LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[DragonQ]

Thanks for the frequent and meaningful updates, nevcairiel. :)

[fastplayer]

I don't mind early Christmas presents! :D
Merry Christmas to you, too!
:thanks:

[Inspector.Gadget]

Thanks for the frequent and meaningful updates, nevcairiel. :)

This perfectly captures my thoughts on the matter. Hope you find time to rest up and recharge over the holiday period to bring us more innovation :thanks:

[ney2x]

As usual, perfect, smooth and flawless playback. Thanks! Merry Christmas to all!

[STaRGaZeR]

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Seems to work fine. Merry christmas :)

[sexus]

yes and possible dvd playback ....finally ...woot!!! xD

was hoping itd be an early christmas present but ...well guess you cant have everything at once ey? xD

keep it up nevcairiel the community would be a sad place without you ...or madshi xD

merry christmas and a happy new year in advance btw hohohohohohoh!!!! lolz xD

[THX-UltraII]

Hi Nevcairiel,

Sorry to bother you again with this LAV D-Box version thing but I would like to know something.

Is it possible that I somehow modify the setup version of LAV filters 'dbox edition' from 0.39 to 0.43 (http://htpcfordbox.over-blog.com/)

I ask this because I need some fixes you brought in 0.41 and 0.42 and the problem is that I can t get in touch anymore with the guy who wrote LAV filters D-Box edition which can be found in the link I mentioned above and he hasnt updated anymore since 0.40.

[XadoX]

Hmm somehow the stuttering is back again for me on my AMD Brazos E350. The stuttering is only at the beginning of a movie for around 30-60seks.

[nevcairiel]

Hmm somehow the stuttering is back again for me on my AMD Brazos E350. The stuttering is only at the beginning of a movie for around 30-60seks.

Sounds like you need a faster PC then. I changed nothing.
It sounds like your PC is barely able to keep up, which means when its still reading the file, it lags the decoders. I already reduced the priority of the file reading thread, but if that doesn't help (which apparently it did at first), then there is nothing to do. It needs to fill its buffers, or some features just won't work properly.

[sexus]

+1 lolz , talk about harsh facts xD

[nevcairiel]

Hi Nevcairiel,

Sorry to bother you again with this LAV D-Box version thing but I would like to know something.

Is it possible that I somehow modify the setup version of LAV filters 'dbox edition' from 0.39 to 0.43 (http://htpcfordbox.over-blog.com/)

I ask this because I need some fixes you brought in 0.41 and 0.42 and the problem is that I can t get in touch anymore with the guy who wrote LAV filters D-Box edition which can be found in the link I mentioned above and he hasnt updated anymore since 0.40.

There is nothing that can be done, because the guy didn't post the changes he did to the filters (which btw violates the license of LAV)

[Paladin77]

Again and again. Great work Nev. Smooth playback and random crashes when seeking an mkv seems to be gone. Just one question: I have been reading the madVR thread as well as this thread regarding the choice of media players. I personally couldn't care less what the player looks like (madVR's fullscreen exclusive mode is a godsend). I was wondering which player would you recommend. I read a few pages back that mpc was criticised (what was, is and so far my only choice for a mediaplayer, I use a commercial product for DVDs for now *nudge nudge*). Anyway I was wondering what would be your recommendation for a media player?

Finally I would like to say: MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[nevcairiel]

Meh, its really subjective which player you like. What i really dislike is people that claim "there is only one choice" (and in the same sentence also try to shut down any discussion)

I'm fine with MPC-HC just for simple playback. If you use a real PC for playing (not a couch controlled HTPC), its as simple as you're going to get - but controlling it with a remote control from your couch is annoying.
For my HTPC i'm using now JRiver Media Center, its easily controlled with my Logitech Harmony and natively supports LAV and madVR these days, and once i figured out its library, it lets me do all i want (need some learning time, though, which is why people also seem to prefer XBMC, its library is "automatic", but you sacrifice alot of flexibility with that). Its not free, however.

[[ReX]]

The Splitter doesn't seem to respect the installer settings.
I disable MKV and MP4 using the installer, but when I go check the Splitter settings, they are still enabled.

[nevcairiel]

;1546534']The Splitter doesn't seem to respect the installer settings.
I disable MKV and MP4 using the installer, but when I go check the Splitter settings, they are still enabled.

The installer needs a big overhaul anyway, however that specific bug should be fixed for the next version.

[XadoX]

Sounds like you need a faster PC then. I changed nothing.
It sounds like your PC is barely able to keep up, which means when its still reading the file, it lags the decoders. I already reduced the priority of the file reading thread, but if that doesn't help (which apparently it did at first), then there is nothing to do. It needs to fill its buffers, or some features just won't work properly.
Thx for the fast feedback. Then I have to switch back to haali :(

[mindz]

With this new version i get a ReClockHelpder.dll has stopped working error whenever i start an .MKV. Ive reverted back to 0.42 and the error went away. Looks like it has to do with the new version 0.43!

