CoreCodec/H.264 Codec "CoreAVC"

[LigH]

Confusing CUDA with PureVideo again?

[Sharktooth]

LigH? coreavc uses CUDA to access purevideo decoding...
you can do that on ati cards with opencl... UVD is now exposed.

[LigH]

I mean: There is a difference between "using a hardware decoder" and "running a CUDA program as decoder".

PureVideo is a hardware decoder. No complex CUDA program is executed to decode the video stream "macroblock by macroblock".

[Mixer73]

from my point of view, free alternatives are much better than coreavc... since they're free and the result is the same.

Sharktooth, with all due respect I disagree. CoreAVC is an elegant product that is much easier to install and use than the free options.

With Windows 7 however I don't see the need for it at all but for me CoreAVC is a worthy component of a XP or Vista media playback box.

CoreAVC doesn't have to use CUDA, its still a very efficient software decoder. With CUDA though I do not see the performance hit you are claiming.

Personally I don't think FFDShow compares, FFDShow can be very capable but its also often quite broken, and is immeasurably more difficult to set up properly.

[Sharktooth]

that's partially true. you need a decent player and also coreavc comes with no filtering.
mpc-hc is as easy as coreavc to install. it doesnt need external decoders and has filters.
another option is VLC, still single easy installation and it has DXVA support too but no filtering (using DXVA).

[Forfront]

@Sharktooth: Here it is the “proof”;) a complete guide with Big pictures & Bold print, anyone can understand it!:D

http://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-compute-unified-device-architecture-cuda/

Now read over my past statements and u will see everything make sense! Anyway I hop someone finds this helpful.:)

[Sharktooth]

CUDA is not MAGIC. there is NO decoders made using CUDA. CUDA is just a compiler for programming shader processors on nvidia videocards and coreavc is using it to access PureVideo hardware for decoding. the same happens with DXVA and OpenCL.
Most of the limitations in the article you posted are just HARDWARE LIMITATIONS (that can be fooled by software in some cases, as it happens in MPC-HC for example...) and they apply to coreavc or any other CUDA based, DXVA or OpenCL software coz THE DECODER IS A PIECE OF SILICON ON THE GPU and without that CoreAVC wont be able to decode ANYTHING except using the CPU. The decoder is not written in CUDA... can you understand that? if not, go trolling away...

[LigH]

That's what I intended to say... :o

It doesn't matter much which "decoder" software runs on which operating system using which specific API, if the real business is done by an integrated circuit.

[nm]

But there are many practical issues that can make a particular API more suitable even in playback-only scenarios. For instance, MadVR still doesn't work with DXVA.

[Sharktooth]

well, everything has his pro and cons, but still the "average user" doesnt use MadVR. on the other side, coreavc was plagued with bugs and customers had to wait for months to be fixed.
the good thing with free alternatives is usually there are more than one and usually bugs are fixed faster. also they're free...

@ligh: nevermind, i didnt understand we were saying the same thing :)

[weasel_]

why whoud we care about average user...
for example averege user still watch sd ...

[Mixer73]

that's partially true. you need a decent player and also coreavc comes with no filtering.
mpc-hc is as easy as coreavc to install. it doesnt need external decoders and has filters.
another option is VLC, still single easy installation and it has DXVA support too but no filtering (using DXVA).

Sorry, I was a big fan of MPC-HC for a number of years but the latest 'improvements' have rendered it unable to play without stutter on my system, and VLC is actually a joke. Its performance is shitful and on the last build I tried it couldn't even play MP4 files.

I'm using PotPlayer on my desktop rig now.

Regardless, I'm using Windows Media Centre in my loungeroom, and for this specifically I said that CoreAVC is well worth the $15 price.

[Forfront]

why whoud we care about average user...
for example averege user still watch sd ...
Couldn't have said it better my self;)...
I'm using PotPlayer on my desktop rig now.I also believe Daum potplayer is better than mpc-hc, certainly for average users, perhaps even the advanced!:D

[Sharktooth]

ok, so the advanced user, like me, for example, doesnt need coreavc at all coz my CPU is enough and im also not forced to buy an nvidia card... im not limited by the decoder on the videocard, so i can play UHD streams or even 10bit encoded avc streams without a problem. the advanced user doenst want to wait for months for bugs to be fixed in a stupid decoder... expecially if he paid for it. the advanced user does not confuse CUDA with the holy grail and gets informed before spreading bull$hit.
so, you're not and advanced user nor an average user. you're just a cuda fanboy spreading bull$hit and not even conscious that the applications that could be run on GPUs are very, very, very limited.

