madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[Razoola]

I have a new problem with madvr 032 and mpc-hc. basically madvr will only launch video in full screen even when the player ask for it to be in a window. Its also impossible to switch from fullscreen back to window view with alt+enter. One has to use task manager to quit.

Raz

[madshi]

I sometimes get a lingering "madVR reports..." message that doesn't go away when I restart playback from paused mode in mpc-hc.
What is the exact report message? Can I get a log?

I've a problem using MadVR 0.32 and Zoom Player 7 on Win7 x64 with ATI Radeon 4670. I get a progress bar on the bottom of the screen, which updates as the movie playes. The progress bar disppears if I go to windowed mode. The progress bar is not present with any other renderer (e.g. Haali).
There's an option in Zoom Player somewhere like "move mouse off screen when inactive" or something like that. You need to disable that option, because Zoom Player's "off screen" mouse position is right in the madVR seek/progress bar.

Madshi I have had a few complete mpc freezes with 0.32 over the course of today. I'll provide any logs if necessary. I have to kill mpc using task manager. I'll do more testing but have a feeling it's because I start mpc from a script from xbmc which kills xbmc out of it's own exclusive fullscreen mode just before it loads mpc. Maybe madvr gets a bit confused with this xbmc shutdown just at the time of mpc startup? I'll try to get some more info.
I haven't changed anything in v0.32 which would explain this behaviour. Are you sure that it didn't happen with older madVR versions? Maybe there's something else besides the madVR version that has changed on your PC? A log would probably be useful. But even more useful would be to double check whether the problem was really introduced with v0.32.

I have a new problem with madvr 032 and mpc-hc. basically madvr will only launch video in full screen even when the player ask for it to be in a window. Its also impossible to switch from fullscreen back to window view with alt+enter. One has to use task manager to quit.
Again I don't really understand why this would occur with v0.32 and not with older versions. Can you please double check with older versions, just to make sure? Maybe you left that MPC HC option "launch files in fullscreen mode" activated? Also make sure you have the "D3D Fullscreen" option turned off in the MPC HC output settings.

[mark0077]

madshi, I can't reproduce the mpc hang with 0.31, i can reproduce with 0.32. Is 0.32 slightly slower / faster to load than 0.31. Its my only explanation as I think this freezup is a timing issue, ie another exclusive mode piece of software is being shutdown, just at the time madvr is being loaded.. Here is the debug log with 0.32 captured when mpc froze up. Audio could be heard, just no video and unresponsive mpc window. I'll try to workaround it temporarily by adding a slight delay to mpc start, after xbmc window is shut down... i'll report back if that workaround works.

Thanks.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?h8h3ed3u4d01sbx

EDIT: Last issue I see when switching from madVr to xbmc to find info on a movie thats currently playing or for whatever reason, mpc will now pause when madVR is loaded and xbmc is given focus. I assume madVR does this when it loses exclusive mode, but can this pause feature be disabled?

[Peuj]

To reproduce the problem I play a video, move forward then load a another video, move forward and then there is an Alert message box thrown by PotPlayer with "Unexpected exception..."

I can reproduce the problem really easily. This only happens with madVR and the latest version.

I can give you more logs with the exact steps if you need.

Hi,

I've uninstalled madVR and removed all the files.
After a clean install I cannot reproduce the problem...

[Razoola]

Again I don't really understand why this would occur with v0.32 and not with older versions. Can you please double check with older versions, just to make sure? Maybe you left that MPC HC option "launch files in fullscreen mode" activated? Also make sure you have the "D3D Fullscreen" option turned off in the MPC HC output settings.


That was it, I don't know how I enabled that d3d setting though, I can't remember doing it.

On a side note that windows mode tearing issue I had I can now confirm is a driver issue with 260.63.

[Andy o]

This is not a big deal for me by any means, but just checking. The "delay switch to exclusive mode for 3 seconds" option is not working here with 0.32. It switches instantly.

[XPC]

Hmmmm... My video renderer sends a EC_VIDEO_SIZE_CHANGED notification when the media type changes and indicates either a video size or aspect ratio change.

One idea: Maybe you could concat the 2 recordings you've made ("copy source1.ts /b + source2.ts /b result.ts /b")? Maybe that will work to reproduce the problem?

