madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[huhn]

have a look here: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-display-calibration/1471169-madvr-argyllcms.html

[qjb2016]

have a look here: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-display-calibration/1471169-madvr-argyllcms.html

It's for "convert HDR to SDR content by using an external 3DLUT"

not "process HDR content by using an external 3DLUT"

[Budtz]

I had the same thing happen to me. I fixed it by using 24Hz instead of 23.970Hz - my TV can do both and each is a separate entry. I just left 1080p24 in madVR as the setting forthe lowest possible refresh rate.

No settings sadly fixes it for me

I did manage to get it somewhat stable with glitches and fremedrops only about every 15 minutes. before the creators update there none of these issues

threads are starting to pop op around the web with ppl having the same problems

[Asmodian]

It's for "convert HDR to SDR content by using an external 3DLUT"

not "process HDR content by using an external 3DLUT"

It is done in a similar way, the output is BT.709 instead of DCI-P3 but it is basically the same thing.

[qjb2016]

It is done in a similar way, the output is BT.709 instead of DCI-P3 but it is basically the same thing.

I use the displaycal to build the 3dlut file,
Can be "convert HDR to SDR content by using an external 3DLUT" application,
Can not be "process HDR content by using an external 3DLUT" application,
Tip is "input and output format wrong", do not know where the problem?
how do it?

[anta777]

Dear madshi!
You write:
"The chroma upscaling algo does currently not make use of the luma channel. I plan to try adding that to a future NGU version, but that will take serious development time, so don't expect it too soon."

It will be soon ?
There is hope?

[ryrynz]

He will add it, expect it later on this year I reckon.

[brentclark2003]

https://www.brinkertees.com/slugs-and-snails/
Why can't the chroma upscaling algorithm be used beyond the initial conversion to 4:4:4? For instance with my settings, it'll upscale chroma initially with ReconSharp, then upscale luma with NGU-veryHigh and the chroma again but now with NGU-med. Couldnt ReconSharp (or any of the initial-chroma-only scalers) be used for the second scaling step as well?

Is it just not optimized for scenarios beyond 4:2:0 -> 4:4:4? However, wouldn't it just be the same scenario as the initial conversion, having a chroma image that is exactly half the luma image if a doubling algo is used, like NGU, NNEDI or SuperXBR??
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[huhn]

I use the displaycal to build the 3dlut file,
Can be "convert HDR to SDR content by using an external 3DLUT" application,
Can not be "process HDR content by using an external 3DLUT" application,
Tip is "input and output format wrong", do not know where the problem?
how do it?

sound like you have created the wrong 3d lut.
a "process HDR content by using an external 3DLUT" without meta data usage doesn't sound useful too me if you want calibrated HDR output.

Why can't the chroma upscaling algorithm be used beyond the initial conversion to 4:4:4? For instance with my settings, it'll upscale chroma initially with ReconSharp, then upscale luma with NGU-veryHigh and the chroma again but now with NGU-med. Couldnt ReconSharp (or any of the initial-chroma-only scalers) be used for the second scaling step as well?

Is it just not optimized for scenarios beyond 4:2:0 -> 4:4:4? However, wouldn't it just be the same scenario as the initial conversion, having a chroma image that is exactly half the luma image if a doubling algo is used, like NGU, NNEDI or SuperXBR?

using an luma guide upscale algorithm on an upscaled image doesn't sound like the best thing you can do.
and chorma doubling is a worth very little aynway.
using the same scaler for luma and chroma for a RGB or 4:4:4 image should result in better quality any way.

[SweetLow]

madVR v0.91.8 released
* fixed: Y416 input was handled incorrectly

Are you sure? 0.91.7 handle test videos from Ver Greeneyes as expected (gray and color bands). 0.91.8 give "blue world" instead.

[sneaker_ger]

What video decoder are you using? It seems there was a matching change to LAV Video.

https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters/commit/2684f3e29fb072eb474f4ae061b001a36695ba0a (should be in nightly (https://files.1f0.de/lavf/nightly/) 0.69.0-20 and newer)

[SweetLow]

What video decoder are you using? It seems there was a matching change to LAV Video.

Old LAV. Ok, now it's clear - double bug fix :)

[Damien147]

Now with windows 10 creators update there's HDR support.What's the proper setting now for HDR content?Activate HDR in windows and then put Madvr to passthrough HDR content to the display?

