AVC-H.264 decoders with MBAFF support, have I missed any?

[Nick [D]vB]

I am trying to put together a comprehensive list of AVC / H.264 software decoders that support MBAFF interlacing,

[used by the BBC and many others], I am only counting decoders that are available now to the public.

So far I only know about the MainConcept / Elecard and Cyberlink AVC decoders but they are much too slow for live viewing :(

Have I missed any out? Please let me know if you have another solution,

Cheers,
Nick

[Manao]

You forgot the sticky : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=99402

[Nick [D]vB]

I have looked through it but I could not see anything else with MBAFF that is "available now to the public", please correct me if I'm wrong! :D

[Manao]

My bad, the first post isn't up to date ( bond, what are you doing ? :p )

You can add Nero to that list ( it's publicly available too ), VSS also claims to be. ATI should though I never tested. That's about it I guess.

You can additionnaly search through : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95939. But you'll have to follow each links to see whether or not they handle mbaff.

[Nick [D]vB]

I'm affraid the Nero/Ateme, VideoSoft/InterVideo and ATI decoder [from MMC] all just give me a black screen... :(

If you can get any of them working I'd love to know how!

There are some small MBAFF stream samples here:

There is a 50Mb satellite sample here but I'm not sure if it is a full TS:

http://www.giusberto.ch/hdtv/

and there are some samples from the BBC DVB-T trial here:

[small demuxed H.264 clips]

http://rapidshare.de/files/20256468/BBCHD1-Clip.mpg.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/20257643/BBCHD1-Clip2.mpg.html

[small full TS samples]

http://rapidshare.de/files/20285501/BBCHD1-DigiTV.ts.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/20257846/BBCHD1-DigiTV-2.ts.html

Thanks for your help,
Cheers, Nick

[Revgen]

CoreAVC Pro will support MBAFF in the near future.

[Manao]

Nick : the TS might be an issue ( at least with Nero, since I know it decodes MBAFF ). What TS demuxer are you using ?

[Revgen]

MPC supports TS reading for H264

[Manao]

So what, he never said he used MPC. Furthermore, I don't know how behave nero's decoder towards MPC's TS demuxer ( since nero ought not to work outside showtime.... )

[Nick [D]vB]

I am using the rename.exe cheat to test the Nero decoders in GraphEdit. I can't get the Nero video decoders to connect to the Elecard demux, probably a mediatype id problem, so I have been using Nero Async file source -> Nero splitter -> Nero Video decoder, this works fine for other 1080i streams like these small samples:

http://www.dvbmagic.de/download.php?nav=Download-Center&downloadid=26

http://www.dvbmagic.de/download.php?nav=Download-Center&downloadid=27

Nero, ATI & VSS can all play these streams using the method above but I just get a black screen with the BBC trial stuff. I have tried re / demuxing the streams with Xmuxer and loads of other tools but it makes no difference. I am sure it must be a MBAFF related problem!

I can try MPC but I don't want to cause an argument on my first day... :D

[asasadad_1]

mpeg splitter(gabest) + CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7) works with that sample.

[Nick [D]vB]

mpeg splitter(gabest) + CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7) works with that sample.
I know, please read the thread. 8)

CoreAVC Pro will support MBAFF in the near future.
I have been told it has been delayed for ~6 weeks, which is a month too late for the Word Cup :(

.

[bond]

My bad, the first post isn't up to date ( bond, what are you doing ? :p )moo, i am back on the street :D

i will clean up everything hopefully this weekend (if i am not too lazy) ;)

[shon3i]

CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7) Too slow decoder.

[Nick [D]vB]

Very true, and the MainConcept / Elecard decoder is even slower!

Has anyone been able to get VSS or Nero to play that sample?

They should work according to this:

http://www.vsofts.com/h264/codec-3_0.html

http://www.ateme.com/products/h264_7.php


ATI should though I never tested.

Are you talking about the ATI Cyberlink decoder from here:

http://www.cyberlink.com/cinema/ati/h264_decoder/enu/index.jsp

Which obviosly works, or the one from the free All in Wonder MultiMedia Center download?

Although it is called ATI MPEG Decoder [part of atidvcr.dll] it *does* actually work with H.264

but I can't get it to work with any MBAFF streams.


