LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[Snowknight26]

Should be fixed, the problem was that there was no audio stream in this file, which it relied on to select the subtitle track - but i fixed it to also work without audio.

Actually, the issue was present even with an audio stream. I simply removed the audio and changed the video to make uploading a sample easier.

[nevcairiel]

All i know is that i fixed your sample, I can't speak for your real file. :p

[Snowknight26]

All i know is that i fixed your sample, I can't speak for your real file. :p

Stick an audio track in there and see why auto-generated forced subs don't appear? :p

[JMGNYC]

Latest LAV seems to mark first track as default for .mp4. Wasn't the case in <= 58.2.



First of all update your crap to latest version and double check your settings. Maybe you set it for external LAV and internal is being used? Anyway upload a sample and once we can reproduce the problem there will be fix for that :) But I'm pretty sure everything is working fine.

So, after a good deal of testing, here's what I found. First I uninstalled everything and ran CCleaner. Then installed the latest versions. Configured LAV.

I've found what breaks the audio selection is having the MP4/MOV Source Filter on. Turning it off and the correct 5.1 track is chosen over the 2.0 track. Subtitle problems got fixed at the same time.

Could someone give me a quick 101 explanation of how the Source Filters and Transform Filters interact with LAV? Should they all be turned off? What are they actually doing?

[michkrol]

Could someone give me a quick 101 explanation of how the Source Filters and Transform Filters interact with LAV? Should they all be turned off? What are they actually doing?

They don't interact with each other. (Of course except when used together for playback.)

Think of this as kind of having two separate codecs installations - normal LAV and internal LAV, with the internal only usable by MPC-HC.
Only one (etiher internal or external) gets used for given task, so you can use for example external LAV as splitter and internal as video and audio decoder.
As mentioned already, they have separate settings, so on the options page with internal filters click "Splitter" under "Internal LAV Filters settings" and configure it properly to get exactly same behavior as external LAVFilters. Check under Play -> Filters menu, to see which filters are active. If using internal filters, you get for example "LAV Splitter Source (internal)", also you get quick access to setting from there.

As for which one to use, it's up to you. Having internal filters in MPC-HC is mainly for it to work out of the box, also it's always one thing less to keep updated. There should be no functional differences between internal and external version, assuming they are close in version.

[kasper93]

I've found what breaks the audio selection is having the MP4/MOV Source Filter on. Turning it off and the correct 5.1 track is chosen over the 2.0 track. Subtitle problems got fixed at the same time.

I suspect you're using old LAV filters version. With latest version it should not work. Bug is already fixed and will be in the next release.

Could someone give me a quick 101 explanation of how the Source Filters and Transform Filters interact with LAV? Should they all be turned off? What are they actually doing?

Those are internal filters shipped with MPC-HC which now are LAV Filters so you don't have to install external version anymore. I recommend you to turn them on.

[nevcairiel]

Stick an audio track in there and see why auto-generated forced subs don't appear? :p

You can try with this recent test version yourself:

x86: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.59.1-109-g22c2744.zip
x64: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.59.1-109-g22c2744-x64.zip

I consider this a release candidate, and my plan is to release a final version later this weekend, unless some serious errors show up that need handling first.

[Snowknight26]

Works now, thanks!

[davidsama]

http://betanews.com/2014/01/10/google-fixes-a-thousand-bugs-in-ffmpeg/

[hoborg]

Hi.
Nev, is there a chance to make LAV video decoder working better with MS demultiplexer?
I have only MPEG-2 Live TV here, and channel change is really slow, the same is seeking in recordings. Sometime the screen get pixelated or even froze.
The PDVD 13 decoder works fine, but i have really bad deinterlacing on some channels and the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder have worse picture comparing to LAV or PDVD.

[nevcairiel]

If you give me sample files and instructions how to reproduce without actual Live TV, i can have a look.
Otherwise, chances are slim.

[hoborg]

If you give me sample files and instructions how to reproduce without actual Live TV, i can have a look.
Otherwise, chances are slim.

I doubt you can reproduce slow channel change without TV tuner :/
To reproduce seeking issue - i believe you have some mpeg2 .TS recording sample files, just try to play them in Next PVR - http://www.nextpvr.com/. Setup nPVR is easy, just go to settings and set LAVF for audio/video decoding.

