LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[Deihmos]

Hi Nevcairiel,

I know this is a longshot request, but I thought I'd at least ask :). I am a long time user of Albain's Media Control plugin (I'm a WMC user). It is only compatible with Haali and Gabest splitter. I believe he open sourced the code, but I believe Albain has been MIA for some time. Is there any chance it'd be possible to make LAV Splitter compatible with Media Control? I don't have a sense of how hard it is, but I recall Albain adding Gabest support a while back in a relatively short period of time. I know you offer subtitle control via a regex of sorts, but I really like the GUI Media Control offers via the WMC player. I completely understand if its either not feasible or you are not interested however. I'd also accept an alternative GUI via WMC instead of Media Control that works with WMC instead as well :) (Kidding, but I thought I'd throw that out there).

I'd love to use Lav Splitter as it seems much more stable than Haali/Gabest when I played with it, but I really like the Media Control plugin/GUI.

Thanks Again

Lav Splitter works fine with Media Control. I have no other option but to use wmc and it works well. Especially when paired with Media Browser 3 server and classic. ff, rewind, skip and subtitles all work fine using lav.

[mgftp]

Hey guys I am hoping someone can help me with an issue I am having with low audio volume playing MKVs through WMC.

I have used Shark007 Codecs in the past but recently switched to LAV to "de-clutter" my device, with both options I had the same issue where my TV needs to be pumped up to max volume in order to barely hear MKV audio, yet everything else played through my HTPC hooked up to my TV via HDMI is fine.

Is there a fix to this? Any help would be greatly appreciated, it's driving me nuts. Thanks

[Reino]

@ InTheLight: You're aware that for DXVA1 on WinXP you can only use MPC's Video Decoder. LAV Video Decoder only supports DXVA2, which is not available on WinXP.
I'm still on WinXP too, hence playing 1080p movies with LAV only is a no go (I don't have a quad-core cpu). Playing 1080p movies with LAV Source + MPC's Video Decoder is no problem at all.

@ khanmein: Then your brother has probably installed the standalone LAV Filters.
If you don't have another MKV Splitter installed on your system, no wonder it's still using the internal LAV Splitter, but because you haven't ticked "Matroska", "(low merit)" is shown.

@ mgftp: If your TV is only stereo, you need to enable the Mixer in LAV's Audio Decoder, but even then the volume might still be low because LAV's Audio Decoder doesn't have a normalize-feature (yet). I don't know what the Shark007 pack comes with, but you'd need the FFDShow Audio Decoder to boost up the volume (or play the video in MPC-HC/BE to use the internal Audio Switcher with normalize-feature)

[betaking]

I use TortoiseGit
git.exe submodule update --init

Cloning into 'libbluray'...
fatal: unable to connect to git.1f0.de:
git.1f0.de[0: 178.63.14.197]: errno=No error

Clone of 'git://git.1f0.de/libbluray.git' into submodule path 'libbluray' failed


git did not exit cleanly (exit code 1) (6053 ms @ 13/07/07 PM 08:28:23)

[InTheLight]

Thanks everybody for the input.

@mindbomb: Tried the nightly with the same results.
@KoD: I've tried rolling back to an older version and it also does the same thing, however Haali works fine on my system.
@CoRoNe: Yes I'm aware, however my problem is not with the decoder, but solely with the splitter.(my system will "brute force" the decoder fine in any case).

Playing around some more I've realized the stuttering only happens with original optical media and ONLY with the LAV Splitter in the chain, regardless of the decoders used - and yes the media is decrypted.

If I use MPC's internal splitter with any combination of decoders, including the LAV A/V Decoders, the media plays back flawlessly.

So is the LAV Splitter not capable of reading optical media in real-time or whats up? Seems odd when MPC's internal splitter does it without any issues.:confused:

:thanks:

[nevcairiel]

So is the LAV Splitter not capable of reading optical media in real-time or whats up? Seems odd when MPC's internal splitter does it without any issues.:confused:


I assume you're actually opening the Blu-ray playlist, like index.bdmv or a .mpls file in the PLAYLIST folder?
In both cases when testing from Optical and from Harddrive? Harddrive was the same BD structure, not ripped to MKV or anything?

I've never encountered any issues myself, but i can still try to look at the IO pattern it uses to access the disc, and see if some big difference stands out.

