CoreCodec/H.264 Codec "CoreAVC"

[BetaBoy]

yeh I second that - coreavc... worse customer service I have EVER experienced........ and I've spoken to indian call centres lol

after installing the installer with the dll error even 1.3 doesn't work now I get the same fault so well done coreavc people

oh and 4 days a go I was told there was gonna be a new installer pushed out on tuesday with this problem fixed........ 4 days on and wow wouldn't u know nothing


Well I am not gonna comment on your specific situation other then you taking it here rather then in our support center will not help you any faster if the staff is unaware of your discomfort.

On the installer we have now found that most of the delivery and installer issues were mostly based on an issue with e-junkies delivery and how they handled it. So we have taken down the purchase link and are completing our work for the new purchasing frontend we had planned for 1.6 but will release it now instead.

[CiNcH]

Means another month minimum that nobody can purchase the shit or try a demo version?

[BetaBoy]

No... just till after the weekend.

[leebo]

Well I am not gonna comment on your specific situation other then you taking it here rather then in our support center will not help you any faster if the staff is unaware of your discomfort.


Well, I have tried that. Not only has nobody helped me, they haven't even acknowledged my existence!!!

[BetaBoy]

If you PM me the purchase info I will be more then glad to help you as well as look up any ticket you may have submitted to see what the staff has done or not done for you.

[leebo]

Thank you.

[ACrowley]

Still awaiting BetaBoy's official response to non-spec motion vectors in old x264 encodes.

me too...

[Jay Bee]

Sorry for the late reply, been away.


Jay Bee you have to debug everything to find the couse for your problems, but if you have a Nvidia card i can advice you to try the Exclusive VMR9 Renderless Mode, it reserves every power your machine has for the Fullscreen Playback (Windows XP)
Vista has a new type of Multimedia Scheduler in the Kernel that should avoid such latency problems (but only if the applications support it @ the moment only WM11 and PowerDVD do i think)



Thanks for the tips. I managed to fix my Zoom Player problem by changing some settings in Zoom Player (for anyone having problems with interlaced content and ZP: use VMR7 + "Enable YUV mixing" but NOT "Disable Overlay on VMR7").

Now almost all files I've tried are smooth but the Football clip from this thread still has slight stutters no matter what combination of software/hardware/renderer/player I use. Maybe I'm just sensitive to small stutters. And BTW 60 Hz refreshrate mismatch was not the reason as suggested further up. I used a CRT to test.


Fact is for my System CoreAVC has no (Speed, Quality advantage) in Playback over GPU assisted Decoding with my 7600 GS @ native LCD resolution of 1680x1050 especialy for Sattelite (Interlaced content)


what about deblocking? If you're using DXVA decoding on a 7600 GS you won't be getting any. In case you were not aware of the problem here are two screen grabs of the Football clip for you to compare. The first one is Cyberlink DXVA, the second one is CoreAVC with deblocking. Of course your single core wouldn't be fast enough to use CoreAVC on that clip but I was just wondering why you state that CoreAVC has no quality advantage over the DXVA decoders.

http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07341/cyberlink.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs218&d=07341&f=cyberlink.jpg)

http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07341/coreavc.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs218&d=07341&f=coreavc.jpg)


or at least get a license from Nvidia to use their Hardware Deinterlacing for some speedup here.


I'm not sure it has anything to do with a license. If you set CoreAVC to "DirectShow deinterlacing" it will also use the GPU to do deinterlacing. But after doing some tests it seems that the result isn't quite as high quality as when DXVA decoding is performed as well. But still way, way better than the CoreAVC software decoder. Again, some screen grabs for you to compare. The first is Cyberlink Purevideo, the second is CoreAVC DirectShow and the third is CoreAVC software.

http://xs118.xs.to/xs118/07341/purevideo.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs118&d=07341&f=purevideo.jpg)

http://xs118.xs.to/xs118/07341/coreds.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs118&d=07341&f=coreds.jpg)

http://xs118.xs.to/xs118/07341/coresoft.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs118&d=07341&f=coresoft.jpg)

Yadif would of course also be great but I doubt it can be sped up to do 1080i in realtime. Or maybe it could on a quad core? That would make the whole DXVA/hardware/driver mess a thing of the past.

