LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[nevcairiel]

Please open your own thread if you want to continue your discussions, its entirely unrelated to LAV at this point.

[DragonQ]

Nev, are there any features you're looking to include before the release of 1.0? Just curious, as it seems LAV Filters is really stable at this point and not much is blocking such a release except features.

[nevcairiel]

I don't put much meaning in such version numbers. I don't have any concrete plans when or what to do specifically for a 1.0. Maybe one day it'll feel right, and I'll use the chance to re-do some of LAVs control interfaces (a bunch of cruft accumulated that I never removed because of backwards compat).

[Neeto]

@nevcariel
Any chance of getting a 3.1 down mix in the mixer? The 4.0 down mix seems to be for a quad system, not a 3.1 system or am I missing something?

Anyone? :thanks:

[tekko]

After "Switched ASF/WMV demuxing to a new demuxer from Libav", the splitter no longer plays all of my wmv's. "wm asf reader" is used instead when that happens. I went back to 0.65.0.25 and it can handle all of them. The ones that are having problem shows "... unneeded bytes at end of file" in gspot. Trying to fix the wmv's index might fix the problem, but I will no longer be able scan for duplicates and some are on read-only media. Can you make LAV Splitter fall back to the old demuxer when that happens? Thanks.

[nevcairiel]

Please provide samples that don't work instead, that way they can be fixed instead of worrying about some fallback.

[nevcairiel]

@nevcariel
Any chance of getting a 3.1 down mix in the mixer? The 4.0 down mix seems to be for a quad system, not a 3.1 system or am I missing something?

I don't currently plan to offer every kind of unusual speaker setup in the options, it would just overwhelm the list.

If you really want to, you can cheat the options box by editing the channel layout in the registry entry (HKCU\Software\LAV\Audio -> MixingLayout), 3.1 would likely be hexadecimal 0x0F (0x1+2 for L/R, 0x4 for C, 0x8 for LFE)
Maybe I should add a custom option and let you specify hex channel layouts in the options panel, huh.

[Neeto]

I don't currently plan to offer every kind of unusual speaker setup in the options, it would just overwhelm the list.

If you really want to, you can cheat the options box by editing the channel layout in the registry entry (HKCU\Software\LAV\Audio -> MixingLayout), 3.1 would likely be hexadecimal 0x0F (0x1+2 for L/R, 0x4 for C, 0x8 for LFE)
Maybe I should add a custom option and let you specify hex channel layouts in the options panel, huh.

Thanks nevcairiel will take a look.
Will using the hex values allow the sliders to vary the mixing of the back/side L/R channels into the front L/R?
The ffdshow custom matrix mapping/mixing tab is probably overkill, but still a nice flexible solution IMHO.

[foxyshadis]

I just found Equalizer APO (https://sourceforge.net/p/equalizerapo/), which has support for reordering and regaining channels, although it requires you to set each channel's gain manually, and cannot mix multiple channels into one. It doesn't support compression/limiting, because the author is mostly all about EQ, but with some prodding it could happen. Still, it's easy to get in the chain. This is the kind of thing DirectShow was made for; LAV shouldn't have be the whole audio chain end-to-end.

There must be other filters out there that do generic audio processing well. Better to discover them than beg nev to do something he won't.

[nijiko]

Will LAV be planed to support BD ISO image / folder or BD navi / menu?

[nevcairiel]

No plans.

[nevcairiel]

I have an original DVD(Alien 2) on hard disk which plays fine in previous versions of LAV.

Now i dont see any "button". Only the mouse changed when comes over a "button".

When I start this DVD a black screen is only what I see.
After a jump in the timeline you see the screen.


I managed to get ahold of Homeland Season 3 DVDs which you said also had this problem (and their IFO files match the files you send me), and I cannot reproduce any problems. I'm playing from the original DVD in the drive, and all is working fine.
Latest nightly, of course.

[clsid]

Maybe related to the Windows update?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3001554

[hubblec4]

I managed to get ahold of Homeland Season 3 DVDs which you said also had this problem (and their IFO files match the files you send me), and I cannot reproduce any problems. I'm playing from the original DVD in the drive, and all is working fine.
Latest nightly, of course.

OK, thanks,
I will try it with the Latest nightly.

With another DVD(series) "EUREKA" there are no problems.


EDIT: it works with the latest nightly!