[Patrik G]

Now with windows 10 creators update there's HDR support.What's the proper setting now for HDR content?Activate HDR in windows and then put Madvr to passthrough HDR content to the display?

really?
HDR support?
i must get that update

to the question
dont you have eyes ;)?
test the different HDR settings and choose the one that looks ok
usually there is only one setting with HDR that looks as it should

[mrcorbo]

Now with windows 10 creators update there's HDR support.What's the proper setting now for HDR content?Activate HDR in windows and then put Madvr to passthrough HDR content to the display?

That's the best option right now, yes. This doesn't send the metadata from the media file to along to the display, though, as madVR still needs to be updated to support this. For now, you're only going to get your TV's default mapping, which may not look obviously wrong, but probably doesn't look exactly correct either.

[Siso]

Is Error Diffusion option 1 is really worth it for 8 bit monitor with gtx 1050 ti? Or ordered dithering is good enough?

[direxx]

Yes, there are several reports of the issue but so far without a real solution except switching to DXVA2 (copy-back). Search the thread.

How do I set DXVA2 copy-back in the madVR settings? I cannot find anything related.

[ryrynz]

Depends, if it prevents you from running the upscaler or enhancements you want then Ordered is good enough, you might have trouble seeing a difference between them anyway.
Personally I'd only enable it if you have the power to spare, probably one of the least beneficial options in madVR.

[Neo-XP]

A little comparison between Bicubic60 AR / NGU Sharp (low) / NGU Sharp (med) for chroma doubling :

https://s4.postimg.org/ljg09vbvd/1_-_Bicubic60_AR.png (https://postimg.org/image/ljg09vbvd/) https://s4.postimg.org/4wyg0sixl/2_-_NGU_Sharp_low.png (https://postimg.org/image/4wyg0sixl/) https://s4.postimg.org/moa2f8yc9/3_-_NGU_Sharp_med.png (https://postimg.org/image/moa2f8yc9/)

From the worst to the best for me : NGU Sharp (low), NGU Sharp (med) and Bicubic60 AR.

I think NGU Sharp is too sharp to process chroma. The same thing happen with chroma upscaling.
Logically, Jinc AR would perform even better than Bicubic60 AR for chroma doubling, and other NGU variants should be available (at least Standard and AA) for it.

[ryrynz]

I actually was comparing Jinc and NGU AA high on chroma last night with some neon Japanese letters and even Jinc AR which has some pretty major haloing ended up being too bright IMO.
People can downplay chroma but in certain scenes it makes a big difference. Personally I like it clean and natural and NGU AA does very well. Using excessive sharpness to recreate whatever is
lost from 4:4:4 doesn't seem like a good idea to me, but to each their own.

[Neo-XP]

I totally agree with you, but I was comparing chroma doubling, not chroma upscaling.
For chroma upscaling, "NGU AA high" is of course better than Jinc.

That is why I would like to compare them for chroma doubling, and also not being limited to the "low" version of NGU for chroma doubling when using NGU high for luma doubling :scared:
Another comparison between the two algos I am stuck with for chroma doubling : http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206580
Obviously, NGU AA could do wonderful here, and maybe NGU Standard too.

@madshi is there any chance to have a test version with more options for chroma doubling (Jinc AR, NGU AA, NGU Standard, etc.) or in the next version(s) ?
With your sample ( http://madshi.net/chromaTestImage.y4m ), I also find Bicubic60 AR to be more pleasing to look at and more accurate (even if less sharp) : http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206596

[Damien147]

really?
HDR support?
i must get that update

to the question
dont you have eyes ;)?
test the different HDR settings and choose the one that looks ok
usually there is only one setting with HDR that looks as it should

That's the best option right now, yes. This doesn't send the metadata from the media file to along to the display, though, as madVR still needs to be updated to support this. For now, you're only going to get your TV's default mapping, which may not look obviously wrong, but probably doesn't look exactly correct either.

Tried with HDR enabled in win and madvr to passthrough HDR content to the display.I get washed out image:(Deactivated HDR and back to convert HDR to SDR.... for now.

[huhn]

meta data is not send to the TV so nothing has changed and it can't work properly.

and a working HDR API is nothing new.

[nevcairiel]

Tried with HDR enabled in win and madvr to passthrough HDR content to the display.I get washed out image:(Deactivated HDR and back to convert HDR to SDR.... for now.

You need to set your TV into HDR mode as well.

[Damien147]

I get the ''an hdr video is playing'' message from TV (even without hdr source) but that's all.Also ''hdr mode''(read somewhere that it's ''fake'') gets disabled when in pc mode.I guess I'll have to wait.Thank you both though.

