CoreCodec/H.264 Codec "CoreAVC"

[bob0r]

Back to the topic:

Man i love Matrix 1, 2 and 3 HDDVD, cyberlink really makes it happen for me!

[Yufi]

ignoring the stupid egoclashes...

I see others in this thread have had the same problem I have: 1.3 suddenly stops working, and installing 1.2 doesn't fix it. yet I registered 1.1 and it worked perfectly fine. I noticed that 1.3 only stopped working immediately after I installed a video card driver update (updating the nVidia drivers), so there's a good chance it has something to do with that. I just can't figure out how or why.

[Jay Bee]

Just checked the CoreAVC site for updates: "CoreAVC Sales will be back in a few days !". This has been there for one or two months now hasn't it? I guess this is the end.

I can't imagine that such a small company with such a niche product can afford to close their shop for so long. :( Maybe they should have listened more to their customers...

[lilhobo]

so they havent fixed 1.3 yet??

[JohnnyFu]

Just checked the CoreAVC site for updates: "CoreAVC Sales will be back in a few days !". This has been there for one or two months now hasn't it? I guess this is the end.

I can't imagine that such a small company with such a niche product can afford to close their shop for so long. :( Maybe they should have listened more to their customers...

They made a deal with Joost, that means alot of money for them.

[DigitalDeviant]

ignoring the stupid egoclashes...

I see others in this thread have had the same problem I have: 1.3 suddenly stops working, and installing 1.2 doesn't fix it. yet I registered 1.1 and it worked perfectly fine. I noticed that 1.3 only stopped working immediately after I installed a video card driver update (updating the nVidia drivers), so there's a good chance it has something to do with that. I just can't figure out how or why.

Ok, now to try to use this thread productively. I haven't heard any problems with with drivers. Mine was an issue with the serial # in my account and I think some people were having problems with installing Vista.

You should open a ticket through Core's portal. If that gets ignored, write a few flaming posts on their boards until you get someone's attention. Unfortunately, that's what I had to resort to but it got BlackSun's attention and my problem was resolved in a day after waiting over 6 weeks doing things the nice way.

[Jay Bee]

so they havent fixed 1.3 yet??
No.

They made a deal with Joost, that means alot of money for them.

I see. I just read the Wikipedia article on Joost. So basically it's like TVU player except legal and not free? If it works out that would indeed mean big money for CoreCodec. Maybe they could even put some resources towards fixing CoreAVC then.

[BetaBoy]

Been staying out of the flame war.... alot has been going on... Unlike what Jay Bee has been stating.. for those that need 1.3 and have purchased it we have fixed their account to be able to download 1.3 (except for DD it seems till Blacksun helped). Also, alot has gone on with the codec and what/how we are dealing with our growth now and the future and we hope that these steps (while hard to deal with atm) will ensure for better products and support with almost realtime updates being able to be pushed to the clients as a major goal.

On purchasing.... with the current changes almost complete we are expecting purchasing to continue late next week. I will post an update when its back up.

I am also glad to say that with alot of hard work by our devel team that after the next release that CoreAVC Professional for Windows we will also include CoreAVC QT Professional Edition (for Quicktime) and we will also launch CoreAVC QT for Mac OS X.

[JohnnyFu]

Been staying out of the flame war.... alot has been going on... Unlike what Jay Bee has been stating.. for those that need 1.3 and have purchased it we have fixed their account to be able to download 1.3 (except for DD it seems till Blacksun helped). Also, alot has gone on with the codec and what/how we are dealing with our growth now and the future and we hope that these steps (while hard to deal with atm) will ensure for better products and support with almost realtime updates being able to be pushed to the clients as a major goal.

On purchasing.... with the current changes almost complete we are expecting purchasing to continue late next week. I will post an update when its back up.

I am also glad to say that with alot of hard work by our devel team that after the next release that CoreAVC Professional for Windows will also include CoreAVC QT Professional Edition for Quicktime and we will also launch CoreAVC QT for Mac OS X.


Not a single word on the GPU thing..... sad....
However... at least you said something.

[Hans Ohlo]

On purchasing.... with the current changes almost complete we are expecting purchasing to continue late next week. I will post an update when its back up.

good to hear from you! good to know that _something_ is going on... but seeing how 'tomorrow' turned out _please_ do not tell us that something will be ready next week, because we all know how this will end!

[Hans Ohlo]

good to hear from you! good to know that _something_ is going on... but seeing how 'tomorrow' turned out _please_ do not tell us that something will be ready next week, because we all know how this will end!
now and who proves me/us right again. man, this is not even funny anymore!