[Magik Mark]

Nev

Is it possible to put release notes on nightly builds so we know what to test?

Thanks

[nevcairiel]

Is it possible to put release notes on nightly builds so we know what to test?


If there is something in particular I want tested, I'll usually mention it.
Otherwise you can read the commit logs:
https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters/commits/master

I'll not write a proper user-readable changelog for the nightly versions otherwise, sorry.


shouldn't Intel's Bay Trail be able to do hardware accelerated decoding of VP8 video?

There is no VP8 or VP9 hardware acceleration in LAV Video of any kind (yet). The main reason for this is that until recently there was no specification on how to access the VP8/9 hardware decoders. Microsoft has released this specification recently, so now all we have to do is hope that new drivers show up which actually implement hardware acceleration compatible to this spec. For VP9 its at least possible on Broadwell, Braswell and Skylake (and I have this nearly finished implementing in LAV). Haven't seen any VP8 support exposed in drivers yet.

[P.J]

For VP9 its at least possible on Broadwell, Braswell and Skylake (and I have this nearly finished implementing in LAV). Haven't seen any VP8 support exposed in drivers yet.

And Nvidia? :)

[nevcairiel]

And Nvidia? :)

Current drivers are not working. Maybe in the future.

[andybkma]

Hi nev,

I see that you changed the wmv splitter in LAV .66. I have many wmv files that will not seek and/or play now with .66 but worked fine with LAV .65 so this leads me to believe that this new wmv splitter (Changed: Switched ASF/WMV demuxing to a new demuxer from Libav) perhaps isn't quite ready for general use yet (?). I have included two samples here (I have many more but they are much bigger to upload) : http://depositfiles.com/files/nksp2h699

Note: This should be easy to duplicate... I have LAV .66 set as wmv splitter and LAV as wmv decoder and the sample vids won't seek and or play. As soon as I switch the wmv splitter in Zoom Player to WMReader or use LAV .65 as the wmv splitter the files play and seek fine.

Thank you

[sneaker_ger]

Have you already tried the latest nightly (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/nightly/) (0.66.0-31)? If so, provide samples.

[andybkma]

Have you already tried the latest nightly (http://files.1f0.de/lavf/nightly/) (0.66.0-31)? If so, provide samples.

Not sure if you are responding to my post above yours because I obviously provided samples in my post (with download link)... but yes, the .66-31 has the same wmv splitter problems as .66

[sneaker_ger]

Yes, I was responding to you. (I overlooked the samples)
For me 478_SPV_.wmv plays&seeks using 0.66.0-31 but seeking takes very long (like 20 seconds). 489_SPV_.wmv plays but falls back to start on seeking attempt. No problem using Microsoft splitter. VLC seeks fast but playback seems stuttery or too slow.

[andybkma]

Yes, I was responding to you. (I overlooked the samples)
For me 478_SPV_.wmv plays&seeks using 0.66.0-31 but seeking takes very long (like 20 seconds). 489_SPV_.wmv plays but falls back to start on seeking attempt. No problem using Microsoft splitter. VLC seeks fast but playback seems stuttery or too slow.

Yes my testing exactly... using LAV .65 also works great. It's that new wmv demuxer in LAV .66

[nevcairiel]

There is a long list of samples that didn't work so great on the old one, so its not so easy to judge. The goal is to fix/improve the new one, and not just switch back.
Anyway, my finding is that the first file works fine in playback, just seeking is slow. The second file stops playback after about 11 seconds and also doesn't seek beyond this point. Will see what can be done.

[LigH]

Although I replaced the MPC-HC internal copy of LAV filters with a just even also installed "nightly" (0.66.0-31) – so both available LAV filters, internal and external-DS, are most recent – MPC-HC just skips a webm created with vpxenc (v1.4.0-1562-g56cfbee) using VP10. Does it not yet contain a matching decoder? Or is the issue rather outside LAV Filters?

[nevcairiel]

What made you think VP10 would even be remotely supported? :)
Its bitstream is not even finalized yet, and of course there is no decoder in ffmpeg yet.

[LigH]

I didn't know any details about the specs development... was just surprised that VP10 could be enabled in vpxenc at all, already. So for now, the only way to test it seems to be in conjunction with vpxdec. Alright, will stay curious and look forward to reading about news "when it's done".

