LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[Mangix]

Originally Posted by Dion

Modern means up to date. Windows 7 fits that bill easy.

Nope!

[jkauff]

Originally Posted by Mangix

Nope!

Well, at least Win 7 is not antique. It's modern enough for enterprise uses. XP and SSE are antique in 2014.

Apple eliminates support for certain older iPhones with every new major version of iOS. Everything in tech becomes legacy at some point.

[kasper93]

I have a question to everyone who moans about SSE2. Does the (future) change affect YOU? If not why you bother? I don't think there are much people who use non-SSE2 CPU for HTPC, because they are just not fast enough to play modern (HD) content. Well you know you can play xvid or something, but then why you care about new LAV releases for such old codec which is not gonna be updated or anything? Furthermore XP will be dead and there is no discussion here. People with such old hardware doesn't really use Vista+ because it was too demanding. XP runs faster on such old hardware. And while you use VERY old OS you can also use old codecs. What's the problem?

BTW, Windows 8 and Microsoft Office 2013 also require SSE2. Seriously guys we need to move forward, and not think about 10 years old HW which is just insufficient to be used for HTPC. LAV doesn't support DVXA1 and I don't see much people complaining about that, because very few people still needs it, it's simple as that.

[James Freeman]

@nevcairiel

Can you please include a "Stereo Front Mix" slider in LAV Audio Mixing tab?
Its the only one that is missing from the mixing options, and I want to hear the center channel solo.

[NikosD]

Originally Posted by kasper93

I have a question to everyone who moans about SSE2. Does the (future) change affect YOU? If not why you bother? I don't think there are much people who use non-SSE2 CPU for HTPC, because they are just not fast enough to play modern (HD) content. Well you know you can play xvid or something, but then why you care about new LAV releases for such old codec which is not gonna be updated or anything? Furthermore XP will be dead and there is no discussion here. People with such old hardware doesn't really use Vista+ because it was too demanding. XP runs faster on such old hardware. And while you use VERY old OS you can also use old codecs. What's the problem?

BTW, Windows 8 and Microsoft Office 2013 also require SSE2. Seriously guys we need to move forward, and not think about 10 years old HW which is just insufficient to be used for HTPC. LAV doesn't support DVXA1 and I don't see much people complaining about that, because very few people still needs it, it's simple as that.

I do have an AthlonXP PC with Vista/7 and would like to use LAV filters mainly for HW decoding (DXVA) of the HW accelerated codecs (H.264/VC-1/WMV3/MPEG-2/MEPG4-ASP).

For the rest of the codecs, CPU could or could not be enough (depends on the codec, resolution, bitrate etc)

[GTPVHD]

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-board-dn2820fykh.html

http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-nuc-dn2820fykh-bay-trail-system-review_135053/6

Bay Trail is faster than any Athlon XP, supports SSE4.2, uses far less power and has the same Gen7 Ivy Bridge decoder, running rings around any AGP AMD card in hardware decoding performance. Just retire the outdated Athlon XP.

Or if you don't mind waiting, Cherry Trail has the Gen8 GPU from Broadwell and will have even higher hardware decoding performance.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/first-look-new-features-cherry-trails-gpu/64068.html

Either way, the AthlonXP and AMD AGP cards have to go, they've long outlived their usefulness.

[kasper93]

Originally Posted by NikosD

I do have an AthlonXP PC with Vista/7 and would like to use LAV filters mainly for HW decoding (DXVA) of the HW accelerated codecs (H.264/VC-1/WMV3/MPEG-2/MEPG4-ASP).

For the rest of the codecs, CPU could or could not be enough (depends on the codec, resolution, bitrate etc)

If I may ask what gpu do you put there? And even more important question. Do you actually use this as your HTPC or just have it in a closet and power it up once a few months. If you use it as main pc, I'm sorry for you. I also had AthlonXP and it can't coop with web browsing few years ago due to flash killing cpu or web browser use all the ram.

I see no point in discussing this. This hardware is just outdated. You should really consider buying cheep, new, low power consumption CPU. It really will be less noisy and you will save some money on power consumption.

Sorry if you consider this post off topic, but I'm just curious why people use such old hardware and yet want modern software for them.

Tapatalk 4 @ GT-I9300

[NikosD]

The discussion is clearly OT and I've never said that an AthlonXP is a modern system.

I have 8 PCs and obviously that one is not my main PC.

For me, the discussion should be the opposite.

What's your problem of supporting old HW ?

Which is the weight, the overhead or the trouble to keep on supporting older HW ?