[davidsama]

You could try using Splash player which uses purevideo for gpu acceleration

[weasel_]

Sharktooth relex, just dont use coreavc...
Let other to use it if they want ... For nvida users, it have some advantage that others free decoders haven`t

You saying you are advance users and others are fanboy... hahaahha
Hardware decoding have some advatage vs softwere...of course it have some limitation ...
Just depend on consumer needs.

[Sharktooth]

@weasel_: sure, everyone uses what they want, but dont come here advertising CoreAVC as there is "no direct competition" and telling false stuff believing in a youtube video without further investigating on the real stuff...
im not saying that others are fanboys... im saying ONE person is a fanboy (not directed to you).

[Forfront]

CUDA is not MAGIC. there is NO decoders made using CUDA. CUDA is just a compiler for programming shader processors on nvidia videocards and coreavc is using it to access PureVideo hardware for decoding. the same happens with DXVA and OpenCL.
Most of the limitations in the article you posted are just HARDWARE LIMITATIONS (that can be fooled by software in some cases, as it happens in MPC-HC for example...) and they apply to coreavc or any other CUDA based, DXVA or OpenCL software coz THE DECODER IS A PIECE OF SILICON ON THE GPU and without that CoreAVC wont be able to decode ANYTHING except using the CPU. The decoder is not written in CUDA... can you understand that? if not, go trolling away...

well, everything has his pro and cons, but still the "average user" doesnt use MadVR. on the other side, coreavc was plagued with bugs and customers had to wait for months to be fixed.
the good thing with free alternatives is usually there are more than one and usually bugs are fixed faster. also they're free...
ok, so the advanced user, like me, for example, doesnt need coreavc at all coz my CPU is enough and im also not forced to buy an nvidia card... im not limited by the decoder on the videocard, so i can play UHD streams or even 10bit encoded avc streams without a problem. the advanced user doenst want to wait for months for bugs to be fixed in a stupid decoder... expecially if he paid for it. the advanced user does not confuse CUDA with the holy grail and gets informed before spreading bull$hit.
so, you're not and advanced user nor an average user. you're just a cuda fanboy spreading bull$hit and not even conscious that the applications that could be run on GPUs are very, very, very limited.None of its been worth responding to...

The article didn’t say cuda has a decoder:confused:, that wasn’t remotely the point, obviously gpu accel with pv or uvd (the central focus is the usage concept)... The implementations are, and always will be a “MEANS TO AND END” the end was the point not the means. Once again the hole purpose is “AviSynth” the scrips I run could easily max out a quad at 4.1ghz, so I’m using gpu accel to take some of the strain off the cpu (playback only). All of this works to gather flawlessly (kind like Magic!!!;)). Theres noway to do this with ATI (uvd) currently...
If I’m a fanboy of anything its openCL not cuda. I own ATI & NV graphic solutions, they both have advantages & disadvantages but nevertheless great products whichever a person owns.:)

[Audionut]

If Don was still here, he would have handed out numerous strikes and cleaned this thread.

You ladies should get each others MSN details or something.

[Sharktooth]

None of its been worth responding to...

The article didn’t say cuda has a decoder:confused:, that wasn’t remotely the point, obviously gpu accel with pv or uvd (the central focus is the usage concept)... The implementations are, and always will be a “MEANS TO AND END” the end was the point not the means. Once again the hole purpose is “AviSynth” the scrips I run could easily max out a quad at 4.1ghz, so I’m using gpu accel to take some of the strain off the cpu (playback only). All of this works to gather flawlessly (kind like Magic!!!;)). Theres noway to do this with ATI (uvd) currently...
If I’m a fanboy of anything its openCL not cuda. I own ATI & NV graphic solutions, they both have advantages & disadvantages but nevertheless great products whichever a person owns.:)
if it's for playback only (as you said) then MPC-HC has GPU accelerated avc decoder (dont know how many times i have to repeat myself...) that works on UVD too (thru DxVA) . MPC-HC project also has "external filters" (directshow) and the AVC decoder is included. So i still dont know what you're talking about...

[ranpha]

if it's for playback only (as you said) then MPC-HC has GPU accelerated avc decoder (dont know how many times i have to repeat myself...) that works on UVD too (thru DxVA) . MPC-HC project also has "external filters" (directshow) and the AVC decoder is included. So i still dont know what you're talking about...

What he says is MPC-HC by itself cannot replicate the powerful combination of MPC-HC (or PotPlayer) + CoreAVC CUDA + madVR (anyone who cares about image quality will use this) + ffdshow avisynth capabilities.

If you know how to enable DXVA-assisted playback with madVR and also with avisynth post-processing capabilities (gradfun2DBmod + seesaw + LimitedSharpenFaster et. al.) in MPC-HC, then please enlighten us on how to do it.

Oh BTW, JanWillem32's deband shader operators and gradfun2DBmod does two different things, just so you know.

