Media Player Classic supports Matroska v2, *.mp4, *.mov, and MPEG-4 Timed Text

[mariner]

Hi gabest and celtic_druid,

Greetings and thank you for your continuing effort to make further improvements to MPC.

Have been using latest version for 1080 mpeg2 transport stream playback on a basic 3GHz P4 system with NV6600GT graphics card connected to a Sony 1920x1200 panel. The changes made have worked great and remain stable. The issues I would like to discuss relate mainly to the mpeg2 decoder.

1. IVTC for film based 1080/60i transport stream

The good drmpeg (Ron) has posted a few test patterns at his site for testing decoder's ability to output original 24p source from 60i stream. These are produced with different encoders to simulate two types of error common in real world film based transport stream.

a) Alternating black/white 1, 2, 3 and 4 pixel strips with moving bar 1920x1080
http://www.w6rz.net/vertrezivtc.zip

Encoder applies 3-2 pull down, but either flags it interlaced or fails to raise progressive flag. The decoder fails to recognise the stream as film and thus outputs 60i video. About half of ts fall in this category.

b) Alternating black/white 1, 2, 3 and 4 pixel strips with moving bar, RFF flags that drop to video when bar is horizontal 1920x1080
http://www.w6rz.net/vertrezivtcflags.zip

Encoding error results in part of the clip being encoded as video (when the blade moves into the 2nd quadrant). The output from decoder thus alternates between 24p film and 60i video. This error can be seen in almost all of IMAX clips.

So far the only decoder that handles these 2 clips correctly and output 24p is a modified version of Dscaler5. But I am quite sure with the formidable talent at your disposal this can be quite easily done. You would also like to adding something slightly more challenging : to reconstruct the original 24p source from 720/60p film based streams (60p to 24p), although most films are encoded into 1080/60i format rather that 720/60p format.

The decoder, however, fails to decode two of drmpeg's new clips. would appreciate if you could kindly look into this.

http://www.w6rz.net/crop1080red.zip
http://www.w6rz.net/crop1088red.zip

2. NV12 colour space support

The new crop of graphics cards are introducing NV12 supports with latest drivers. This would be a particularly useful feature for ATI based systems, as NV12 provides superior HW deinterlacing compared to the YV12 and YUY2 variant.

3. Support for HW Bob Deinterlacing.

While the default HW Pixel Adaptive Deinterlacing is working well and is adequate for most occasions, there are times when BOB deinterlacing produces less artifacts at a slight loss of resolution. The present software based BOB deinterlacing works as intended, but it takes a big hit in performance and massive amount of dropped frames. An option to select BOB deinterlacing would therefore be great when engaging HW based deinterlacing.

4. The massive amount of date to be processed posed a unique challenge to software based media player for smooth HD transport stream playback. It has been suggested at some forums that one effective solution is to run the program in "VMR Renderless Full Screen Exclusive Mode". Would like to hear your views on this, and if favorable, you would consider adding such a feature.

5. 16-235 to 0-255 level change

It would be great if this feature could be made available at the player level as well.


Thank you and best wisher.

ernesto

[clsid]

5) This is possible by using the shader functionality in MPC:
sampler s0 : register(s0);

#define Const_1 (16.0/255.0)
#define Const_2 (255.0/219.0)

float4 main(float2 tex : TEXCOORD0) : COLOR
{
return( ( tex2D( s0, tex ) - Const_1 ) * Const_2 );
}

2,3,5) These are possible with ffdshow (when RAW video is enabled).

[foxyshadis]

2. NV12 colour space support

The new crop of graphics cards are introducing NV12 supports with latest drivers. This would be a particularly useful feature for ATI based systems, as NV12 provides superior HW deinterlacing compared to the YV12 and YUY2 variant.
NV12 actually makes a difference? It's just YV12 with swapped chroma planes (YUV order instead of YVU).

5. 16-235 to 0-255 level change

It would be great if this feature could be made available at the player level as well.


Thank you and best wisher.

ernesto

That's actually a renderer thing, usually. Although you can do it at the decoder stage, it raises the cpu cost and doesn't work with all renderers. (Plus in this case, it would only work if mpc's internal decoders were doing the job.)

Edit:
5) This is possible by using the shader functionality in MPC:
Oh, this is nice.

[Wilbert]

NV12 actually makes a difference? It's just YV12 with swapped chroma planes (YUV order instead of YVU).
No, it's interleaved YV12 with swapped chroma: http://www.fourcc.org/yuv.php#NV12

as NV12 provides superior HW deinterlacing compared to the YV12 and YUY2 variant.
Yeah right :) NV12 and YV12 are basically the same, so it doesn't make any difference for a deinterlacer. YUY2 has more chroma that NV12/YV12 so the deinterlacer should give better quality, besides YUY2 has no chroma upsampling errors (due to the vertical resolution).