[InTheLight]

I assume you're actually opening the Blu-ray playlist, like index.bdmv or a .mpls file in the PLAYLIST folder? For my testing I've been using: MPC-HC>File>'Open DVD/BD', both for optical and hard-drive media. BD structure maintained across both. I've also repeated the problem with multiple sources to rule out it being a "bad disc". In everycase its the same. MPC source filter: perfect, LAV splitter: intermittent stutter.

I've never encountered any issues myself, but i can still try to look at the IO pattern it uses to access the disc, and see if some big difference stands out. Thank you for looking into it. If there is anything I can provide to help isolate the problem please let me know.

[mgftp]

@ mgftp: If your TV is only stereo, you need to enable the Mixer in LAV's Audio Decoder, but even then the volume might still be low because LAV's Audio Decoder doesn't have a normalize-feature (yet). I don't know what the Shark007 pack comes with, but you'd need the FFDShow Audio Decoder to boost up the volume (or play the video in MPC-HC/BE to use the internal Audio Switcher with normalize-feature)

Enabling the mixing does appear to boost the volume a bit, but like you said not a ton. Either way, this might just good enough. Thank you! :thanks:

One question, when selecting enabling mixing I noticed "Matrix Encoding" options, does this matter for volume levels? It was set default at "none" but when Googling my issue I have read to select "Dolby Pro Logic", there is also a selection option of "Dolby Pro Logic 2".

-

Another question since this thread has been so helpful if someone wouldn't mind. I have some MKV files that appear to be playing two audio tracks at the same time, that is two different languages. Is there a fix to this? Once again, I am in WMC.

[Deihmos]

Enabling the mixing does appear to boost the volume a bit, but like you said not a ton. Either way, this might just good enough. Thank you! :thanks:

One question, when selecting enabling mixing I noticed "Matrix Encoding" options, does this matter for volume levels? It was set default at "none" but when Googling my issue I have read to select "Dolby Pro Logic", there is also a selection option of "Dolby Pro Logic 2".

-

Another question since this thread has been so helpful if someone wouldn't mind. I have some MKV files that appear to be playing two audio tracks at the same time, that is two different languages. Is there a fix to this? Once again, I am in WMC.

Question. If you are using wmc why are you using the lav decodes over ffdshow? You cannot ff or rewind using the lav decodes and have no control over subtitles if using a remote. I use ffdshow as the decoder and I have not had an issue with the volume being low using wmc. I have also never had an issue with two audio tracks being played.

[Guest]

Another question since this thread has been so helpful if someone wouldn't mind. I have some MKV files that appear to be playing two audio tracks at the same time, that is two different languages. Is there a fix to this? Once again, I am in WMC. That's off topic for this thread. Make a new thread. But watch out for rule 6. We don't allow discussion of downloaded MKVs. Thank you.

[mgftp]

Question. If you are using wmc why are you using the lav decodes over ffdshow? You cannot ff or rewind using the lav decodes and have no control over subtitles if using a remote. I use ffdshow as the decoder and I have not had an issue with the volume being low using wmc. I have also never had an issue with two audio tracks being played.

Excuse my ignorance I am not very tech savy.

Is ffdshow the only codec pack I need to play MKVs in WMC? I was pointed towards LAV because I read somewhere it's the only codec that will play MKVs in WMC without the need for any add-ons.

Thanks

That's off topic for this thread. Make a new thread. But watch out for rule 6. We don't allow discussion of downloaded MKVs. Thank you.

My apologies, I thought this thread was for everything LAV related.

The MKVs are files a friend sent me BTW, nothing illegal.

[Guest]

The MKVs are files a friend sent me BTW, nothing illegal. What is the content please?

[AngelGraves13]

For my testing I've been using: MPC-HC>File>'Open DVD/BD', both for optical and hard-drive media. BD structure maintained across both. I've also repeated the problem with multiple sources to rule out it being a "bad disc". In everycase its the same. MPC source filter: perfect, LAV splitter: intermittent stutter.

Thank you for looking into it. If there is anything I can provide to help isolate the problem please let me know.

I've had the same issue with LAV and Blu-ray. It reads the disc really badly and skips along with it.

ArcSoft plays the disc fine, and so does MPC BE/HC without LAV.