[Patrik G]

(Deactivated HDR and back to convert HDR to SDR.... for now.

Madvr doesnt do a good job with the tonemapping to non HDR ready tvs.
it still clips highlights.
dark scenes are way to dark with HDR material also.

thats why i asked before about a possible PQ gamma adjuster in madvr
still havnt got an answer to the fucking question ;)

You may better get the Samsung K8500 UHD player
connect an USB Harddrive to it and then you can play all kinds of HDR material with better result.
adjusting details near black is done with the Brightness control on the player
details near white is done with the Contrast setting.

Samsung K8500 sends out everything even to an non hdr redy tv.
it doesnt convert anything.
bt2020 colors
PQ gamma and 10bit video.
you get it all

adjust brightnes and contrast on the players picture mode/user menu and you will have a really amazing HDR image even on an non hdr ready tv.
how good depends on how wide the tvs native colorgamut is and how bright it gets and also how good the 10bit performance is.

[Damien147]

It's no biggie for me,just wanted to check if there is PQ change/improvement with HDR(my TV doesn't have real HDR).Good to know though,thanks.

[oddball]

I have HDR enabled on the creators update and it does indeed trigger HDR mode on my LG OLED TV. But when I play any HDR videos they are washed out and dark. Is there no way to get the video to output at the correct levels?

[Andy o]

For those mentioning problems with ReClock and the creators update a couple pages back, it's a problem with FSE. Disable that for the moment and clear the clock timings database in ReClock settings.

[nevcairiel]

I have HDR enabled on the creators update and it does indeed trigger HDR mode on my LG OLED TV. But when I play any HDR videos they are washed out and dark. Is there no way to get the video to output at the correct levels?

madVR does not yet support proper HDR output using the new Windows HDR functionality. You'll have to wait for madVR to support this.

I don't know why several people come here expecting it to "just work" without updates to madVR that would add support for this. This is not how software works. New OS features need support in applications before they actually function.

The one thing that *might* work is to NOT use the Windows HDR mode and instead leave Windows in default output mode, and instead toggle your TV into HDR mode manually (assuming madVR is set to HDR pass-through mode), if the TV is smart enough (or dumb enough, depends on perspective, I guess), it might interpret the image as HDR data.

[madshi]

Are you running Windows 10? Have you had a chance to see how Creator's Update performs with madVR + ReClock?
My dev PC is running win8.1. My HTPC is running win10, but I haven't installed creator's update yet.

Regarding the upcoming HDR metadata support… will we need to watch out for the HDR format "war" when choosing a display for playing HDR content from a PC with madVR? From what I can tell there is HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG. Which standards do the nVidia/Microsoft APIs support? Will we need to be careful when shopping for TVs? Does it even matter?
AFAIK, both NVidia and MS are supporting HDR10 for a start. Dolby Vision can have a HDR10 "core", so it can be downward compatible to HDR10. I'm not sure if this concept with a HDR10 core will be used by actual real life Dolby Vision content, though. I don't think either NVidia or MS support HLG yet.

Might make sense to at least get a TV which does HDR10 and HLG.

Wow, NGU-high is now better than is was in v0.91.1 (NGU-med)
Glad to hear that!

Also, when you start working on implementing the automatic HDR-mode, please consider making it an option to remove the HDR-flag (so basically what MadVR does today). Owners of JVC projectors want the HDR-data to be stripped in order to get more control over the projector settings. I know this is the opposite of what most users desire, but having this option would be very welcome by the JVC minority.
That sounds kinda weird. I'm not sure if I want to make this part of the GUI. Maybe it could be some undocumented hack option or so.

what do you think about NGU quadrupling for chroma?
Chroma subsampling (4:2:2, 4:2:0) is always factor 2x. So what purpose would NGU chroma quadrupling have? Or do you mean when we start with 4:4:4, you want both luma and chroma to be directly quadrupled? That's already done today.

1) NGU Standard seems like a good match for the sharpness of NGU AA, but

2) I really like the Anti-Aliasing capabilities of NGU AA, it makes a very visible difference in some cases for the material I watch (mostly livestreams and youtube videos, which are all fairly heavily compressed). I think a certain level of compression just inherently causes aliasing, and NGU AA does wonders for it (in certain cases), where NGU Standard just looks softer than NGU Sharp.

If anything, I'd kind of like a sharper version of NGU AA if that's possible. I like the crisp edges of NGU Sharp, but unfortunately for the material I watch the crispest edges are the compression artifacts :P
Fair enough, for low quality content. But how about high quality content? Do you prefer NGU Sharp or NGU Standard?