[Sharktooth]

there's no actual way to enable ffdshow filtering with DxVA coz no data is returned from the video card after decoding. however, there are alternatives.
in the scenario you just described, i would use dgindexnv and its source filter, that is hardware accelerated as well (still using cuda) and apply avisynth filtering or ffdshow filtering as necessary.
result is the same or even better (coz directshow is weird) plus you get a frame accurate decoder.

[ranpha]

there's no actual way to enable ffdshow filtering with DxVA coz no data is returned from the video card after decoding. however, there are alternatives.
in the scenario you just described, i would use dgindexnv and its source filter, that is hardware accelerated as well (still using cuda) and apply avisynth filtering or ffdshow filtering as necessary.
result is the same or even better (coz directshow is weird) plus you get a frame accurate decoder.

You have to make an avs script for each and every video you want to play, which is not convenient at all. Plus, your method doesn't work with ATI/Intel GPUs, and I believe the DGDecNV is not free too.

[weasel_]

@weasel_: sure, everyone uses what they want, but dont come here advertising CoreAVC as there is "no direct competition" and telling false stuff believing in a youtube video without further investigating on the real stuff...
im not saying that others are fanboys... im saying ONE person is a fanboy (not directed to you).
Ok ;), i just saying its good option for some users...
I agree with you it`s not holy gral
I dont use it and dont believe i will

[Sharktooth]

You have to make an avs script for each and every video you want to play, which is not convenient at all. Plus, your method doesn't work with ATI/Intel GPUs, and I believe the DGDecNV is not free too.
you're making an avs anyway (if the scenario was what weasel described). also, coreavc hardware acceleration wont work on ati/intel GPUs as well... and coreavc is not free as well.

[nm]

you're making an avs anyway (if the scenario was what weasel described).
ffdshow has AviSynth filtering option where the source is added automatically. I don't know how other source filters would work with it.

[Sharktooth]

you cant add a source filter in ffdshow avisynth filtering option. or at least i dont think you can.
btw, if you need all that filtering during playback, you better re-encode...

[Forfront]

@Sharktooth, be careful not to contradict ur self...

[Sharktooth]

im not contradicting myself. you cant use DxVA and ffdshow FILTERING together. you have to use GPU shaders for that... like MPC-HC does.

[ranpha]

you're making an avs anyway (if the scenario was what weasel described). also, coreavc hardware acceleration wont work on ati/intel GPUs as well... and coreavc is not free as well.

With MPC-HC + CoreAVC CUDA + ffdshow avisynth support + madVR, you only have to create the script once. Maybe more if I want to make profiles depending on what I am watching (I have 2). If I were to watch a 20-episode TV series, I do not have to make 20 avs scripts to be played in MPC-HC. Plus, I can also swap the player with the likes of Pot Player/Zoom Player and it will still work (haven't tried the latter though).


im not contradicting myself. you cant use DxVA and ffdshow FILTERING together. you have to use GPU shaders for that... like MPC-HC does.

Not all ffdshow filters/avisynth plugins has shaders equivalent. For example, do you really think that JanWillem32 deband pixel shader operator works the same way gradfun2DBmod avisynth/ffdshow deband filters works? Those two deal with different problems. Plus, with GPU shaders, you are stuck with EVR custom presenter and cannot use madVR.

[Sharktooth]

i know they're not the same. still i dont understand why applying all those filters during playback.
when i backup my movies i ensure the encoding looks like the original. obviously, sometimes it happens i miss something, but i dont need that heavy filtering to fix that.
if that is the case, i just re-encode from the original, so the next time i want to watch that movie/whatever, i just do it...

[ranpha]

i know they're not the same. still i dont understand why applying all those filters during playback.
when i backup my movies i ensure the encoding looks like the original. obviously, sometimes it happens i miss something, but i dont need that heavy filtering to fix that.
if that is the case, i just re-encode from the original, so the next time i want to watch that movie/whatever, i just do it...

Because even the source Blu-ray material may have banding problems (looking at that god-damn Mushishi Blu-rays)!

[weasel_]

That need to be fix at encoding not after with filters

[ranpha]

That need to be fix at encoding not after with filters

But doesn't sharktooth says that a direct rip of a Blu-ray shouldn't have any problems? Re-encoding is not really an option mainly because most of the time (or actually all the time) I watch Blu-rays off the disc with MPC-HC (alongside Passkey). I don't back-up my video DVDs/BDs.

[Sharktooth]

nope. rip and encode are 2 different terms. rip = copy, encode = compress.
i said i tend to make my encodings similar to the original. that's when it makes sense. i mean, if there are obvious artifacts that can be reduced or eliminated by filtering, i apply the necessary filtering before encoding.
also i always back up my original discs coz the chance of damaging them are reduced significantly by using the backup for regular watching.