[foxyshadis]

Sorry, "made by the same company" isn't enough justification. Moved to Possible CoreAAC Bug (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=126710).

[AKarpo]

now and who proves me/us right again. man, this is not even funny anymore!

At this point, I would have to agree with you...

[ChronoCross]

now and who proves me/us right again. man, this is not even funny anymore!

A true troll.

[Episode]

@ChronoCross, if you don't have anything else to say other than insulting people, don't post at all.

[ChronoCross]

@ChronoCross, if you don't have anything else to say other than insulting people, don't post at all.

same to you.

[Guest]

Guys, knock it off or strikes will follow. Thank you.

[Romario]

@ChronoCross, if you don't have anything else to say other than insulting people, don't post at all.

You are my true leader. Respect.

[Guest]

You are my true leader. Respect. Struck for rule 16.

[idiotism]

so...?? when is 1.3.0.1 coming?? the next week u said on 24th May 2007 09:21 happened a while ago.....

in fact 3 weeks ago........

[bmnot]

Apparently, version 1.4 is in development (http://www.corecodec.com/forums/index.php?topic=207.0)

[Inventive Software]

Oh great, and will this require ANOTHER payment or is it free to those who forked out for activation for 1.2 and 1.3?

[DigitalDeviant]

Um, all that post says is that they now plan to offer a free trial version version sometime after they release 1.4, not that they are working on 1.4. All 1.x upgrades are free for those who've already purchased it.

[JohnnyFu]

A missing person has been sighted in the Republic of Nauru today.
http://www.wdr.de/themen/kultur/rundfunk/schmidt/_img/061213/_img/1_400h.jpg

We are bumping the next release to 1.4... there are many reasons for the delay in bringing back up purchasing... none-of-which I can discuss in public at this time. Just know that there is alot of devel going on behind the scenes here.

[bob0r]

Yup Yup

This is a drastic positive message from me:
CoreAVC + Haali's splitter as they are now, can play:

- ALL European H.264 streams currently available, this included Ateme's LUXE TV H.264 MBAFF+Spatial direct mode stream. And ofcourse all PAFF-interlaced streams.

- Some USA Dish Network H.264 streams i have tested are:
ABC/CBS/NBS/FOX H.264 broadcasts, though ugly as some are, they are decoded perfectly by CoreAVC

- CoreAVC also works perfect in DVB Viewer (GE), all AR issues are fixed, and with the 1088 to 1080p cropping feature every program can be watched directly

- So far as i tested all H.264 from .m2ts (bluray) and H.264 .evo (hddvd) streams work fine, so the video issue has been fixed (long time ago)

- All new x264 encodes using revision 663+ do not show any blocking anymore. (this was an x264 issue, not a coreavc issue)

- Also color output by coreavc is now working perfectly, where other decoders do not detect the color input, and coreavc does, it may appear BBC-HD looks different on coreavc than any other decoder, but in fact this is the second case of CoreAVC being better coded, where others just ignore certain aspects.

These are all conclusions i can make because i have tested this all myself.

So the product itself seems to be working perfectly, only the systems (and people?) around it seem to make it look kinda.... yes i think - retarded - is a good word :p

I am using a post 1.3 crap version that was online..... so all they have to do is: RELEASE IT!

[Dark Shikari]

Yup Yup

This is a drastic positive message from me:
CoreAVC + Haali's splitter as they are now, can play:

- ALL European H.264 streams currently available, this included Ateme's LUXE TV H.264 MBAFF+Spatial direct mode stream. And ofcourse all PAFF-interlaced streams.

- Some USA Dish Network H.264 streams i have tested are:
ABC/CBS/NBS/FOX H.264 broadcasts, though ugly as some are, they are decoded perfectly by CoreAVC

- CoreAVC also works perfect in DVB Viewer (GE), all AR issues are fixed, and with the 1088 to 1080p cropping feature every program can be watched directly

- So far as i tested all H.264 from .m2ts (bluray) and H.264 .evo (hddvd) streams work fine, so the video issue has been fixed (long time ago)

- All new x264 encodes using revision 663+ do not show any blocking anymore. (this was an x264 issue, not a coreavc issue)

- Also color output by coreavc is now working perfectly, where other decoders do not detect the color input, and coreavc does, it may appear BBC-HD looks different on coreavc than any other decoder, but in fact this is the second case of CoreAVC being better coded, where others just ignore certain aspects.

These are all conclusions i can make because i have tested this all myself.

