LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[SamuriHL]

IMO, the video renderer should do the scaling of video. The subtitle renderer should do the scaling of subtitles and render them on top of the video renderer. The splitter should split the content and send it to the appropriate renderers. In my world, this happens beautifully. I use J River MC17. That has its own subtitle renderer which is able to work with madVR, which I use for my video renderer and does all my video scaling. This is how it should work. But in order for all that magic to happen, the subtitle renderer and the video renderer need to play nice.

[nx6]

Okay thanks;D
That was the point i asked before, i mean, i currently use LAV for decoding, then ffdshow to decode Uncompressed as i want it to resize to my screen size to make the subtitles better.
So maybe you can add LAV resize?
Or is that as well what a Subtitle renderer should do?
The previous comment is right, honestly the subtitle renderer should be handling all this. Unfortunately the dominant external subtitle filter (VOBSub) is a little stuck in the past IMHO. It still assumes everything is 4:3 for example, and makes you go click that box to fix aspect ratio of the text rendering. It also doesn't offer any controls over specific style settings on subs that could easily be controlled (and are by many other subtitle renderers).

I don't know what you mean by having ffdshow "decode uncompressed" after LAV. The scaling of the final image from video resolution to window/screen size should be done by the picture render (VMR9, madVR, etc.)

Right now I'm using Haali's Splitter to split the file instead of LAV. There are only two reasons I'm doing this, first is the subtitle scaling setting I just recently discovered and want to use right now, and the second is support for ordered chapters. But I'm still using LAV for video decoding because of its better performance and superior 10-bit h264 handling over ffdshow. Subtitles are being handled by VOBsub. Then I have Haali's renderer doing picture rendering for a reason I'm not going to bring up here to not derail the convo.

[Infernodash]

Is it possible to enable the deinterlacing and debanding options in ffdshow raw filter while using lav video decoder? When I play 8 bit files the filters applies, however, it dithers my 10bit files to 8bit. I want the filter to only apply to 8bit files. Is there a way to maintain 10bit playback?

Edit: I am using MPC-HC, MadVR, Haali Splitter, LAV Audio and Video decoders, as well as ffdshow raw filter.

[zerowalker]

Yeah but, the video renderer i use EVR, but it doesn´t scale anything;O
it just show the video size, so low resolution videos look crap (the subtitles that is) ;D

[nx6]

Yeah but, the video renderer i use EVR, but it doesn´t scale anything;O
it just show the video size, so low resolution videos look crap (the subtitles that is) ;D
You mean like everything is really jagged and pixelated? I think that's a problem with your EVR. It doesn't look like that for me when I use EVR as picture render.

It would help if we knew more about your setup. Specifically what you were using for subtitle filter and what the original video resolution was.

Edit: and what format your subtitles are in! Are these DVD subtitles (image based) or text subtitles (srt, ssa, ass) where the system has to actually create them from a script.

[Keiyakusha]

Honestly the subtitle size is set by the original typesetter (if we're talking about Subststion alpha format). The script has the resolution of the video listed in it. If you scale your 720p video up to fill a 1080p screen, the size of the subtitles will scale up with the rest of the picture. They're the same percentage to screen height they were before.
I know a lot about subtitles, how to create them and how they works. My post is not about possibility of achieving (or not) desired effect, but about behavior of certain kind of users.

So your idea is to patch subtitle files "on the fly"? Well for that you need to patch scale for relative values... you need to find where (if) absolute values applied, recalculate them and patch too, you need to make sure that vector shapes remain shapes after all that... probably smart line warping is needed too, and such. Good luck to Nev with that if he decides he wants that option too. Simple changing PlayRes_ parameter is a no go, it'll result broken output. Not always but the more complex script - the worse will be output. Also this is not really mandatory parameter.

[zerowalker]

How to put it, if it´s DVD subtitles, aren´t those Yellow and not smooth at all;O?
And with the others, i think it´s srt,ssa or ass. the problem is, if i watch without resizing it looks okay depending on original resolution, but with resize it looks "crystal clear" or how to put it, it doesn´t get smudged anyway as it´s the original resolution (my screen).
I know that Madvr changes the resolution it shows, to the original, or thet MPC can do it i think.
I am using Zoom Player, and don´t want to change the player as i really like it.
But any ideas?
Or do you need more information;D?