[ney2x]

sorry for not searching the entire pages of this thread... I just want to ask what version of Arcsoft dtsdecoderdll.dll that works with LAV Filters x64? thanks.

[patul]

sorry for not searching the entire pages of this thread... I just want to ask what version of Arcsoft dtsdecoderdll.dll that works with LAV Filters x64? thanks.

None. See the faq.

Q: Can LAV Audio decode DTS-HD?
A: Kind of. On its own, it cannot. But, LAV Audio supports using the ArcSoft DTS decoder, which allows decoding of full DTS-HD. Just drop the "dtsdecoderdll.dll" from the TMT3/5 Codecs directory into LAV Audio's directory, and enjoy. NOTE: This only works on 32-bit!

[nevcairiel]

I've had the same issue with LAV and Blu-ray. It reads the disc really badly and skips along with it.

If you have issues, please also report them, or they will never get fixed.

I've not heard of playback issues from Blu-rays before, and considering LAV actually prefetches quite a bit of data, i would've thought even with inefficient IO it should work fine.
This may however depend on your BD drive, if its a slower model the effect would be much worse, of course.

[Owyn]

I use KMPlayer fresh install + Lav filters and screen capture of KMp does not seem to work (PrintScreen button does thou), could you look into this?

[nevcairiel]

LAV does not do anything with screen capturing.

[mark0077]

nev, quick question, when using LAV to deinterlace 25i to say 50p, should LAV then mention 50fps in the output pin. It doesn't seem to in my case, and so the likes of madVR still says movie 25.000 fps (says source filter). Is this by design?

[nevcairiel]

Its a limitation, and unlikely to be fixed anytime soon. Considering it just doubles the reported FPS, and TVs typically are better off running at 50Hz/60Hz anyway rather than 25/30Hz, its just not very high priority.

[mark0077]

No problem. Yeah thats he exact scenario I'm in, outputting to 50fps, but the likes of madVR display switcher tries to then switch to 25hz as it doesn't see 50. No worries.

[nevcairiel]

Just don't give it a 25Hz refresh rate to switch to, then it won't. :)

[InTheLight]

I've not heard of playback issues from Blu-rays before, and considering LAV actually prefetches quite a bit of data, i would've thought even with inefficient IO it should work fine.
This may however depend on your BD drive, if its a slower model the effect would be much worse, of course.fwiw, I'm using a LG BH08LS20, which is rated at 36MB(8x).

[clsid]

I have seen people having stuttering problems with CD audio playback as well when LAV Splitter was used. Mostly at track changes.

InTheLight, do you hear the drive spinning up when the stuttering occurs?

[mark0077]

Just don't give it a 25Hz refresh rate to switch to, then it won't. :)

Then I'll be stuck in the previous rate, eg 60hz :) no problem, other ways around these things.

[nevcairiel]

I have seen people having stuttering problems with CD audio playback as well when LAV Splitter was used. Mostly at track changes.

LAV supports CD Audio playback? :)

Then I'll be stuck in the previous rate, eg 60hz :) no problem, other ways around these things.

Well offer it 50Hz, then it should switch to 50Hz when it "thinks" the movie is 25Hz.

[dansrfe]

Is it an MPC or LAV problem when the next track in the playlist file, .plc, get's changed to, the seekbar progresses as if the audio is playing, yet there is no sound until I go to the previous track and next again?

[nevcairiel]

Thank you for looking into it. If there is anything I can provide to help isolate the problem please let me know.

If you can easily reproduce the problem, maybe you can test this version?
http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.58-23-bd-test.zip

I tried to compare IO patterns of LAV and the old mpc-hc filters, and nothing really obvious was visible, to i tweaked the small screws a bit, making the IO buffer a clean multiple of the file system sector size, and instructing windows to optimize caching for sequential reading..

Not sure if it helps much at all, but thats really the only differences i could see between the two.

[dukey]

check for jitter at the video renderer

[clsid]

LAV supports CD Audio playback? :)
Yes, in combination with CDDA source filter of MPC-HC.

[nevcairiel]

Well the source filter then does the actual disc reading, not LAV.

[clsid]

Disabling "wav" in LAV Splitter solved the problem for those users. Then MPC-HC will use the wave parser filter instead.

