ffdshow tryouts project: Discussion & Development

[sub24ox7]

Thanks for the info i will regsvr with that directory and remove the ASAudioRenderer dynamic link library file from system32 I had opened up the cmd with admin (dang vista) wish there was just a true sudo command in windows . My htpc vista sp2 x64 machine is now shutoff and i have to do some errands but when i get back i will do try both suggestions i.e. the correct way to do it. Its odd how memory can fail so easily and we remember the most trivial things. Thanks for the correct way to do it bye.:thanks:

[whurlston]

I have no idea what's on this disc for codecs yet.

http://www.cinemasquid.com/blu-ray/tools/bdinfo

[SamuriHL]

http://www.cinemasquid.com/blu-ray/tools/bdinfo

Yea, I have that. Was just being lazy. :) I could have just loaded up PDVD9, too. :D But it's DTS-HD MA. And crashes unless I use the MPC Audio Renderer. Good times.

[SamuriHL]

Thanks for the info i will regsvr with that directory and remove the ASAudioRenderer dynamic link library file from system32 I had opened up the cmd with admin (dang vista) wish there was just a true sudo command in windows . My htpc vista sp2 x64 machine is now shutoff and i have to do some errands but when i get back i will do try both suggestions i.e. the correct way to do it. Its odd how memory can fail so easily and we remember the most trivial things. Thanks for the correct way to do it bye.:thanks:

I cheat even more. :D I have a right click option in explorer that opens an admin cmd prompt here. So I just go to the folder in explorer, right click, open my admin cmd prompt, and have at it. :D

EDIT: http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/158/1/How-to-open-an-elevated-Command-Prompt-in-Windows-Vista.html

In case you're interested in my laziness. :D

[whurlston]

EAC3 logs:

DSound Renderer: http://www.oshinetworks.com/DirectShow/ffdshow/Beta46EAC3-DS.debug.txt
WaveOut: http://www.oshinetworks.com/DirectShow/ffdshow/Beta46EAC3-WO.debug.txt

[whurlston]

46 is working for me very well with DTSHD and THD.

Thanks albain :)

rica, are you still using Vista?

[rica]

rica, are you still using Vista?

No i'm on 7/64 anymore.
But i keep my second disc loaded with Vista for testing purposes.

[rica]

BTW guys; the story began with this afair:

http://85.230.118.136/showthread.php?p=1329075#post1329075


Thanks again albain for all your hard work and to the supporters :thanks:

[SamuriHL]

@albain

The MPC-HC crash with Monsters Inc using probably Waveout on this crash:


Level Date and Time Source Event ID Task Category
Error 12/3/2009 4:40:26 PM Application Error 1000 (100) "Faulting application name: mpc-hc.exe, version: 1.3.1373.0, time stamp: 0x4b153037
Faulting module name: ffdshow.ax, version: 1.0.7.3280, time stamp: 0x4b17fc74
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00257135
Faulting process id: 0xdb0
Faulting application start time: 0x01ca74612f1db569
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\ffdshow\ffdshow.ax



Fault offsets for different renderers:
0x00257152 -Default Waveout
0x0024da7a - Default DS

I'm not sure if those offsets help you, but, it's definitely crashing in ffdshow.

[SamuriHL]

Interestingly enough, I found a renderer that works for me in all cases. WOO HOO. :D DirectSound: ATI HDMI Output is working for DTS-HD MA and TrueHD with no problems. (No, didn't try watchmen with it. Put it back on the shelf). However, this renderer is working for all the titles that I've tried so far.

[davinleeds]

I'm eager to try 46. 44 gave me only multichannel.

[rica]

I'm eager to try 46. 44 gave me only multichannel.

Just try it.
It's the end of the story :)
There might be some directors cut later but who cares for now? :)

[SamuriHL]

I recommend people try the DirectSound: ATI HDMI renderer and see how that works for you. Haven't crashed that one yet. :D

[gametiger]

Kudos to albain and everybody else who's helping with this, great job!


I'm planning to build a new HTPC and the progress you guys made right here is surely gonna influence my hardware choice.

