LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[namaiki]

I tried madvr bilinear scaling (the movie is 720p) + lav splitter and lav video, the GPU load is about 40% and the CPU load about 20%.
I guess it should be o.k.
Is it suppose to be better than evr (bicubic) + lav splitter and lav video?

Thanks a lot
Do you get dropped frames while in full screen with madVR's default scaling settings?
(you can check the dropped frames counter by pressing Ctrl+J)

[Moti172]

Yes quite a lot and the the GPU load is 85% and above.

[mindbomb]

Is it suppose to be better than evr (bicubic) + lav splitter and lav video?


well, that is subjective, but imo, yes.

btw, you want to ignore what i said earlier about forcing rgb output, that only applies when you are not using madvr.

[Moti172]

Thanks

[Rectal Prolapse]

nev, I looked at the mpc-hc code and I can see where the errors are in the design of PGS decoding. I think it'll need an overhaul to support multiple regions as well as support for multiple palettes (CLUTs). This would mean that subtitles in different regions with their own palettes would be broken in MPC-HC.

So I think I will re-implement PGS decoding in MPC-HC to fix those issues.

[ForceX]

Do you get dropped frames while in full screen with madVR's default scaling settings?
(you can check the dropped frames counter by pressing Ctrl+J)
madVR's default luma scaling settings (lanczos) is absolute overkill and causes more problem for people than its worth without giving any significant benefits. It makes people with weaker GPUs (especially HTPC/laptop) get a bad experience due to constant frame drops, when they could run just fine if one of the lesser demanding scalers were used.

IMHO, default should really be set to one of the cubic scalers, or even bilinear, to ensure good performance out of the box for novices; and people who are knowledgeable enough and want better quality should be able to change to spline 4 taps or whatever as they see fit. Although madVR for a while was only for the techie videophiles, I can see it getting more and more into mainstream with the advent of Hi10P.

[nevcairiel]

madVR is no renderer for people that want just a drop-in replacement for EVR. It will need configuration.
I think madshi does plan some sort of install wizard, guiding people through the settings, but all in due time, i guess.

Also, Hi10p is only for videophiles. The average user is also quite happy with dithered 8-bit, because he won't see a difference. :)

[roytam1]

ffmpeg added Apple ProRes decoder today. It will be nice to have it in LAV Video.

[Sven75]

One of these strange coincidences:

I am currently working on a congress and just received a video from a speaker with an "unsupported" QuickTime format on our LAV-equipped PCs... Guess which format it was? Apple ProRes

Well, I had to use our Mac to convert it...

[mbordas]

if you are not using madvr, you want to uncheck everything but rgb32, and check "use high quality format conversions"

If this is so, why would the default values not be set that way?

[italospain]

If this is so, why would the default values not be set that way?

because default means use it with madVR :D

[mindbomb]

also, increased resource usage with the software HQ rgb conversion.

[clsid]

FYI, MS RLE decoding not working with other splitters might be related to missing palette data.

[nevcairiel]

FYI, MS RLE decoding not working with other splitters might be related to missing palette data.

The media type is exactly the same, and contains a palette in both cases. Anyhow, i didnt really care to dig too deep.

[4h4h270]

There is really no difference between 0.33 and 0.34 except that it has much faster converters, so i consider that unlikely to be the case.

I'm so sorry,the problem is from reclock.
But only lav will drop frames.
reclock say video format is xxxfps, 1280x720i, unknown format 24 bits

[roytam1]

One of these strange coincidences:

I am currently working on a congress and just received a video from a speaker with an "unsupported" QuickTime format on our LAV-equipped PCs... Guess which format it was? Apple ProRes

Well, I had to use our Mac to convert it...

Have a try:
http://roy.orz.hm/lavf-w32-nightlies/lavf-my110917-prores-23a517b3.7z

Diff:
http://roy.orz.hm/lavf-w32-nightlies/lavf-my110917-prores-23a517b3.diff

[Sven75]

Thank you!

I did a quick check and it's working, but playback is very "sloooow" on my Core2Duo laptop. Converted it to H264 using LAV as decoder and the frame rate was ok again. So it seems that my CPU is simply not powerful enough for decoding in realtime (>60% overall CPU load, > 80% load on core 1).

Unfortunately, my test file is 1 gig in size, so uploading it and posting a link to it is rather difficult.

[Mixer73]

I did a quick check and it's working, but playback is very "sloooow" on my Core2Duo laptop. Converted it to H264 using LAV as decoder and the frame rate was ok again. So it seems that my CPU is simply not powerful enough for decoding in realtime (>60% overall CPU load, > 80% load on core 1).

ProRes files are very high bitrate and the format is very complex. I'd suspect the bitrate was more of a problem than the decompression itself though.

[Sven75]

I will test it on my Core i7 when I'm back in office. In any case, the Core i5 Apple Mac Mini I tried it on, played it fine under MacOS/QuickTime.

[mindbomb]

is there any way to make a sample without remuxing?

i have a file that doesn't play well with lav splitter, but when I make a sample, the sample plays fine.

it is frustrating.

[sneaker_ger]

Try a binary splitter like dgsplit (http://neuron2.net/dgsplit/).

[roytam1]

Got some users feedback:
RM/RMVB files plays perfectly...before seeking.
After seeking, blocky images last till next key frame.

[nevcairiel]

There is of course two choices. Either you see those corrupted frames, or you don't. If you don't, you have to actually wait until the next keyframe to see a picture at all.

Some changes i've planned for LAV Splitter will possibly improve seeking so that it will start closer to a keyframe.
Not sure when i'll get around to them, there is sooo much to do!

[nevcairiel]

Its test version time!

x86: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.35-video-refactor.zip
x64: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.35-x64-video-refactor.zip

There really aren't that many user-visible changes in these versions. However, i basically rewrote half of LAV Video to enable the integration of different decoders into it. There are no other decoders in there just yet, however i need to make sure the new code works perfectly. So far, it looks good. However, i'll never be able to find all issues myself - and thats where you guys come in. ;)

If you feel like testing a bit, give the LAV Video from that zip a quick whirl, and report if anything breaks that worked fine with 0.35. I *think* it should work OK, but you can never be sure with a big rewrite like this.

[jmone]

Any further thoughts on the dev work for Playlist Selection on Blu-rays? I've hit a few discs where the longest playlist (and is hence selected by default) is a "commentary" which is slightly longer than the feature due to the intro they add.
Thanks
Nathan

EDIT ** - I'm wrong, double checked and they seem to have the same streams....so the following is a poor idea!
One thing I noticed on these tracks is as they tend to have 2.0 tracks so they would be easy to recognise or potentially have logic that says take the longest track with HQ / Multi Ch Audio

[nevcairiel]

Auto-detection will never work 100% flawless.
I can of course offer a new interface to switch between titles, however this requires player support, and since no player really has shown any actual interest in this, i have just not done anything.

[Sebastiii]

Hi nev :)
We are a similar thing as plugin in Mediaportal but yes can be nice to have it directly from LAV Splitter :)
I have try to see how implement your great developer_info into MP but for sure Team is really interested for this, so i will try on my side first and other dev can help me too :)
Seb.

[mzso]

There is of course two choices. Either you see those corrupted frames, or you don't. If you don't, you have to actually wait until the next keyframe to see a picture at all.

Some changes i've planned for LAV Splitter will possibly improve seeking so that it will start closer to a keyframe.
Not sure when i'll get around to them, there is sooo much to do!
Or wait until the current frame is decoded from the last key frame?

[nevcairiel]

Or wait until the current frame is decoded from the last key frame?

After a seek, the previous keyframe is not guaranteed to be present. This is when the problem occurs. You cannot properly decode P or B frames artifact free without the preceding key-frame - so either you don't show those frames at all, or you show them with artifacts.

[mzso]

After a seek, the previous keyframe is not guaranteed to be present. This is when the problem occurs. You cannot properly decode P or B frames artifact free without the preceding key-frame - so either you don't show those frames at all, or you show them with artifacts.

Ok so potplayer and kmplayer achieves this somewhere outside of the splitter?

[nevcairiel]

This is about video decoding, not splitting.

I already said that the splitter is scheduled to be improved to try to find keyframes to seek to.
Maybe PotPlayer just seeks a few seconds before the wanted seek point, which would indeed result in more fluid playback, i guess.

[VipZ]

Ok so potplayer and kmplayer achieves this somewhere outside of the splitter?

Yep, I have started to use PotPlayer myself with LAV filters. I like the good looking GUI, but seeking and in general frame handling is also so much better than MPC with the same filters in use, not sure what is so different to achieve this.


@ nev, so far the refactored LAV Video is working without any issues.

[jmone]

Auto-detection will never work 100% flawless.
I can of course offer a new interface to switch between titles, however this requires player support, and since no player really has shown any actual interest in this, i have just not done anything.