I tried concating the two recordings by using "copy..." and other different tools, but it was impossible to reproduce the problem. What I finally could reproduce is the fact that the application is receiving three EC_VIDEO_SIZE_CHANGED notifications each time I was switching the video stream.

The following link is an mkv I built using Haali GDS Mux including two video streams (one from an H.264 HD channel and the other from a MPEG2 SD channel). When openning this file or when switching between the two video streams (by using right click->Filters->... in MPC-HC) three EC_VIDEO_SIZE_CHANGED are generated.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?66quiibyq73y8f5

When I do the same using the real TV tunner, I get the three notifications and the application freezes at the third notification (please see the exact line at my last post). On the other hand, I tested with EVR CP and I can confirm it was sending just one EC_VIDEO_SIZE_CHANGED notification.

Although we are not reproducing the final problem, I hope this will help to find out what is happening...

[LloydA]

@madshi,

what do you think about integrating a screensaver feature into madVR? Since your renderer already detects pause, and idleness, this might come in handy and give every player hosting madVR an actually functional screensaver implementation.

A first implementation could just blank the screen (i.e. black frame), that'd do the job for most plasma owners I guess.

[yesgrey]

A first implementation could just blank the screen (i.e. black frame), that'd do the job for most plasma owners I guess.
Yes, it would be great. Sometimes I have to pause a movie and leave it paused for several minutes, and with a projector we can't simply switch it off.

For me, simply a full black screen after a few seconds (10) of pause would be good enough, and should not be that hard...

[ryrynz]

Well, if you could find a way for me to reproduce the problem on my PC, that would be great.

I just reproduced the problem on my brothers PC, I updated to the latest CCCP beta on his system and installed madVR 0.32.
Installing an earlier build of MPC does not fix the problem, I tried build 2268 to test your theory.

You can either queue two files in the playlist or use the play next in folder feature. Once playback starts in windows mode I double click to maximize (The last displayed frame before maximizing is the frame that's displayed before the next file plays) I then skip to near the end of the file using the exclusive seekbar and continue to play in fullscreen.

MPC options launch files in fullscreen and exit fullscreen at end of playback were not enabled. Files queued in the playlist were not anything specific. My system is a x64 Windows 7 with ATI graphics and my brothers is running Vista with Nvidia graphics.

I tried reproducing on a Intel graphics based system running 7 but could only reproduce when exit fullscreen at the end of playback was enabled. I'll look at that system again when I have the chance, to confirm that.

That is all the info I have on this right now, screenshot below.

http://forum.doom9.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=11612&stc=1&d=1285550616

[Mark_A_W]

Guys, Zoom Player already has a screensaver.

[Thunderbolt8]

but not everyone is using zoomplayer :P

[Mark_A_W]

They should be ;)

I do use MPC-HC too, for casual use, but not "HT" use. The suit different applications.


I don't use madVR with MPC-HC, as I use it casually - downloaded videos and recorded TV, while sitting at a desk. It's nice and lightweight, and plays most stuff with no fiddling around - much better than WMP for video. It's setup to just work.


I use ZP with madVR, which is a fully featured player for HT use. It is set up carefully for highest quality, with digital room correction. Lots of stuff to fiddle around with - the most powerful filter manager setup I have seen, for instance (and screensaver, and orbiting, and aspect ratio and the a frontend, and well, the kitchen sink..).

[ajp_anton]

Probably a pointless bug report, as I can't think of a situation where this would bother anyone:

If you start madVR without exclusive mode activated, and turn it on in the settings along with the seek bar, exclusive mode will not work until you restart the player, but the seek bar will now work with the "normal" fullscreen mode until restarted.

[Grmpf]

Hi madshi,

i still got the problem i wrote about in my post a while ago (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1424194&highlight=custom#post1424194) (under b)), now zoomplayer doesn't freeze anymore after changing the AR on the fly, but madvr doesn't want to change to exclusive mode after a AR change. I mad a log file changing the AR per remote with the same settings i described in the post earlier (follow the link please). I hope you can solve this (or point me in the right direction if its a error on my side), because i can not use exclusive mode with my constant image height setup atm, just 16:9 is working.

Logfile (http://rapidshare.com/files/421714045/madVR_-_log.rar)

[ryrynz]

I'll look at that system again when I have the chance, to confirm that.


Tested on the Intel graphics system and another ATI system both running Windows 7 and can reproduce now on four systems. These last two systems only had MPC and MadVR installed with default options, nothing else was installed. The only fullscreen option enabled is the show controls option in MPC. I Can confirm it only occurs with exclusive mode enabled.

