CoreCodec/H.264 Codec "CoreAVC"

[ChronoCross]

It is normal in the software world that minor and micro updates are free. Major updates (v1 -> v2) are usually not free.

BTW, CoreCodec's official statement is that all 1.x updates are free for existing customers. So STFU.

You still overlooked the fact that it's not free for them. Oxygen is definitely correct in that we do not know the true licensing terms they have with mpegla. Quoting a public document is generally not evidence as to the true costs.

"Features will be added at a later date" cannot possibly be taken as "updates are free". Not to mention that GPU support wasn't mentioned for the 1.0 version on the site simply that it will exist in Professional Edition at some point. Misleading (yes) Illegal (No).

[clsid]

The licensing terms are as given in that document unless you prove me otherwise. Period.

Again, BetaBoy himself has said that all v1.x updates will be free, including the update that contains the promised GPU acceleration support. Period.

[bob0r]

1.x + gpu free
2.x + gpu + more than 2 cores + ... + ... = pay

At least thats what i would do :devil:

[Oxygen]

The licensing terms are as given in that document unless you prove me otherwise. Period.

Again, BetaBoy himself has said that all v1.x updates will be free, including the update that contains the promised GPU acceleration support. Period.

It's no document. It's a PR.
And i've nothing to prove to you. Period.

Anyway, please STFU yourself:

1 The licensing terms summarized below are for informational purposes only. They are not an offer to license and may
not be relied upon for any purpose. The AVC Patent Portfolio License provides the actual terms of license on which
users may rely.
as stated in the first page here: http://www.mpegla.com/avc/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf

BB stated way earlier (late may i think) that there would be one day an activation to provide the free updates. Period.

[Oxygen]

It is normal in the software world that minor and micro updates are free. Major updates (v1 -> v2) are usually not free.

BTW, CoreCodec's official statement is that all 1.x updates are free for existing customers. So STFU.

thanks for playing, please come back another time.

[clsid]

That Press Release contains the same numbers as the 'Summary of license Terms'. I my eyes that info is pretty reliable. Better than any fairy tales you guys suck out of your thumbs.

[Episode]

@Oxygen, this one http://www.mpegla.com/avc/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf isn't just PR and it says exactly the same thing as my earlier link did.

Anyway, I still propose that bond should separate this discussion from this thread into it's own as it really doesn't have anything do to with the actual product anymore, just bashing each other with nonsense claims and insults. People who are really trying to get help with their activation process may not get help because all the attention is directed on those who are fighting (in a way that leads to nowhere, it's like little kids fighting with arguments like "it is!" "no it isn't" "but it is!" "go to hell!" "I'm gonna tell my mommy.." :).

Discussion about CoreCodecs activation system, lack of promised features and other such thing is good and necessary and CoreCodec can and should listen to their customers for what they want (remember, these are the guys that are paying your salary) , because that way they can bring us better product in next version. But when it turns into like this, it shouldn't included in a thread that's supposed to be somekind of helpdesk-thread for those that are having some issues with their product.

[Shinigami-Sama]

@Oxygen, this one http://www.mpegla.com/avc/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf isn't just PR and it says exactly the same thing as my earlier link did.

Anyway, I still propose that bond should separate this discussion from this thread into it's own as it really doesn't have anything do to with the actual product anymore, just bashing each other with nonsense claims and insults. People who are really trying to get help with their activation process may not get help because all the attention is directed on those who are fighting (in a way that leads to nowhere, it's like little kids fighting with arguments like "it is!" "no it isn't" "but it is!" "go to hell!" "I'm gonna tell my mommy.." :).

Discussion about CoreCodecs activation system, lack of promised features and other such thing is good and necessary and CoreCodec can and should listen to their customers for what they want (remember, these are the guys that are paying your salary) , because that way they can bring us better product in next version. But when it turns into like this, it shouldn't included in a thread that's supposed to be somekind of helpdesk-thread for those that are having some issues with their product.

here here

[Oxygen]

That Press Release contains the same numbers as the 'Summary of license Terms'. I my eyes that info is pretty reliable. Better than any fairy tales you guys suck out of your thumbs.

What part of that you don't understand ?