NGU AA is as sharp as it's ever going to be, I believe. Of course it's possible to post-sharpen it, but I don't think doing that will be part of the algorithm. I mean it might be possible to include artificial sharpening as part of the algo, but it probably wouldn't look any better than doing NGU AA first, and then apply post-sharpening.

By the way, do you think you'll be able to make direct quadrupling work for NGU AA?
I don't know yet.

When Madvr converts UHD HDR to SDR does it also convert colors from bt2020 to bt709?
It will convert to whatever colorspace you've selected in "this display is already calibrated to [...]". If you have disabled the calibration controls, madVR will by default convert to BT.709.

also will there be a setting for adjusting the PQ gamma with HDR material on SDR tvs?
You can enable the gamma controls to do gamma adjustments. That should work for HDR content, too. Or use the media player's "brightness" and "contrast" controls. Those should go through madVR's video processing algorithms, which also indirectly apply gamma adjustments.

Madvr doesnt do a good job with the tonemapping to non HDR ready tvs.
The feedback I've received from several industry insiders has been quite different. For example, a couple weeks ago a film maker (advertising business, not Hollywood) asked me to make my HDR -> SDR conversion algorithm available for him, because he wants to grade only in HDR and then get a good SDR master by simply converting the HDR graded master to SDR with my algorithm. He says he's tried every HDR -> SDR algorithm on the market and mine produced by far the best results.

it still clips highlights.
That's incorrect. madVR doesn't clip anything, unless you modify the settings in the madVR HDR page.

dark scenes are way to dark with HDR material also.
That's incorrect. If you configured the madVR "this display's peak nits" value correctly, then madVR shows dark scenes *EXACTLY* like a true 10.000 nits display would show dark scenes.

1) I do not like "NGU Standard" for chroma upscaling (too sharp), and "NGU Sharp" is awful for it (really too sharp and ugly). "NGU Soft" is alright, but "NGU AntiAlias" is better and of course NNEDI is a direct competitor.
Maybe "NGU AntiAlias" could be better in all cases than NNEDI if it was a little more sharp and produced/accentuated a bit less artifacts. But for now, each one have pros and cons...
Do you plan to keep all the NGU variants for chroma upscaling ?
I've not decided yet.

2) "NGU Standard" removes dark halos, "NGU AntiAlias" does not. The edges are cleaner with "NGU AntiAlias", because "NGU Standard" seems to produces artifacts on them (probably while removing the halos). Is it not possible to have them both combined in one "NGU Standard AA" algo ? Also, I noticed that "NGU AntiAlias" shifted the image a little, is that normal ?
Your findings are correct. NGU Standard/Sharp/Soft are very similar, just different sharpness levels. NGU AA is totally different. I can't combine them, unfortunately.

For luma doubling though they are all good, but if one have to go, it should be "NGU Soft" because "NGU AntiAlias" could be used instead if someone wants a clean result without the sharpness of the classic NGU. "NGU Soft" is too soft.

3) Yes, it is useful at 1 or 2 to soften a bit the razor-sharp edges of "NGU Sharp", even more when using it with "direct quadrupling".
I've implemented "NGU Standard" for the one and only reason to replace "soften edges". But it seems you prefer "NGU Sharp" + "soften edges" over NGU Standard? Why?

I like NGU AA for chroma a lot. Being able to sharpen chroma aside from SuperRes would be nice, can AS be adapted here?
Possible. But I don't want to make the chroma upscaling settings page any more complicated than it already is. Furthermore, I think it would be more useful to add a dedicated NGU algo for upscaling chroma, making use of the luma channel as guidance, instead of trying to post-sharpen NGU AA.

how use "process HDR content by using an external 3DLUT" ?
how build the "external 3DLUT"?
I don't think any 3dlut software supports that yet. I've added the option in case some software wants to add support for that.

It will be soon ?
Sorry, but I don't give ETAs.

Why can't the chroma upscaling algorithm be used beyond the initial conversion to 4:4:4?
Algos like "reconstruction" and "bilateral" make use of the added information in the higher res luma channel. These algos only make sense if the luma channel really does have higher true resolution. Once we're at 4:4:4, luma has the same resolution as chroma. So "reconstruction" and "bilateral" don't have a higher luma res to benefit from, anymore, which renders these algos useless.

is there any chance to have a test version with more options for chroma doubling (Jinc AR, NGU AA, NGU Standard, etc.) or in the next version(s) ?
Sorry, but no. Doing test versions like that costs serious development time, and I have so many other things to do, which are likely to bring higher quality gains than those 0.1% improvements we might get from using Jinc AR instead of Bicubic60 for chroma doubling. If I had unlimited development time, such a test version might make sense. But if I have to decide between a) implementing a nice new feature/algo, or b) making a test version which might bring 0.1% quality improvement only 1 user is asking for, I'm going with a).