[Keiyakusha]

How to put it, if it´s DVD subtitles, aren´t those Yellow and not smooth at all;O?

Oh by the way, I was talking about text subtitles. With DVD subtitles its a different matter. Those are just images rendered on top of the video/ I'm not sure but I guess it is not possible to even patch anything about them since they are images... so we probably need to turn LAV into image editing filter to scale these... ^__^ But for the renderer it should be possible to scale them.

As for the rest, I'm too tired right now and don't really understand anymore what we talking about... maybe next time if no one else will helps you.

[nx6]

So your idea is to patch subtitle files "on the fly"? Well for that you need to patch scale for relative values... you need to find where (if) absolute values applied, recalculate them and patch too, you need to make sure that vector shapes remain shapes after all that... probably smart line warping is needed too, and such.
This isn't about complicated vector-based subtitles, it's about styled text subs, most likely in Advanced SubStation Alpha format.

The subtitle script is written with the assumption the video is at a given resolution, and to use __ pt size fonts for the different styles. Once the subs are rendered by the filter they are just scaled like the overall video picture is if your player window is not the same size as the original video resolution. The result is subs rendered at 640x480 will be upscaled from there to the window resolution, which if it's really big by comparison will cause blurriness. That's what zerowalker wishes to avoid. Since we're dealing with plain text being drawn by the subtitle renderer there's no reason this has to happen. The renderer can simply pretend the actual video is a higher resolution and scale all the figures to match, rendering the subs in a higher resolution and making the text clearer and more readable. I don't see why this shouldn't be possible with vector-based elements really, just change all the coordinates to match the new rendering resolution. "Absolute values" are only absolute as far as the original video resolution. It's simple math to figure out where location x is on screen once the screen size changes, even if the aspect ratio isn't the same.

What I was referring to was scaling just the sub size itself, not the size of the rendering. Obviously I do not know how this feature really works on Haali's splitter, but what I imagine is happening is Haali's Splitter is parsing the subtitle stream it's taken from the file and is changing values in certain SSA tags concerning font size before sending the info onto the subtitle filter. The video resolution hasn't changed, just the number for how big a given font should be. If only text styling tags are effected by this, graphical vector-based elements shouldn't be effected. It might cause "on screen" sign subtitles to flow outside the borders of the video object, though.


And with the others, i think it´s srt,ssa or ass. the problem is, if i watch without resizing it looks okay depending on original resolution, but with resize it looks "crystal clear" or how to put it, it doesn´t get smudged anyway as it´s the original resolution (my screen).
I know that Madvr changes the resolution it shows, to the original, or thet MPC can do it i think.
I am using Zoom Player, and don´t want to change the player as i really like it.
But any ideas?
Or do you need more information;D?
This helps. I was misunderstanding you in the beginning and thought you wanted to be able to tweak subtitle sizes like you can with Haali's Splitter. I don't think it's possible to do what you want in Zoomplayer, otherwise I would be doing it. The feature you want is to set the resolution of the subtitle rendering itself. It's a feature of the subtitle filter and VOBsub doesn't have it. I have heard of there being a setting for it in ffdshow's subtitle filter, but I don't see it. You can do it in Media Player Classic's built-in subtitle renderer, though.

[nevcairiel]

I can ensure you that i'll never modify subtitles in the splitter.
I will not start fixing shortcomings in other filters.

[nx6]

Very well, it was worth asking about. :)

It's honestly not a feature I see myself using very often, since generally subtitles are done at more readable sizes to start with, but changing a setting it is a lot easier than demuxing a file, editing the script to change text sizes, and saving a new external subtitle script for use or remuxing a whole new file with the changes.

What about ordered chapters support? Is that in the future plans?

[nevcairiel]

Sure, some day. Its not high priority (for me), as i don't even have a single file that would need it. :)
Its also alot of work...

[nx6]

Its not high priority (for me), as i don't even have a single file that would need it. :)
Well of course. Needing it would require at least two files. :p

[nevcairiel]

Well of course. Needing it would require at least two files. :p

Actually, you can have it in one file as well. Ordered chapters is not only about external segments, but also about different editions of one movie in the same file (theatrical + extended cut, or something like that). But its really not used much, which is kinda sad.

[nx6]

Now that the subtitle discussion is out of the way (for me anyway), I have an odd issue I wanted to bring up. I'm seeing a system performance issue when using a specific playback setup, and I don't know where the issue lies.

If I use Haali's Splitter, LAV video decoder, and madVR for picture rendering, in that combination, playback still seems to work, but I see very high disk activity being attributed to the system (not the playback app itself) according to Windows. If I change to ffdshow for decoding. Or change to Haali's Renderer and leave LAV for decoder the problem goes away. I can't tell if this is a LAV decoder issue or a madVR issue or Haali's splitter has something to do with it.

[golagoda]

Now that the subtitle discussion is out of the way (for me anyway), I have an odd issue I wanted to bring up. I'm seeing a system performance issue when using a specific playback setup, and I don't know where the issue lies.

If I use Haali's Splitter, LAV video decoder, and madVR for picture rendering, in that combination, playback still seems to work, but I see very high disk activity being attributed to the system (not the playback app itself) according to Windows. If I change to ffdshow for decoding. Or change to Haali's Renderer and leave LAV for decoder the problem goes away. I can't tell if this is a LAV decoder issue or a madVR issue or Haali's splitter has something to do with it.



At least for me using Haali splitter uses way more CPU, e.g. 5-10% more over LAV Splitter - also haali uses the disc for some kind of system cache (or similar) if I remember correctly so that may be it - there's an option to choose how much space it uses in the haali splitter options I think.

[nx6]

Hmmm. That's a thought. Except I'm using Haali's splitter in all three of the mentioned configurations in my post. It's only when it's LAV decoder + madVR I have this happen.

[SEt]

Some versions of Haali had bug with seeking in paused graph that can result in excessive disk and decoding activity. On the other side, splitter itself using 5-10% of CPU looks unrealistic: there is nothing complex to compute there to eat that amount of modern CPU.

[nx6]

Well he said 5-10% more than LAV, not of all CPU resources. I honestly don't know how you would measure a difference like that unless you were using unbearable old hardware to start with.

[Thunderbolt8]

nev, would you consider implementing an option to output 7.1 and 6.1 channels as 5.1 in LAV Audio without dropping the information of those 1 / 2 channels?

[QBhd]

nev, would you consider implementing an option to output 7.1 and 6.1 channels as 5.1 in LAV Audio without dropping the information of those 1 / 2 channels?

+1 for this

QB

[StrifeLeonhart]

Hey guys,

I would like to ask what LAV Filters does?
I read on the first page but didnt quite understand.
For example: does using LAV Filters improve Video or Audio quality in anyway?

Would be nice if someone could explain bit more.

[Keiyakusha]

parsing the subtitle stream it's taken from the file and is changing values in certain SSA tags concerning font size before sending the info onto the subtitle filter.
Yeah i'm ok with that. I just don't find this stuff to be easy to achieve. There is no magical switches that "makes it pretend", you need to hack some stuff here and there for that.
Anyway you got your answer from Nev.

does using LAV Filters improve Video or Audio quality in anyway?
Nope.
LAV is a set of splitters and decoders. just like any other ones but somewhat different, somewhat faster, with active developer, compared to others, with P010 colorspace support.

[Thunderbolt8]

does using LAV Filters improve Video or Audio quality in anyway?
lets hope it doesnt degrade the quality compared to how stuff is supposed to be viewed in terms of standard specifications ;)

[erejnion]

Sure, some day. Its not high priority (for me), as i don't even have a single file that would need it. :)
Its also alot of work...
For me, it's kinda sad having to use Haali for mkv just because of the several (anime) series that get released with ordered chapters. Well, time there is~ just dropping this line to know we will be happy when you finally get around to this.

nev, would you consider implementing an option to output 7.1 and 6.1 channels as 5.1 in LAV Audio without dropping the information of those 1 / 2 channels?
same here, it's kinda sad having to install ffdshow just to get good multiple channel downmix :p But, I guess, this ain't a priority at all; and ffdshow has some other useful audio filters too.

@StrifeLeonhart, Keiyakusha
Using LAV filers does improve video quality... if we compare it to CoreAVC for example (on 10bit video). Or at least so I have heard.

[Thunderbolt8]

same here, it's kinda sad having to install ffdshow just to get good multiple channel downmix :pthis is mainly a problem of not dropping the additional 1 / 2 channel information I guess. dunno if ffdshow does that when setting the mixer to 3/0/2 + LFE. thats why it would be nice to have at least one solution which keeps all the audio information.