[andybkma]

There is a long list of samples that didn't work so great on the old one, so its not so easy to judge. The goal is to fix/improve the new one, and not just switch back.
Anyway, my finding is that the first file works fine in playback, just seeking is slow. The second file stops playback after about 11 seconds and also doesn't seek beyond this point. Will see what can be done.

Hi nev, thanks for taking a look at this. Also just noticed another problem with the new wmv demuxer in LAV .66... it has broken slow-motion with wmv files. With LAV .65, in Zoom Player I can press L while the wmv video is playing and it plays slow-motion. But with LAV .66 nothing happens... it still keeps playing at normal speed.

Thanks again

[thomponth]

Hi,

I am trying to build the LAV filters under Visual Studio 2015.

First, I have downloaded the source code of the LAV filters (v0.66).

Then, as indicated in the README file of LAV filters' source code, I have downloaded:
- the fork of ffmpeg from http://git.1f0.de/gitweb?p=ffmpeg.git;a=summary
- libblurray from http://git.1f0.de/gitweb?p=libbluray.git;a=summary
- IntelQuickSyncDecoder from sourceforge

However, Visual Studio 2015 does not find a file called "config.h" which is included in ffmpeg\libavcodec\mathops.h

I have searched on the Internet and I couldn't find any solution for this 'config.h" problem.

I guess some of you guys know how to build the LAV filters.

So could you please tell me how to fix this problem? Where is the config.h file that I should include.

Thanks in advance!

[nevcairiel]

config.h is auto-generated, use build.bat to build everything properly. Please note that I can't really give support to people trying to setup their own dev environment. LAV doesn't require anything special though.

[NTSky]

Hi,

I supported application that is using DirectShow Editing Services (DES) and it internally creates graph with circle connections and when LAV video decoder is used, the application is crashing, due to stack overflow.

The reason is "CLAVVideo::ReconnectOutput" method, that recursively enumerate filters through their connections, and as DES creates circle connection, recursion become infinite.

Need some help.

[nevcairiel]

What LAV Video does in that function is pretty standard dynamic reconnection for format changes, you should make your application deal with that. It cannot be disabled.

[NTSky]

"CLAVVideo::ReconnectOutput" method contains 2 calls of "CLAVVideo::FilterInGraph" method to check if "CLSID_madVR" or "CLSID_OverlayMixer" filters exist in a graph. But in "FindFilterSafe" function we have recursive call of itself with filters it is connected to, which cause infinite recursive in case of circle connections in a graph, that is not forbidden by DirectShow and work fine with other decoders.

[nevcairiel]

How would a circular connection make sense, you would never get any data out of the graph at the end, it would just roam in circles.
There is even an error code for this, namely VFW_E_CIRCULAR_GRAPH, which would suggest circular graphs are not all what you are making them out to be.

Tracking circular connections in those functions would be somewhat complex since they are recursive, so for now I'll just call it unsupported.

[andybkma]

Hi nev, thanks for taking a look at this. Also just noticed another problem with the new wmv demuxer in LAV .66... it has broken slow-motion with wmv files. With LAV .65, in Zoom Player I can press L while the wmv video is playing and it plays slow-motion. But with LAV .66 nothing happens... it still keeps playing at normal speed.

Thanks again

Hi nev, just want to make sure that the above report that the new wmv splitter has broken slow-motion didn't get lost in the shuffle. Thanks

[aufkrawall]

Hello,
DXVA2 CB requires more PCIe bandwidth than software decoding, or am I mistaken?
The frame has to be copied twice and decoded 4k 10 Bit should be quite huge. Especially bandwidth needed increases with frame rate.
Do you think PCIe 2.0 is sufficient for 10 bit 4k 60fps?
Would the bandwidth needed even increase more with BT.2020?

[nevcairiel]

I just build software, I don't really want to give hardware advice. You can calculate the bandwidth requirements yourself quite easily. 4k 10-bit is 3840x2160x3 (10-bit uses 24-bit for every 4:2:0 pixel, or 3 byte) bytes for every frame.
BT.2020 does not change anything on the memory requirements.

Personally I would never use something antiquated like PCIe 2.0, but thats just me. A system which still has PCIe 2.0 is way old as it is, and leaves no room to grow.