I will try to cut some of my .TS recording and upload it somewhere, but the recordings are so big...

[Deathless]

Again, I'm having problems with DXVA decoding. All I get is a green screen using MPC-HC + LAV Filters.

GPU: ATI HD 4800
Driver version: 13.9
DXVA Checker: http://i1176.photobucket.com/albums/x338/Deathless11/others/th_DXVAChecker_zpseb291637.png (http://s1176.photobucket.com/user/Deathless11/media/others/DXVAChecker_zpseb291637.png.html)

NOTE: Have installed DirectX.

DXVA native is not working, nor DXVA copy-back.

Don't know how to solve this problem. Thank you!

[JMGNYC]

I suspect you're using old LAV filters version. With latest version it should not work. Bug is already fixed and will be in the next release.

I've got version 59.1.26. Definitely using internal version judging by what the Filters menu says.


Those are internal filters shipped with MPC-HC which now are LAV Filters so you don't have to install external version anymore. I recommend you to turn them on.

Done. Less is more IMO so that makes me happy.

[DragonQ]

Those are internal filters shipped with MPC-HC which now are LAV Filters so you don't have to install external version anymore. I recommend you to turn them on.
Would MPC's version of LAV Filters be accessible to other applications? Also, don't you use the latest nightlies for LAV Filters? Would generally prefer to use release versions myself.

[andybkma]

x86: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.59.1-109-g22c2744.zip
x64: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.59.1-109-g22c2744-x64.zip

I consider this a release candidate, and my plan is to release a final version later this weekend, unless some serious errors show up that need handling first.

Hello, nev. Bug report: Using your new release candidate (and previous versions), I have VC-1 files that are blurred when I have the VC-1 "Codecs for Hardware Decoding" option checked (using cuvid). With it unchecked (using avcodec or wmv9 dmo) it plays fine. Just hoping you could look at the prob when you get a chance. Cheers

10sec sample file: http://depositfiles.com/files/vu8uwcf8o

Follow up notes: Problem occurs with either LAV or WMReader as the splitter and cuvid as the decoder. The file plays fine with quicksync as the hardware decoder. So I am assuming the problem should lie solely with the cuvid decoder. Cheers again

[nevcairiel]

Nothing in the cuvid decoder changed for a looooong time. Maybe its a NVIDIA driver update? Did you maybe turn on noise reduction in the nvidia driver? :)
How does it look when you use DXVA2?

Edit:
I can actually reproduce the problem.
Do you know if it ever worked before? CUVID has really not changed for quite a long time now.

I would suggest to test a couple older NVIDIA drivers. If i find the time, i may do the same.

[starla]

Nev, is there a chance to make LAV video decoder working better with MS demultiplexer?

MS demuxer is not the best TS demuxer (it has few nasty issues that I cannot remember anymore in detail). That is reason why many HTPC applications that use live tv implement their own demuxers.

[andybkma]

Edit:
I can actually reproduce the problem.
Do you know if it ever worked before? CUVID has really not changed for quite a long time now.

I would suggest to test a couple older NVIDIA drivers. If i find the time, i may do the same.

Honestly I have always had VC-1 hardware decoding turned off so I don't know if those files worked. But only recently have turned it back on since you have been fixing many VC-1 bugs in the past months (also one that I reported two months ago) so I just happened to turn it back on recently thinking that all VC-1 should be good now.

Side note question: What is considered "better" for software decoding wmv files if I have the VC-1 hardware decoding turned off? avcodec or wmv9 dmo? Cheers

[nevcairiel]

The wmv9 dmo works for all files and depending on your OS is also significantly faster, they keep improving its speed. With Windows 8 it made a real performance jump.

[nekromantik]

Im using the latest version of LAV filters from CCCP.
Im using MPC-HC BE but when I play any AC3 file I get no sound and the video is speeded up. However if I play using HDMI out it works fine. Im on a Win 7 i5 Laptop.

I also notice MPC never uses LAV audio for ac3 even though I selected it in LAV settings. Instead it uses Microsoft DTV-DVD Decoder.

Any help?

[nevcairiel]

If its not using LAV Audio, then its not a LAV Audio problem. You should ask the player developers.
Note that if you have set LAV Audio to output AC3 Bitstreaming, and your audio output does not support bitstreaming, it'll refuse playback, and something else will take over.