[Keiyakusha]

@StrifeLeonhart, Keiyakusha
Using LAV filers does improve video quality... if we compare it to CoreAVC for example (on 10bit video). Or at least so I have heard.
Thats not the right way to put it. If CoreAVC doesn't supports 10bit output or can't dither it it doesn't means that LAV makes something better, it means CoreAVC is broken.

[fastplayer]

dunno if ffdshow does that when setting the mixer to 3/0/2 + LFE.
Just look at the audio channel matrix during playback (--> mixer section in ffdshow audio properties).

[asasadad_1]

LAV Audio Decoder 0.38 has problem with TrueHD in this (http://uploading.com/files/5e544362/truehd.problem.mkv/) sample,ffdshow audio decoder or arcsoft audio decoder works well.

[pacemaker1000]

please help as i am getting frustrated tryimg to get my audio setup working

i have installed the splitter and audio and set as preffered in mpc
also disabled all internal filters

i wish to have dd/hd. dts etc output 'as is' via hdmi for the amp to deal with, plus AAC output as multichannel lpcm

is this possible??

so far i get the dd/dts etc but aac just outputs as 2ch pcm

only way i found to get the aac is using reclock set to wasapi, then amp says multichannel pcm, but in this setup dd files freeze

i use a ati 6570 btw

thanks

[mindbomb]

lav splitter can't seek through an mkv file I have.

It is too large to give you the whole file I think, and despite the fact that it was muxed with mkvmerge, muxing it again to make the sample makes the problem disappear.

I have thus used dgsplit to cut a 100MB chunk.

http://www.mediafire.com/?gsdmj9f49m2g1d0

I hope this is useful to you. I realize that if you use dgsplit though, it generally makes things unseekable anyway, I hope that doesnt interfere too much.

[Thunderbolt8]

Just look at the audio channel matrix during playback (--> mixer section in ffdshow audio properties).not an expert in that, but from what I can see it still doesnt tell me whether that information gets dropped completely or output through the other channels. can only see that theres no information coming through the side channel, but as said that doesnt seem to tell me one or the other.

[Fullmetal Encoder]

Sure, some day. Its not high priority (for me), as i don't even have a single file that would need it. :)
Its also alot of work...

I would also add to that request for ordered chapter support. I realize you don't need it but for my part I'm looking at having to waste countless gigabytes of storage space incorporating the same OP and ED into every file for each episodic show that I encode. So I hope that in the future you will not take such an upgrade off the table.

By the way, thanks for your wonderful tools. Earlier this year I had to take a break from Doom9 and encoding and when I came back six months later I discover these LAV tools that completely open the door on 10-bit encodes and make ffdshow not only unnecessary but obsolete.

[mrcorbo]

please help as i am getting frustrated tryimg to get my audio setup working

i have installed the splitter and audio and set as preffered in mpc
also disabled all internal filters

i wish to have dd/hd. dts etc output 'as is' via hdmi for the amp to deal with, plus AAC output as multichannel lpcm

is this possible??

so far i get the dd/dts etc but aac just outputs as 2ch pcm

only way i found to get the aac is using reclock set to wasapi, then amp says multichannel pcm, but in this setup dd files freeze

i use a ati 6570 btw

thanks

What are your speaker settings in windows?

[jmone]

I'm scratching my head a bit on this one, as when testing madVR's new deinterlacing with LAV Video on some old 720 x 576 / 50i MPEG2 files ripped from DVD would be reported in madVR as 696x556 and have a green strip along the top with the Chroma all pushed vertically down. There is no issue with LAV CUVID. So I tried cutting a 50MB segment off the front of one of the files (just with a file splitter) but the sample plays fine and the dimensions are reported correctly as 720x576. I can upload a sample but the smallest is 260MB.

[nevcairiel]

With LAV CUVID you mean with the real LAV CUVID, or with LAV Video in CUVID mode?
Does it only happen in software mode?

Can you try another renderer?

It does sound like internally the resolution is correct, but madVR thinks its something else - which accounts for the chroma offset. But that doesn't make any sense, how would that happen. The internal resolution is directly put into the media type.

[ajp_anton]

By default, lots of formats are disabled in the decoders/splitter. Why?

[pacemaker1000]

What are your speaker settings in windows?

SET TO hdmi output

thanks

[jmonier]

SET TO hdmi output

thanks

You need to configure the number of speakers for HDMI output (unless you're using WASAPI). I believe that it defaults to Stereo (2 speakers).

That's what he is asking.

[pacemaker1000]

You need to configure the number of speakers for HDMI output (unless you're using WASAPI). I believe that it defaults to Stereo (2 speakers).

That's what he is asking.

Ahhh

where do i do that?

[adam777]

Hi Nev,
Just a quick follow up to this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1533030#post1533030) post.
Sample works fine in 0.38.
Thanks again, Adam.

[jmonier]

Ahhh

where do i do that?

Right click on the speaker icon (desktop toolbar) and select Playback Devices. Or via sound settings in Control Panel to Manage Audio Devices.

Select the HDMI Output that you are using and click Configure.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi Nev,
Just a quick follow up to this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1533030#post1533030) post.
Sample works fine in 0.38.
Thanks again, Adam.

Wow... that sample contains 5 video streams and 6 audio streams. Along with a host of other stuff :scared:

[nevcairiel]

LAV Audio Decoder 0.38 has problem with TrueHD in this (http://uploading.com/files/5e544362/truehd.problem.mkv/) sample,ffdshow audio decoder or arcsoft audio decoder works well.

What exactly is supposed to be the problem?
Seems to play just fine.

[adam777]

Wow... that sample contains 5 video streams and 6 audio streams. Along with a host of other stuff :scared:

It's a DVB-T dump, 5 channels on the same frequency, so no surprises...

[kalston]

So I've got mpc-hc 32bit, LAV filters 32bit and I put the dtsdecoder.dll (the same one that works fine with eac3to) in the LAV filters folder, but it still doesn't seem to decode dts-hd.

I downloaded dts-hd samples here http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/high-definition-trailers.php :
"Orchestra (Short) (Lossless) 1 57,6MB 0:14 DTS-HD HR 7.1" and "SFX (Long) (Lossless) 1 93,6MB 0:19 DTS-HD MA 7.1"

No luck so far. I've tried disabling the dca decoder in LAV audio but it didn't help.

[pacemaker1000]

Right click on the speaker icon (desktop toolbar) and select Playback Devices. Or via sound settings in Control Panel to Manage Audio Devices.

Select the HDMI Output that you are using and click Configure.


i only see 2ch!!! nop option to select anything else either
you may all be onto something here as i always get 2ch pcm

maybe lav is doing its job but i have something wrong

as a side note if using a video card for audio do you still need a sound card and drivers installed. could this cofuse matters?

[jmonier]

i only see 2ch!!! nop option to select anything else either
you may all be onto something here as i always get 2ch pcm

maybe lav is doing its job but i have something wrong

as a side note if using a video card for audio do you still need a sound card and drivers installed. could this cofuse matters?

What do you have connected to the HDMI? The speaker configurations listed there comes from info (EDID) sent back from the connected device.

This is now OT for this thread (since your problem has nothing to do with LAV) so you should continue this matter somewhere else. There are threads about EDID on AVS Forums and other places.

[cremor]

So I've got mpc-hc 32bit, LAV filters 32bit and I put the dtsdecoder.dll (the same one that works fine with eac3to) in the LAV filters folder, but it still doesn't seem to decode dts-hd.

I downloaded dts-hd samples here http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/high-definition-trailers.php :
"Orchestra (Short) (Lossless) 1 57,6MB 0:14 DTS-HD HR 7.1" and "SFX (Long) (Lossless) 1 93,6MB 0:19 DTS-HD MA 7.1"

No luck so far. I've tried disabling the dca decoder in LAV audio but it didn't help.

Thanks for the link to this side, some more test files to add to my library :)

@nevcairiel
Although those samples work fine for me (with dtsdecoderdll.dll) I found a small bug:
In MPC-HC the text for the stream selection (filters -> [file name]) correctly shows "dts-hd ma"/"dts-hd hra", but the sampling rate, channel and bit rate values are from the DTS core track, not the HD track. The "status" tab in the audio configuration panel shows the correct (HD) values.

[nevcairiel]

The splitter does not know what is in the HD parts, the decoder can only figure that out because its capable of decoding it.
Detecting which profile was used is relatively easy, but figuring out what exactly is in there is more complicated. Its a cosmetic thing only, so nothing i will spent much time on.