[aufkrawall]

Those calculations seem tricky, as I can hardly say if in practice the bandwidth for the 2x copy would be needed at once or if the requirements would be lower since the frame is copied serialized.
So I think practice will have to show this next year with new GPUs (I doubt anyone will test it before).

I just can tell you that in games (which are usually most critical regarding PCIe) PCIe 2.0 is hardly limiting at all.
My 2500k@4.8Ghz gave me ~117fps minimum in an absolute CPU limit in Star Wars Battlefront beta, while frametimes were absolutely perfect and no texture streaming was visible.
There were also some comparisons of Digital Foundry with several Intel gens at the same clock and several games and the performance gain of Ivy Bridge over Sandy Bridge was mostly not existing (no advantages for frametimes either).

[nevcairiel]

Games are usually not that limited by PCIe bandwidth. Tests have shown that running your GPU in x8 mode (say when running two GPUs) practically costs no performance at all, and even going down to x4 will only be a very marginal change in FPS - in current gen at least.
If I were to build a 4K HTPC right now, I would certainly make sure not to use PCIe 2.0 just to be on the safe side. I prefer to build with headroom rather than save a few euros.

But with the sad situation 4K TVs are still in this year (BT.2020, whats that?), and the lack of content, I postponed all that to next year anyway!

[aufkrawall]

It's out of question to buy a PCIe 3.0 able platform if you buy now or in future, yes. However, with Sandy Bridge it's very unattractive to change the CPU/MB yet.
But nothing to do about it if bandwidth really wouldn't be sufficient.

I suppose nobody here as a Sandy Bridge + GTX 960 system?

[clsid]

4K 10bit 50fps plays fine here with copy-back and PCI-e 2.0 x16. Haven't got a 60fps 10bit sample. Theoretically PCI-e 1.0 x16 should even be able to handle it.

[aufkrawall]

Really good to know, thank you!

[tekko]

Please provide samples that don't work instead, that way they can be fixed instead of worrying about some fallback.

Sorry for the delay... I tried to cut a sample with different programs and even with dgsplit12 the sample plays.

I saw that u've switched back to the old asf demuxer and it still doesn't work with 0.66.0-32. It's something in between 0.65.0.25 and 0.65.0.26 for sure.

EDIT: forgot to say Thank you. :)

[sneaker_ger]

I saw that u've switched back to the old asf demuxer and it still doesn't work with 0.66.0-32.
That change is from today, you have to wait a few hours for the 0.66.0-33 nightly.

[truexfan81]

I just build software, I don't really want to give hardware advice. You can calculate the bandwidth requirements yourself quite easily. 4k 10-bit is 3840x2160x3 (10-bit uses 24-bit for every 4:2:0 pixel, or 3 byte) bytes for every frame.
BT.2020 does not change anything on the memory requirements.

Personally I would never use something antiquated like PCIe 2.0, but thats just me. A system which still has PCIe 2.0 is way old as it is, and leaves no room to grow.

imagine how i feel with this ancient thing that has PCIe 1.1 :D

and here i am running madvr on it with a GTX650

[tekko]

That change is from today, you have to wait a few hours for the 0.66.0-33 nightly.

My bad... 0.66.0-33 indeed works once again :)

Thanks nevcairiel

[DragonQ]

Personally I would never use something antiquated like PCIe 2.0, but thats just me. A system which still has PCIe 2.0 is way old as it is, and leaves no room to grow.

Pah, I'll stick with my X58 platform thanks very much. 6 years down, 4 more to go?? :D

[NTSky]

How would a circular connection make sense, you would never get any data out of the graph at the end, it would just roam in circles.
There is even an error code for this, namely VFW_E_CIRCULAR_GRAPH, which would suggest circular graphs are not all what you are making them out to be.

Tracking circular connections in those functions would be somewhat complex since they are recursive, so for now I'll just call it unsupported.

We have one pipeline that ends with renderer and another one with circle connection. Such graph is created by DirectShow Editing Services, which creates BigSwitch filter with circle connections inside, and I have no possibilities to change it. That is why it is possible and works fine with other decoders.

[ajp_anton]

10-bit uses 24-bit for every 4:2:0 pixelNot 15 bits/pixel? 10 * (1 + 1/4 + 1/4)

[nevcairiel]

Not 15 bits/pixel? 10 * (1 + 1/4 + 1/4)

Its always stored as 16-bit per component in memory for easier addressing on a byte-level.