As I understood it, the Xonar sound card and the ATI 5xxx series are the only cards that currently "support" HD audio bitstreaming.

So what would you recommend? Go for a Xonar sound card + a ATI/Nvidia video card combo or a video card out of the ATI 5xxx series?
What I'm looking for is a solidly working solution. Important criteria are reliability, quality and low heat/noise levels.

What would you guys go for?

Thanks in advance :)

Can someone give me advice on this please :)

[SamuriHL]

Can someone give me advice on this please :)

Let me give you an idea...I pulled my Xonar out of my machine even though it works fine. I have a 5870 which is all I use now. I don't think it makes ANY sense whatsoever to use a card that's tied (officially) to only one player. Yes, albain has it working in ffdshow but it's likely to never be supported in PDVD9, for example. The ATI card is officially supported in PDVD9 and WinDVD 2010. And now of course with ffdshow. And the likelihood is that TMT3 is going to have to support it or risk falling behind. A single card that does all that or a dual card solution that adds heat, power consumption, and complication to your life. Plus the external HDMI cable chaining required. You decide what's better. :)

[Andy o]

so i should leave out Windows and make it C:\program files\arcsoft and so on, I am sorry if this is taking up to much of your time this is the reason i haven't posted before but i am not computer illiterate and have manually registered .ax, .ocx, and .dll files from the command promt before because of fussy installers or should i say fussy vista. anyway thanks for the help samurihl i obviously have the path incorrect because that is what it is telling me. also should i manually move ASAudioRenderer.dll to C:\windows\system32 directory

Next time in Windows explorer you can just go to the folder where the file you wanna register is, and do a shift + right-click on a blank space in the window and choose "open command window here".

Alternatively, you can go back one step (to the folder where the folder that contains that file is), and do a shift + right-click on the folder that contains the file you wanna register.

Or you can just navigate to the file you want to register, and shift + right-click on it, and select "copy as path", and it will copy the full path of it, which you can then paste on the command prompt, quotes and all.

[SamuriHL]

Next time in Windows explorer you can just go to the folder where the file you wanna register is, and do a shift + right-click on a blank space in the window and choose "open command window here".

Alternatively, you can go back one step (to the folder where the folder that contains that file is), and do a shift + right-click on the folder that contains the file you wanna register.

Not if UAC is on. It has to be an admin cmd prompt.

[gametiger]

Let me give you an idea...I pulled my Xonar out of my machine even though it works fine. I have a 5870 which is all I use now. I don't think it makes ANY sense whatsoever to use a card that's tied (officially) to only one player. Yes, albain has it working in ffdshow but it's likely to never be supported in PDVD9, for example. The ATI card is officially supported in PDVD9 and WinDVD 2010. And now of course with ffdshow. And the likelihood is that TMT3 is going to have to support it or risk falling behind. A single card that does all that or a dual card solution that adds heat, power consumption, and complication to your life. Plus the external HDMI cable chaining required. You decide what's better. :)
Alrighty, thanks :)

The 5770 should be fine, right (I'm not planning to use it for any new games)? The only thing that worries me is the possible noise, but I heard that shouldn't be an issue for those cards?

Some people also mentioned the advantage of having 1 dedicated card for the video and 1 dedicated card for the audio. I didn't quite get that though :rolleyes:

[SamuriHL]

Alrighty, thanks :)

The 5770 should be fine, right (I'm not planning to use it for any new games)? The only thing that worries me is the possible noise, but I heard that shouldn't be an issue for those cards?

Some people also mentioned the advantage of having 1 dedicated card for the video and 1 dedicated card for the audio. I didn't quite get that though :rolleyes:

The advantage is if you're into gaming you can upgrade the video card and not affect your audio solution. YAWN. Like ATI is going to suddenly say "hey, you know, with the 6xxx cards we decided to drop bitstreaming support. Sorry!" RIGHT. :) And you yourself said you're not going to use it for gaming, so issue solved. Noise is not an issue when watching movies. Even my giant 5870 is silent when playing video. Get a video card with bitstreaming in more apps for the same price as an audio only card that's tied to one app, or get that audio card plus a video card....tough call. ;)

[Andy o]

Not if UAC is on. It has to be an admin cmd prompt.