1 The licensing terms summarized below are for informational purposes only. They are not an offer to license and may
not be relied upon for any purpose. The AVC Patent Portfolio License provides the actual terms of license on which
users may rely.

[lazyn00b]

On the bright side, problems with CoreAVC decoder on MCE 2005 seem to be fixed with this 1.2 release! I played a few different clips encoded with x264 over and over for hours with WMP 11 on repeat, and there were no crashes.

Can any other MCE 2005 users confirm this improvement?

[clsid]

*sigh* nit-picker

That's just legal mumbo jumbo to cover their asses. Just a disclaimer.

But suppose that MPEG LA document is totally incorrect. Does it matter? No. The retail price of CoreAVC Pro is $14.95 including free updates for v1.x.x releases. Fact. The customer doesn't give a damn whether the license fees that CoreCodec has to pay are $0.20 per unit or $0 or $1,000. Betaboy says that updates count as additional units. I will assume that this is true. So what. CoreCodec has a roadmap and thus an estimate of the number of releases in the 1.x series. All the costs are included in the retail price (assuming they know how to run a business). This does mean is that CoreCodec probably won't be eager to release many extra tiny updates, e.g. to fix small bugs, since more updates could mean higher costs. So that could be an explanation why it took them so long to release a fix for the MCE bug.

On the other hand, CoreCodec can just lie about the number of units that they have shipped, simply claiming its below 100,000 units and pay no license fees at all :devil:

[Inventive Software]

@clsid: What if they do lie about the number of units they ship? I'd have thought the MPEG LA were quite hot on fake numbers of units shipped by companies... can anybody confirm or deny with firm evidence?

[bond]

can we please stop this discussion? you pay for what is in the coreavc version you buy, nothing more. period

if you want to spend your money on something because of what might happen in the future try stocks or go to the casino

[SeeMoreDigital]

Well said Bond...

I think this thread has gone long enough (119 pages).... How about starting a new CoreAVC 1.2 discussion thread. With a stern notice about ranting?


Cheers

[Inventive Software]

Right you horrible lot (not always, just recently ;)), rantings for CoreCodec / CoreAVC goes in this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=118775

[oddball]

OK I *FINALLY* got 1.2 installed (I won't go into anything more on my feelings about this as you probably already know those).

Can anyone tell me if DirectShow deinterlacing is only applicable to VMR playback? I ask this because my system is not fast enough to playback a lot of HD H.264 content but I did notice that if I put it into DirectShow deinterlacing when in overlay mode the image flickers very badly and I get scanlines. Also when capturing frames in this mode the images come out upside down. If I playback in standard overlay mode it actually plays back upside down too!

Software deinterlacing does not exhibit any of these problems in overlay mode.

[Foreigner999]

Betaboy any updates on support for U3? Will it be available in the 1.x updates?
And what happened to the CoreAAC 2.0 update we were going to recieve?

[Seb.26]

OK I *FINALLY* got 1.2 installed (I won't go into anything more on my feelings about this as you probably already know those).

Can anyone tell me if DirectShow deinterlacing is only applicable to VMR playback? I ask this because my system is not fast enough to playback a lot of HD H.264 content but I did notice that if I put it into DirectShow deinterlacing when in overlay mode the image flickers very badly and I get scanlines. Also when capturing frames in this mode the images come out upside down. If I playback in standard overlay mode it actually plays back upside down too!

Software deinterlacing does not exhibit any of these problems in overlay mode.

have you try to use MPC pixel shaders deinterlacing ?
( maybe GPU can help ... )

[movmasty]

CoreCodec is proud to present CoreAVC our AVC/H.264 decoder that had originally been written to be a plugin for CorePlayer ( see: www.coreplayer.com ) but because of early testing we found that it was the most 'processor effecient' H.264 decoder available and decided to port it to the directshow framework. We are now adding it to our CoreCodec Suite of directshow codecs and are making it our flagship codec for Consumers and third party licensees.

Purchase/Download it here: http://www.coreavc.com
Escuse me BB, shouldnt a simple decoder to be free?

how do you think that people will buy your h264 encoder if is quite hard to simply watch those movies?

like example realvideo always gives its decoder for free, and micro$oft as well.