[leeperry]

BTW, I was able to recreate the black window problem when changing the refresh rate on the fly...but I think Reclock was creating a deadlock.

I was playing a 29.97fps movie in 100Hz, switched to 89.91Hz after 1 second and it most likely made Reclock dizzy, I was forced to reseek to get a picture. It's a very random problem, and I didn't succeed to capture a log. I'll just wait a few secs when doing this kind of wild stunt as Reclock needs a few secs to decide whether an adaptation is possible.

[mitchmalibu]

Found a bug with madvr and mpchc.

When madvr is in exclusive mode, if I use the alt+x shortcut to close the video, the player becomes unresponsive and the video continues to play back. The only way to exit is to ctrl alt del and then player then closes without the need to kill the process.

[Darth Viorel]

I can close MPC HC via alt+x without problems so it's not necessarily a bug of madVR.

[Razoola]

madshi, here is a log file of a problem I can reproduce every time. I'm not sure if you are aware of this situation already or not though.

http://unibios.free.fr/madlog.rar

Basically what I am doing is opening a video in fullscreen on the secondary moniter. Then alt-enter to bring it to a window on the primary monitor. Then I stop and start the video, this results in a very fast playing video. The madvr osd seems to show the refresh rate of the secondary monitor still instead of the primary refresh rate.

I can easily resolve the situation by reloading the video so its not a big deal, I'm wanted you to be aware if you were not already.

[ravil]

I know this question was asked several times on this topic, but anyway… maybe it's possible to build 64-bit version of the madVR? My ffdshow and mpc-hc are both 64bit.
Thanks a lot!

[Darth Viorel]

What's the point of a 64 bit media player?

[ravil]

What's the point of a 64 bit media player?
It works, and my OS is 64-bit. I don't see a reason why I shouldn't use native programs for my operating system.

[Mark_A_W]

I don't see a reason why I shouldn't use native programs for my operating system.

Because it DOESN'T WORK.

At least 2 of the key filters are 32bit.


There's no reason to run a 64bit player, it's never going to need >2GB of memory.

[pie1394]

Because it DOESN'T WORK.

At least 2 of the key filters are 32bit.


There's no reason to run a 64bit player, it's never going to need >2GB of memory.

If the program never uses 64-bit variables or arithmetic operations, it has less gain for 64-bit mode. The x86 64-bit mode instruction's average coding length is also often longer than 32-bit modes. This is another performance impact if CPU cache missing rate increases due to this.

For x86-64 mode, it is about the program performance with 8 extra native General-Purposed Registers for compiler to do better register allocation. But the gain might not be very obious if that extra 8 GPRs are not still enough to reduce significant memory accessing operations.

Recent modern post-RISC x86 processors have been optimized with legacy instruction sets which one operation parameter comes from Heap/Stack. There has been small Heap/Stack register cache (more advanced than scrach pad) which is almost directly connected to ALUs. I believe this idea came from some earier audio DSP design like ADI2181.

[Mangix]

32-bit mpc-hc was slower than the 32-bit version last time i recall. so no point in making native 64-bit versions yet.

[gon_freecs]

Hello I am thinking of buying a graphics card. But i need your suggestions regarding which will be a better choice if want to use MadVR: ATi or Nvidia ?

I mean, as u ppl hav a lot of experience in this field, u know which brand is more compatible and less issue creating with MadVR..


Que 2: MadVR features "all work is done via GPU shaders".. Is this meant only for h264, avc Or all other formats can be handled too like xvid, realvideo etc and postprocessing of them ?

Que 3: what is meant by "bypasses graphics card's video (damage) algorithms"

Que 4: "no subtitle support yet" - can i see subs if i select subs on the image or even thats not possible?

[dokworm]

Hello I am thinking of buying a graphics card. But i need your suggestions regarding which will be a better choice if want to use MadVR: ATi or Nvidia ?

I mean, as u ppl hav a lot of experience in this field, u know which brand is more compatible and less issue creating with MadVR..


Que 2: MadVR features "all work is done via GPU shaders".. Is this meant only for h264, avc Or all other formats can be handled too like xvid, realvideo etc and postprocessing of them ?

Que 3: what is meant by "bypasses graphics card's video (damage) algorithms"

Que 4: "no subtitle support yet" - can i see subs if i select subs on the image or even thats not possible?