[breez]

YUY2 has no chroma upsampling errors (due to the vertical resolution).

Well, in fact it does. The color data is still subsampled by a ratio of 2 and if the chroma upsampling is done poorly, it will result in blockiness (albeit only horizontally). It is not as noticeable as with YV12 or other colorspaces with 4:1 subsampling.

[Wilbert]

Well, in fact it does. The color data is still subsampled by a ratio of 2 and if the chroma upsampling is done poorly, it will result in blockiness (albeit only horizontally).
That's not really an error, is it :) I was refering to chroma errors which are caused by interlaced footage which is sub/upsampled as being progressive and vice versa.

[mariner]

Hi clsid,

Thanks for sharing your expertise on shading, and keep up the good work you do bringing ffdshow up to date. Would we see IVTC included in future versions of ffdshow?

NV12 is indeed supported and works great with the A card. HW deinterlacing seems to default to pixel-adaptive, as in MPC, even though BOB is selected. Would appreciate if you could look into this.

The situation with PC /Video levels with different output renderers is somewhat condusing at the moment. Not so long ago, video level (16-235) was preserved with VMR9 while Overlay mixer expanded it to PC level (0-255) for both N and A cards. Not sure if still true today. Clarification would be most appreciated.

I have not used ffdshow much because of the steep learning curve. There are also interesting problems : 1) some clips are misreported as having freame rate of 25fps, 2) wrong aspect ratio that has to be corrected by forcing MPC into 16:9 mode.

Thank you again for your kind reply and best regards.

ernesto

[banesi]

question is, how can I force MPC to use Nero decoders to play 3gp and mp4 files, this is easiest solution for me because I already have Nero 6.6.1.6 instaled and this used to work but somehow I lost this :(
I have tried playing with filters in MPC but with no success.

[Liisachan]

I am not sure if I understand your question, but MPC doesn't have any MPEG-4 Video decoder. Perhaps, what you mean is, you don't want to use ffdshow? If so, you can disable it; or you can also give a higer merit to the filter you prefer.

[Unbreakable]

I have a problem with MPC... When I use VMR9 renderless, the image seems "blocky"... But with VMR7 looks OK.

Here's an example:

http://xs208.xs.to/xs208/06442/img_01.png.xs.jpg (http://xs208.xs.to/xs208/06442/img_01.png)


And these are my settings:
http://xs208.xs.to/xs208/06442/img_02.png.xs.jpg (http://xs208.xs.to/xs208/06442/img_02.png)

Anyone have a solution for this?

[celtic_druid]

Only in the red parts from the looks of it which would suggest it is due to the YV12 to RGB conversion.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=106111&highlight=upsampling+YV12

[KoD]

Which translates to: the drivers of your videocard perform poor resampling when using VMR9 Renderless and YV12 input.

Solution (one of the following):
1. don't use VMR9 Renderless
2. try unchecking YV12 output in ffdshow -> output page and let it only output YUY2 (this might not solve it, though)
3. bug your videocard manufacturer to improve its drivers

[Unbreakable]

2. try unchecking YV12 output in ffdshow -> output page and let it only output YUY2 (this might not solve it, though)


To fix this, I selected only "RGB32" and "High quality YV12 to RGB conversion" in ffdshow output. But your solution works too... Thanks.

[foxyshadis]

If you have nvidia, they had a problem with that in the 80 series, and soulhunter got them to fix it for the later 90 series drivers. But if you're not hurting for cpu, doing it all in software like that works too.

[Unbreakable]

I have nvidia 90 series drivers. And I think I found the cause...
The problem appears if I use the video enhancements from the control panel (noise reduction & edge enhancement).

[banesi]

I am not sure if I understand your question, but MPC doesn't have any MPEG-4 Video decoder. Perhaps, what you mean is, you don't want to use ffdshow? If so, you can disable it; or you can also give a higer merit to the filter you prefer.

Liisachan, thanks for input :)

I always try to instal only necessary codecs, I'm curious DivX codec with 15MB installation can't play 3gp files, so I'm trying to use MPC and play all my formats in it with only DivX codec installed but since I'm using Nero Burning ROM there was possibility in playing mp4 and 3gp files in MPC using Nero codecs, Nero change this policy from version 7 onward.

I have found a way to play properly both 3gp and mp4 using MPC and this (http://www.free-codecs.com/download_soft.php?d=2503&s=50) ffdshow version (for SSE processors). So I guess MPC and ffdshow are only programs needed to play various file formats excluding quicktime and realtime.

