there are so many builds...(ffdshow, x264, xvid, lame)...need some info (codecs etc.)

[Flexy]

ok,

i am slightly confused...i am running an A64 on XP Pro and i am always looking for optimized builds of the Xvid codec, ffdshow etc.

There are builds by celtic_druiid, then there are builds on the x264.nl site which say they're optimze for SSE2...then there are the videomixer9 builds.

I also have problems to decide what actually is best, whether i should set ffdshow to use the internal libs for divx, h264.

I now discovered the "core AVC" where people say it's a very fast H264..so i disabled the internal ffdshow H264 encoding...then i read again that ffdshow is really good. Then i just heard the new original DivxX 6.3 is really fast and optimized....then i dont know whether to use the DivX 6.3.....or switch ffdshow so it uses the external XVID codec (Koepi's etc.)

Can someone gve me some ideas..whats the differences eg. between celtic_druid SSE2 builds and videomixer's....and the builds on X264.nl...etc.. :) And what is best to use for Divx.

And what codec combination...

Thanks :)

[Tropican]

For H.264 its generally agreed CoreAVC is the fastest.

ffdshow development has become really...weird. Milan (the official developer) hasn't made a build since last year and only sporadically contributes code. Others have made patches to the last svn snapshot that exists, the most definitive builds containing a majority of the patches made since that last snapshot are in the ffdshow-tryout project:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=173941

clsid and drevil_xxl updated their builds just today, so they are safe bets. Clsid makes "generic" builds that should work on 99% of systems while drevil makes the optimized ones. They should be compiled against mostly the same patches.

I would not use Divx as an asp decoder, as there is A LOT of stuff it cannot handle (well there was in version 5). I don't know if they have fixed this since then. Ffdshow and Xvid should work fine for asp, and one normally isn't better than the other AFAIK.

Now I'm no expert, and this is what I've gathered by reading the last 2-3 pages of 1,800 post threads about what's going on, so hopefully someone actually making the patches and compilling them can better answer the question.

By the way it is threads like this that caused me to suggest this idea a few days ago: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=114249

[foxyshadis]

c_d's ffdshow are svn, I believe, while vm9's (and others') include many new patches like better multithreading, updated decoders, and bugfixes. CoreAVC is, for AVC, much better than ffdshow (although it won't hurt anything to have both), but it's $10-20 of course.

Divx & xvid are not avc decoders, but they're both perfectly good asp decoders. Try them, try ffdshow, see what you prefer. Divx & ffdshow's main extra over xvid is the optional filterings (like sharpening). Divx 6 is much improved over divx 5's decoder.

As for x264, either sharktooth's or x264.nl's are fine. Use lame from rarewares.org. And that's about it.

[Flexy]

thanks, VERY helpful information !

[Flexy]

well i dont know what forum i could write this....

() The SSE ffdshow builds, both by videomixer9 AND drevil_xxl crash on my machine under various circumstances using VDubmod/vdub-mpeg2...wg. using certain codecs like Huffyuv. (the ones built in ffdshow)

The only SSE build which works is the yakamoto (SP ?) build on the "tryouts" page.

(!!!!!!) Both, the videomixer9 and drevil_xxl builds did something WEIRD to my system, and i spend a LONG time restoring all my codecs....thank god for daily registry backups.

By uninstalling either one of those two (vm9/xxl) ffdshow builds ALL formerly otherwise registered AV codecs get unregistered (or something like that)....resulting that my system didnt recognize ANY format anymore....eg. i had DivX, Xvid, Nero, PowerDVD, you name it, lame, all the standard MS codecs etc...all those went unaivalable after i uninstalled any one of those ffdshow builds. You can doublecheck this by uninstalling ffdshow...then load up vdubmod and try to encode something...ALL the video codecs are gone together with ffdshow.

Maybe VM9 or XXL should look into that...also, i dont know why they crashed under certain operations....it's odd since i run on AMD 64...but in general seem to have problems with certain programs optimized for SSE.

add:

i also had problems with certain other options, eg warpsharp (one of the few options i played around)..and the two above builds it didnt work right....NOW it works fine.

also...i am kinda confused regarding the "audio configuration" page....because i really dont know what libs to use or just disable them. Eg. libmad, mp3lib, libdts libfaad, libsomething.....is there something like optimized defaults for the audio decoders ?