ffdshow AC3 decoder causes clicks sometimes?

[shae]

I noticed that occasionally I get clicks when watching stuff with AC3, using ffdshow (v1723) as the audio decoder (set to downmix to stereo, with no other tweaks, not even Dynamic range compression in the codecs page).

I decided to take a closer look. I decoded with azid a clicking sample, but it turned out clean. A spectral view revealed there is something that could've been a click, but not at the low level it were.

Playing back with MPC's internal decoder there was no clicking either, nor was there using another decoder (Not sure what, actually. GraphEdit shows "ACM Wrapper", GSpot shows it might be QUARTZ.DLL, but that shouldn't decode AC3, no?)

Attached is a snippet that clicks (right at the beginning of the word "close").

[Atak_Snajpera]

Try again with r1993

[shae]

Any audio related changes? I thought sticking with the semi-release beta ones would be better for general use.

[Atak_Snajpera]

R stands for revision so I assume that newer version should be better that previous ones

[Leak]

Any audio related changes? I thought sticking with the semi-release beta ones would be better for general use.
AFAIR some SSE or MMX code in the AC3 decoder was buggy and produced those clicks; it's now been replaced with less optimized (but correct) code and those clicks are gone. But of course you'll have to use a more recent version than the now-ancient beta 4...

[shae]

R stands for revision so I assume that newer version should be better that previous onesBut with rapid development and new experimental features and changes, the stable isles that are the betas might be better for general use.

AFAIR some SSE or MMX code in the AC3 decoder was buggy and produced those clicks; it's now been replaced with less optimized (but correct) code and those clicks are gone. But of course you'll have to use a more recent version than the now-ancient beta 4...1723 is just from half a year ago. It's not THAT ancient. :) And until last month I was using a version from 2006 (which I stuck with because it was difficult to find a stable version, at least at the time, losing settings, new potential problems, etc.).

Is any of the post-1723, post-assumed-AC3-fix, versions considered more stable/tested?

BTW: Any idea if MPEG4 ASP decoding speed has been improved in the last 1-2 years?

[clsid]

Recent nightlies are more stable than the betas, and also have better H.264 decoding performance.

[shae]

So why not dub one of the 19xx ones beta 5, or even 1.0?

I know AVC improved in the last months, but what about ASP (in the last 2 years)? The CPUs I'm running it on don't have much chance running hires AVC.

[Shakey_Jake33]

So why not dub one of the 19xx ones beta 5, or even 1.0?
Releases don't quite work like that. Even though they're beta, I assume they still go through a small-scale code freeze to bug-fix, because a new beta version is quite a large revision as far as ffdshow goes. But you're right that a new beta is overdue, and surely coming soon.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Releases don't quite work like that. Even though they're beta, I assume they still go through a small-scale code freeze to bug-fix, because a new beta version is quite a large revision as far as ffdshow goes. But you're right that a new beta is overdue, and surely coming soon.

sometime around the end of the month was mentioned
as long as no new regressions or big snags are hit

also

forget about that stable BS
FFdshow-tryouts are more stable than many commercial alternatives...