[Liisachan]

I don't use DivX so I don't know about it well, but iirc, the only thing you need is uncheck "support generic mp4" (or something like that) in DivX decoder config. Or maybe not. I'm not sure. It's not MPC's pb anyway.

[drmpeg]

The decoder, however, fails to decode two of drmpeg's new clips. would appreciate if you could kindly look into this.

http://www.w6rz.net/crop1080red.zip
http://www.w6rz.net/crop1088red.zip

ernesto
I had the wrong microcode loaded when I encoded those two clips. They are 4:2:2 profile.

Ron

[rotflol]

Is there some sort of a time limit on VobSubs in MPC? I have a movie that's 3.5 hours long and both MPC and DirectVobSub freeze when trying to load the subs, but ffdshow shows them fine.

[canuckerfan]

mpc, celtic's builds, won't play avi files (with xvid + mp3 stream, haven't tested with a divx or ac3 stream yet). was wondering if some settings need to be altered for this to work.

PS: I have ffdshow installed as well.

[Px]

Feature request - could you add ability to log displayed statistics (Ctrl+4) to external file?

[chros]

mpc, celtic's builds, won't play avi files (with xvid + mp3 stream, haven't tested with a divx or ac3 stream yet).
For me it's working:
try install xvid codec (a koepi build) and see what happens.
Selelct the internal avi splitter and select or deselect (in this case select in ffdshow) MPEG Audio in Internal filters.

[Peuj]

For me it's working:
try install xvid codec (a koepi build) and see what happens.
Selelct the internal avi splitter and select or deselect (in this case select in ffdshow) MPEG Audio in Internal filters.

and if it works with XVid codec so maybe it's a ffdshow problem, you could share a sample on this topic http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=98600

Thanks

[FredThompson]

I'm struggling with 2 issues with MPC and looking for help.

1) MPC doesn't appear to support 4:2:2 MPEG2 so I'm using ffdshow for MPEG2 decoding but some DVR streams stutter. They play fine with MPC. Can someone give me an authoritative answer about how MPC works when the decoder is ffdshow? I'm trying to determine if the problems are within ffdshow or interaction between ffdshow and MPC. I've been looking for answers in the ffdshow thread. FWIW, the test files is at: http://www.corrugatedmachines.com/FruitBeer.vob

2) 1080i MPEG2 stutters when I try to play it with MPC. Granted, there is some resizing but why would commercial apps like PowerDVD play these larger formats without a hitch yet MPC sputters?

Requests, in case anyone is doing some updates:

1) DVD player-like controls as an option.

2) Association with file types without ganging them all into one category. Try changing the icon for one of the associated file types. They'll all get changed. Blech!!!

3) Improved DVD menu support. I've noticed some menus won't work at all with MPC. I can easily supply homemade samples of menus which work with PowerDVD and hardware players but confuse MPC.

4) A little bit more information in the status display when playing an IFO set. It would sure be nice to know exactly which part is being played.

[clsid]

1) MPC doesn't appear to support 4:2:2 MPEG2 so I'm using ffdshow for MPEG2 decoding but some DVR streams stutter. They play fine with MPC. Can someone give me an authoritative answer about how MPC works when the decoder is ffdshow? I'm trying to determine if the problems are within ffdshow or interaction between ffdshow and MPC. I've been looking for answers in the ffdshow thread. FWIW, the test files is at: http://www.corrugatedmachines.com/FruitBeer.vob

2) 1080i MPEG2 stutters when I try to play it with MPC. Granted, there is some resizing but why would commercial apps like PowerDVD play these larger formats without a hitch yet MPC sputters?
1) This was answered in the ffdshow thread. Use the internal splitter in MPC and use an external decoder.

2) The decoder used in PowerDVD uses hardware acceleration. So it uses less CPU resources. That explains why it has less problems decoding high resolution video. You can use the decoder of PowerDVD in MPC.

[max-pain]

2) 1080i MPEG2 stutters when I try to play it with MPC. Granted, there is some resizing but why would commercial apps like PowerDVD play these larger formats without a hitch yet MPC sputters?

My friend has the same problem with MPC after videocard driver upgrade. The CPU usage is around 60-70%.

[FredThompson]

1) This was answered in the ffdshow thread. Use the internal splitter in MPC and use an external decoder.Ah...I've finally figured it out. I wasn't setting the merit properly for ffdshow inside MPC. It works. Woohoo!!!

edit: No, I'm stumped. I started MPC from it's home directory then added ffdshow raw video to the external filters. I chose the option to set it as the preference then hit the OK button. Now all the video types play properly but when I restart MPC, the settings are not shown to be configured. Why is that?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Fred.... Have you actually disabled MPC internal MPEG-2 filter?

EDIT: I'm not sure whether enabling FFDshow's RAW video filter is the best over-all solution

[FredThompson]

Wouldn't setting the preference for ffdshow disable the internal decoder of MPC?

