the registry value for the resolutions from time to time or is this completly unnecessary? If Reclock calculates its values once and then relies on them, deleting them would be good; if reclock does correct these values at runtime all the time, this would be bad, cause Reclock would have to start with shit values everytime I delete these values.

What makes me asking this is the following situation: I start a movie in zoomplayer using reclock when switched with TvTool to TVmode. Then, without stopping the movie, switch back to monitor; result is that "audio clock correction" is 100%(and audio pitch is very high). So something has gone wrong here (but it's possible, that this is a rather bad example for what I mean here). But if I do this when Reclock is in its "calculation phase" (don't know how to call it) I would have forever these false values (when calculating is done only once if a resolution is new to Reclock)

Thank you again...

[ogo]

No, I can hear no artifacts in the sound at all. When I checked the log I saw the drop/repeat happens quite often, and no, I cannot tell. Sounds perfect with my amp anyway.

Fine !

Funny though, I kept regedit open the whole time, and the settings weren't saved until I closed ZoomPlayer. Even if I did a full stop (and thereby closing the file) between running the clips. Is that normal?

Yes it is normal

Is it good to delete the registry value for the resolutions from time to time or is this completly unnecessary? If Reclock calculates its values once and then relies on them, deleting them would be good; if reclock does correct these values at runtime all the time, this would be bad, cause Reclock would have to start with shit values everytime I delete these values.

No it's unnecessary to delete them. reclock does not compute the values once, it recomputes them continuously.

What makes me asking this is the following situation: I start a movie in zoomplayer using reclock when switched with TvTool to TVmode. Then, without stopping the movie, switch back to monitor; result is that "audio clock correction" is 100%(and audio pitch is very high). So something has gone wrong here (but it's possible, that this is a rather bad example for what I mean here). But if I do this when Reclock is in its "calculation phase" (don't know how to call it) I would have forever these false values (when calculating is done only once if a resolution is new to Reclock)

In fact, reclock is always in "calculation phase". But as the clock gets more accurate, correction is done less often and corrections will be very little to fine tune the clock. You can see it if your delete the registry settings. At first, corrections are made every few seconds, then as time passes, every 10, 20, seconds, then minutes, etc ... You also see it with the ppm indicator. As soon as the ppm is under 1 ppm you can consider your clock accurate (1 ppm = 0,000001% deviation)
The big thing to do to know is reclock is doing its job is to check that the ppm indicator is LOW (less than 1-2 ppm) and STABLE.
When you switch resolution or refresh rate while the playback is running, reclock will see it and restart a correction cycle for the new resolution/refresh rate, starting from the registry values (if any) for this resolution

[ogo]

Gabest i have a little question for you concerning Media Player Classic I have a little fix to make reclock compatible with graphedit loading/saving of graphs.

Currently reclock returns the clsid of the default audio wave renderer when requested via GetClassID(). That's why graph load/save from graphedit does not work.
However it register itself and discuss with COM with its own clsid. I corrected this, but now MPC does not load reclock when the builtin audio switcher is used because i suppose MPC does only know the 2 default audio renderers. Could you correct MPC to handle this ? I think the best way would be to enumerate the filters in the category CLSID_AudioRendererCategory.

Another thing: it also seems that when i choose "resample to 44100hz" with the builtin audio switcher in AC3 mode, MPC tries to resample AC3 frames at 44100hz.

The clsid of reclock is :
DEFINE_GUID(CLSID_ReClock,
0x9dc15360, 0x914c, 0x46b8, 0xb9, 0xdf, 0xbf, 0xe6, 0x7f, 0xd3, 0x6c, 0x6a);


Thanks
OGO

[gabest]

However it register itself and discuss with COM with its own clsid. I corrected this, but now MPC does not load reclock when the builtin audio switcher is used because i suppose MPC does only know the 2 default audio renderers.

Hm, I have downloaded and tried the latest reclock.ax and it loaded fine for any file when the system default renderer was selected.

Another thing: it also seems that when i choose "resample to 44100hz" with the builtin audio switcher in AC3 mode, MPC tries to resample AC3 frames at 44100hz.

Ok, but what's the prob with it? It should resample anything above 44.1KHz if that checkbox is set, or not?

edit: Ah, you mean when it lets spdif to pass through. Ooops :P

(p.s. Hehe, and yea, I saw your accidentally copypasted interface def )

[ogo]

(p.s. Hehe, and yea, I saw your accidentally copypasted interface def )

You're fast

Hm, I have downloaded and tried the latest reclock.ax and it loaded fine for any file when the system default renderer was selected.

Well the corrected version is not yet on my website Can you email me your email adress so i can send you the version that have the problem ?

Ok, but what's the prob with it? It should resample anything above 44.1KHz if that checkbox is set, or not?

Not if formattag is WAVE_FORMAT_DOLBY_AC3_SPDIF. AC3 frames do not contain PCM samples, but binary data for an external decoder :-)

[gabest]

Originally posted by ogo
Not if formattag is WAVE_FORMAT_DOLBY_AC3_SPDIF. AC3 frames do not contain PCM samples, but binary data for an external decoder :-)

Ok, it was only forgetting to leave the media type untouched, the ac3 data was not downsampled or anything I'm going to upload a new build soon.

Mail sent.

[sillKotscha]

Originally posted by gabest
I'm going to upload a new build soon.

hi gabest,

good news... could you be so kind and have a look in this post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41678). There is a link to screenshot I've made. I don't know why but it's only MPC showing me some filter_properties double. If I play the files with ZP for example and enter the filter_property_page everthing is as it should?!!

thanks

Sill

[gabest]

http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc2kxp6422.rar
http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc98me6422.rar

edit: fixed the url