So the product itself seems to be working perfectly, only the systems (and people?) around it seem to make it look kinda.... yes i think - retarded - is a good word :p

I am using a post 1.3 crap version that was online..... so all they have to do is: RELEASE IT!
I'm using 1.3 here also; CoreAVC is amazing and I have no idea why CoreCodec would be dumb enough to not let people buy it; most people would probably pay more than the current price, easily!

I can play a 1920x1200 High Profile video (CABAC + deblocking + 8x8 transform + 6 reference frames) at full speed on my Core 2 Duo... on battery mode, at 1Ghz, without noticable slowdown on any other tasks, or any stuttering. :p

[BetaBoy]

bob0r... OMG ;-) thx for the kind words... It has been very hard not pushing the latest CoreAVC out to the public to sell sooner then everyone would like. To current customers, we are resetting the accounts of 1.3 when they submit a support ticket ( http://support.corecodec.com ) till the next public version is released.

While I cannot say alot to the public at this point... what I can say is that there is alot going on here in regards to the CorePlayer Platform (Mobile and Pro) which obviously includes all the varous aspects of CoreAVC (and CoreSVC) including CoreAVC QuickTime for OS X and Windows.

So when will it be out? Thats TBD atm... but we are the closest we have been yet (the next version will be bumped a version number to v1.4 for all the work that has gone into it)... and yes dorothy, in 1.4.x there will be a 30-day demo available;-)

[deets]

can i put in a request :)

could you make a 64 bit version. Im not asking just for the sake of it. As you might know, MS restricted the spdif pass through in vista 64 to 64 bit media players. The 64 bit media player must use 64 bit codecs, so currently we cant use coreavc and have spdif output!

if you guys compiled a 64 bit version for vista 64, this would be fantastic. Im sure more and more people will be going to vista 64 as time goes on.

[JohnnyFu]

I still have no doubt that CoreAVC is the most potential h.264 decoder out there. Even if I was sometimes a little angry about the lack of GPU support, I'm glad for your small company about the Joost Deal.
And since I got a new machine I don't care about the GPU support anymore.
I'm also going to buy a PV2 (PureVideo HD/2) video card at the end of the year, hopefully cyberlink runs fine on x264 encodes then, or maybe even coreavc supports PV2 sometimes, who knows... :)

Looking forward to 1.4 !


-Btw, what is the meaning of TBD ?


-Another (off)topic, I got a problem, please see the screenshots below. I don't know how to explain the problem with the correct words so just have look on the screenshots. I hope one of you guys can help me out here.

Note, please save the pics and view them with the windows default picture viewer.

This is what it is supposed to look:
frame_saved_as_bitmap (http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/frame_saved_as_bitmap.png) (via File/Save Image as..., MPC)
I have no idea why but open this pic in Firefox/IE makes it look bad like the four below.... Totally weird... just to be safe here is the uncompressed version (http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/frame_saved_as_bitmap.bmp) (edit: uh.. even the .bmp looks bad in Firefox/IE.. strange...)

BAD
prinscreen_1 (http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/printscreen_1.png)
prinscreen_2 (http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/printscreen_2.png)
prinscreen_3 (http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/printscreen_5.png)
prinscreen_4 (http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/printscreen_6.png)

This is a BluRay x264 encode. As you can see it looks bad using Haali and VMR9, it looks good (like the frame_saved_as_bitmap) using Overlay Mixer or VMR7, I'm sorry I was not able to capture screenshots using these renderers.
The problem is that there is no subtitle support via Overlay Mixer or VMR7, and VMR7 renderless looks like the printscreen_2 pic.
However, I can use VLC and it looks good and the subtitles work fine, but I don't like VLC.

[Eretria-chan]

-Btw, what is the meaning of TBD ?

To be determined...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBD

[Bigmango]

-Btw, what is the meaning of TBD ?


Looking at the past months I'd say "To Be Delayed" :p

[bob0r]

@JohnnyFu

The CoreAVC one is correct.
As i stated before, only CoreAVC detects input color, and sets output color correctly.

What i have done is force PC-level on all input and ouput, it may be bad, but i dont get grey bars when they should be black! Don't know if this feature is in the "bad" 1.3 version, but its perfect in the upcoming 1.4 version.

[Maxiuca]

can play:
- ALL European H.264 streams currently available, this included Ateme's LUXE TV H.264 MBAFF+Spatial direct mode stream. And ofcourse all PAFF-interlaced streams.