[Neo-XP]

I've implemented "NGU Standard" for the one and only reason to replace "soften edges". But it seems you prefer "NGU Sharp" + "soften edges" over NGU Standard? Why?


Because it look better with good sources, "soften edges" (at 1 or 2, not more) only soften the most sharpen edges produced by "NGU Sharp", but "NGU Standard" applies a whole different process to the image and everything looks softer.

Sorry, but no. Doing test versions like that costs serious development time, and I have so many other things to do, which are likely to bring higher quality gains than those 0.1% improvements we might get from using Jinc AR instead of Bicubic60 for chroma doubling. If I had unlimited development time, such a test version might make sense. But if I have to decide between a) implementing a nice new feature/algo, or b) making a test version which might bring 0.1% quality improvement only 1 user is asking for, I'm going with a).

What about NGU AA/Standard for chroma doubling in replacement or in addition to NGU Sharp ? It does not make sense that the "high" quality setting (NGU Sharp low) is worse than the "normal" one (Bicubic60 AR).
Do you have to develop these NGU variants specifically for chroma doubling or could you just add them ?

[Q-the-STORM]

The feedback I've received from several industry insiders has been quite different. For example, a couple weeks ago a film maker (advertising business, not Hollywood) asked me to make my HDR -> SDR conversion algorithm available for him, because he wants to grade only in HDR and then get a good SDR master by simply converting the HDR graded master to SDR with my algorithm. He says he's tried every HDR -> SDR algorithm on the market and mine produced by far the best results.

Any chance your algo will ever be available as a avisynth or vapoursynth plugin?

[Cinemancave]

That sounds kinda weird. I'm not sure if I want to make this part of the GUI. Maybe it could be some undocumented hack option or so.


An undocumented hack would be fine. Otherwise we JVC owners would have to stop updating MadVR in order to keep this (weird) functionality.

A bit more info:When a JVC projector receives the HDR metadata-flag, it locks the projector into an "HDR"-mode that JVC (for some strange reason) has disabled the automatic iris off, which leads to much poorer black levels in low-APL scenes. The only solution so far has been to buy the HDFury Linker (199$) that has a feature to strip HDR-metadata. Hence, the projector still receives HDR but isn't locked into the "HDR"mode, which brings back the dynamic iris. This has a huge impact on black levels, and is currently the go-to solution for watching HDR on these projectors.

It would be awesome if MadVR could do this so that we can get the same results without having to involve the HDFury Linker. A simple hack would be welcome :)

[madshi]

Because it look better with good sources, "soften edges" (at 1 or 2, not more) only soften the most sharpen edges produced by "NGU Sharp", but "NGU Standard" applies a whole different process to the image and everything looks softer.
Oh well. How about we drop NGU Soft, and instead add a new preset in between NGU Sharp and NGU Standard? Would that allow us to remove "soften edges"? Do you have a good sample image where the different between the "whole different process" is extremely obvious?

What about NGU AA/Standard for chroma doubling in replacement or in addition to NGU Sharp ? It does not make sense that the "high" quality setting (NGU Sharp low) is worse than the "normal" one (Bicubic60 AR).
You can't judge these things with just one sample, especially not if the difference isn't really all that big. With really HQ sources NGU Sharp chroma doubling looks clearly better than Bicubic60 AR. E.g. try the well known Clown image.

Do you have to develop these NGU variants specifically for chroma doubling or could you just add them ?
I don't have to develop them speficially for chroma, but I also can't "just add them", because the chroma doubling option does not list any algorithms at all. I would have to change the logic of the chroma doubling option to list specific algorithms instead of "low, medium, high" quality.

Any chance your algo will ever be available as a avisynth or vapoursynth plugin?
Actually, there will be a new product available pretty soon, making most of the madVR algos available to avi/vapoursynth users. There will be a "pro" version of this new product and a free version. The free version will have some limitions, which will hopefully not be too dramatic, but motivate real "pro" users/companies to buy the pro version. This is all I can say about this for now. More details to be announced later.