[nevcairiel]

With this new version i get a ReClockHelpder.dll has stopped working error whenever i start an .MKV. Ive reverted back to 0.42 and the error went away. Looks like it has to do with the new version 0.43!

Works just fine here.
Also, i didn't really change anything that changes the external behaviour of the splitter in any way.

[mindz]

Works just fine here.
Also, i didn't really change anything that changes the external behaviour of the splitter in any way.

Alright, ive uninstalled LAV Filters and ReClock, then reinstalled LAV Filters 0.43 and reinstalled ReClock after, now its working :).

[nevcairiel]

How odd!
At least its working now.

[DragonQ]

mindz, did you restart your machine after updating to 0.43? I didn't (most of the time software says it needs a restart, it's lying) and MediaPortal crashed when trying to play a video file. A reboot fixed it.

[Paladin77]

Well not a very odd behaviour if you have overwritten the files instead of a clean install. Also reclock is known to cause RANDOM issues when a new player/filter is reinstalled (they do recommend reinstalling it in the readme files even).

Nev. Thanks for the prompt reply. I never said one player was good. I have a whole lot of player around here (pot,zoom, etc). I always keep an open mind regarding trying new things but still so far mpc-hc is comfortable as hell which explains why I keep coming back to it :)

Merry Christmas!

[e-t172]

Question: I would like to use yadif deinterlacing together with CUVID hardware decoding. Is this possible with LAV Video? It seems that as soon as I select CUVID, LAV Video switches to hardware deinterlacing and there's nothing I can do about it.

Also, bug report: it seems that this video (http://e-t172.net/files/tf1hd-interlaced.wtv) (HDTV recording, TF1HD, France) isn't deinterlaced at all when using CUVID (tested on a GeForce 9400), even with "Force deinterlacing" and "Aggressive deinterlacing" checked. yadif is fine. Is there something you can do about it? What's strange is that the video is deinterlaced properly by the WMC renderer, which AFAIK calls the NVidia deinterlacer, like LAV Video.

[nevcairiel]

Question: I would like to use yadif deinterlacing together with CUVID hardware decoding. Is this possible with LAV Video? It seems that as soon as I select CUVID, LAV Video switches to hardware deinterlacing and there's nothing I can do about it.


It should do it when you set the deinterlacer to weave.

I'll look at the other video later.

[e-t172]

It should do it when you set the deinterlacer to weave.

Doesn't seem to work with the aforementioned video. With yadif enabled and hardware deinterlacing set to "None" the video is not deinterlaced. As soon as switch to software decoding, yadif kicks in and the video is deinterlaced properly.

[nevcairiel]

Also, bug report: it seems that this video (http://e-t172.net/files/tf1hd-interlaced.wtv) (HDTV recording, TF1HD, France) isn't deinterlaced at all when using CUVID (tested on a GeForce 9400), even with "Force deinterlacing" and "Aggressive deinterlacing" checked. yadif is fine. Is there something you can do about it? What's strange is that the video is deinterlaced properly by the WMC renderer, which AFAIK calls the NVidia deinterlacer, like LAV Video.

The file seems to deinterlace just fine for me.

Doesn't seem to work with the aforementioned video. With yadif enabled and hardware deinterlacing set to "None" the video is not deinterlaced. As soon as switch to software decoding, yadif kicks in and the video is deinterlaced properly.

I just remembered, the NVIDIA decoder outputs NV12, and YADIF doesn't like that as input (and there is no conversion).

Any particular reason for wanting this? :d

[e-t172]

The file seems to deinterlace just fine for me.

Surprising. I'm wondering if my GeForce 9400 is capable of deinterlacing 1080i content. But then again, it doesn't explain why deinterlacing works with WMC's renderer.

Come to think of it, I think I managed to make CUVID deinterlacing work *once* with this video, but I couldn't reproduce it. Seems like there is some voodoo magic going on here…

I just remembered, the NVIDIA decoder outputs NV12, and YADIF doesn't like that as input (and there is no conversion).

Any particular reason for wanting this? :d

Well, I prefer yadif over NVidia's adaptive deinterlacing. IMHO NVidia uses bob way too aggressively. There is very noticeable bobbing on static images, like the score count on a sports game, or still photos presented on live TV. Yadif seems much better at handling the content I'm watching.

Problem is, my HTPC doesn't have a very fast CPU. It can decode HDTV in software, or it can deinterlace it in software, but it can't do both at the same time. So the ideal solution for me would be to decode on the GPU and deinterlace on the CPU using yadif. Hence my request.

[wanezhiling]

Hi nev

I remember LAV CUVID decoder (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=160290) has mpeg4 asp support,why LAV Video decoder(CUVID mode) cancel this?

You know UVD3.0 could use wmp12/PotPlayer/tmt5 to decode mpeg4 asp, but I never heard another one(expect LAV CUVID) could do this for nVidia...

So, is there any plan to return the mpeg4 asp support to LAV.:stupid:

[DragonQ]

Well, I prefer yadif over NVidia's adaptive deinterlacing. IMHO NVidia uses bob way too aggressively. There is very noticeable bobbing on static images, like the score count on a sports game, or still photos presented on live TV. Yadif seems much better at handling the content I'm watching.
Strange, I don't notice any "bob" at all with a GT430 using CUVID and "adaptive" deinterlacing (and I watch a lot of football so I'd have noticed with the time/score graphics).

It is possible that older nVidia cards have worse implementations of adaptive deinterlacing - IIRC AMD cards have "adaptive", "motion adaptive" and "vector adaptive" (getting progressively better) but older/weaker cards can't handle the latter one or two. It's also possible that your card simply can't do adaptive deinterlacing so when you choose it, it just defaults to bob?

Also, this page (http://www.missingremote.com/guide/basic-overview-gpu-hd-video-processing) indicates that newer drivers may break adaptive deinterlacing on your GPU. Have you tried using 182.5 as it suggests there?

[hoborg]

Hi.
I have problem with new apple trailers, i cannot play them by any video decoder.
Here is a sample (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3EVHE0SF).

Is possible to make it working or it is not supported by FFmpeg?

[clsid]

I remember LAV CUVID decoder (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=160290) has mpeg4 asp support,why LAV Video decoder(CUVID mode) cancel this?It was removed because:
1) It did not work properly
2) It is pointless to use HWA for formats that need very little CPU resources to decode

[Pat357]

It was removed because:
1) It did not work properly
Why do you think that ? Did you notice any problems with the Mpeg4 -ASP HW decoding ?
I used it with the older LAVCUVID and never had any worse results then with the ffmeg-based SW decoding.
2) It is pointless to use HWA for formats that need very little CPU resources to decode
Is there really such a big difference in decoding between similar content (say 1920x1080 @ 60 fps) encoded using h264 (BD compatible) and Divx ?
Would it need 2 times, 5 times or 10 times or more less resources for decoding compared to h264/AVC1 on BD ? Any idea about the factor ?
However what you say is probably true because divx encoding was popular in for encoding up to analog TV/DVD and lower resolution content,
while h264/AVC1 is used for much higher resolutions like HD content.
I haven't seen much HD content encoded using Divx, I don't know if that's even possible. I'll try it just to see what comes out. :)

[mkanet]

It looks like you're downloading broken files. There might be something wrong with your Internet connection or web browser. I just downloaded the latest trailers from apple. 720p and 1080p work fine using LAV video decoder.

720p Trailer:
http://trailers.apple.com/movies/wb/thedarkknightrises/darkknightrises-tlr1_h720p.mov

File size: 93.2 MB (97,800,718 bytes)
MD5 sum: 66e33d08ab273f5a01a35a4d887413ee

Hi.
I have problem with new apple trailers, i cannot play them by any video decoder.
Here is a sample (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3EVHE0SF).

Is possible to make it working or it is not supported by FFmpeg?

[mkanet]

Does the "Maximum pre-rendered frames" setting on nvidia cards make a difference on LAV video CUVID? If so, does anyone know what would the theoretical optimal value would be for content with 3:2 pulldown? The default value that shows on my system is "3". I'm probably wrong, but I was thought maybe "4" would be the ideal setting since it takes 4 unique frames to complete one full 3:2 pulldown sequence before starting the cycle again; and, queuing up any extra frames would be wasteful.

[nx6]

Is there really such a big difference in decoding between similar content (say 1920x1080 @ 60 fps) encoded using h264 (BD compatible) and Divx ?
Yes.

You wouldn't encode in resolutions like that with XviD anyway. From what I hear the overhead of the AVI container format becomes unruly at those sizes, and if you're using MP4 or MKV then there's not much reason to use a less efficient codec like XviD anyway.

People encode to XviD/AVI for one reason only nowadays, and that's for PMPs or Divx DVD players. And in both those situations you're limited to 576p anyway. A PMP that supports HD resolutions will support h264 Main profile in MP4 container from what I've seen. Any modern PC you'd use for HD playback should be able to handle h264 (High) at HD resolutions in CPU.

If your system is that starved for horsepower you'd want to reserve the graphics card power for picture rendering only, unless you system really is built that lopsided.

[ney2x]

♪♫ Merry Christmas Everyone! ♪♫

[VideophileII]

Further to my earlier post, I can report that there is no problem with LAVFilters and SampleGrabber using version 0.43. Having said that, on this occasion I uninstalled CCCP (which had previously bestowed LAV upon my system) and am now using a bare-bones self-install of ffdshow tryouts and LAV 0.43.