Was wondering about that. I never have UAC on.

[SamuriHL]

Was wondering about that. I never have UAC on.

I leave it on in 7 as it's not obnoxious like Vista. But yes, it requires elevated privs to register a file.

[gametiger]

The advantage is if you're into gaming you can upgrade the video card and not affect your audio solution. YAWN. Like ATI is going to suddenly say "hey, you know, with the 6xxx cards we decided to drop bitstreaming support. Sorry!" RIGHT. :) And you yourself said you're not going to use it for gaming, so issue solved. Noise is not an issue when watching movies. Even my giant 5870 is silent when playing video. Get a video card with bitstreaming in more apps for the same price as an audio only card that's tied to one app, or get that audio card plus a video card....tough call. ;)
Thanks man, you were a great help :)

On another note... does anyone know if this will work in MediaPortal? Well it should, right?

[honai]

I recommend people try the DirectSound: ATI HDMI renderer and see how that works for you. Haven't crashed that one yet. :D

Is that with the ATI drivers, or Realtek drivers?

[SamuriHL]

Is that with the ATI drivers, or Realtek drivers?

The ATI Cat 9.11 HDMI driver. Someone said the realtek driver is the same as the ATI one now, but, I don't think that's accurate from what I've seen. I just use the one from ATI. AFAIK, the realtek one still isn't capable of bitstreaming, even with ffdshow, but I haven't tried the latest realtek driver with the latest ffdshow. It'd be a good thing to try though. If I get a chance I can try them tomorrow.

[Andy o]

Does the MPC audio renderer use wasapi exclusive mode? As in, will it switch channels/sample rate automatically when playing decoded audio?

[albain]

@albain

The MPC-HC crash with Monsters Inc using probably Waveout on this crash:


Level Date and Time Source Event ID Task Category
Error 12/3/2009 4:40:26 PM Application Error 1000 (100) "Faulting application name: mpc-hc.exe, version: 1.3.1373.0, time stamp: 0x4b153037
Faulting module name: ffdshow.ax, version: 1.0.7.3280, time stamp: 0x4b17fc74
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00257135
Faulting process id: 0xdb0
Faulting application start time: 0x01ca74612f1db569
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\ffdshow\ffdshow.ax



Fault offsets for different renderers:
0x00257152 -Default Waveout
0x0024da7a - Default DS

I'm not sure if those offsets help you, but, it's definitely crashing in ffdshow.

Thanks SamuriHL, this crash dump states that FFDShow is responsible of the crash.
This will be difficult to figure it out : visual studio with ffdshow compiled in debug mode is required to get the exact location of the crash.

Is there a developer/or compiler person who owns a radeon 5xxx ?

[Snowknight26]

Under ffdshow's video output, the tooltip for Standard under Input levels says that ffdshow automatically uses Full range for Fraps videos, even though it does not. The only way to get Full range is to select it, which is quite annoying having to change that setting back and forth, depending on what content is being decoded. Should be an easy fix, though.

[THX-UltraII]

I have a question that s not related to the new bitstreaming thing, hope thats ok :):

When I play a movie which has True-HD audio MPC-HC does not load ffdshow. So after some testing I figured out that it has something to do with Haali Splitter. So I uninstalled Haali Splitter and enabled the internal TS filter in MPC-HC. Ater this FFdshow audio does load fine now. However, something is wrong with the decoding. I enabled all codecs in FFdshow and checked only 16-bit as output. I can see in the info of FFdshow (when playing the file) that True 5.1 decoding is active. However, the video stutters like hell. What could I be doing wrong here?

[albain]

I have a question that s not related to the new bitstreaming thing, hope thats ok :):

When I play a movie which has True-HD audio MPC-HC does not load ffdshow. So after some testing I figured out that it has something to do with Haali Splitter. So I uninstalled Haali Splitter and enabled the internal TS filter in MPC-HC. Ater this FFdshow audio does load fine now. However, something is wrong with the decoding. I enabled all codecs in FFdshow and checked only 16-bit as output. I can see in the info of FFdshow (when playing the file) that True 5.1 decoding is active. However, the video stutters like hell. What could I be doing wrong here?