Not quite, it has major issues with playing Discovery HD streams from Premiere. Cyberlink h.264 plays them flawlessly. And I can use Cyberlink's decoder with AltDVB (I don't like DVBViever) and I can BUY it, whereas CoreAVC can be only stolen at the moment, which is a shame cause it was worth it's price when it was available. But I wish the CoreCodec team all the best. Seems these problems that BetaBoy is talking about are rather legal/organizational then technical.

[ChronoCross]

Not quite, it has major issues with playing Discovery HD streams from Premiere. Cyberlink h.264 plays them flawlessly. And I can use Cyberlink's decoder with AltDVB (I don't like DVBViever) and I can BUY it, whereas CoreAVC can be only stolen at the moment, which is a shame cause it was worth it's price when it was available. But I wish the CoreCodec team all the best. Seems these problems that BetaBoy is talking about are rather legal/organizational then technical.

he was actually talking about the beta version that he's testing...not the 1.2 or buggy 1.3 version

[Maxiuca]

he was actually talking about the beta version that he's testing...not the 1.2 or buggy 1.3 version
Ok, I was talking about the "buggy" 1.3 version (still, it works much better for me than 1.2).
In that case I hope 1.4 will be realesed soon.

[JohnnyFu]

@bob0r

It's not about the color. Don't you see the blocking ? I don't think it is a decoder problem since it's ok when I use VM7 or Overlay.

Can you confirm that this http://under.urban-souls.net/pics/frame_saved_as_bitmap.png looks different on your machine using Firefox/IE <> windows default picture viewer ?

edit: ok... forget it, i just found out that the problem even occurs on MPEG2 dvd's, something is wrong with my machine, I'm almost sure it has something to do with the nvidia drivers since I played with them last week.

edit: omg... I found the solution, the drivers color quality was set to 16bit :D

[DeepBeepMeep]

bob0r... OMG ;-) thx for the kind words... It has been very hard not pushing the latest CoreAVC out to the public to sell sooner then everyone would like. To current customers, we are resetting the accounts of 1.3 when they submit a support ticket ( http://support.corecodec.com ) till the next public version is released.

While I cannot say alot to the public at this point... what I can say is that there is alot going on here in regards to the CorePlayer Platform (Mobile and Pro) which obviously includes all the varous aspects of CoreAVC (and CoreSVC) including CoreAVC QuickTime for OS X and Windows.

So when will it be out? Thats TBD atm... but we are the closest we have been yet (the next version will be bumped a version number to v1.4 for all the work that has gone into it)... and yes dorothy, in 1.4.x there will be a 30-day demo available;-)

Could please you just put back on line in the meantime the "fixed" 1.3 that Bobor obviously got (-;. It contains the color space fix which is the feature I have been needing since v1.1... Switching between configurations to force CoreAvc to ignore the colorspace levels is a pain... Thanks

[bob0r]

@Maxiuca
To confirm, i have captured DISCOVERY.HD.Astra.1G.19.2E.10.jul.2007.ts (and PREMIERE.HD.Astra.1G.19.2E.10.jul.2007.ts for that matter), both files are playing flawless

http://x264.nl/h.264.samples/10.jul.2007/ all play fine.

[Jay Bee]

he was actually talking about the beta version that he's testing...not the 1.2 or buggy 1.3 version

Is it available for download?

[ChronoCross]

Is it available for download?

nope.

[JohnnyFu]

I've tested a recently build today and I can confirm most of bob0r's testings.

Looking forward to the final.

[BetaBoy]

By request... here is the complete description list of the CoreAVC Professional Options. We will be calling it 1.5 and are pushing for a release soon (hence me posting this).

Since it is CoreAVC QuickTime that is delaying us (for the most part), we will push its release till a later version. So with that, here is the description of the options.


CoreAVC Professional 1.5 'options'

Accept Input
This setting controls which DirectShow Media Types the decoder accepts on input. Uncheck only if you are troubleshooting problems with CoreAVC incorrectly decoding some variant of H.264, or want to use another decoder for it.

Deblocking
This setting controls how the deblocking step of H.264 specification is executed by the decoder. Deblocking is a complex process that consumes significant processing resources. If your machine is not fast enough, you might want to turn off deblocking for some frames, but it will degrade visual quality.

Standard deblocking - do deblocking exactly as specified by H.264
Skip b-frame deblocking - skip deblocking step when decoding B-frames.
Skip all deblocking - do not perform deblocking at all.

Deinterlacing
This setting specifies how interlaced material is handled by the decoder.