I've also noticed MPC's post-processing for MPEG doesn't play nice with 4:2:2

All I can say is I couldn't get MPC to play 4:2:2 by itself. Sure, I'd prefer that if it's possible.

btw, I've finally figured out how to make pixel perfect recordings of PowerPoint. Are you still interested in that? It's a combination of time stretching and shrinking using scripts, slide timings in PowerPoint, TMPGEnc's fake time stretched output and CamStudio. The only glitch is a 4G file limit with CamStudio. Won't work with audio but the video is perfect.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Wouldn't setting the preference for ffdshow disable the internal decoder of MPC?No... MPC's internal filter takes precedence. You need to manually disable MPC's internal MPEG-2 filter first.

I've also noticed MPC's post-processing for MPEG doesn't play nice with 4:2:2

All I can say is I couldn't get MPC to play 4:2:2 by itself. Sure, I'd prefer that if it's possible.This is true MPC's MPEG-2 filter can't decode 4:2:2 MPEG-2...

btw, I've finally figured out how to make pixel perfect recordings of PowerPoint. Are you still interested in that? It's a combination of time stretching and shrinking using scripts, slide timings in PowerPoint, TMPGEnc's fake time stretched output and CamStudio. The only glitch is a 4G file limit with CamStudio. Won't work with audio but the video is perfect.Unfortunately I'm not working with anybody anymore who uses PowerPoint or has the need to extract A/V from PowerPoint documents :(


Cheers

[FredThompson]

No... MPC's internal filter takes precedence. You need to manually disable MPC's internal MPEG-2 filter first.Well, I don't see any place to do this in the options for MPC and 4:2:2 plays when ffdshow is set for libmpeg2. Otherwise, you'll get garbled blocks. Are you thinking MPC's decoder is smart enough to pass precedence when it encounters 4:2:2?

[anonymez]

Well, I don't see any place to do this in the options for MPC

options-->internal filters-->mpeg2 video. uncheck it

[FredThompson]

Yes, I've already done that. That column is titled "transform filters", not "codec" or anything like that. If it's a list of internal decoders, the column title really should be updated to conform to current terms.

[clsid]

There is nothing wrong with the title. A DirectShow decoding filter is not a codec.

[FredThompson]

sigh, yes, it's a dec, not a codec.

My point was the column titles aren't that obvious when compared to common players like WMP, QT, Real, etc. Neither word really conveys decoding, they convey modifying.

[vlada]

FredThompson
Yeah, this is one of the most common nonsenses: "You need a codec to play a file". You need a FILTER (in fact more filters) to play a file. You only need a codec to transcode video.

[celtic_druid]

From recollection that options tab used to look quite different. Try and old build and look.

[SeeMoreDigital]

How about something like this then?

http://i10.tinypic.com/4e05nyc.png

[Reino]

I'd rather say "Splitter Filters" instead of "Container Decoder Filters"

[SeeMoreDigital]

I'd rather say "Splitter Filters" instead of "Container Decoder Filters"Yes you're right. Like this then: -

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7126/mpcproposaloc5.png


Cheers

[FredThompson]

WME has a place to add filters which, apparently, are decoding and/or processing. I guess that's Microspeak...

vlada, codec is actually CODEC which is COde/DECode, just as modem is actually MODEM which is MOdulate/DEModulate. The data must be DECode(d) before any filtering can be applied. The use of the words has gotten sloppy over time.

Then again, a math person would probably bicker about the word, "algorithm"...

[Wedgedkc]

Is it just me or is the dts decoding broken in the rev611-2 build? It works fine for me with the plain 611 version.

[kurt]

dts doesn't work here either ... most people use ac3filter or ffdshow probably, so no one noticed this?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is it just me or is the dts decoding broken in the rev611-2 build? It works fine for me with the plain 611 version.Who created this build?

[Wedgedkc]

Who created this build?

celtic_druid

[Liisachan]

celtic_druid, the same builder who made 611, updated 611 with ffdshow "Queue output samples" support (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1577522&group_id=82303&atid=565651) (and a newer aac decoder)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hmmm!

I've just visited CD's site, downloaded and installed "mplayerc.rev611-2.2kxp.7z 16-Oct-2006 11:42" and my RAW DTS and DTS in VOB sources are playing okay!

No problems passing a DTS bit-stream to my DSS amp...

[clsid]

Did you also try to output to your PC speakers?

I just tried a raw DTS sample and it played without sound.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Did you also try to output to your PC speakers?

I just tried a raw DTS sample and it played without sound.No... just to my DSS amp. I don't use my soundcards analogue outputs!

[Wedgedkc]

The digital output works for me as well but I use both.