Perhaps the problem is not directly related to the reading actions itself, but the consumption pattern of the splitter. Regularly reading small chunks of data might keep the optical drive active, while reading large chunks with longer pauses in between can result in the drive going idle.

[InTheLight]

If you can easily reproduce the problem, maybe you can test this version?
http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.58-23-bd-test.zip

I tried to compare IO patterns of LAV and the old mpc-hc filters, and nothing really obvious was visible, to i tweaked the small screws a bit, making the IO buffer a clean multiple of the file system sector size, and instructing windows to optimize caching for sequential reading..

Not sure if it helps much at all, but thats really the only differences i could see between the two.

Well so far its working! :D

I just played a disc all the way through that before was stuttering profusely but now it finished without a single dropout.

I'll test some more media to be sure, but it looks like the problem is gone.

Thank you!

[war59312]

Small Off Topic Suggestion:

nevcairiel and clsid please update your Custom User Title @ http://forum.doom9.org/profile.php?do=editprofile

Would make it easier to know who you are. ;)

[cyberbeing]

@nevcairiel

Just a heads-up about the following madVR bug report, in case you believe this is actually a LAV Splitter bug, considering it does not occur with Haali Splitter:

http://bugs.madshi.net/view.php?id=104

At the very least, the long delay disabling/enabling subtitle tracks compared to Haali could be a LAV issue.

[kasper93]

You can read this http://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/issues/detail?id=261 Haali probably handle it differently, but I'm too lazy to check.

When you hit "s" key while madVR is still waiting for queues to fill LAV Splitter thinks that graph is paused and after subtitle switch leave it in paused state... I'm guessing here, but this may be the cause.

If you wait 2 second to queues to fill, lower you queues... ;p

[cyberbeing]

Currently, when switching between Audio and Subtitle streams, the graph has to be paused and reconfigured.

That Issue #261 you link to does indeed sound vaguely related to this. As far as I'm aware, Haali also does something similar when switching audio & video streams, though maybe it handles subtitles tracks differently. I don't know.

When you hit "s" key while madVR is still waiting for queues to fill LAV Splitter thinks that graph is paused and after subtitle switch leave it in paused state... I'm guessing here, but this may be the cause.
Possibly. The bug in madVR seems to be triggered by switching streams a second time, before LAV Splitter has completed the first switch, which for whatever reason can take a long time, even when nothing is connected to the subtitle pin. When the second switch occurs, madVR would still have the graph in a paused state, so maybe LAV Splitter or madVR gets confused by this. I can only speculate.

If you wait 2 second to queues to fill, lower you queues... ;p

This occasional 1-2 second delay isn't from waiting for the queues to fill, but rather waiting for LAV Splitter to allow the queues to start filling in combination with madVR's Delay Playback setting. LAV Splitter seems to block its output pin to LAV Video for up to 1-2 seconds, which prevent decoding and output to madVR. It seems to highly depend on where exactly this stream switch occurs in the decoding process and/or mkv container. My only observation is that Haali Splitter most definitely seems to handle such switching a couple orders of magnitude faster than LAV Splitter, suggesting room for improvement.

[nevcairiel]

Well so far its working! :D

I just played a disc all the way through that before was stuttering profusely but now it finished without a single dropout.

I'll test some more media to be sure, but it looks like the problem is gone.

Thank you!

Sounds good, i'll push the changes to the repository then.
Please let me know if you find it still broken after further test, though.

[nevcairiel]

At the very least, the long delay disabling/enabling subtitle tracks compared to Haali could be a LAV issue.

I don't know what would cause a delay, or at least what delays can be avoided in that.

Because of the limitations of the subtitle renderers, the graph needs to be stopped and the pin reconnected. This has a inherent delay because of the graph stop, although for me its usually not more than a small hicup when doing it during playback.


This occasional 1-2 second delay isn't from waiting for the queues to fill, but rather waiting for LAV Splitter to allow the queues to start filling in combination with madVR's Delay Playback setting. LAV Splitter seems to block its output pin to LAV Video for up to 1-2 seconds, which prevent decoding and output to madVR.

There is nothing that blocks it. Like i said, the graph is stopped, the stream switched, and then the graph returned to its previous state, and once the graph hits at least "Paused" again, the splitter and decoders start working immediately.
Of course its possible that madVRs "Delay playback start" function breaks this process, i've personally always considered this a big hack.