I hope this info is useful to you (even though my earlier post was ignored or, hopefully, just overlooked)

Regards...

[joe42]

I tried 0.43 of LAV filters, but I found that seeking (jumping forward with MPC-HC) was sometimes taking a lot longer than with 0.42. For example, I have one key in MPC-HC set to jump forward 6 seconds. But with 0.43, the screen would sometimes freeze for about 5-10 seconds just to jump forward 6 seconds. I downgraded to 0.42 and seeks were fast again.

[Alexey1975]

Hello dear navcariel!

If installed GeForce 285.62 Driver (or later) there is an issue with LAV Video Codec: When using DVBViewer and LAV Video Codec to watch HD-broadcast, video image is crumbling to pieces. But if using any other codec to watch and record the stream, LAV Video Codec playing back this recorded stream with no any problem!
Please, take a look what is this.

Thanks.

[Mixer73]

Question: I would like to use yadif deinterlacing together with CUVID hardware decoding. Is this possible with LAV Video? It seems that as soon as I select CUVID, LAV Video switches to hardware deinterlacing and there's nothing I can do about it.

Hey Nev, I would like this too ;)

I just remembered, the NVIDIA decoder outputs NV12, and YADIF doesn't like that as input (and there is no conversion).

I guess given the above, its not possible then.

I also have a strange symptom with LAV Filters that if I do anything on my second screen, my video sometimes reverses fields. This started after I re-formatted so I'm presuming its one of the specific Nvidia settings, and am wondering if you could help me narrow down which GPU settings might be able to cause this sort of issue?

Win7/GTX260/Dual head...

[e-t172]

I guess given the above, its not possible then.

He meant that there is no conversion right now in LAV Video. It's actually quite easy (and lossless) to convert from NV12 to YV12 to make yadif happy.

[nevcairiel]

Making it convert from NV12 to YV12 internally is probably rather easy, can possibly just let avfilter do its on its own using swscale, such a simple conversion even it should manage. ;)
I just didn't think it would matter, as on my "newer" GPUs the adaptive GPU mode looks way better.

[e-t172]

I've posted this feature request as issue 154 (http://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/issues/detail?id=154).

[DragonQ]

If I set LAV to output only RGB32 whilst using CUVID, does it actually output RGB32 or is it still outputting NV12? Just wondering because RGB32 is supposed to help with banding (from what I've read) but it doesn't seem to make much difference.

[nevcairiel]

If I set LAV to output only RGB32 whilst using CUVID, does it actually output RGB32 or is it still outputting NV12? Just wondering because RGB32 is supposed to help with banding (from what I've read) but it doesn't seem to make much difference.

If you disable all output formats except RGB32, it will output RGB32, no matter what decoder is used or what it outputs.

Most renderes won't really produce any noticeable banding anyhow, there are some exceptions of course.
As a general rule, with madVR use the native formats (enable all output formats), with EVR use RGB32. This won't hold up for everyones needs, but its a good general guideline, imho.

[DragonQ]

Thanks. I am using EVR (only good option MediaPortal has) and have just RGB32 ticked. It's kinda hard to tell though because I've only noticed really obvious banding once and that was on a documentary about telescopes with many scenes containing big colour blocks (sky, space).

[nevcairiel]

I've posted this feature request as issue 154 (http://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/issues/detail?id=154).

Should be working just fine now. Luckily avfilter has a built-in functionality for format conversions.

[adam777]

Hi nev,
I'm having some issues with version 0.43, which seems to be related to the "Improved MKV seeking and demuxing performance" part of the changelog.
Basically, using 0.43 I get a lot more dropped frames comparing to 0.42 (usually "lots" vs "none").
While watching MKV video, every few minutes madVR's render and present queues (if I remember correctly) suddenly drops which results in dropped frames and a slideshow for a few (or more than few) seconds.
I tried playing a 10 minutes MKV video (1080p, H.264, DTS Core) using LAV filters (splitter+audio+video) and madVR - 0.42 had no dropped frames, 0.43 had 139.
The thing is, it does not happen in specific parts (so no sample) but happens in pretty much every MKV I tried.
Adam.

[nevcairiel]

That MKV change is unlikely to cause any negative effects, all that changed is that it no longer reads data that is not needed, instead of reading it and discarding it later.
How is your CPU load during watching, close to 100% maybe? Thats the only reason why it would ever happen, anyhow.

[adam777]

Weird, after trying many files and trying again the file mentioned above, now it works fine.
CPU isn't close to 100%, somewhere in the regions of 60%. Haven't seen any unusual external CPU activity.
I guess I'll keep an eye open should the problem arise in a more specific way.
Thanks.