Hi,

the number of channels may not be accurate.

Have you tried the last beta 46 from the earlier post ? Because I also brought some changes to decoding mode

[liquidskin76]

Can someone give me advice on this please :)

Put it this way... i have a xonar however as soon as a low profile ati 5xxx arrives in early 2010, i'll be pulling my xonar out and taking a hammer to it!

[liquidskin76]

Thanks man, you were a great help :)

On another note... does anyone know if this will work in MediaPortal? Well it should, right?

You would have to configure MediaPortal to use MPC-HC as an external player. This is what i'll be doing in XBMC.

Hopefully the mediaPortal/XBMC devs will code in HD bitstreaming in the near future (i'll certainly be putting in the request on the XBMC forums as soon as albain has completed the ffdshow build... watch out albain, i expect they will try and pick your brains!).

BTW... XBMC with Aeon skin totaly blows the tits off MediaPortal!

[STaRGaZeR]

Under ffdshow's video output, the tooltip for Standard under Input levels says that ffdshow automatically uses Full range for Fraps videos, even though it does not. The only way to get Full range is to select it, which is quite annoying having to change that setting back and forth, depending on what content is being decoded. Should be an easy fix, though.

Confirmed.

[Skinleech]

You would have to configure MediaPortal to use MPC-HC as an external player. This is what i'll be doing in XBMC.

Hopefully the mediaPortal/XBMC devs will code in HD bitstreaming in the near future (i'll certainly be putting in the request on the XBMC forums as soon as albain has completed the ffdshow build... watch out albain, i expect they will try and pick your brains!).

BTW... XBMC with Aeon skin totaly blows the tits off MediaPortal!

I use XBMC on my old Xbox 1 for SD content, but I really didn;t like it on the PC. Not sure why.

Anyway, will try the latest build once I'm done work. Thanks yet again for the hard work albain.

[renethx]

Does the MPC audio renderer use wasapi exclusive mode? As in, will it switch channels/sample rate automatically when playing decoded audio?
It supports WASAPI exclusive only. Channel count is preserved. But ATI driver accepts only 16 bit LPCM. So ffdshow first has to downsample LPCM audio streams to 16 bit. Outside MPC HomeCimena loading it is not easy (a trick similar to ReClockDS.dll works however). ReClock does not support HD audio bitstreams (yet) and suffers from the same 16-bit restriction. Realtek HDMI driver does not work for bitstreaming. So it's a no-go situation for those "bit-perfect" people.

@albain

It is possible to improve "WASAPI audio renderer" (I am not sure what way)?

[dehati_paul]

@dehati_paul : yes it is but you have to register the renderer first
Dos windows in admin mode, do :
regsvr32 "c:\program files\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 3\Codec\ASAudioRenderer.dll"

@all

Let's summarize things a little bit :

xonar + arcsoft renderer : work with all DTSHD samples ? work with some THD but not all => I have Sebastii's logs to fix THD
xonar + other renderer : doesn't work ? This does not surprise me
ATI 5xxx : I saw some THD samples working, some others won't with directsound. But non working samples will work if you use waveout. Right ? I have ffdshow logs for non working sample (a 5.1 track if I remember correctly) but not a working track with the same attributes (I mean sample rate and number of channels). Please also report the sample rate too. I suspect a bug in the ATI driver, it also may come from the channels mask sent
ATI 5xxx + DTSHD : works with directsound (MA or HR) but not with waveout (MA only), right ?
ATI 5xxx and Dolby Digital Plus : what about this one ? Still working in all cases ?

@albain I registered the Arcsoft audio renderer, but the question still remains as to how do I set it as default so that ffdshow when called from any app (not just MPC-HC or GS) will use Arcsoft Audio Renderer?