For some reason Haali only pauses the graph, not sure what exactly it does to convince the subtitle renderer to accept new data properly.

[cyberbeing]

Of course its possible that madVRs "Delay playback start" function breaks this process, i've personally always considered this a big hack.

From what you've said, this sounds like the likely suspect. I guess we'll find out when madshi looks into it.


A quick check of GraphStudioNext seems to show:

LAV Splitter: Stop -> Pause -> Play (near-instant) -> Pause (1-2 seconds) -> Play

Haali Splitter: Stop -> Pause -> Play (near-instant)


I've also noticed another bug, that seems to sometimes cause LAV Audio to go silent after pressing "s" to toggle subtitles, and one of these long delays occur. Pressing "s" again, usually causes audio to return.

[nevcairiel]

Do these delays never happen without madVRs Delay option enabled?
If that is truely the case, i would let madshi have a look first, and then chime in later if required.

I'm actually somewhat satisfied with the current stream switching code, because it at least ensures everything works as expected after the switch, even if it could be slightly faster by sacrificing some speed (ie. if you assume the decoder you use can always decode all formats) - IIRC something Haali likes to fail at.

[cyberbeing]

Do these delays never happen without madVRs Delay option enabled?
If that is truely the case, i would let madshi have a look first, and then chime in later if required.

Yes, this only seems to occur with madVR's Delay option enabled.

Realistically, my PC is fast enough to not experience any dropped frames when switching streams or seeking with LAV Filters, even with this option disabled. A few dropped frames at the very start of playback seem impossible to prevent without this option though, so I prefer to just keep it enabled as long as it doesn't cause anomalies like these.

[nevcairiel]

Maybe madshi should look into disabling it for such cases, like he does for seeking.

[nevcairiel]

LAV Filters 0.58.1

LAV Splitter
- Improved UDP network streaming
- Added a new option to configure the stream analysis duration of network streams
- Reduced subtitle delay on certain Blu-ray titles
- Improved detection of DTS-in-WAV
- Improved I/O behaviour for sequential reading from optical media

LAV Video
- Fixed dynamic reconnection on parameter changes (Aspect Ratio, etc) with VMR-9
- Support for Apple Intermediate Codec (ICOD)
- dxva2: added a check for AMD UVD/UVD+ GPUs to ensure the H.264 Level 4.1 DPB restrictions are met

LAV Audio
- Fixed a regression decoding certain Ogg Vorbis streams


Download: Installer (both x86/x64) (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.58.1.exe) -- Zips: 32-bit (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.58.1.zip) & 64-bit (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.58.1-x64.zip)

Nothing big in this point release, bug fixes and improvements in various areas all around.
Standard disclaimer: Please report regressions, with clear information (and preferably a sample file) how to reproduce your problem.

I'll go back out and enjoy the sun now! Have fun!

[Sebastiii]

Thanks and have fun :)

[Snowknight26]

- dxva2: added a check for AMD UVD/UVD+ GPUs to ensure the H.264 Level 4.1 DPB restrictions are met

Does that mean no more DXVA for 1080p60 content (Level 5.0)?


Edit: 64-bit ZIP is missing the developer_info folder, CHANGELOG.txt, COPYING, and README.txt.

[nevcairiel]

Does that mean no more DXVA for 1080p60 content (Level 5.0)?

That depends on the number of reference frames used, not strictly the level.
4 is allowed, any more not.



Edit: 64-bit ZIP is missing the developer_info folder, CHANGELOG.txt, COPYING, and README.txt.
Thanks, re-uploaded with updated file.

[Snowknight26]

That depends on the number of reference frames used, not strictly the level.
4 is allowed, any more not.

Sorry, I was implying that the video was encoded such that the Level is the lowest possible given the encoding settings.

With that said, I have a 1080p60 H.264 video that uses 7 reference frames (so it really is Level 5.0) yet the LAV video decoder still uses DXVA (much to my video card's dismay).

[nevcairiel]

Could you make a sample?
Also, on which GPU specifically, perfectly with the device id? :)

[Snowknight26]

http://stfcc.org/misc/H.264 1080p60 L5.0.mkv (http://stfcc.org/misc/H.264%201080p60%20L5.0.mkv)

Radeon HD 6870; VEN 1002, DEV 6738.