J. River has shown support for title switching in MC16 in the past - I'll take their temp on this again.

[nevcairiel]

J. River has shown support for title switching in MC16 in the past - I'll take their temp on this again.

Last time it came up, i couldn't get an answer out of them.
Somehow i suspected they might save some things for MC17. ;)

[jmone]

Last time it came up, i couldn't get an answer out of them.
Somehow i suspected they might save some things for MC17. ;)

You could be right :) - lets see what we can stir up!

[asasadad_1]

(lav splitter + lav audio decoder) _0.35 doesn't work with this(http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/AAC/freetv_aac_latm.ts) sample.
(lav splitter + lav audio decoder) _0.34 works well.

[Boltron]

Tested refactor on a variety of mkvs with no problems. Haven't watched a complete movie yet from start to finish though.

x86 MPC-HC - LAV Splitter/Audio - madVR

[FliCKeR]

Watched Redline 720 Hi10p and no problems encountered so far.


PotPlayer x86 + LAV Splitter/Audio/Video x86 + EVR-CP - Windows 7 SP1 x86

[pirlouy]

What is the difference between "Lav Splitter" and "LAV splitter source" ? I have both when trying to select external filters.

[FliCKeR]

What is the difference between "Lav Splitter" and "LAV splitter source" ? I have both when trying to select external filters.

LAV Splitter Source opens and reads files, sending the data further to the next filter in chain.
In LAV Splitter's case, opening and reading is done by Microsoft's File Source (Async.) filter, LAV Splitter being only the parser filter.

[roytam1]

What is the difference between "Lav Splitter" and "LAV splitter source" ? I have both when trying to select external filters.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1525277#post1525277

@nev maybe this one should be in FAQ section. ;-)

[mzso]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1525277#post1525277

@nev maybe this one should be in FAQ section. ;-)

Also:
http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1516760&postcount=4381
LAV Splitter relys on another DirectShow filter to read the file, typically the "File Source (Async)" filter. LAV Splitter Source reads the file directly.

Both have their different uses, and different players prefer different ways to use it.

[pirlouy]

Thanks for answers. I searched Google whereas I should have searched in this thread.

I don't really see the difference between a splitter and a source filter, but I'm not a developer. As a casual user I guess "LAV Splitter Source" is the thing to use.

[Stephen R. Savage]

nevcairiel, can you comment on how audio mixing works in LAV Audio Decoder? I noticed that several formats go through forced conversions, which is obviously not desired.

4.0 (3/1) --> 5.1 (BC --> BL/BR)
6.1 --> 6.1 (SL/SR --> BL/BR)

These samples can be obtained from http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/lossless/wavpack/test_suite/num_channels/

[dead_screem]

nevcairiel, can you comment on how audio mixing works in LAV Audio Decoder? I noticed that several formats go through forced conversions, which is obviously not desired.

4.0 (3/1) --> 5.1 (BC --> BL/BR)
6.1 --> 6.1 (SL/SR --> BL/BR)

These samples can be obtained from http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/lossless/wavpack/test_suite/num_channels/

Have you tried with the "Convert Output to Standard Channel Layouts" and "Expand 6.1 to 7.1" options disabled?

[Stephen R. Savage]

Have you tried with the "Convert Output to Standard Channel Layouts" and "Expand 6.1 to 7.1" options disabled?

Ah, yes, it was the "convert output to standard layouts" option. I feel dumb now.

It's funny how so many programs fail to interpret dwChannelMask. For example, ffdshow thinks BC and LFE in the 6.1 sample are BL and BR. iTunes/QuickTime thinks BC in the 3.1 sample is LFE. ffdshow thinks it's quadrophoic, etc.

Edit:
Well, might as well as another question. nevcairiel, is support for tags planned? It'd be neat to show Author/Track information for stuff like MP3, MP4, FLAC, OGG, etc. like in audio players.

[jmone]

Last time it came up, i couldn't get an answer out of them. ;)

You have a nibble from Matt!

[Stephen R. Savage]

Actually, it seems that LAVFilters specifies the surround channels in 5.1 audio as being rear and not side channels. Google tells me that the opposite should be the case. Does anybody have any comment on this and whether it matters for playback (I only have headphones)?

[betaking]

to nevcairiel is this a bug?
i use 0.35 stable is ok!
last svn
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/f96ca.png
last stable
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/b9ffd.png

[nevcairiel]

last svn
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/f96ca.png

Looks like your ffmpeg is missing some decoders. :)

Actually, it seems that LAVFilters specifies the surround channels in 5.1 audio as being rear and not side channels. Google tells me that the opposite should be the case. Does anybody have any comment on this and whether it matters for playback (I only have headphones)?

So far no-one has complained. It seems to go out the right speakers.