FFDShow 'Raw Filter' High CPU Usage with VMR9? Experts Please Help!

[futurex]

Hi all,

i use ffdshow's (latest celtic druid build) raw video filter to help process all videos on my pc so that they all have same brightness, saturation, etc.

when i play back a digital tv stream, at dvd resolution, it takes around 60%-70% usage with my athlon64 3200+. when i try playing back a hdtv stream, it takes 100%, and dropped frames galore. this is with using vmr9 windowed. vmr9 renderless does pretty much the same thing.

i have tried nvidia purvideo decoder, cyberlink, intervideo and elecard decoders, with similar results. my graphics card/drivers are quite decent, so thats not the problem (ATI X800XT). the only features i use of ffdshow is 'picture properties'. no post-processing, resizing, etc.

anybody know how to reduce the cpu usage ffdshow has? there is a HUGE increase ~25% even when NO processing options have been ticked :( please please help!

ps. i use media player classic to play all files

[movax]

Um, my ffdshow (no additional filtering, no nothing) handles DTV streams just fine on a P4C 3.8. I think you've left on some additional processing options somewhere.

[futurex]

do you use vmr9, as i do? what colourspace are you using? which dvd codec? which player

[bill_baroud]

when i play back a digital tv stream, at dvd resolution, it takes around 60%-70% usage with my athlon64 3200+. when i try playing back a hdtv stream, it takes 100%, and dropped frames galore.
So, if i understand correctly, you're complaining that an HDTV stream (with a resolution almost as twice big as DVD resolution) take much cpu power to decode ????
ffdshow or wmr9 have nothing to do with that, it's normal :D

(btw, use overlay mixer, it's faster than wmr9 which is crappy slow...)

[futurex]

thanks for the replies :)

well, if i use overlay, i can get the usage for a 1920x1044 stream around 20%, but the quality sucks in comparison. i really like the quality of vmr9, everything looks much better, with less artefacts, whether playing mpeg-4 or mpeg-2.

ffdshow makes it even better, if only it take up so much cpu even when no actual work is being done by it :(

[Ninja121]

I am going to try to help you, because I am building a similar HTPC and I also want to view HD. Have you tried dscaler decoder?

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/deinterlace/DScaler5006.exe?download

Also this ffdshow works best for me.

http://www.free-codecs.com/FFDShow_download.htm

Use the last one.

I know what you mean about VMR9, I love it, really dscaler and VMR9 gives me a great picture, I just wish ffdshow would not be such a hog, because the 3 of them together would make all tv perfect.

I am curious what you use for deinterlacing though? I am most concerned about that, mocomp2 is the best but you need dscaler application installed, and use it with ffdshow, and it stutters on standard definition tv.

[Mug Funky]

really overlay should look no different to VMR9 if it's all set up properly. overlay often looks worse because there's naff brightness/contrast/saturation stuff going on in the video card. use your card's drivers to make sure these are turned off, and overlay should look just fine.

if there's any weird chroma bleeds happening, try telling ffdshow to output only yuy2 to overlay (as the video card might incorrectly handle yv12 sampling... a lot do).

you should most definitely not be seeing "artefacts" in one output method versus another unless something's bugging out.

[futurex]

thanks for the help guys, i had already tried dscaler, and yes, it worked better (in cpu usage) than other decoders, at around 85% to 95%. that is still quite high though...

[Ninja121]

Mug, head over to avsforum htpc area, I used to have a strong stand exactly like you, infact I used to post there that overlay looked better, and everyone told me I would eventually change once I got vmr9 properly calibrated (brightness needs to be turned down), sure enough I did more and more comparison, until now I have just noticed vmr 9 looks much more 3d, while overlay looks flat and somewhat 2d.

Actually on the forum some of them will tell you with facts why the process of vmr9 is superior to overlay using technical analysis. Of course if your eyes tell you different thats your choice.

Future, have you got it working smoothly at least? High cpu footage but is the footage watchable now? ANd how do you deinterlace for 1080i material?

I used to hate powerdvd, but powerdvd 6 actually has really good deinterlacing from what I can see although I have not spent much time with it, and its colors look up there with even dscaler.