[Cheesegeezer]

Albain, great job and my hat off to you and everyone else that has helped you over time, I wished to have contributed but couldn't acquire any logs (probably due to my inexperience with debugging).

My .ts and .m2ts samples seem to play with no hicups both on TrueHD and DTSHD. The mkv file I have that was posted up on here a while ago with the DTSHD intro is not good though as you hear the sound, the lights appear on the AVR but the video is about 3-5 seconds delayed in appearing and the when it does arrive it breaks the audio.

I'm using Win7 32bit, HD5850, ATI CCC 9.11 and ATI hdmi audio 5.0.7000.9 driver.

If some one can tell me how to get debugger working with graphstudio I can help to post some logs.

Top Job again and thanks for all your hard work, I knew you could do it:thanks:

[gametiger]

BTW... XBMC with Aeon skin totaly blows the tits off MediaPortal!
XBMC has no TV functionality though, has it? Of course you could always call an external program, but I'm not really a fan of that method.

[albain]

It supports WASAPI exclusive only. Channel count is preserved. But ATI driver accepts only 16 bit LPCM. So ffdshow first has to downsample LPCM audio streams to 16 bit. Outside MPC HomeCimena loading it is not easy (a trick similar to ReClockDS.dll works however). ReClock does not support HD audio bitstreams (yet) and suffers from the same 16-bit restriction. Realtek HDMI driver does not work for bitstreaming. So it's a no-go situation for those "bit-perfect" people.

@albain

It is possible to improve "WASAPI audio renderer" (I am not sure what way)?

Sure, but I will let this part to MPC-HC team, due to lack of time
I will commit my version to MPCHC when I will have done some cleanings

EDIT : actually the MPC renderer supports both wasapi (exclusive) and directsound but I forced it to wasapi. The UI config must be added to select which mode to use.
Also the mode could be selected according to the input format
Also(2) the default audio endpoint is used. It could become selectable

[Andy o]

It supports WASAPI exclusive only. Channel count is preserved. But ATI driver accepts only 16 bit LPCM. So ffdshow first has to downsample LPCM audio streams to 16 bit. Outside MPC HomeCimena loading it is not easy (a trick similar to ReClockDS.dll works however). ReClock does not support HD audio bitstreams (yet) and suffers from the same 16-bit restriction. Realtek HDMI driver does not work for bitstreaming. So it's a no-go situation for those "bit-perfect" people.


That is interesting, cause 24-bit (padded to 32) works with foobar2000 and JRiver MC, at least with ATI drivers and the 4000 series. Have you tried these with the 5000 series? I thought it might have been ReClock's error.

[Skinleech]

Albain, great job and my hat off to you and everyone else that has helped you over time, I wished to have contributed but couldn't acquire any logs (probably due to my inexperience with debugging).

My .ts and .m2ts samples seem to play with no hicups both on TrueHD and DTSHD. The mkv file I have that was posted up on here a while ago with the DTSHD intro is not good though as you hear the sound, the lights appear on the AVR but the video is about 3-5 seconds delayed in appearing and the when it does arrive it breaks the audio.

I'm using Win7 32bit, HD5850, ATI CCC 9.11 and ATI hdmi audio 5.0.7000.9 driver.

If some one can tell me how to get debugger working with graphstudio I can help to post some logs.

Top Job again and thanks for all your hard work, I knew you could do it:thanks:

What splitter are you using for mkv? Using Haali I had issues, using the MPC internal splitter they seem to work well for me.

[SamuriHL]

Thanks SamuriHL, this crash dump states that FFDShow is responsible of the crash.
This will be difficult to figure it out : visual studio with ffdshow compiled in debug mode is required to get the exact location of the crash.

Is there a developer/or compiler person who owns a radeon 5xxx ?

If absolutely necessary I can grab my dev tools and throw it on that machine. It'll likely break TMT3 because of their stupid protection, but, if it helps fix this issue I can grab VS. Should I go for VS 2010? I'll definitely need some help with the setup of the project, though. I haven't compiled anything in VS in a while. The stuff I do for a living is all Java using Eclipse these days.