[ranpha]

nope. rip and encode are 2 different terms. rip = copy, encode = compress.
i said i tend to make my encodings similar to the original. that's when it makes sense. i mean, if there are obvious artifacts that can be reduced or eliminated by filtering, i apply the necessary filtering before encoding.
also i always back up my original discs coz the chance of damaging them are reduced significantly by using the backup for regular watching.

Well, I don't rip or recompress my optical discs because I don't watch movies/TV series/anime more than once or twice (unless in exceptional circumstances), therefore post-processing during playback is important for me at least. In this regard, MPC-HC GPU shaders is simply no match for the power, flexibility and quality that ffdshow + avisynth + madVR can do (and still has hardware acceleration if you use CoreAVC).

[Forfront]

Ranpha: good point, Of course avs scrips can be loaded in meGui but who wants to wast time encoding every single vid or one that will only be watched once. Thats just impractical when we can do this in realtime.:cool:

[Zero1]

Forgive me for slowpoking; but I just got a new laptop and decided to give encoding a go after a few years away. Long story short is that I use the x264 cli, and it often becomes unresponsive, eg if I click on the window or try to minimize it. x264 continues to run in the background normally and then the window regains responsiveness once the encode has finished, and the rest of the batch continues to execute.

I believe I've narrowed this problem down to CoreAVC. I'm using v2 for decoding on Windows 7 64 bit (but all my decoders and encoding software is 32 bit). When I disable CoreAVC and use FFDShow, I do not get the freezing problem. I tried with and without CUDA as I thought there was a remote possibility that it was a GPU driver bug or some conflict with Aero or something, but it made no difference.

Is this a known issue, and is there something I can do about it? It won't kill me to use FFDShow or whatever, but I like CoreAVC for decoding because my GPU decodes the video and leaves the CPU free to encode.

http://doom10.org/index.php?topic=523.0

This guy seemed to have a similar problem.

Thanks.

[Sharktooth]

get DGNVTools. they're much more reliable...

[paulvdb]

I assume you are using an Avisynth script with DirectShowSource() to decode a h264 source. Do you have the tray icon enabled in CoreAVC? If I remember correctly that was the cause when I had that problem and disabling the tray icon fixed it.

[Zero1]

I assume you are using an Avisynth script with DirectShowSource() to decode a h264 source. Do you have the tray icon enabled in CoreAVC? If I remember correctly that was the cause when I had that problem and disabling the tray icon fixed it.
Can't thank you enough. That was exactly the problem. I can't believe something like the tray icon would cause that to happen. Much appreciated.

[eddman]

Apparently v2.5 is available for OEM.

http://twitter.com/CoreCodec/status/42963261569777664

Also, they are saying the retail version will be available by mid march. We'll see. :D

http://twitter.com/CoreCodec/status/43278830122713088

[BetaBoy]

We are close but want to get some feedback.... we have just prepared the first one of two betas for CoreAVC 2.5 that are going out to testers starting today. The main focus of 2.5 is four fold:

- Filling some voids in ASM. For example you should see a nice speed increase in 64bit playback.
- Further optimizations (CPU specific, speed)
- Bug fixes
- Adding DXVA support

With DXVA 1/2 being the biggest focus of this release, we expect a series of post 2.5.x releases to address any issues that come up.

For those that will ask... High 10 support is coming but in 3.x and above only, and we don't expect 3.0 to be out till later this year.

Additionally.... since its based on CoreAVC, once 2.5 is out we will be sending out beta versions of our 3D MVC video decoder CoreMVC. More details on it post 2.5, but our MVC SDK is already available for OEM licensing, licensing@corecodec.com . You'll see the first products with it to market later this month.

[Virtual_ManPL]

Will this bug be fixed in CoreAVC 2.5 release ?
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1390600#post1390600

[Gleb Egorych]

BetaBoy, is hw deinterlacing support improved in 2.5? Can we expect CUDA deinterlacing (if it is suppported by Nvidia) in 2.5?

[BetaBoy]

Will this bug be fixed in CoreAVC 2.5 release ?
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1390600#post1390600

That should be fixed.

[BetaBoy]

Can't thank you enough. That was exactly the problem. I can't believe something like the tray icon would cause that to happen. Much appreciated.

Because a command prompt has no UI pump.

[BetaBoy]

Looks like we have a green light for CoreAVC 2.5 later next week. DXVA QA with the beta testers has gone very well. We might leave a few TODO's for a follow up release or two, but no show stoppers!

[Cyber-Mav]

i wonder if coreavc can now match the speed of diavc when it comes to cpu decoding. only time will tell.

[Virtual_ManPL]

That should be fixed.

Thank you! I will be waiting for release :devil: