Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC) - DXVA!

[ikarad]

It's working as intended ikarad. It's supposed to play at 60fps if your GPU is doing IVTC.
I agree with you but I don't use gpu to do ivtc. I use cpu. It's for it that I said there is a problem.

With h264 no dvxa or dvxa decoder, same thing. With ffdshow with mpc-hc, kmplayer, plotplayer h264 no dxva decoder, there is no problem. Video works at 30fps (24 fps if I use inverse telecine filter like decomb). With mpc-hc no dxavdecoder, it's like with I use dxva decoder with 60fps (48 fps if I use inverse telecine filter). It's not normal. It's like framerate was doubled.

[Snowknight26]

I agree with you but I don't use gpu to do ivtc. I use cpu. It's for it that I said there is a problem.


Your results say otherwise. Your GPU is being used.

[manolito]

This is a very long thread, so forgive me if this problem has already been discussed...:sly:

Whenever I use MPC-HC (current version 1.6.4.6052 from sourceforge) to play audio CDs whithout any gaps between the tracks (Live recordings), MPC-HC still adds a rather long and annoying pause between the tracks. I already tried all available options for the audio renderer, but this did not help.

Is there anything I could do to correct this problem?

VLC has a similar behavior, but the pauses it inserts are a lot shorter than with MPC-HC. So far I have to use good old WMP 9 for these audio CDs, it handles them flawlessly.

I believe that it is bad enough that there is no real solution for this with the MP3 format (I use a WinAmp plugin as a workaround), but I see no reason why a software player should behave that way with plain audio CDs...:angry:


Thanks for any suggestions,
Cheers
manolito

[Reino]

Every time the CD track changes, a new DirectShow-graph has to be created. As such I don't think it will ever be possible to play CD tracks gaplessly. You could of course choose a DirectShow filter with the shortest loading(buffering) time between tracks; with MPC-HC's internal CDDA Source Filter + LAV Splitter I experienced the longest loading time. MPC-HC's internal CDDA Source Filter + the standard Wave Parser is a little bit faster. DC-Bass Source Mod has the fastest loading time of these 3 scenarios.

Feature request: MPC-HC being able to handle (embedded) cue-files.
SourceForge Ticket #1673 (http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/mpc-hc/ticket/1673) resurrected.In light of this ticket I've done some Paint editing:
http://www.ld-host.de/uploads/images/698c820543aee425fa419629903186ac.png
- 1st image: Seekbar covers the entire album length, like it is now (including mka-files). The "Jump To..."-time is the actual offset in the image-file.
- 2nd image: Seekbar covers every separate cue-entry/song, like with playing Audio CDs. The "Jump To..."-time is the cue-entry/song duration.

I think it's important to know what end-users would prefer beforehand. So, what's your opinion? How would you like MPC-HC to handle (embedded) cue-sheets?

[wanezhiling]

http://xhmikosr.1f0.de/mpc-hc/icl13/
icl13 :eek:

[nuhkka]

can you guys please fix it where it won't look choppy/low frame when it automatically replays an mpeg2 ota hdtv clip with dxva ?

also sometimes it will just freeze when the clip finishes..

it'll play the videos fine but the problem lies when it replays it automatically

[manolito]

Every time the CD track changes, a new DirectShow-graph has to be created. As such I don't think it will ever be possible to play CD tracks gaplessly.
But how do you explain then that Windows Media Player 9 (which is certainly based on DirectShow) plays such Audio CDs without any pauses between gapless tracks?


Cheers
manolito

[ikarad]

Your results say otherwise. Your GPU is being used.

I only turn on software decoder. Then, I can't use gpu.
MPc-hc say that only h264 decoder is used.

If gpu is used, it's a bug because I desactivate dxva decoder and in filter option: I have only decoder software used.

[Snowknight26]

Whether your decoder is doing software or hardware decoding is irrelevant.

If your decoder is outputting NV12 (which it is), your GPU will deinterlace/IVTC.

Not a bug.

[ikarad]

Whether your decoder is doing software or hardware decoding is irrelevant.

If your decoder is outputting NV12 (which it is), your GPU will deinterlace/IVTC.

Not a bug.

Why with ffdshow, madvr decoder, plotplayer and kmplayer, there is no problem and gpu won't deinterlace?

There is a problem with mpc-hc. It lacks an option like in madvr decoder or ffdshow decoder.

In potplayer and kmplayaer, by default I have 30 fps and 24fps if I use inevrse telecine filter.

In madvr the option is to turn on "disable automatic source type detection" and turn on force film mode

I have 24fps and not 48fps.

In ffdshow I must turn off set interlaced flag in output media type

I I turn on I have 60fps and 48fps if I use inverse telecine.
If I tunr off I have 30 fps and 24fps if I use inverse telecine.

There is a problem with MPC-HC internal decoder.

[kthxbye]

I am using Windows 8 Pro x64. After installing the newest icl13 nightly build (on a fresh clean install of Windows 8) the filetypes are not automatically registered. Even when I click those in MPC-HC, Windows' 'Video' still opens every file. There are also no context menus for individual files (folders do have a context menu). Is this a known problem?

[Superb]

Well I guess the devs should read http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=228165 for file associations under Windows 8...
EDIT: also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144104%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[clsid]

Win8 does not allow an app to force itself as default. Users have to choose their preferred app if multiple are installed for a specific file extension.
MPC-HC should nuke this key when it creates file associations:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\[extension]\UserChoice

[Reino]

But how do you explain then that Windows Media Player 9 (which is certainly based on DirectShow) plays such Audio CDs without any pauses between gapless tracks?I can't install WMP9 here, so I honestly can't tell you.

[nevcairiel]

Audio CDs dont exactly have files (the .cda files are "fakes" created by Windows), so one could certainly envision a source filter that reads the whole disc and just uses the tracks as chapters or something like that.

[LigH]

WMP may be based on DirectShow in general. But it can still use even more ancient APIs, like MCI (Media Control Interface, mmsystem.dll) – as used to control CD drives for Audio playback since Windows 3.x already.

A "Red Book" Audio CD is indeed rather one whole gapless media, divided into chapters by its TOC. In times of Windows 9x, there was already an alternative CDFS driver which gave access to CD tracks as virtual WAV files, to copy them from a CD in the Explorer; it will probably have used some compatible Digital Audio interface of Windows.

[Lighto]

Not having file association working on Windows 8 is a major deal breaker, stuck with VLC/MPC-BE for now........

[manolito]

WMP may be based on DirectShow in general. But it can still use even more ancient APIs, like MCI (Media Control Interface, mmsystem.dll) – as used to control CD drives for Audio playback since Windows 3.x already.

Thanks for the replies. I did a couple of tests, and my conclusion is that the developers of current software media players simply do not care about plain old Audio CDs anymore...:angry:

Players which do not work (they insert pauses):
MPC-HC, MPC-BE, VLC, WinAmp 5

Player which work (no pauses between gapless tracks):
Windows Media Player 9 (under WinXP SP3)
Feurio CD Player widget
Tiny Player by Petr Laštovicka (at sourceforge)
Ancient WinAmp 2.9 (under Win98 SE)

My favorite software for Audio CDs is Tiny Player right now. As an audio renderer it can either use its built-in renderer, or you can set it up to use the default DirectShow renderer (or your specific sound card). In all cases it does play Live Audio CDs correctly.


Cheers
manolito

[LigH]

The MCI commands only make the drive play the CD. The tracks may not even have to be sampled if the soundcard is connected to the drive with an Audio CD cable (means, the played audio would not even pass the ATA/SCSI bus and the CPU). If the sound is used in a visualization window, it may be sampled back from the soundcard.

Only if the drive is not directly connected to the soundcard, the CD track would have to be "grabbed" (digitally extracted, like e.g. CDex or EAC would do) prior to playing it. In such a case, gaps may occur.

[manolito]

Only if the drive is not directly connected to the soundcard, the CD track would have to be "grabbed" (digitally extracted, like e.g. CDex or EAC would do) prior to playing it. In such a case, gaps may occur.

My CD- and DVD-drives are not connected to the soundcard at all, digital audio extraction is used exclusively.

One interesting thing about the different behavior of the two WinAmp versions:

While the current version 5 (which misbehaves) uses its own routines for DAE, the ancient version 2.9 can by itself only play audio CDs with an analog connection of the drive with the soundcard. Since my drives do not have such a connection I had to use the CD-Reader plugin by copah. And in this configuration it works perfectly, i.e. there are no audible pauses between tracks for Audio CDs containing Live recordings. Strange...


Cheers
manolito

[jos99]

Thanks for the replies. I did a couple of tests, and my conclusion is that the developers of current software media players simply do not care about plain old Audio CDs anymore...:angry:

Players which do not work (they insert pauses):
MPC-HC, MPC-BE, VLC, WinAmp 5

Player which work (no pauses between gapless tracks):
Windows Media Player 9 (under WinXP SP3)
Feurio CD Player widget
Tiny Player by Petr Laštovicka (at sourceforge)
Ancient WinAmp 2.9 (under Win98 SE)

My favorite software for Audio CDs is Tiny Player right now. As an audio renderer it can either use its built-in renderer, or you can set it up to use the default DirectShow renderer (or your specific sound card). In all cases it does play Live Audio CDs correctly.


Cheers
manolito
You missed foobar2000, very customisable player:)

http://www.foobar2000.org/

[manolito]

Thanks jos99 for the hint...:)

I have heard good things about foobar2000, but frankly this program looks way too powerful and way too customizable to me. All I want is a player which is simple, fast, lightweight and handles anythig I throw at it. And it should come with built-in source filters for all audio and video formats.

MPC-HC comes pretty close to these requirements, and the only reason I have VLC installed is that some other software requires it.

On the foobar website I found a very informative link to a Hydrogenaudio page about gapless playback:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Gapless
I particularly like this quote :
There are two main reasons why gaps occur during playback: compression scheme artifacts and poorly designed playback systems.

Since in this case we are talking about uncomressed PCM material, the second reason applies to MPC-HC and VLC.
What a shame...:devil:


Cheers
manolito

[nevcairiel]

MPC-HC is a DirectShow video player, it was never designed for gapless playback (or heck music playback in general), so you're trying to use it as something that its not, so rough edges can be expected. :p

[manolito]

MPC-HC is a DirectShow video player, it was never designed for gapless playback (or heck music playback in general),

Where do you have that from? The MPC-HC homepage at sourceforge says otherwise:
MPC-HC is an extremely light-weight media player for Windows.
The player supports all common video and audio file formats available for playback.


Cheers
manolito

[pirlouy]

Because 95% (at least) people use MPC as a video player.
You don't have the same requirements between a video player and an audio player (especially GUI).

Foobar2000 is the reference for audio player. Install it and it will surely handle anything you through at it (if not, just add a plugin). UI modification is a bit complicated, but there's a good chance you can obtain what you had in minds.

[manolito]

Because 95% (at least) people use MPC as a video player.

Can you back that up with any statistical data? I only refer to what the developers claim themselves about their software on their website.


Cheers
manolito

[the_weirdo]

Where do you have that from? The MPC-HC homepage at sourceforge says otherwise:
MPC-HC is an extremely light-weight media player for Windows.
The player supports all common video and audio file formats available for playback.


First, being a media player doesn't mean it must support all kind of media formats. So MPC-HC, foobar2000, Winamp... they're all media players. Secondly, just because MPC-HC supports various audio file formats doesn't imply that it can function as a good music player.

[Keiyakusha]

manolito
Think of it as side effect derived from video playback support. Audio playback support is very limited. You shouldn't be using it for playing audio. And if you do use it - don't complain that it lacks something. It never meant to be audio player. What devs claim is true, it supports audio. You can play back some single audio file. If you want more audio-only features or existing features implemented in a better way - get some audio player.

Edit: BTW I can load webpages from some audio players, no one yet claimed them to be browsers or recommended as ones, because their browsing support is nothing compared to full-featured browser. Never heard that photoshop is a video editor, yet it have limited support for editing video. In fact photoshop can play back single audio tracks too. I wonder what adobe will answer if I'll request gapless playback of audioCD's there.

[DragonQ]

If you want a dedicated audio player, Winamp and Foobar are very popular. I use the latter myself.

[dansrfe]

Wait, what's wrong with playing music with MPC-HC and LAV Filters? MPC-HC has a playlist option too. Albeit, not that glamorous but it works well.

[the_weirdo]

Wait, what's wrong with playing music with MPC-HC and LAV Filters? MPC-HC has a playlist option too. Albeit, not that glamorous but it works well.

Nothing is wrong with playing music with MPC-HC, of course. If that's what you like, go ahead. But you cannot expect it to work as a dedicated audio/music player. That's it.

[LigH]

Where do you have that from? The MPC-HC homepage at sourceforge says otherwise:

A CD track is not an "audio file". Not even a whole CD is an "audio file". The virtual CDA "files" are only a logical representation of the TOC entries of a Red Book Audio CD in the Windows Explorer (as virtual as the "Control Center" which appears like a folder).

Due to a lack of additional error detection/correction codes present in data tracks (CD audio uses 2352 content bytes per sector, files in data tracks only 2048 content bytes per sector - the rest are EDC/ECC codes here), reading CD audio is more sensitive, unreliable. Therefore, if a media player plays one track, stops, seeks again to the next track, and starts playing it after a while, there will be an audible gap because finding the start sector with the optical system will take its time, a lot more time than seeking on a harddisk. Gaplessly playing an Audio CD requires not handling tracks like individual media files. Unfortunately, MPC-HC does handle playlist entries individually, it does not pre-read into the next entry while still playing the current.

[manolito]

A CD track is not an "audio file". Not even a whole CD is an "audio file". The virtual CDA "files" are only a logical representation of the TOC entries of a Red Book Audio CD in the Windows Explorer (as virtual as the "Control Center" which appears like a folder).

I know all that, I've been around for a while...:)
But MPC-HC certainly has the option "Open Disc -> Audio CD", so it is designed to play Audio CDs. Period. And a player which is designed to play Audio CDs should be able to play them correctly, i.e. not insert pauses between tracks when the CD was mastered to play these tracks gaplessly. If the player cannot do this then it is due to a poorly designed playback system.
And this capability is certainly not a far out or uncommon or unusual feature, it is a basic requirement for an Audio CD player.

I know that people today do not listen to complete albums any more, and more and more people do not even own Audio CDs. So I understand that the developers of todays player software do not have much incentive to implement this capability. OTOH it sure is no rocket science to implement this, it has been done many times (see Tiny Player).

I believe it is time to put an end to this discussion. I found a solution which works nicely for me - Tiny Player turned out to be a capable video player, too, so it is my default media player now...



Cheers
manolito

[kthxbye]

Not having file association working on Windows 8 is a major deal breaker, stuck with VLC/MPC-BE for now........

Well it works, you'll just have to set each filetype manually. It's done in a minute, since I only play .mkv, .mp4, .avi or .wmv these days anymore.

[Reino]

I know that people today do not listen to complete albums any more:confused:

[Aleksoid1978]

Well it works, you'll just have to set each filetype manually. It's done in a minute, since I only play .mkv, .mp4, .avi or .wmv these days anymore.

But it should be automatic :)

[khagaroth]

But it should be automatic :)Not possible. Microsoft simply disabled this in W8, no program can set itself as default programatically, the user has to do it manually.

[DragonQ]

IIRC a program can set itself as default but then the user has to essentially confirm this the first time a file of that type is opened.