[Stereodude]

Is there any way to change how LAV handles ATSC transport streams (.TS) that have been edited? For example, I start out with a 60 minute TV show and remove the commercials (with hdtvtompeg2) I get roughly 42-44 minutes of content. However the original transport file timestamps persist so the LAV filters show the file as being 60 minutes (minor annoyance). So, when played back in MPC-HC (using the built in LAV filters or external ones) there are effectively periods of time on the seek bar with no content. My gripe is that the playback position indicator on the seek bar doesn't move to indicate where the content really is relative to the "60 minute" timeline. This happens if the file is played normally with no seeking, or if you move the playback position on the seek bar into one of the gaps.

Audio and video playback is fine and stays in sync (no several minute periods of silence with a black screen like some filters do), but it would be nice if either the playback position indicator jumped to the true position of playback on the 60 minute seek bar (effectively jumping over the gaps where the commercials were), or if the splitter was able to determine the true duration of the content in the file (subtracting out the content gaps) allowing the indicated playback position on seek bar to be correct against the true playback length of the file.

Hopefully my explanation / request makes sense. I can provide sample .TS files if you like.

[nevcairiel]

The only way to determine the true length is to read the entire file once to find all the gaps in the timeline, which is just a very slow process.
Your editing application should probably simply re-write timestamps instead. Many of those editors do.

[Stereodude]

The only way to determine the true length is to read the entire file once to find all the gaps in the timeline, which is just a very slow process.Okay, so if we throw that option out, how is the playback position determined / reported from the splitter?
Your editing application should probably simply re-write timestamps instead. Many of those editors do.Perhaps, but I'm only aware of two free .TS editors. hdtvtompeg2 and AVIdemux. AVIdemux is much slower (has to index the file first) and tedious to use compared to hdtvtompeg2, but it does rewrite the timestamps. FWIW, the annoyance factor of using AVIdemux is larger than living with the playback position quirkiness on the seek bar.

[DragonQ]

Okay, so if we throw that option out, how is the playback position determined / reported from the splitter?
Perhaps, but I'm only aware of two free .TS editors. hdtvtompeg2 and AVIdemux. AVIdemux is much slower (has to index the file first) and tedious to use compared to hdtvtompeg2, but it does rewrite the timestamps. FWIW, the annoyance factor of using AVIdemux is larger than living with the playback position quirkiness on the seek bar.
I use TS-Doctor. Not free but worth it IMO. Cuts at key frame boundaries are seamless when using MediaPortal's splitter (TSReader) but not LAV Splitter, unfortunately.

[Stereodude]

I use TS-Doctor. Not free but worth it IMO. Cuts at key frame boundaries are seamless when using MediaPortal's splitter (TSReader) but not LAV Splitter, unfortunately.I get slight pauses at the cuts with LAV on files edited by hdtvtompeg2. I presume this is due to the way it keeps A/V synchronization. I've never found a splitter that keeps proper A/V sync without having slight hiccups in the video frame rate around edit points. I try to edit on a black screen keeping the fade out before the commercials and fade in after the commercials to minimize the visibility of the edit. Unfortunately some of the networks have moved to a 1 second keyframe interval which makes this harder to do.

[nevcairiel]

Okay, so if we throw that option out, how is the playback position determined / reported from the splitter?

Thats not something the splitter does, really. Its inherent to DirectShow, it simply goes linear from 0 to end. If the duration is wrong and there are gaps, it'll not match up, but its not easy to change how DirectShow works.

Cuts at key frame boundaries are seamless when using MediaPortal's splitter (TSReader) but not LAV Splitter, unfortunately.

If you can give me a sample file where this is rather obvious, i could have a look why its happening, and possibly fix it.

[nekromantik]

If its not using LAV Audio, then its not a LAV Audio problem. You should ask the player developers.
Note that if you have set LAV Audio to output AC3 Bitstreaming, and your audio output does not support bitstreaming, it'll refuse playback, and something else will take over.

I got LAV to work but still same issue. It bit streams via HDMI fine but I get no audio when playing back without laptop connected to TV.