[cork_OS]

Chroma subsampling (4:2:2, 4:2:0) is always factor 2x. So what purpose would NGU chroma quadrupling have? Or do you mean when we start with 4:4:4, you want both luma and chroma to be directly quadrupled? That's already done today.
No, I meant something like this (for 720p->1080p):
Chroma > NGU Standard (low) 4x
Luma > NGU Standard (high)
Image < Bicubic150 AR

[madshi]

No, I meant something like this (for 720p->1080p):
Chroma > NGU Standard (low) 4x
Luma > NGU Standard (high)
Image < Bicubic150 AR
I see. Yes, in theory that would be possible. However, in the long run the plan is to create an NGU chroma upscaling algo which makes use of the higher res luma channel. Since the luma channel is always max 2x as large as the chroma channel, this kind of algo will have to be 2x, too. This new kind of algo will hopefully beat all other algos, so I hope it will be the default algo at some point in the future. Because of this reason I'm not too fond of the idea of spending a lot of time now to implement a combination of chroma quadrupling + image doubling, although it is a nice concept.

[Selur]

there will be a new product available pretty soon, making most of the madVR algos available to avi/vapoursynth users.
Nice!

[Neo-XP]

Oh well. How about we drop NGU Soft, and instead add a new preset in between NGU Sharp and NGU Standard? Would that allow us to remove "soften edges"? Do you have a good sample image where the different between the "whole different process" is extremely obvious?

But it will take you a lot of time to develop another NGU variant just for the sake of removing "soften edges", and there is already too many NGU variants.
So if you "need" to remove it, remove it, just don't waste your time on another NGU variant for this.

You can take this image to test with an upscaling to UHD : https://s15.postimg.org/ro3n1k6qz/original.png
Or here if you don't want to waste time :

NGU Sharp : http://www.mediafire.com/file/aj27g3y9yhzvigs/NGU_Sharp.png
NGU Sharp SE2 : http://www.mediafire.com/file/d04aw9a31hot4br/NGU_Sharp_SE2.png
NGU Standard : http://www.mediafire.com/file/wacasfywuk21xis/NGU_Standard.png

You can't judge these things with just one sample, especially not if the difference isn't really all that big. With really HQ sources NGU Sharp chroma doubling looks clearly better than Bicubic60 AR. E.g. try the well known Clown image.

The Clown image is not representative of the content I use, which is mostly FHD HQ films for UHD upscaling.
On already sharp content, NGU Sharp (low) for chroma doubling is too sharp and quite nasty (see http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206580 and http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206596).

I don't have to develop them speficially for chroma, but I also can't "just add them", because the chroma doubling option does not list any algorithms at all. I would have to change the logic of the chroma doubling option to list specific algorithms instead of "low, medium, high" quality.

Maybe the chroma doubling drop-down list should also lists algorithms with their names, preceded by the quality.

For instance, if I choose "high" for luma doubling, I would have this for chroma doubling :

- let madVR decide
- low (Bicubic60 AR)
- normal (Jinc AR)
- high (NGU AA low)
- high (NGU Standard low)
- high (NGU Sharp low)
- very high (NGU AA medium)
- very high (NGU Standard medium)
- very high (NGU Sharp medium)

or any other combinations of algorithms that you find adequate to use...
At the moment, new users do not even know which algorithm is used for chroma doubling without displaying the stats.

For fun, I tested Bicubic60 AR against Jinc AR : http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206712
It is not difficult to see the red gradient lines/blocks with Bicubic60 AR, while Jinc AR is smoother and has the highest quality.

Actually, there will be a new product available pretty soon, making most of the madVR algos available to avi/vapoursynth users. There will be a "pro" version of this new product and a free version. The free version will have some limitions, which will hopefully not be too dramatic, but motivate real "pro" users/companies to buy the pro version. This is all I can say about this for now. More details to be announced later.

If there is one day a "pro" version of madVR with less limitations, all algorithms available and more options, I'm in !
Maybe it is your goal to remove/limit things now from madVR in order propose them back in a "pro" version, so the actual version will remain free ?

[cork_OS]

Now I need your FEEDBACK, once again:

1) Do you like the new "NGU Standard" and "NGU Soft" variants? Personally, I like "NGU Standard" a lot. But I think "NGU Soft" is too soft to be useful, and I'd like to remove it again. But since I spent a lot of time creating it, I thought I'd let you test it, at least.

2) Does "NGU Standard" work better for (non-aliased) low quality content now? Or do we still have to use NGU AA for that? Ideally I hope that we can now use "NGU Sharp" for high quality soures, "NGU Standard" for low quality (but aliasing free) sources, and "NGU AntiAlias" only for aliased sources. Is that reasonable? Or is "NGU AA" still the best option for any low quality sources, aliasing free or not?