[Seb.26]

Escuse me BB, shouldnt a simple decoder to be free?
how do you think that people will buy your h264 encoder if is quite hard to simply watch those movies?
like example realvideo always gives its decoder for free, and micro$oft as well.
CoreCodec don't sell video ... they sell software ... :confused:

[_xxl]

http://i14.tinypic.com/3yhzsw7.jpg
Is this legal?
CoreAVC 1.1.0.5?

[soresu]

This business with activation in 1.2 is ridiculous... It barely has enough features to warrant a .1 update and the most wanted thing in it is the Windows MCE fix.

I just changed out my motherboard (useless Abit KN9 SLi from early production) and reinstalled, only to realise that I was back to using version 1.1 because I couldn't install 1.2 anymore. This is exactly the kind of stance that makes MS a target for crackers with Vista... only they at least amended their license so that you could reinstall/change hardware as often as you like...

I'm not a happy customer! :mad:

OK... i'm cooling down now... rant over

[Sharktooth]

@soresu: for rants please use this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=118775

[movmasty]

CoreCodec don't sell video ... they sell software ... :confused:

Neither realvideo nor micro$oft do.....:rolleyes:

[Romario]

http://i14.tinypic.com/3yhzsw7.jpg
Is this legal?
CoreAVC 1.1.0.5?

Yes it is, as far I know.

[_xxl]

Yes it is, as far I know.
Is CoreAVC 1.1.0.5 free?

[ChronoCross]

Yes it is, as far I know.

No it's not legal. That codec pack is breaking the law. that is a PAID codec being given away for FREE. Which is definitely illegal.

[SeeMoreDigital]

No it's not legal. That codec pack is breaking the law. that is a PAID codec being given away for FREE. Which is definitely illegal.I wonder how they've been able to make it work?

[cacepi]

I wonder how they've been able to make it work?
It's not the activation-required 1.2 codec, but an earlier one that's been cracked.

[Sirber]

1.1.0.5 is the last DRM-free release.

[Romario]

Who cares! 1.1.0.5 is an "old" version, so CoreCodec don't offer it anymore.

[KoD]

Ican also give the name of a player that is sold commercially and that bundles coreavc as well as some open source decoders like coreaac, gabest's mpeg2 decoder and others while being payware and closed source. And some people wonder why a small company that makes its money from selling a decoder and a player had to go the "let's implement activation" way...

[Sirber]

@KoD

What's the name?

[foxyshadis]

Free-codecs is full of illegal and shady codec packs, they've hosted ones that bundle nero, elecard, on2, divx pro (before it was free), and others over the years. So no big surprise there. More to the point, full of system-killer codec packs. (The worst part was that it was usually the commercial codecs that are the buggiest, ripping up your system's directshow capability, not the free ones.)

[KoD]

Well, there's someting called FantasyDVDPlayer... just don't involve me in any sorts of trouble....

[Sirber]

http://www.tucows.com/preview/402989

that's the one?

[KoD]

Yes, that's the one. Be careful if you plan on installing it... look in your Windows/system32 for a folder where it places all its bundled filters and make a backup of that folder. Upon uninstallation it deletes that folder but does not unregister the filters there, so you'll have to go back to your backup and unregister them manually. At least that's the painful memory I have of it. :( There's also the nice media files extensions hijack it does that's not reverted upon uninstall.

[pankov]

I'm here... yeah vacation for me is packing... i'm moving to where its warmer... pankov... i'll look at the PM's in the AM... oddball.. I did not pursue your issue as you indicated you had requested a refund.
Betaboy,
I still haven't received the e-mail with the updated version
:(
Should I contact you again? and how?

[Maiku]

pankov: i'm guessing you don't check CoreCodec's actual forums, which you probably should do

Paypal has been fixed and we have fixed almost everybody that we could. For those that didn't got their products, please send me the paypal receipt to corecodec.sales@gmail.com, and please add [PAYPAL] at the beginning of the subject.

People who bought an older version of CoreAVC but did not got the update, send me the paypal receipt and your CoreAccount (at http://portal.coreforge.org) login/name if you have one to corecodec.sales@gmail.com, and please add [UPDATE] at the beginning of the subject.

We will then take care of those unlucky people once possible.

Please do not forget to add [PAYPAL] or [UPDATE] !