[DragonQ]

I get slight pauses at the cuts with LAV on files edited by hdtvtompeg2. I presume this is due to the way it keeps A/V synchronization. I've never found a splitter that keeps proper A/V sync without having slight hiccups in the video frame rate around edit points. I try to edit on a black screen keeping the fade out before the commercials and fade in after the commercials to minimize the visibility of the edit. Unfortunately some of the networks have moved to a 1 second keyframe interval which makes this harder to do.
Key frames on most recordings of mine (UK TV) are pretty erratic, presumably due to very modern and efficient encoders being used, which adjust the need for keyframes appropriately as part of statistical multiplexing across transponders/multiplexes. Sometimes there can be a few in a second, other times there can be 5 seconds without one, depending on content. The latter case can sometimes make cutting out adverts particularly difficult.

If you can give me a sample file where this is rather obvious, i could have a look why its happening, and possibly fix it.
I'm pretty sure I've sent you a sample before but sure, I'll find one that definitely works fine in MediaPortal and send it to you.

It's always pretty obvious though. What happens is the video freezes at the boundary for a second or two, then there's flashes where it goes all blocky (looks like some blocks update and others don't), then it goes back to normal.

[P.J]

How is it possible? :helpful:
Video file Format: ProRes 1080p

MPC-HC x64:
http://t.imgbox.com/adqsyZY8.jpg (http://imgbox.com/adqsyZY8)

MPC-HC x86:
http://t.imgbox.com/acrveIcN.jpg (http://imgbox.com/acrveIcN)

[Leader]

Hi nevcairiel, found the problem in LAV Splitter, which likely occurred after a change in e53b442dca13 "Use a media type from the real subtitle streams for the "No Subtitles" Ping". When you run the video files through LAV Splitter (File Source (Async) -> LAV Splitter) player can not open any video files, because the splitter is stuck at checking for the subtitle tracks. I use "Light Alloy" media player, which manifests itself exactly this bug.

Algorithm playback bug:

1. Register with the system LAV Splitter from your last test assembly:
x86: http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-...9-g22c2744.zip
2. Open Light Alloy
3. Options -> Codecs
4. Turn Off the internal splitters
5. Open the video file

[nevcairiel]

Files play fine for me in LightAlloy. The splitter doesn't get stuck.

[wanezhiling]

How is it possible? :helpful:
Video file Format: ProRes 1080p

MPC-HC x64:
http://t.imgbox.com/adqsyZY8.jpg (http://imgbox.com/adqsyZY8)

MPC-HC x86:
http://t.imgbox.com/acrveIcN.jpg (http://imgbox.com/acrveIcN)

LAV 64 has magic.:p

[nevcairiel]

My guess is some of the optimizations for ProRes are only available on 64-bit, which accounts for such a huge difference.

[wanezhiling]

So if people don't use madVR/ReClock etc, 64-bit DS player is a better choice?

[nevcairiel]

Doesn't really matter that much, these extreme differences are rather rare, and not many people will be playing ProRes for example.

[Leader]

Files play fine for me in LightAlloy. The splitter doesn't get stuck.

Nevcairiel, you what version of Light Alloy checked my problem?
Please, reproduce the problem in the latest version of Light Alloy 4.7.7. RC-3:
http://www.light-alloy.ru/forum/ru_beta_test_v4_7/light_alloy_v4_7_7_build_923_rc_3/.
The algorithm is the same.

P.S. I attach a screenshot.

[wanezhiling]

I tested on offical Light Alloy 4.7.6, same result.

http://i1.tietuku.com/febxngzk3.png
Could not play any files.

Revert to build before e53b442, works fine.

[nevcairiel]

LAV Filters 0.60

LAV Splitter
- Improved playback of a few Blu-ray discs, avoids a hiccup at clip change
- Support for reading embedded Cue Sheets from audio files as chapters
- Added support for reporting the stream bitrate through IBitrateInfo (for MPC-HC et al.)
- Additional metadata from the source file is exported through IPropertyBag (including "ROTATION" for video orientation information)
- Fixed demuxing of MKV files with huge SSA/ASS format blocks (> 1MB)
- Fixed playback of certain MPEG4 ASP streams in MKV to be smooth

LAV Video
- Added support for VC-1/WMV3 DXVA2 decoding on recent Intel GPUs (Ivy Bridge/Haswell, needs recent drivers)
- Fixed a crash when stopping playback or seeking on AMD when using DXVA2 Native
- Fixed playback of WMVA videos in software mode
- Fixed a few issues with output of odd-height videos when converting to various pixel formats
- Fixed a few corner cases when reporting the video range to madVR
- Fixed a crash when playing raw video files with unaligned width (non mod16)

LAV Audio
- The version of the DTS DLL decoder is now checked, and versions before 1.1.0.0 are blocked (since they do not work)
- Fixed an issue with DTS parsing which could result in occasional audio stutter
- Improved support for Opus audio pre-skip


Download: Installer (both x86/x64) (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.60.exe) -- Zips: 32-bit (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.60.zip) & 64-bit (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.60-x64.zip)

Its been a few month since the last major release, and due to the holidays everything has been moving quite slow.
There is still some features I wanted to work on, but I decided to postpone them to the next version instead.