3) I want to remove the "Soften Edges" option, because "NGU Standard" was made to replace it. Any objections?

4) With all the changes in this build, I feel that "double twice" is no longer needed. "direct quadrupling" should now always be identical or superior in quality and much faster. So I would like to remove "double twice". Any objections?

1) I like NGU Standard very much. It provides pretty natural look, quite sharp in the same time and without excessive line thinning. [EDIT: Agreed that NGU Soft looks unnecessary.] The only benefit of NGU Soft over NGU AA is removing of dark halo in some cases.

2) Should notice that "low quality content" includes content with very different quality flaws. For example, low quality sources may contain staircase noise, which is less amplified by NGU AA. In other hand, NGU Standard is immune to dark halos. However, in general NGU AA looks more suitable at least for very low-quality content, it brings uniform and natural-looking picture.

3,4) No sir!

However, in the long run the plan is to create an NGU chroma upscaling algo which makes use of the higher res luma channel. <...> This new kind of algo will hopefully beat all other algos, so I hope it will be the default algo at some point in the future.
Reconstruction at the price of NGU would have been wonderful.

[Ver Greeneyes]

Fair enough, for low quality content. But how about high quality content? Do you prefer NGU Sharp or NGU Standard?

I watch so little high quality content that I feel weird answering this - but on the parts of low quality content that don't look compressed I like the crispness of NGU Sharp.

NGU AA is as sharp as it's ever going to be, I believe. Of course it's possible to post-sharpen it, but I don't think doing that will be part of the algorithm. I mean it might be possible to include artificial sharpening as part of the algo, but it probably wouldn't look any better than doing NGU AA first, and then apply post-sharpening.

Alright, I might mess around with post-sharpening then. I prefer using the built-in qualities of algorithms because it limits the amount of options I have to explore ;) (and also reduces the overhead).

[leeperry]

1) Do you like the new "NGU Standard" and "NGU Soft" variants? Personally, I like "NGU Standard" a lot. But I think "NGU Soft" is too soft to be useful, and I'd like to remove it again. But since I spent a lot of time creating it, I thought I'd let you test it, at least.

2) Does "NGU Standard" work better for (non-aliased) low quality content now? Or do we still have to use NGU AA for that? Ideally I hope that we can now use "NGU Sharp" for high quality soures, "NGU Standard" for low quality (but aliasing free) sources, and "NGU AntiAlias" only for aliased sources. Is that reasonable? Or is "NGU AA" still the best option for any low quality sources, aliasing free or not?
Hard to tell coz NGU AA can't do direct quad, would that be complicated to implement? :o

4) With all the changes in this build, I feel that "double twice" is no longer needed. "direct quadrupling" should now always be identical or superior in quality and much faster. So I would like to remove "double twice". Any objections?

I think you got a point, but I'd love to see quad NGU AA before answering all your inquiries if any possible please.

It's really too bad you removed SR AB especially when NGU bloats quite a lot in combination with SR, I currently exclusively use SSIM downscaling(1D for HD, 2D for SD as I got GPU cycles to spare) and use SSIM's AB with great results :)

For 720p@1080p, NGU Sharp wins by a long shot IME.

[Q-the-STORM]

Actually, there will be a new product available pretty soon, making most of the madVR algos available to avi/vapoursynth users.
Sounds great.

If there is one day a "pro" version of madVR with less limitations, all algorithms available and more options, I'm in !
Maybe it is your goal to remove/limit things now from madVR in order propose them back in a "pro" version, so the actual version will remain free ?
He's not talking about madVR, he's talking about a new product which makes madVRs algorithms available for avisynth and vapoursynth...

[Neo-XP]

Yes I know...

[madshi]

Nice!
:)

Maybe the chroma doubling drop-down list should also lists algorithms with their names, preceded by the quality.

For instance, if I choose "high" for luma doubling, I would have this for chroma doubling :

- let madVR decide
- low (Bicubic60 AR)
- normal (Jinc AR)
- high (NGU AA low)
- high (NGU Standard low)
- high (NGU Sharp low)
- very high (NGU AA medium)
- very high (NGU Standard medium)
- very high (NGU Sharp medium)

or any other combinations of algorithms that you find adequate to use...
At the moment, new users do not even know which algorithm is used for chroma doubling without displaying the stats.
What's the point of adding "low", "medium" and "high", if I list multiple different options for each? The whole point of the way the dropdown box works right now is to protect users from making crazy decisions, which the history of this thread shows is a real problem. I may switch to using medium instead of low quality for chroma doubling, though.