Hard to say, but I don't get any problems with the Radeon 4850 card. I've just recently swapped to an NVidia GTX 460, but haven't set it all up yet, I'll let you know how it goes, but a 4850 is cheap, and pretty powerful for the money.

[allak]

2) MadVR is a renderer, and the job of the renderer is done AFTER the decoding. So "all work is done via GPU shaders" refers to the "just" the rendering on the video.

The decoding (be it from the h264, avc) is done on the CPU by other pieces of software.

3) The video card drivers have some tricks for "optimizing" the rendering of a video image. This would be great, if it worked. Problem is, different cards, and different version of video drivers, work in a different way. And many people have strong reservation on the quality of this optimization anyway.

MadVR has a way to bypass all those tricks, and render an image in a consistent way.

HTH

[Hypernova]

4) You can use Vodsub with madVR, just not the MPC-HC (or any others)' internal subtitle renderer.

[namaiki]

4)

Yup. DirectVobSub, or VSFilter.

[noee]

So "all work is done via GPU shaders" refers to the "just" the rendering on the video.

It's important to understand that this includes the image scaling, as well.

[ryrynz]

Hello I am thinking of buying a graphics card. But i need your suggestions regarding which will be a better choice if want to use MadVR: ATi or Nvidia ?


Madshi prefers ATI for madVR.

I prefer ATI right now because:

(1) The "power per watt" ratio is clearly better, which is very important for me (because HTPCs are usually thermally limited).

(2) All 5xxx ATI cards can do HD audio bitstreaming. Only the high-end NVidia cards can do that, which are running very hot.

(3) Unlike most games madVR uses *unfiltered* texture reads. According to Anandtech, ATI cards are twice as fast with unfiltered texture reads compared to filtered texture reads. With older NVidia cards unfiltered texture reads are not any faster than filtered texture reads. Only with the new Fermi cards NVidia has cought up with ATI in this department. That should give ATI cards quite an advantage over NVidia cards, when using madVR.

I like the 5750 because it has a very good performance per watt ratio. Much better than anything NVidia currently has to offer.

[nevcairiel]

The new NVIDIA 450/460 somewhat levels that field, fwiw.
It supports audio bitstreaming, and is based on the Fermi architecture, which supposedly improved the texture performance, as madshi says.
For "power per watt", i don't know how well it performs in comparison, but for thermal concerns .. i even run a 460 in a very small HTPC case, and it doesn't really get hot.

For the even tighter budget, even lower cards will be coming out "soon"

[leeperry]

And the nvidia support CoreAVC CUDA...major added value im my book. No need to bother w/ the buggy pstrip either, as custom resolutions are supported natively.

madshi is very mysterious about why so much GPU power could ever be needed, so I understand that the ATi "are twice as fast with unfiltered texture reads"...but what would that be good for when watching movies, if it's not about frame interpolation or so.

[Thunderbolt8]

my guess is there will be new stuff which can squeeze another little bit of better PQ out, but for maybe double the GPU power.

[leeperry]

My rebadged 96SP 8800GS hardly reaches 10% of GPU power in movies..that's the Iron Man II BD w/ CoreAVC CUDA : http://thumbnails8.imagebam.com/10002/171166100014472.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/171166100014472)

What could be the point to have a super beefy ATi card to watch movies..even w/ an even more amazing chroma filtering.

[namaiki]

My rebadged 96SP 8800GS hardly reaches 10% of GPU power in movies..that's the Iron Man II BD w/ CoreAVC CUDA : http://thumbnails8.imagebam.com/10002/171166100014472.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/171166100014472)

If that's using madVR, which resizing algorithms and at what resolution is that?

[Thunderbolt8]

madshi, maybe you can tell us so much: regarding your future plans to add more stuff which will need (a lot) more GPU power, are these all things which only come to use when up- or downscaling is involved or will there also be things which improve the PQ when viewing the source at its native resolution?

[noee]

I certainly wouldn't presume to put words in madshi's mouth, but if you stop and think a minute about the distributed framework that he is creating at the renderer level, coupled with the ability of newer video cards to support three (and in some cases four) monitors simultaneously, at least one possibility that might require quite a bit of "GPU" grunt, seems evident.