Lets go through a few important notices:

Cleanup

In this version I did my spring-cleaning early, and cleaned up (read: remove) a bunch of old custom solutions to certain problems, in favor of FFmpegs solutions.
In most cases this should not pose any problems, and it makes the maintenance of my code easier in the future. But be warned that it may as well be possible that my cleanup efforts may result in issues which may need fixing later.

VC-1/WMV3 DXVA on Intel GPUs

Intel finally started to support proper decode acceleration of VC-1 through DXVA2. This is only available for Ivy Bridge and Haswell, and only with recent drivers.
Before, it was only possible to achieve this through the QuickSync decoder, but now DXVA2 Native and Copy-Back can also use it.

In general it works pretty flawlessly, however there is still a known issue with image corruption on a few rare samples, which I was unable to clearly pinpoint and fix yet, but it'll be handled in a future release once the issue can be identified.

More stuff

There are a bunch of other changes which don't need explaining, many crash fixes and compatibility fixes with media files, a few new features.

Please report any regressions in this version, so that they can hopefully be fixed (even if some of the things needs to be fixed in FFmpeg, see "Cleanup").
As always, report any issues in as great detail as possible, so that I can reproduce them faster, and if possible at all, with a sample file as well.

Have fun, and have a nice Sunday!

[nevcairiel]

Nevcairiel, you what version of Light Alloy checked my problem?

I tested with 4.7.6

In any case, the only thing that actually changed since 0.59 is the media type of that pin, if that causes LightAlloy to fail playback entirely, its a player problem.

Note that I also changed the media type of the "No subtitles" pin again after your post, since it was causing other issues when special ASS subtitles were present, so i suggest you try with 0.60 again.

[wanezhiling]

Same with 0.60: http://i1.tietuku.com/ffmpmgmq4.png

[nevcairiel]

All i can say is, works for me.
I have installed LAV from its installer, disabled all internal source filters in LightAlloy, and files play just fine.

[wanezhiling]

That's odd, maybe because of different OS system?
Leader should be using WinXP rus and Im using Win7 chs.

[nevcairiel]

Does it happen on all files, or only on files which actually have subtitles?

[wanezhiling]

All files, avi mkv ts mpg rmvb... with sub or without sub.
Really odd..

[nevcairiel]

Then its absolutely not related to that change. If you have a file without subs, then clearly a change that only changes the subtitle mediatype won't affect it at all.

In any case, LA plays stuff just fine here.
I tested on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, no XP anymore to test.

[wanezhiling]

I tested with his (http://roy.orz.hm/lavf-w32-nightlies/) last build 210f2d6 (13/12/16), and works fine on all files: http://i1.tietuku.com/stqjkz4wm.png

nev could you provide two builds: e53b442dca13 (https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/source/detail?r=e53b442dca13c69bb2fbca1cd12f86f1961781b8) and 273b52e5ab5d (https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/source/detail?r=273b52e5ab5d0fb249419513487a45ef6baafa44), then let me test.

[DragonQ]

What's "WMVA video"?

[nevcairiel]

nev could you provide two builds: e53b442dca13 (https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/source/detail?r=e53b442dca13c69bb2fbca1cd12f86f1961781b8) and 273b52e5ab5d (https://code.google.com/p/lavfilters/source/detail?r=273b52e5ab5d0fb249419513487a45ef6baafa44), then let me test.

http://files.1f0.de/tmp/LAVSplitter-e53b442.zip
http://files.1f0.de/tmp/LAVSplitter-273b52e.zip

By the way, still works in other players for you, doesn't it?

What's "WMVA video"?

WMVA is what Microsoft named VC-1 before it became a official video standard by the SMTPE. (WMV Advanced)
It has some minor differences in some areas.