For fun, I tested Bicubic60 AR against Jinc AR : http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/206712
It is not difficult to see the red gradient lines/blocks with Bicubic60 AR, while Jinc AR is smoother and has the highest quality.
If you're honest, IMHO you would probably have to admit that the difference is incredibly small, and this at something like 5000% zoom, and with a test image which should be ideal at showing the difference. Don't you agree? With 99.99% other images, you wouldn't see any difference at all even at 500000% zoom. Would you really want to spend precious GPU resources on using Jinc AR for such a tiny quality difference at 5000% zoom?

1) I like NGU Standard very much. It provides pretty natural look, quite sharp in the same time and without excessive line thinning. [EDIT: Agreed that NGU Soft looks unnecessary.] The only benefit of NGU Soft over NGU AA is removing of dark halo in some cases.

2) Should notice that "low quality content" includes content with very different quality flaws. For example, low quality sources may contain staircase noise, which is less amplified by NGU AA. In other hand, NGU Standard is immune to dark halos. However, in general NGU AA looks more suitable at least for very low-quality content, it brings uniform and natural-looking picture.

3,4) No sir!
Ok, thanks for the feedback!

I watch so little high quality content that I feel weird answering this - but on the parts of low quality content that don't look compressed I like the crispness of NGU Sharp.
K, thx.

It's really too bad you removed SR AB especially when NGU bloats quite a lot in combination with SR, I currently exclusively use SSIM downscaling(1D for HD, 2D for SD as I got GPU cycles to spare) and use SSIM's AB with great results :)
NGU doesn't bloat. SuperRes reintroduces some bloating, but that's not NGU's fault. Too be honest I'm not too worried about it, because I think you're probably the only person on the planet who combines NGU with SuperRes. :p

[Neo-XP]

What's the point of adding "low", "medium" and "high", if I list multiple different options for each? The whole point of the way the dropdown box works right now is to protect users from making crazy decisions, which the history of this thread shows is a real problem. I may switch to using medium instead of low quality for chroma doubling, though.

The point is to have the choice of the algorithm, while indicating the level of quality of each one so users don't make crazy decisions :)
If they don't know what they are doing, they should stick with "let madVR decide" anyway. That is why this option exists, right ?
Switching to NGU Sharp (medium) will not solve the problem, as it will still be too sharp. The only solution is other NGU variants (like you did for chroma upscaling).

If you're honest, IMHO you would probably have to admit that the difference is incredibly small, and this at something like 5000% zoom, and with a test image which should be ideal at showing the difference. Don't you agree? With 99.99% other images, you wouldn't see any difference at all even at 500000% zoom. Would you really want to spend precious GPU resources on using Jinc AR for such a tiny quality difference at 5000% zoom?

Yes, I agree and admit that, but I think that you minimize too much the impact of chroma doubling in image quality.
I was not planning to use Jinc anyway if there is a good NGU alternative to NGU Sharp for chroma doubling, and Jinc has all the chances to become totally useless (performance and quality wise) with NGU Standard and NGU AA.

[leeperry]

NGU doesn't bloat. SuperRes reintroduces some bloating, but that's not NGU's fault.

Which was the whole point of SR AB to begin with, I have yet to comprehend why this had to go :confused:

[Telion]

madshi, what about the usage of sharper relaxed AR instead of strict in downscaling after doubling? You said you could reconsider this and apply it more granular depending on the sharpness of a doubling algorithm, as on weak GPUs it adds an excessive load without visible benefits and thus sometimes prevents use of a doubling algorithm with better quality. Can you please apply strict AR at least on NGU AA and maybe also on super-xbr?

[direxx]

Hi,

various people stated that HDR does only work when using DXVA2 with copy-back on AMD Polaris. I couldn't figure out how to change the DXVA2 mode in madVR. I double-checked every single madVR option in the settings dialog, but could not find anything related to DXVA2/copy-back (I suspect it should be under rendering).

So how do I enable this mode in madVR?


Thanks, direxx

[steakhutzeee]

Ok so, in the past i solved the "flickering" in the black parts of the screen during videos, the letterbox black, changing my monitor settings from 60 Hertz to 75.
But why i still have this sort of horizontal semitransparent flickering only in the video portion of the screen now? If i don't use madvr the flicker goes away. Maybe it's a madvr setting i set not properly?

Just to be clear, letterbox black bars are not flickered, solved by changing Hertz frequence. But i still have it in the video portion "between black bars".