Software deinterlacing - the decoder outputs one deinterlaced frame for each pair of fields.
Software double framerate - the decoder outputs one deinterlaced frame for each input field.
DirectShow deinterlacing - the decoder does not deinterlace video, but flags it as interlaced where appropriate, so Video Renderer filter can deinterlace it.
No deinterlacing - the decoder does not deinterlace video, and flags it as progressive on output.

Aggressive deinterlacing
This option determines how the decoder detects interlacing in source stream.

Off - use only picture timing SEI and POC numbers to detect interlaced video. Unfortunately not all encoders properly flag material as interlaced.
On - in addition to SEI and POC, assumes source is interlaced if any interlaced coding tools are used in encoding the frame (MBAFF, PAFF).

Crop 1088 to 1080
H.264 encoded video size is always a multiple of 16, and sequences that are 1080 pixels high are encoded as 1088 padded at the bottom. Also H.264 specifications provides a set of cropping parameters to signal that parts of the encoded picture are not important and should not be displayed. Some H.264 encoders fail to specify cropping parameters when encoding 1080 video.

Off - do not crop video.
On - when input video is exactly 1088 pixels high, crop 8 pixels off the bottom.

Force VMR AR correction
This option can be used if you are working with the decoder outside the normal player environment.

Off - does not change VMR settings.
On - instructs VMR filter to maintain aspect ration of the video that it displays. Normally this AR correction is the responsibility of a video player. This option should normally be off.

Color space output
This setting determines the preferred output color space. The decoder tries each format in order specified until it is accepted by the Video Renderer filter.

Levels
H.264 specification allows two variants of Luminance range encoding. The default one, so called TV levels, sets the black level at 16 and white level at 235, and allows blacker-than-black and whiter-than-white levels. Another option is full-range luminance, so called PC levels, it has black at 0, and white at 255. H.264 streams by default use TV levels, but a full-range flag may be specified that signals PC levels use in the stream. Change these options only when you are troubleshooting incorrectly encoded streams, or use a misbehaving Video Renderer.

Input levels
TV (16-235) - always assume the stream uses TV levels
PC (0-255) - always assume the stream uses PC levels
Autodetect - use the fullrange flag in the stream to determine Luminance range
Output levels, this also affects conversion to RGB color space when it is done by the decoder.

TV (16-235) - assume the Video Renderer expects TV levels
PC (0-255) - assume the Video Renderer expects PC levels
Autodetect - use PC levels when VMR is used as a Video Renderer, and TV levels for all others.





I have updated my first post...

[Guest]

Vaporware. Stop teasing us.

[Kurtnoise]

Vaporware. Stop teasing us.
I'd say the same thing about DGAVCDec and the containers support. So, I think it's really a childish behaviour from you, especially as a moderator. Although I'm not really surprised after all...:rolleyes:

[BetaBoy]

Kurtnoise13.. its fine... wierd coming from neuron2 I thought but understandable. While third party confirmation like 'bob0r' is nice for 1.5, I am just trying to be proactive here prior to our new version being released.

[Guest]

I haven't advertised anything about container support, and continually remind people that it supports ES only. Do I have any plans for it? It depends on time; I'm not making any promises.

I stared at "purchasing will be back in a few days" for a very long time and am still unable to buy this Core codec. For me, then, it is vaporware. And I'm entitled to express my opinion about it.

[bob0r]

I agree with BetaBoy and neuron2, the solution is simple:

:devil: _JUST_ _FUNKING_ _RELEASE_ _IT_ :devil:

[Kurtnoise]

First of all sorry for the off-topic but I can't reply to "the moderation team". So, here is my response.

Just to be clear between you and me...The warning which has been send, comes from the whole moderation team or just Neuron2 himself ?

I'm entitled to express my opinion about it.
Keep in mind that you're not the only one here to express an opinion about this subject (with all the respect I can say)...otherwise it's a sad and strange behaviour.

I'm also a moderator on a french forum. So, I know that sometimes it's not easy. All I can say, it's that sometimes you use your rights against the others "simple" users with a too strong partiality.

[Guest]

You're entitled to your opinions. But you can't insult me because you don't like *my* opinions. If you wish to discuss my moderating actions, please send me a PM about it. Thank you.

[Shinigami-Sama]

@ 20th April 2007, 09:55
It's all academic, because you still cannot buy it!


@ 20th July 2007, 19:57
Vaporware. Stop teasing us.

4 months so far so I have to agree with neuron about it being vapourware

as much as I'd like to support core about this I gave up long ago telling people about it because of this.