[renethx]

That is interesting, cause 24-bit (padded to 32) works with foobar2000 and JRiver MC, at least with ATI drivers and the 4000 series. Have you tried these with the 5000 series? I thought it might have been ReClock's error.
Yup, I tried. No sound if ffdshow sends > 16 bit LPCM to albain's MPC Audio Renderer. So I have to check only "16 bit integer" in "Output" tab in ffdshow audio decoder configuration and then it works fine (WASAPI exlusive with correct channel count). But even with 16 bit, the sound quality is much better than WASAPI shared mode (I am always wondering what kind of crappy processing is done by Windows audio engine, even when no *enhancement* is selected).

Precisely speaking

- If 24 bit integer (only) is selected, ffdshow Audio Decoder can't connect to MPC - Audio Decoder
- If 32 bit integer (only) is selected, ffdshow Audio Decoder connects to MPC - Audio Decoder, but no sound is sent.

[SamuriHL]

Yup, I tried. No sound if ffdshow sends > 16 bit LPCM to albain's MPC Audio Renderer. So I have to check only "16 bit integer" in "Output" tab in ffdshow audio decoder configuration and then it works fine (WASAPI exlusive with correct channel count).

That's why bitstreaming is better. :p

[renethx]

That's why bitstreaming is better. :p
We still need WASAPI exclusive mode via, say, MPC Audio Renderer, for *bit-perfect* LPCM. (A good portion of all HD audio tracks in BD movies are LPCM, an aspect forgotten also by PowerDVD/HD 5xxx and TMT/Xonar.)

[Andy o]

Yup, I tried. No sound if ffdshow sends > 16 bit LPCM to albain's MPC Audio Renderer. So I have to check only "16 bit integer" in "Output" tab in ffdshow audio decoder configuration and then it works fine (WASAPI exlusive with correct channel count). But even with 16 bit, the sound quality is much better than WASAPI shared mode (I am always wondering what kind of crappy processing is done by Windows audio engine, even when no *enhancement* is selected).

Actually, by "these" I meant if you had tried foobar2k and/or JR MC with 24-bit content. I'm pretty sure they would work, as with the 4000 series. Which leads me to think there might be something ReClock and the MPC renderer are missing. On the other hand it works with the Realtek drivers. Has anyone tried enabling 24 or 32-bit on ffdshow, with Realtek drivers?

[SamuriHL]

We still need WASAPI exclusive mode via, say, MPC Audio Renderer, for *bit-perfect* LPCM. (A good portion of all HD audio tracks in BD movies are LPCM, an aspect forgotten also by PowerDVD/HD 5xxx and TMT/Xonar.)

I know. I'd like to know how PDVD9 does it for streams 48/24 and above. For 48/16 they're throwing it into the lion's den of windows audio. But if the ATI driver doesn't support 24, how are they doing it?? Upsampling to 32?? But I thought that only worked with the realtek driver, so, again, how?

[renethx]

Has anyone tried enabling 24 or 32-bit on ffdshow, with Realtek drivers?
Realtek R2.35 driver:

- 16 bit integer: Works with correct sample rate, but channel count does not match (always the same as the one selected in Windows' Sound control panel).
- 24 bit integer, 32 bit integer, 32 bit fp: ffdshow does not connect to MPC Audio Renderer.

[madshi]

The ultimate solution would be a realtime DirectShow TrueHD encoder. Not sure if such a thing is coming anytime soon. Probably not...

[SamuriHL]

What, no DTS-HD MA???? ;) LOL!

[renethx]

I know. I'd like to know how PDVD9 does it for streams 48/24 and above. For 48/16 they're throwing it into the lion's den of windows audio. But if the ATI driver doesn't support 24, how are they doing it?? Upsampling to 32?? But I thought that only worked with the realtek driver, so, again, how?
Definitely ATI driver supports 24 bit as confirmed with foobar2000 and J. River MC. This (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16305663#post16305663) is a bit old result with HD 4670, but the same is true for HD 5xxx. There might be a compatibility issue between MPC Audio Renderer and ATI HDMI driver, like ReClock.