Are LAV filters going to be faster or better because of dropping old HW support ?

I don't really have a problem of dropping SSE support in favor of SSE2, I just don't understand why we can't have both.

[kasper93]

Originally Posted by NikosD

The discussion is clearly OT and I've never said that an AthlonXP is a modern system.

I never said you have.

Originally Posted by NikosD

I have 8 PCs and obviously that one is not my main PC.

That's exactly my point you will live if 1 of 8 PC will use older lav build. You don't watch movies on every pc at once, do you?

Originally Posted by NikosD

For me, the discussion should be the opposite.

What's your problem of supporting old HW ?

I don't have any problem, but when software development is blocked by old HW with no apparent reason there is something wrong. It just we need to focus on modern systems and improve performance on them.

Originally Posted by NikosD

Which is the weight, the overhead or the trouble to keep on supporting older HW ?

Are LAV filters going to be faster or better because of dropping old HW support ?

I don't really have a problem of dropping SSE support in favor of SSE2, I just don't understand why we can't have both.

This aren't questions for me. I have nothing to say about what LAV can or not. It not my decision to make. But like it have been already said we need to drawn the line somewhere. Why not support win98? SSE2 is not even in master branch yet. I was just curious if people use old HW for main HTPC and why. And I still didn't get the answer, because apparently there are no people to answer this question.

This is pointless. Sorry for OT, nev.

Tapatalk 4 @ GT-I9300

[NikosD]

Usually, in most of the cases, those kind of lines are drawn by companies artificially, in order to sell new products.

Win8.x could run on an AthlonXP faster than any previous Win OS version, for example.

[nevcairiel]

Microsoft doesn't sell hardware, what do they have to gain.

It simplifies the developers tasks if you can just assume that something is always present, and it can gain speed.

[DragonQ]

It's pretty obvious that the more hardware you have to support, the harder that support becomes. Code becomes more complicated and harder to maintain.

[NikosD]

Microsoft gains a lot if HW companies sell new PCs, in order to run the new OS.

Buying a new PC, usually means buy a new OS (not just upgrade OS) and software companies always want newer and faster HW in order for their SW to look faster, like HW companies need new and more demanding SW in order to need and use the new HW and so on. It's a circle.

About speed, the gain of that reason is how much ? 2% ?

[manolito]

Developers should also keep in mind that there is a growing number of people (even among computer freaks) who start to refuse to be part of this rat race. People who care for the environment begin to question if they really need a new smartphone every year, a new car or a new computer every other year and so on.

Just look at the growing number of repair cafes where folks get their technical devices fixed instead of buying a new one. My main desktop computer is ancient, but it does almost everything I need to do with it (I do have a faster laptop for watching HD stuff). And whenever I see my friends computers with current hardware I notice that my carefully maintained machine boots up faster than theirs. Looks like most of the extra CPU power is eaten up by the ever bulkier Win7 and Win8 operating system.


Cheers
manolito

[nevcairiel]

And users should keep in mind that I do this in my free time, and if I don't want to worry about hardware from over a decade ago, then that's how it is.

PS:
Windows 7 runs better on many old systems than XP, your "bulkier" is not true.

[jkauff]

Nev has spoken, and this tangent is done. Let me cap it off by saying how much we appreciate your work on the LAV filters, which have quickly become the de facto standard for video playback. With your new job, there must be even less time to devote to LAV. Thanks so much for everything you've done and continue to do.

And that includes hanging out here on doom9 reading and responding to your users, regardless of what they write.

[turbojet]

Using dss2mod's internal lav filters integration was a solution to using different lav settings for encoding and playback, it doesn't need a registered lav and doesn't touch registry which is nice.

nevcairiel: Was repeat first field a lot of work to implement? It's the only video decoder that supports it but it's pretty vital for madvr ivtc so thinking about bringing it up with other lav decoders like mpc-be and potplayer.

[bugmen0t]

@nev
The downmixer defaults to stereo both for speaker configuration and mix levels. If I change the former to e.g. mono am I supposed to correct the mix levels, too, or are they internally scaled to match (e.g. ITU-R BS.775 mono downmix has L = R = -3dB instead of 0dB)?

[nevcairiel]

Mix levels are automatically adjusted for the number of speakers, ie. if a channel is split into two speakers the volume is lowered, if its combined from two into one, its increased.

[e-t172]

Originally Posted by nevcairiel

Mix levels are automatically adjusted for the number of speakers, ie. if a channel is split into two speakers the volume is lowered, if its combined from two into one, its increased.

Are you using 3dB or 6dB gain for this operation?