[Aleksoid1978]

Not possible. Microsoft simply disabled this in W8, no program can set itself as default programatically, the user has to do it manually.

But - see how it done in MPC-BE
http://www.mediafire.com/?icc50r70d2emcfz

[LigH]

If there is one method to do it, there is one piece of code which does it. Microsoft may have made it more complex and "secret", so that hardly any other developer outside Microsoft knows how it has to be done. But at least one inside Microsoft knows how to do it, because it can be done at least in one way supported by Microsoft's OS functions. "The user has to do it manually" doesn't mean to patch the registry with a hex editor, at least, not even to use a Registry editor; Microsoft wouldn't trust the average user to be able, there have to be complete routines doing the whole required sequence, even if that involves the user confirming a dialog...

[Yoshi8765]

@ Yoshi8765:

Do you know the difference between "the DVD Video standard" and "an MKV file burned onto a data DVD±R"?

If the DVD contains an MKV file which you burned in your own PC using a DVD±RW drive, AnyDVD is not used at all. In this case it doesn't matter if AnyDVD is installed or not.

AnyDVD is only used if you have an industrially produced DVD (commercial disk manufacturing, mastered and replicated, not burned) containing a "VIDEO_TS" directory with VOB and IFO files. Commercial "DVD Video" media may be encrypted in a way that AnyDVD may circumvent this encryption.

Apologies for abandoning the thread for a while...

Yes, I know that DVDs are "VIDEO_TS directories with VOB, IFO, etc....
When I said "burned DVD" or "burned movie," this is what I meant, not an "mkv file in a DVD disc."
I am making a DVD movie. By that, I mean a disc that will play in a DVD player, not a DVD disc with an .mkv file burned inside it.
The source for making the DVD is an .mkv file. I am taking the .mkv file, then using convertxtodvd to first encode the .mkv into proper DVD files (VIDEO_TS with VOB files, etc...) and then, burning the encoded files onto a DVD disc. This disc plays on a DVD player.
I am making multiple DVDs this way for personal use.
My question is this: How could a DVD made by myself have encryption on it? I am making the DVD, it shouldn't have any.
Does this make sense?

[LigH]

That's what I'm talking about for weeks now... ;)

You made it. You burned it. Burned DVDs don't support encryption. You cannot have burned an encrypted DVD. Therefore, AnyDVD cannot be of any help – because there is neither encryption nor IFO corruption it has to circumvent.

[Yoshi8765]

That's what I'm talking about for weeks now... ;)

You made it. You burned it. Burned DVDs don't support encryption. You cannot have burned an encrypted DVD. Therefore, AnyDVD cannot be of any help – because there is neither encryption nor IFO corruption it has to circumvent.

Ah... I see.
But then, what could be my problem?

[Armada]

The Windows 8 file association problem is known, we will address the problem soon.

[betaking]

S.Chinese update
http://www.mediafire.com/?5b45ly14cpubej1

[Lincoln Burrows]

I am trying to save MPC settings by selecting save INI file but everytime I open MPC-HC that setting is unchecked. How do I fix that?

I am using Windows 8, 32 bit, final version.

[LigH]

Saving settings to an INI file is extremely unrecommended. It wastes a lot of time. Furthermore, it is possible that the application doesn't have write-file permissions in the Program Files area if not executed as administrator...

[Lincoln Burrows]

The idea was to export such settings to Windows XP, installed in the same computer. I am installing MPC-HC again in this Windows version.

Furthermore, it is possible that the application doesn't have write-file permissions in the Program Files area if not executed as administrator...Thank you, now it's working.

That's a really annoying thing in Windows 8.

[DragonQ]

Thank you, now it's working.

That's a really annoying thing in Windows 8.
Programs shouldn't have write permissions to the Program Files folder. This has been the case since Vista.

[Armada]

The idea was to export such settings to Windows XP, installed in the same computer. I am installing MPC-HC again in this Windows version.

Thank you, now it's working.

That's a really annoying thing in Windows 8.
You should use the Export function in the Miscellaneous options for that.