The first person to get any of them working gets the banana! :D

[Manao]

Nero doesn't use Ateme's decoder ( they only use their encoder ). Nonetheless, Nero should decode mbaff ( that is, if it's not buggy ). Do the following test : use bbdmux to extract the raw .264 file, and mux that in a mp4 with mp4box. Does Nero still fail to play the file ?

[Nick [D]vB]

Nero doesn't use Ateme's decoder ( they only use their encoder ).

I didn't know that, who developed Ahead's AVC decoder then?

Nonetheless, Nero should decode mbaff ( that is, if it's not buggy ). Do the following test : use bbdmux to extract the raw .264 file, and mux that in a mp4 with mp4box. Does Nero still fail to play the file ?

Thanks for your help mate, I will give it a try and let you know what happenes...

PS - Which ATI decoder were you talking about???

[Manao]

I didn't know that, who developed Ahead's AVC decoder then?They did it themselves, as for their audio codec.PS - Which ATI decoder were you talking about???The same as you, the cyberlink's one, I guess.

[Nick [D]vB]

Does anyone know in the ATI MMC H.264 decoder [not the Cyberlink one] supports MBAFF? I could not get the output from mp4box to play with any of the decoders, but I have not used it before so I do not know if I did it right. Please try it yourself when you have time.

Thanks,
Nick

[bond]

mmc ?

[Nick [D]vB]

ATI Multi Media Center

Although it is called ATI MPEG Decoder [part of atidvcr.dll] it *does* actually work with H.264

but I can't get it to work with any MBAFF streams..
It's on the main ATI driver download page. Can you get the sample I posted to work with anything apart from Cyberlink / MainConcept?

Half of London seems to be looking for an AVC decoder fast enough to watch the World Cup with! :D

Thanks,
Nick

[SeeMoreDigital]

Just tried MainConcept's AVC/H.264 VideoDecoder v1.0.9 (Build 60419) with the BBC samples and they seem to play okay with MediaPlayer Classic (albeit without aspect ratio signalling).

Is this the same as CyberLinks?


Cheers

[bond]

vB']It's on the main ATI driver download page. Can you get the sample I posted to work with anything apart from Cyberlink / MainConcept?hm am i blind? can you point me to the exact download link plz :)

smd,
mainconcept uses elecards decoder

[SeeMoreDigital]

smd,
mainconcept uses elecards decoderOh... yes, of-course!


Cheers

[Nick [D]vB]

XP Drivers -> RADEON -> ATI Multimedia Center 9.13

I don't think you can link to it but here goes:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/9-13_mmc_enu.exe

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293

[bond]

:thanks:

what is the splitter to use with the ati decoder? does it work with mp4 or with mpg or ts or?

[Nick [D]vB]

It connects to the Elecard demux OK for me so I guess thats TS / MPG?

[Nick [D]vB]

Did you get it working in th end?

It's quite fast with the non MBAFF stuff I have tested.

Aren't ATI nice to give it away for free! LOL :D

[bond]

cyberlink is indeed not slow (but definitely not as fast as coreavc)

(the cyberlink decoder is not the same as ati's avc decoder btw)

[Nick [D]vB]

I think it is very strange that if ATI have their own AVC decoder [built into "ATI MPEG Decoder" from MMC] that they went to CyberLink to provide Hardware acceleration, you think they would have used there own decoder??? BTW, Did you get the one from MMC to work with MBAFF?

[Revgen]

cyberlink is indeed not slow (but definitely not as fast as coreavc)

It is pretty slow for me with the MBAFF content Nick provided. And I have an AMD X2 4600+ CPU. I bet CoreAVC Pro along with my 2nd core should be alot faster.

[Sulik]

What is the performance of the "ATI MPEG Video Decoder" on non-MBAFF content, relative to CoreAVC ?

[Nick [D]vB]

The ATI MMC decoder is not even close to CoreAVC, I'd say its about as fast as Nero's

Removed: Comment about "Sonic AVC decoder", it is just another Elecard clone.

[bond]

ati's decoder is definitely damn slow and definitely not as fast as nero (without hardware acceleration)

apart from that it seems to have par problems here

[Revgen]

Another problem according to this post: http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showpost.php?p=8097302&postcount=82

The BBC content is also YUY2 (4:4:2) instead of YV12 (4:2:0). I don't know if CoreAVC supports YUY2 yet. Hopefully it will be ready by the time MBAFF is.

EDIT:

According to this page: http://coreavc.corecodec.org/download.html

CoreAVC will support YUY2 in their upcoming Enterprise version.