[Crisidelm]

I also have a short clip of football match, this time from Canal+HD, 1440x1088i. It's less taxing for the system, but it looks terribly bad with Cyberlink DXVA on.

[Schrade]

BetaBoy,

Adobe just announced playback of h.264 video is coming to their Flash Player. Any chance we're going to see them using a CoreAVC derivative in it? Otherwise I fear that we're going to be getting slow-ass decoding being commonplace like with embedded Quicktime media.

Adobe brings high definition to Flash videos (http://news.com.com/Adobe+brings+high+definition+to+Flash+videos/2100-1012_3-6203500.html?tag=nefd.top)

Edit: Link to the beta of the Flashplayer 9 with H.264/AAC support: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/

I haven't tried it out yet.

[CruNcher]

@Jay Bee
jep the deblocking is the only downside but for high quality sat channels it's no problem either and not even the slightest for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray :P

@Schrade
I doub't that Adobe didn't thought about Hardware accelleration support imo it's very important and the Adobe engineers are surely not dumb to take it into account :P

from the releasenotes

Enhancements to full-screen mode to use hardware scaling for improved video performance and quality on systems running Windows 2000 and newer or Mac OS X 10.2 and newer.

Ok actually this doesn't says anything about PV1/PV2 and UVD support hmm just scaling is a bit to less but maybe full acceleration is coming, it has to be (maybe they clearing up license issues @ the moment with Nvidia/Ati to use their APIs)

[foxyshadis]

If flash's implementation is based on Mainconcept's decoder as well as the encoder, it will be fast enough for most SD video. There's no good reason to waste their time and money reinventing it if they can just license it cheap.

Hardware support just means overlay/VMR, maybe EVR now. In the past flash was 100% GDI, with the horrible performance that you'd expect.

[Schrade]

If you guys want to talk more about the flash stuff there's a thread for that topic specifically now:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129134

[BetaBoy]

BetaBoy,

Adobe just announced playback of h.264 video is coming to their Flash Player. Any chance we're going to see them using a CoreAVC derivative in it? Otherwise I fear that we're going to be getting slow-ass decoding being commonplace like with embedded Quicktime media.

Adobe brings high definition to Flash videos (http://news.com.com/Adobe+brings+high+definition+to+Flash+videos/2100-1012_3-6203500.html?tag=nefd.top)

Edit: Link to the beta of the Flashplayer 9 with H.264/AAC support: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/

I haven't tried it out yet.

I see this as great news for H.264 and very, very, bad news for DivX. I've had access to the beta for a few days now and have found the video playback to be slow at best and 720P is the max it supports now but I suspect that will change soon enough. But the bigger issue I see is that for the high-end video enthusiast, Flash is not a great (great=efficient) means for playing big b/w multimedia like H.264 and HE-AAC (not that this is targeted towards that demographic). But the Flash platform does a great job of making it seemless... that, nobody can touch.

*cough* If they have one *cough* DivX should release their H.264 decoder and encoder now before its too late and their marketshare continues to falter.

[solaq57]

Hi Jay (or anyone), how do you enable the Core AVC DirectShow deinterlacing, I am trying to play some BBC-HD material (live earth for example) and checking the DirectShow deinterlacing box does nothing???

If I select software deinterlacing, I can see a benefit. I have a 8600gts with the latest approved drivers.

Thanks for any advice.

Sorry for the late reply, been away.

I'm not sure it has anything to do with a license. If you set CoreAVC to "DirectShow deinterlacing" it will also use the GPU to do deinterlacing. But after doing some tests it seems that the result isn't quite as high quality as when DXVA decoding is performed as well. But still way, way better than the CoreAVC software decoder. Again, some screen grabs for you to compare. The first is Cyberlink Purevideo, the second is CoreAVC DirectShow and the third is CoreAVC software.

[Selur]

Are there any plans to add some postprocessing options to coreavc? Would love to have something like ffdshows deband in coreavc.

[Jay Bee]

Hi Jay (or anyone), how do you enable the Core AVC DirectShow deinterlacing, I am trying to play some BBC-HD material (live earth for example) and checking the DirectShow deinterlacing box does nothing???



Could you explain exactly in which way DirectShow deinterlacing isn't working? What GPU are you using?