Thank you.

[pankov]

Maiku,
10x for the info ... I'll try it and hope it will work this time
:)

[fedmond31]

does not work neither i am an early buyer of coeavc pro , i have mailed twice to betaboy and did maiku suggestion but i have not my mail with update.
quite upset now

[ChronoCross]

betaboy is currently moving so he doesn't have internet. Try emailing their support department.

[Ginsonic]

Try emailing their support department

I think he did

and did maiku suggestion

I also emailed support department as suggested but still no answer.

[Isochroma]

The true secret of CoreAVC is not its unusually efficient AVC decoding code - which will someday be equalled and perhaps even bested by ffdshow - but a little-noticed capability which has slipped quietly under the radar of most everyone but myself...

The story begins long ago in the misty veils of ancient times, but to make it shorter, I'll summarize its most important points. The VMR9 renderer, for sure, and probably also VMR7, both have a strange behaviour regarding YUV data presented to their input pins.

In particular, if any YUV format is presented, values outside the range of 16-235 (TV levels) are clamped; RGB inputs are not clamped. After uncountably extensive tests by yours truly using every filter combination imaginable, it has been determined that the clamping behaviour holds true for every case, and in no case is there an exception but one.

Avery Lee, the creator of VirtualDub, has been investigating the strange quirks of luma levels in the VMR renderers here (http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=92).

You may be asking yourself right now, "why oh why would I want PC level range when most video is coded in TV range?". Some good reasons come to mind: your video output device is probably a PC monitor or LCD, which expects PC levels.

Feeding TV levels to such a device results in washed-out blacks (compounding the backlight leakage already present on LCDs) and dim whites.

During encoding or re-encoding, the AviSynth command:

ColorYUV(levels="TV->PC")

can be used to stretch the TV levels to fit your device, or alternately, ffdshow's 'levels' filter can do it in realtime. But if ffdshow is sending any YUV format to the renderer, this will be utterly useless due to clamping.

Knowing this, it is time to shift the focus of our examination to CoreAVC. This nice little filter has a checkbox labelled "Fix VMR9 color range". When checked, the output of VMR9 is observed to be full PC range, using a full-range source and with any YUV format selected as output (and no, it's not secretly sending RGB; the input pin of the VMR9 renderer was checked to make sure).

Never, ever in the history of VMR9 has any piece of software been able to make this impossible event occur. Somewhere in the VMR9 or elsewhere in the system, exists a method to force the VMR9 to pass full PC range without clamping, from a YUV input.

It is also observed, that if CoreAVC is set to output any YUV format, and ffdshow is set to accept that format and output any YUV format (no RGB formats checked), then the renderer will observe the usual clamping behavior. Thus, the CoreAVC filter must be directly connected to the VMR9 renderer's input pin in order for the fix to work.

The hope is now to find out how they did it. If the information can be obtained, developers of all other filters may also incorporate the fix into their software. The fix has many advantages; most importantly it means that ffdshow can output YV12 without the heavy CPU burden of conversion to RGB, yet still maintain PC range.

To wrap up, a request is now issued to CoreCodec to provide this small tidbit of information, which would both provide the video community with a much-needed fix, yet still maintain the advantage CoreAVC enjoys by means of its efficient decoding architecture.

Note: Verification

The behavior as stated above can be verified by running three instances of MPC. Your should have two source materials, one encoded in TV range, the other PC range, output in either VMR9 or VMR9 Renderless. Drivers newer than 84.21 on Nvidia cards may cause unpredictable results. Finally, make sure ffdshow is NOT set to accept any raw video inputs, to avoid having it get in between CoreAVC and the VMR9 renderer.

MPC #1: CoreAVC filter set to RGB32 output ("Fix VMR9 levels" checkbox state shouldn't matter)
MPC #2: CoreAVC filter set to any YUV ouput, checkbox checked (should cause unclamped passthrough)
MPC #3: CoreAVC filter set to any YUV output, checkbox unchecked (should cause clamping to TV range)

If your source is TV range, #1-3 should appear identical and show TV range
If your source is PC range, #1,2 should appear identical and show PC range, while #3 shows TV range.