[Thunderbolt8]

I certainly wouldn't presume to put words in madshi's mouth, but if you stop and think a minute about the distributed framework that he is creating at the renderer levelthats where I can stop reading, because I dont have much of a clue about all technical stuff. thats why I ask :P

[leeperry]

the distributed framework that he is creating at the renderer level, coupled with the ability of newer video cards to support three (and in some cases four) monitors simultaneously, at least one possibility that might require quite a bit of "GPU" grunt, seems evident.
watching 3 movies simultaneously, yeah...but why would anyone want to do that? useful for a centralized house system from a single server?

If that's using madVR, which resizing algorithms and at what resolution is that?
that was in mVR indeed w/ a BD downscaled to 720p in ffdshow.

even when resizing from 1080p to 720p w/ lanczos4 in mVR, it doesn't go over 15%: http://thumbnails9.imagebam.com/10006/e42b97100056194.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/e42b97100056194)

when outputting 1080p w/o rescaling, it doesn't go over 17%.

[Razoola]

madshi, maybe you can tell us so much: regarding your future plans to add more stuff which will need (a lot) more GPU power, are these all things which only come to use when up- or downscaling is involved or will there also be things which improve the PQ when viewing the source at its native resolution?

You will have to wait and see for that, madshi has said many time he likes to keep things secret. Off the top of my head I can think of a few things that would need more gpu....

- More advanced resize algos (mosy likely)
- frame creation (possible)
- audio resampler (me wishing for reclock replacement)

[Razoola]

watching 3 movies simultaneously, yeah...but why would anyone want to do that?

I more though he means watching a sinlge movie over multiple monitors for a big screen effect while using algos to correctly fit picture to account for physical panel borders.

[leeperry]

- More advanced resize algos (mosy likely)
- frame creation (possible)
- audio resampler (me wishing for reclock replacement)
ok for the first one, we could use a CSI super-resolution algorithm indeed: http://www.vreveal.com/technology

but I believe madshi clearly stated that frame interpolation and audio rendering were out of his scope.

I more though he means watching a sinlge movie over multiple monitors for a big screen effect while using algos to correctly fit picture to account for physical panel borders.
oh, like this? http://www.treehugger.com/greenpix-solar-pv-facade-curtain-wall-led-china-beijing.jpg :D

We still have no clue as to why anyone would need a beefy GPU for madVR when my 8800GS hardly tops 20% of GPU load, but I guess we'll find out soon enough http://forum.slysoft.com/images/smilies/agreed.gif

Graphic cards prices lower so quickly that, personally, I wouldn't advise anyone to get a killer GPU for madVR until then. Capitalizing on such a fast evolving technology isn't too wise IMHO.

[gon_freecs]

Regarding power consumption, ATi still is a clear winner.
Fermi cards which was made with gf100 chip (480, 470,...) power consumption is so bad that its out of this world.
however later, gtx 460 with chip gf104 & newer fermi cards' power efficiency is a hell lot better than the its predecessors but still not at all as good as ATi.
On the other hand, ATi 6000 which is coming soon shows much more amazing power efficiency even than the 5000 series. (from the spec revealed in diff forums considered as rumour)

My dilemma in choosing is that, Nvidia VP4 engine supports xvid in addition.
Also, i saw in different forums, many complaining with ATi cards, they are facing issues with DXVA. (I hope they are only driver issues & will be fixed)

Anyway, it would be a great help, if anyone who has used both ATi avivo HD and Nvidia purevideo HD (latest versions preferably), can tell me, which one produces more detail & better colors..

[ajp_anton]

gon_freecs:
madVR doesn't support DXVA, so you can ignore all the DXVA advantages Nvidia might have.
edit: And maybe also all Purevideo/Avivo differences?

[gon_freecs]

not really. cause i know that.
I am not yet decided on which one i will use- MadVR or DXVA.
So i am getting info on pros and cons of both.
As over 90% of my video has subtitles & i need HQ subs and also madVR can not do gpu decoding, so DXVA is my preference anyway.

[naoan]

Anyway, it would be a great help, if anyone who has used both ATi avivo HD and Nvidia purevideo HD (latest versions preferably), can tell me, which one produces more detail & better colors..

Madvr produces much better color than either of those (since it means you'll be using EVR), I'll live with slightly worse subtitle rendering for it.

[Mangix]

would there be any benefit to downsampling with anisotropic filtering as in haali? not sure about you guys but haali downscaled looks really good.