[solaq57]

HI,

1. play title using mpc
2. select filters->coreavc
3. select software deinterlacing, click apply, output comes deinterlaced

4. select DirectShow deinterlacing, click apply, output reverts to interlaced display (jagged lines during panning)

I am using a 8600gts

Thanks

Could you explain exactly in which way DirectShow deinterlacing isn't working? What GPU are you using?

[CruNcher]

Are there any plans to add some postprocessing options to coreavc? Would love to have something like ffdshows deband in coreavc.

You can use ffdshow for any Decoder so why implement that into CoreAVC it's really not needed you can even use ffdshow + CoreAVC for editing purposes this way, no problem :)
i replaced Mainconcepts Decoder in many applications with CoreAVCs Decoder for faster Rendering either directly for Direcshow Applications or you can use some workarrounds for other applications useing makeavis for example and fake .avi triggering CoreAVC, CoreAVC is great for Editing at least for now different situation when Hardware Accelerated Editing becomes available for standard GPUs ;) AVC is nice as intermediate solution vs CineForm for example :)

[Jay Bee]

HI,

1. play title using mpc
2. select filters->coreavc
3. select software deinterlacing, click apply, output comes deinterlaced

4. select DirectShow deinterlacing, click apply, output reverts to interlaced display (jagged lines during panning)

I am using a 8600gts

Thanks

Hmm, can't really think of anything. Do you have the "aggressive deinterlacing" option checked? Are you using CoreAVC 1.5? Have you tried any other clips? arte.hd.ts from http://x264.nl/h.264.samples/ should be a good test.

[espentan]

I'm still struggling with the DLL loading error.

Is this problem supposedly fixed now, or is it still an issue?

I should probably go back to XP for my media box, hu? :)

[solaq57]

Hmm, can't really think of anything. Do you have the "aggressive deinterlacing" option checked? Are you using CoreAVC 1.5? Have you tried any other clips? arte.hd.ts from http://x264.nl/h.264.samples/ should be a good test.

Hi, I have tried aggressive on/off makes no difference.

Tried arte.hd.ts, only software deinterlacing correctly deinterlaces the output...

Anything else?

Regards

[Jay Bee]

Sorry, no idea. Maybe HW deinterlacing is only available in combination with HW decoding on your card? But that would be a problem for interlaced VC-1, no? You could confirm this by playing an interlaced MPEG-2 file with the DScaler decoder: it uses HW deinterlacing by default.

You could also try newer or older drivers.

[TEB]

my bet is ibc 2007 (6-11 sept)

[Sirber]

Woa! 1.5.0.1 with no more online auth! :D

WOOT! THANKS A LOT CORECODEC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ice =A=]

Ok, that are good news!

I have criticized the core team a lot recently. And since I really hate online activation of all kinds I have been looking around in the last days for a new codec or MP4 player to buy (to get rid of CoreAVC).

But now you obviously have taken a step (back?) in the very right direction, and I realy congratulate you on that! Well done! :thanks: :)

Edit: 1.5.0.1 installed without a problem and seems to work well! :)

[BlackSun]

oh my god I wasn't fast enough to announce it here :p We hope you appreciate the move from us. Sales are also back, so you can buy it if you want.

[smok3]

edit: nm, found the changelog, but how should i read this:

CoreAVC™ Standard Edition Decoder
- H.264 Baseline, Main, High profile support
- No Interlaced support
- No SMP support
- No GPU support

whats deinterlacer doing here then if iam unable to read interaced streams anyway?

[BetaBoy]

Trial version is next but the new installer requires we do so additional DB/PHP work on the backend... so give us a week or so to get it done.

[espentan]

oh my god I wasn't fast enough to announce it here :p We hope you appreciate the move from us. Sales are also back, so you can buy it if you want.

Great news!

I think you'll find that the lower support time and higher customer satisfaction will pay off.

I've already bought two licenses ;)

To hell with DRM.

[espentan]

Does anyone by chance know how to run PowerDVD and CoreAVC along side?

I use PowerDVD for my Blu-ray needs, but I'd like CoreAVC to handle what I don't play in PowerDVD.

As it is know, the cyberlink decoder just marches on in and takes full control over everything i play in WMP.

[mitsubishi]

espentan, if you download Radlight Filter Manager (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/RadLight_Filter_Manager.htm) You can check the "Filter Merits" and give CoreAVC a higher number, then it will be used in preference by any directshow player. PowerDVD isn't bothered by the merit and will continue to use it's own codec.

[Rectal Prolapse]

This is good news. Well done.

[Disabled]

Weeeee many thanks for this great great change!
I gladly uninstalled my hassle free version and updated to this hassle free version!
One big step forward for me to recommend CoreAVC again...


And for the non-DRM fanboys: I've said it before, I'll say it again, DRM is here to stay, we just have to live with it and work around the issues.

[Jay Bee]

EDIT: Oops, didn't see the information was already there. Removed.

Finally CoreAVC is a fully recomendable product. :up: I hope you guys can get a sales boost from this.

[espentan]

espentan, if you download Radlight Filter Manager (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/RadLight_Filter_Manager.htm) You can check the "Filter Merits" and give CoreAVC a higher number, then it will be used in preference by any directshow player. PowerDVD isn't bothered by the merit and will continue to use it's own codec.

Great, thank you mitsubishi!

It works like a charm. And charm works pretty darn well, if you were wondering.

[3ngel]

Ohhh, what a good news!
In the end they finally did the right choice.
Maximum respect from me.

[jchunter_2]

I installed v 1.5.0.1 but do not see CoreAVC as a selectable filter in MPC. Ulead Video Studio can't see it either.

Edit: Sorry. My bad. I do see Core AVC in MPC. However, an AVCHD .mts file plays with no audio.

[Sirber]

I installed v 1.5.0.1 but do not see CoreAVC as a selectable filter in MPC. Ulead Video Studio can't see it either.

Edit: Sorry. My bad. I do see Core AVC in MPC. However, an AVCHD .mts file plays with no audio.
then you have an audio problem ;)

[ACrowley]

Mh... all i get via my CoreAccount is the old 1.5.0.0 Installer ?Decoder Version is still 1.5.0.0 not 1.5.0.1?

AH, SRY got Update Email

[deets]

my core email about 1.5.0.1 was blocked by my DCC filter :( could someone PM it to me as i dont know what it said!!

ta?

[espentan]

my core email about 1.5.0.1 was blocked by my DCC filter :( could someone PM it to me as i dont know what it said!!


It contained a download link and your new serial.

You need to e-mail support and ask for a new mail...

[BetaBoy]

Does anyone by chance know how to run PowerDVD and CoreAVC along side?

I use PowerDVD for my Blu-ray needs, but I'd like CoreAVC to handle what I don't play in PowerDVD.

As it is know, the cyberlink decoder just marches on in and takes full control over everything i play in WMP.

We are going to be giving the end user the power to choose merit rather then play this back and forth shell game other filter makers have been doing. Starting with the next version of CoreAVC we will be adding a Merit slider (something we have already done this with our CoreMP3 and new CoreAAC v2.0 directshow filters).

[Sharktooth]

the changelog says "New installer".
so i suppose there are no changes other than those that has been said here and on the changelog.
however if things are going to stay as they are now, maybe it's time for me to buy a license for CoreAVC hoping there will be a linux version soon.

[popper]

CruNcher.... don't forget about Matroska adoption as well!!! We will have millions of hardware devices supporting it by the end of the year ;-)

On the CoreAVC encoder... while it would be great to put it out there publically, we think our efforts are better spent on CoreSVC since it is the future. We can always back track at that point and release CoreAVC as a standalone encoder.

On GPU.... our beliefs are the reliance in DXVA is a mistake by GPU vendors as a short cut and unnecessarily locks third party vendors into restraints right from the get go. While DXVA is more than just for decoding, its also for video processing and capturing (amung other things), we feel its outright overkill.

Although I am sure zambelli would disagree... Simple i/o hooks and a K.I.S.S. approach is needed.... don't believe all the other talk about what is required for GPU, and I am not going to comment on specific functions as they are pretty well known on these forums. Simply put, something needs to be done for the future of GPU and marketing must be fixed in order to move forward and garner mass adoption (Linux comes to mind first when thinking about this).

thats all very nice BetaBoy but you seem to refuse to take the time to compile a PowerPC (with Altivec) version of Core tools, and dont apparently see your codecs being used on the mass PPC embeded markets hardware, $99/€75.00 Efika PPC board being a case in point.

these boards are in effect what runs in your upper/High end in-car computers as its on average 1W power helps a lot,and now that Efika is affordable by anyone, expect it to be found in lots of portable 7" and home A/V kit once Efika2 ships.

http://www.efika.de/index_en.html
http://book.efika.org/

EFIKA2 Developer Program Begins:
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=8621#8621
"... The EFIKA2 will feature the Freescale MPC5121e with has an integrated PowerVR graphic core. ..."

OC if you ever did compile a PPC (thats powerPC remember)version then its potentially usable
in PS3 PPC linux A/V markets and even Xbox360 with effort to use linux.

dont forget several PPC (Pegasus)linux guys are always helping improve the codebase to optimise the free
video tools/Codecs for the PPC base and Altivec that the PS3 users are now taking advantage of...

i always hoped your guys would too, and help improve all the future PPC Embeded projects and sell your wares there to both end users and OEM as the markets grow as reward........ and weres your FPGA embedable CORE AVC codebase?, shame.

[popper]

@ bobor


Hmm is this result based on a DualCore Cpu ?
For Singlecore i can definately say this isn't true Cyberlinks PV1 Decoder (i can only test PV1 Geforce 7600 GS) is still a tad faster (in terms of raw fps) then CoreAVC without deblocking (dunno about DualCore yet ;) ) Results based on Windows XP Sp2 Low Latency Driver optimized ), but as i said all the Benchmarks @ the moment on the net about PV1/PV2 and UVD say nothing about it's Energy Efficiency compared vs CPU useing CoreAVC (they only test raw fps or most only CPU usage on every site, but not GPU usage and the resulting Energy consumption) :P, but ok if you gonna build a CE Device as Betaboy allready said you would go the K.I.S.S way so Broadcom AVC/VC1 DSP and you good to go and for sure with less Energy loss, but for all the HTPC builders i think this should be compared anyways CoreAVC + current low voltage CPU vs GPU based decoding + low voltage cpu and then measure the power of both systems and take this into account in the benchmarks (in times of raising energy prices) energy efficiency of Codecs (for a given purpose you wan't to reach) should be tested too. (Exactly in this terms Microsoft tweaked VC-1 over H.264)

i cant agree on the DSP, in the case of codecs and CE its far better long term to use a current FPGA , sure it costs slightly more until you get to mass lots purchase and perhaps a little more power (not so with Kilocore though ;) )

but at the end of the day, you then have a massive long term advantage that you can software upgrade the FPGA codecs
if and when you need to, or with DSP be obsolete and have to keep the old Mpeg2 standards as can be seen by the masses of sold (UK) DVB-T that cant take the AVC codec so everyone will need to buy new to take any new future AVC broadcasts (sky), the majority of broadcasters will not change to AVC as there are no CE AVC DVB-T STBs available, chicken/egg.......

software programable FPGA'a in all new CE kit should be the way its done from now on, and help the future markets grow and innovate....

[espentan]

We are going to be giving the end user the power to choose merit rather then play this back and forth shell game other filter makers have been doing. Starting with the next version of CoreAVC we will be adding a Merit slider (something we have already done this with our CoreMP3 and new CoreAAC v2.0 directshow filters).

Certainly a sweet piece of functionality :)
Keep up the good work!

[popper]

will you be supporting the PowerVR chipset any time in the near future ?

today:
http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=42120
"First DX10.1 silicon is unexpected

Honour goes to PowerVR SGX family of mobile parts

...."

and the way back machine 2005
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/29/imagination_powervr_sgx/

as found in the original PPC (thats PowerPC)Freescale MPC5121e SOC.

" and In addition to Intel, Imagination has licensed PowerVR MBX to Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Freescale, ARM - which also has the right to sub-license the graphics technology - Philips, Samsung and others. ®"

[BetaBoy]

All.... a new installer has been 'silently' released for CoreAVC Standard and Professional Editions v1.5.0.1 that during the install prompts you to choose between the 'Current user' and or 'All users' for both XP and Vista.

Next up is the Merit slider and the Trial version.

[BetaBoy]

For the ppl who emailed me... thx for letting me know about the site issues... we have moved to a new network today so www.coreavc.com is still propagating.