[DeathWolf]

For those interested.
What i have found on this matter is that there's a fix for vmr to force output PC levels, at least with nvidia drivers.
This is it:

1 Launch regedit and determine the current primary display card by
looking in
HKey_Local_Machine\Hardware\DeviceMap\Video
and note the GUID (global unique identifier assigned by Windows),
which is the long string in brackets { } at the end of the entry
ʺ\device\video0ʺ.
2 Look in
HKey_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\
{GUID}\0000
where {GUID} is the number derived from the previous step.
3 Open the ʺ0000ʺ directory and create a new DWORD called
VMRCCCSStatus and give it a value of
0x1 - to force use of the standard YUV range of 16-235
0x3 - to force use of the extended YUV range of 0-255

This seems to effectively(at least on my two comps) force TV levels to be remapped(stretched) to PC levels. Also i think it clamps if it receives full PC levels but i havent checked that thoroughly yet.

[Egh]

That fix works only with DVI outputs, and of course only with Nvidia cards, unfortunately.

No it fixed my case as well. I have 7600GS and use casual D-Sub output for CRT monitor. Since i work much with PC level videos (i.e. which are already encoded as (0..255)) i was very annoyed by VMR9+YV12 output.

Solution from DW helped the issue (and he told me a while ago before posted here on the forums :P)

[Isochroma]

84.21 may clips VMR9 outside 16-235 over DVI, Latest Nvidia driver clips (http://forum.inmatrix.com/index.php?showtopic=4387)

Quote from the 84.21 driver release notes:

"Video color-space range for DVI-only1 outputs is erroneously set to standard mode (16-235) instead of extended mode (0-255).

A new detection feature to apply Standard CSC mode to TV outputs (including NTSC, PAL, 480i, and 576i), included DVI-only outputs by mistake.

Note: The driver correctly applies extended mode to analog outputs, and standard mode to TV outputs (including NTSC, PAL, 480i, and 576i).

A future driver release will correct this and apply the extended-mode color space to DVI-only outputs."

1. “DVI-only” means only one display is connected, and it is to the DVI output.

[wiak]

This business with activation in 1.2 is ridiculous... It barely has enough features to warrant a .1 update and the most wanted thing in it is the Windows MCE fix.

I just changed out my motherboard (useless Abit KN9 SLi from early production) and reinstalled, only to realise that I was back to using version 1.1 because I couldn't install 1.2 anymore. This is exactly the kind of stance that makes MS a target for crackers with Vista... only they at least amended their license so that you could reinstall/change hardware as often as you like...

I'm not a happy customer! :mad:

OK... i'm cooling down now... rant over
got a point, why have activation?, when someone will everytime crack/hack it, just look at microsoft, People wants a codec that will work in there HTPC and there main PC, and will work with diffrent OS'es on the same pc

i have the problem to it says :
this product has already been activated
dooh, i just reinstalled windows?, what about it ask's the account system that it will allow to run on upto 4 pcs at a time and no more?, it will give people more room, and meybe people will not download a hacked/cracked versions :confused:

my little story/timeline (and am proud of it to!)
1. I downloaded the alpha codecs that was here in the forum
2: I got CoreAVC 1.1.0.5 of a friend (illegal)
3. I Bought CoreAVC 1.1.0.5 (Legal!)
4. I upgraded to 1.2.0.0(Legal!)
5. I have no clue but i cant use 1.2 as it says its already activated
6. I reverted to my friends one (illegal), but i payd for 1.1.0.5, but i cant download it anymore
7. Now i use 1.1.0.5 (illegal!)

i think many people has my dilemma :/

[Rectal Prolapse]

I haven't installed 1.2 yet - I have a dual-boot system (two OSes on the same PC) and I NEED to have CoreAVC Pro working on both (one OS for video editing and previewing, the other for HTPC-only use). From what I read this isn't possible.

Or is it? Has someone tried it?

[wiak]

I haven't installed 1.2 yet - I have a dual-boot system (two OSes on the same PC) and I NEED to have CoreAVC Pro working on both (one OS for video editing and previewing, the other for HTPC-only use). From what I read this isn't possible.

Or is it? Has someone tried it?
yes, i have tryd to run CoreAVC 1.2 on Windows XP & Windows Vista on the same pc in dualboot :scared: