LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[Virtual_ManPL]

@ nevcairiel - thank you for fixing bug #31 :devil:

[Andy o]

Did i mention that MakeMKV sucks?

In any case, my change was so simple, it really shouldn't have hurt anything *cry* .. although, one thing i didn't think about..

I'll produce a new build, lets see if something useful happens.


Thanks a lot, that new build worked, and also for the previous TrueHD problem. The "bad" version this time was muxed with an older version of mkvmerge though.

[nevcairiel]

Thanks a lot, that new build worked, and also for the previous TrueHD problem. The "bad" version this time was muxed with an older version of mkvmerge though.

Oh well. Anyhow, the problem was an really obvious bug when i thought about it. :)

Glad its working fine again.

[nevcairiel]

http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.24-7-gb19315d.zip

Here is the latest build with the fixes for hoborg (missing audio after seeks), and the final fixes for bitstreaming TrueHD from MakeMKV files (without breaking other stuff this time). Thanks to Andy o for testing and reporting.

Bug fixing is all well and stuff, but i hope i can get working on new stuff over the weekend again. :)

[BatKnight]

The AC3 stream does show for me, but it doesn't play. It doesn't show with the MPC-HC splitter either. If you play the full file, do the first ~20 seconds actually have audio on that ac3 stream?
It doesn't seem to demux any packages for that stream.

I think thats actually the problem. The MPEG-TS demuxer is limited to reading a certain amount of bytes (5.000.000 to be exact, just short of 5MB), and if it doesn't find all the codec information in that time, well, it'll just show like this.
The LAVFilters-0.24-6-g308e2fe fixed it!
The AC3 track now shows up, but it doesn't play any audio until the 20th second. Before that it's silent. I looked into it and there actually isn't audio there to play. That must be the reason it didn't work before.
I guess this was on purpose to match the audio to the video, since the AC3 comes from a Portuguese DVD.

This is fine for me, I can consider it resolved. It detects the track and plays when it's audio there.

Thank you for you time invested in this. Keep up the good work.

Bat

[mindbomb]

idk know if this has been reported, but for me, 24 bit truehd in an mkv is being outputted as 32 bit

[nevcairiel]

So, here is a new one. I posted about this on the AVS Forums, and i thought i would just test it out and see if it works.

Re: Forced subtitles on Blu-rays.

There is two ways forced subtitles are present on Blu-rays. First is a separate track, which in this context is kinda bad. Its impossible to know what exactly is in one track - only the language is shown, everything else is organized with the menus.
The second way is that both normal and forced subs are in the same track. Before, this was even worse - now it might be awesome.

LAV Splitter can analyse PGS subtitle packages from Blu-rays, and detect if they are forced subs, or "normal" subs.
I tested this on an Avatar Blu-ray, and i can indeed figure out which packets are actually forced subs, and which are normal subs. That way i can actually drop all normal subs and only keep forced subs.
How it works?
- I selected the first subtitle track - its the english track with full subs.
- LAV Splitter analyses the data, and simply drops all non-forced subs - voila, only alien languages get subtitles.

Now, why i post about this here, i have a slight problem. I don't know how to make that feature easily configurable. My first plan was to simply add an option, like "PGS Subtitles: Only send forced subs".
But what if a Blu-ray does not have these flags setup, and before you don't understand the foreign languages in the movie, you want to switch to the full subs? Is going into the LAV Splitter config and turning that option off an acceptable solution?
My second thought was to add a second entry in the stream switcher for the forced subs - but Blu-rays easily have 15+ sub streams, that would double that amount - IMHO thats even worse then the other option!

So...
Ideas, anyone?
Otherwise i'll just go with the toggle-able option in the settings.

Personally, i'm really excited about this feature. I really don't like subs, but forced subs are part of the movie, and should be there. A way to have them automatically just show up on Blu-rays would be so sweet.

[SamuriHL]

After I just get through telling dbone you can't do that you come up with a way to do it?! :p Son of a! :D How about a combination of the two ideas? So at the top of the stream selector a selection for (forced only) and then list out the regular subs. Then if it's wrong, you can unselect the forced only selector and go to full subs. Would that work? I know it would be kuel with me, but, anyone else have a thought?

[nevcairiel]

I always knew i could do it, i just never knew it would be this easy! :)

Adding non-streams into the stream selector is possible, but not easy - i would rather try to avoid it.
Maybe most Blu-rays are actually properly flagged? I don't have any data to say in either direction. But thats not where the problems end - it's just not easy then to switch full subs on.
Like, i like watching my movies all in english (I'm german) and i understand it perfectly, but if i have some friends over, we might still watch it in english, but they need/want subs - going into the config seems a bit of a stretch. Then again, its probably equally fast then going into the BD menu and changing the stream there, huh.

Well i can always worry about UI things later, right?

[SamuriHL]

Figures! :D

Hmm. Yea, I can see the value of wanting to avoid adding that option to the stream selector. I'm not sure of an easy way to do it though. You only have interaction through the directshow filters display for whatever player they're using. Yes, you could force them to go into the properties and turn the option off. You want a REALLY confusing way to do it? :D Make it so if they RESELECT the current sub track that it switches from forced to full and vice versa. :D I doubt you can change the name of the sub track on the fly though can you? So, turn the option on in the properties, the sub tracks have "english (forced only)"....they find out the flags aren't set and want to switch, they select the track again and it switches to "english (full)". :D No? LOL!

[nevcairiel]

I think that would be possible .. but a good solution? I don't know o.O

[SamuriHL]

Technically the way other players handle it....wait, this might be it. Other players play forced subs always even when subs are off. So you could have it play forced subs when the no subs selection is made, and then if they want full subs they can select it. AHA! There we go, Nev! :)

[nevcairiel]

That won't work. They still need to select the language they want.

[SamuriHL]

Um, the forced subs should match the language of the audio track currently playing. The way it's done in other players is that all force subs in sub tracks that are of the same language as the current audio track selected always get played. That's even if the subs are "off". Then they can select any sub track they want. I think this would ROCK!

[nevcairiel]

Seems like kind of a limitation to not allow changing the forced subs language. On some BDs it might also be in another sub track, and you need to switch to it .. its just - real BD players get all that information through the menu system, i don't, so i have to keep things configurable for the user to fix auto-detection mistakes :(

[SamuriHL]

Yea. You could allow them to set a default language, though. I mean, MOST of the time the use case I outlined will be right. If it's wrong, then yea, they may have to go into the properties to fix it while it's playing. That's not OVERLY likely to happen if you match the sub to the audio language. But yes, I see your point.

[clsid]

If a user wants to only see forced subs, the subtitle language indeed typically matches the audio language. So you could for example only show two entries for that particular subtitle language. However, in that case the list of sub streams depends on the selected audio stream, and changing audio might be a bit problematic, but you could maybe let it auto-change the subs in that case.

Any plans for an (optional) tray icon? I always find that useful for quickly changing tracks and accessing the settings.

[nevcairiel]

No actual plans for a tray icon. It may happen one day, but not really planned yet.

Re: Subs
I guess i can make both ways possible, with some options, something like this

PGS Subtitles
- "Only deliver forced subtitles" - This option would filter out the forced subs out of whatever stream is currently selected, nothing special. Whichever track you select, you never get full subs.
- "Show Forced Subtitles separately, matching Audio" - This would add a new entry to the stream selector, a "Forced Subtitle" entry, which would show the forced subs matching the language of the audio. If you select any other track, you would get full subs.

If the first option is selected, and you have the "Only forced subtitles" select stragey on, it would ignore that option and select the first matching subtitle track. If the second is selected, and there is no stream flagged "forced", and there are PGS subs, it would go to the special "Forced Subtitles" entry, otherwise to no subs.

I'll implement the first, because thats really trivial. For the second, i'll have to think about the implementation a bit - it should be possible, especially because it only applys to PGS subs..

[joeydrunk]

Forced subs are always on and you never have an option to change them. They will always match the language that the audio is in. So all you have to do is leave the forced subs on and be ale to select the language that the audio is in and the subs will match.... Right?

[nevcairiel]

There is nothing preventing you from changing them. The question is how to do it properly.

The second mode outlined two posts above will most likely work just fine for 99% of all cases, and once implemented will most likely be the default.

[joeydrunk]

Edit: I got my last post in before I saw yours Nev. I think I said the same thing you did.

[joeydrunk]

There is nothing preventing you from changing them. The question is how to do it properly.

The second mode outlined two posts above will most likely work just fine for 99% of all cases, and once implemented will most likely be the default.

But like on a stand alone BLURAY player you can't change or turn off the forced subs, there always present in the language that's being played.

[nevcairiel]

But what if you want to? Options don't hurt.

Anyhow, i have a plan how i'm going to implement it.

[nevcairiel]

Here is a first build that implements the first method.

There is a new option on the properties page, when you select that, all PGS streams will be filtered, and only frames flagged as forced will be delivered to the subtitle renderer. It works just awesome on my Avatar Blu-ray.
I'll implement the second option soon, the checkbox in the properties page is already there. :p

When the option is on, the "Only Forced Subs" selection mode will select any PGS subs it finds (the first with the appropriate language, usually), unless it finds one flagged as "forced" - but thats only in MKVs.

http://files.1f0.de/lavf/LAVFilters-0.24-9-g60f737a.zip

Any testing of this is greatly appreciated.
Sadly there isn't really much of an indicator if a stream is actually flagging forced subs like that, so if it doesn't show any when the option is on, it could just be that..

PS:
You can swap the option during playback, however it might require quite a while until you see the change, depending on how many subtitle frames are already queued up.

[SamuriHL]

Sweet! As soon as I'm done with my daily call I'll build a version and test it out. I have a test case that'll probably break it. :D I'm not telling which disc it is until I try it cause I don't want anyone ruining my fun. :D

[Andy o]

Thanks nev,

I'm wondering after my minor troubles these past couple of days, if the mkv muxers have any say on this. Will they preserve the PGS forced flags? makeMKV has for each subtitle track a sub-section that says (forced) or something like that, that you can also check or uncheck. I know the audio streams work like this: If you select the lossless track AND the DD or DTS in its sub-section, you get two different tracks in the final mkv. If you only check one, you'll get one of course. Presumably makemkv takes the DD from the interleaved THD/DD, and the DTS from the DTS-HD core.

Anyone tried with these makemkv sub options? I know Samuri uses it, maybe others do too. I'd never paid much attention to these forced sub issues.

(BTW, I would test myself, but I don't think I have any forced sub movies.)

[SamuriHL]

Andy I'll get back to you in a minute after dinner. Nev, no workie. :) I get no subs on District 9. I told you I'd break it! :D That movie is notoriously a pain.

[jmone]

I'm having issues with keeping subs displayed (they seem to just stop displaying after 30 sec or so). I've seen this before and always thought it was a FFDSHOW issue but ..... any suggestions?
Filter Graph Info:

Filter 'J. River Audio Renderer'
CLSID: {A4002F8E-510F-442C-8AD3-F9C7B23FB394}
Host:
Input Pin 'In'
Connected to pin 'XForm Out' of filter 'ArcSoft Audio Decoder HD'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_PCM, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

Filter 'madVR'
CLSID: {E1A8B82A-32CE-4B0D-BE0D-AA68C772E423}
Host: c:\users\htpc\downloads\filters\madvr\madvr.ax
Input Pin 'Input'
Connected to pin 'Out' of filter 'ffdshow Video Decoder'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Video Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_YV12, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2

Filter 'ArcSoft Audio Decoder HD'
CLSID: {1A89085B-B654-4ED8-8831-5AC629A05FF5}
Host: c:\users\htpc\downloads\filters\arcsoft\asaudiohd.ax
Input Pin 'XForm In'
Connected to pin 'Audio' of filter 'LAV Splitter Source'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {00002001-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
Output Pin 'XForm Out'
Connected to pin 'In' of filter 'J. River Audio Renderer'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_PCM, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

Filter 'ffdshow Video Decoder'
CLSID: {04FE9017-F873-410E-871E-AB91661A4EF7}
Host: c:\program files\ffdshow\ffdshow.ax
Input Pin 'In'
Connected to pin 'Video' of filter 'LAV Splitter Source'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Video Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {31435641-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_MPEG2_VIDEO
Output Pin 'Out'
Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'madVR'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Video Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_YV12, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
Input Pin 'In Text'
Connected to pin 'Subtitle' of filter 'LAV Splitter Source'
Major type Unknown GUID Name: {E487EB08-6B26-4BE9-9DD3-993434D313FD} Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {04EBA53E-9330-436C-9133-553EC87031DC}, Format type Unknown GUID Name: {04EBA53E-9330-436C-9133-553EC87031DC}
Input Pin 'In Text 2'

Filter 'LAV Splitter Source'
CLSID: {B98D13E7-55DB-4385-A33D-09FD1BA26338}
Host: c:\users\htpc\downloads\filters\lavfilters\lavsplitter.ax
Output Pin 'Video'
Connected to pin 'In' of filter 'ffdshow Video Decoder'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Video Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {31435641-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_MPEG2_VIDEO
Output Pin 'Audio'
Connected to pin 'XForm In' of filter 'ArcSoft Audio Decoder HD'
Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {00002001-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
Output Pin 'Subtitle'
Connected to pin 'In Text' of filter 'ffdshow Video Decoder'
Major type Unknown GUID Name: {E487EB08-6B26-4BE9-9DD3-993434D313FD} Sub type Unknown GUID Name: {04EBA53E-9330-436C-9133-553EC87031DC}, Format type Unknown GUID Name: {04EBA53E-9330-436C-9133-553EC87031DC}

[SamuriHL]

Thanks nev,

I'm wondering after my minor troubles these past couple of days, if the mkv muxers have any say on this. Will they preserve the PGS forced flags? makeMKV has for each subtitle track a sub-section that says (forced) or something like that, that you can also check or uncheck. I know the audio streams work like this: If you select the lossless track AND the DD or DTS in its sub-section, you get two different tracks in the final mkv. If you only check one, you'll get one of course. Presumably makemkv takes the DD from the interleaved THD/DD, and the DTS from the DTS-HD core.

Anyone tried with these makemkv sub options? I know Samuri uses it, maybe others do too. I'd never paid much attention to these forced sub issues.

(BTW, I would test myself, but I don't think I have any forced sub movies.)

If you select the forced option for subs, it scans the sub track while ripping it and looks for forced subs. If it finds any, it creates a new sub track with JUST the forced subs in it, separate from the main sub track. (Assuming you have it set to rip both). And yes, for audio, you are correct in how it works.

[Andy o]

Thanks, I suspected it did that, but I don't think I ever ripped an actual forced sub track. So I'm assuming that it doesn't mess with PGS forced flags in any case, do you know this?

[SamuriHL]

I don't know what it does about that. I'm under the impression it doesn't set the flags properly afaik. I could be mistaken though. I don't know if I have an MKV on my drive right now that has any forced subs that I can check, and I don't feel like ripping District 9 just to check. (Man the subs in that movie are MESSED UP. When they were working on adding PGS sub support to ffdshow, this particular movie gave them problems to begin with if I remember right.) In any case, I don't remember if it adds default and forced flags to the MKV's or not.

[Andy o]

BTW here's an old-ish AVS thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1176923) that might be worth reviewing. I'm curious about MikeEby's post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17130818#post17130818).

[Andy o]

I have a free blu-ray rental from the store, I can stop by later and pick one up to test. Do you guys have one in mind, or just pick any from the list linked above?

[SamuriHL]

Yea, that's what I'm talking about with district 9 and why MakeMKV takes the approach that it does. In a normal, "sane" BD, they have a separate forced sub track. Then there's idiotic movies like district 9 that embed the forced subs in the regular sub track and flag them as forced. MakeMKV scans the sub tracks as it's ripping them (the ONLY way to detect them, btw...can't be done "up front"), and adds the forced subs to a new track if any embedded forced subs are found. Good times yea?

[SamuriHL]

Well, Nev and I both have Avatar. I have district 9. I haven't checked the whole list but I probably have a few others from it kicking around, as well. But Avatar and District 9 are covered.

[SamuriHL]

Ok, I've discovered somewhat of a problem. MAJOR SIGH. It doesn't work with ffdshow sub rendering. That SUCKS! It sort of does if I back up a bit and go back, but, in general it doesn't work. This is bad simply because I really want to use MC16 and need to use ffdshow for subs as a result. I've been looking at Salt when I found this issue. I don't have time to do any more testing tonight, but, I didn't get a chance to retry District 9 with MPC-HC's sub renderer.

[Andy o]

I thought what you described for District 9 was what Nev meant about how subs worked? So, basically, there are whole separate tracks that can be forced by the blu-ray player, and there are individual subtitle lines that can be flagged inside a regular sub track. IIRC BDSup2Sub could identify these lines. So, Avatar does the former ("sane") while D9 does the latter?

[SamuriHL]

It is. That's why I tested it with district 9 because I knew it had flagged subs inside the main sub track instead of a separate forced sub track. However, given my recent ffdshow sub renderer discovery, I'm not sure if district 9 is the issue or not. I'm leaning towards not. I'll retest it again when I get a chance. Actually I can do it on my laptop while I'm watching shows so I guess I can get everything updated and give it a try.

[joeydrunk]

So the forced subtitles seem to be working on the movie traffic, I tried in mpc-hc. I enable and they turn on and unchecked unable and the forced subtitles turn off. But I can't get the real subtitles to turn on. I tried a couple different combinations with the "enable" and "default" options. I havnt used mpchc enough though to know if the regular subtitles usually work.

[SamuriHL]

District 9 doesn't work with MPC-HC's sub renderer, either. At least on my laptop. ARGH! Nev, let me know what you need from me to help make this work. Do you think it's because I'm skipping around to find the forced subs? I mean, obviously it should work skipping chapters, but, could that be an issue?

[robpdotcom]

I'm under the impression it doesn't set the flags properly afaik.

Correct, MakeMKV does NOT set flags for forced subs - you must load the file into mmg's header editor to set the forced flag (which only takes a few seconds).

[SamuriHL]

Correct, MakeMKV does NOT set flags for forced subs - you must load the file into mmg's header editor to set the forced flag (which only takes a few seconds).

Yea, that's what I thought. I remember seeing that issue discussed before. I probably have some MKV's that I need to go fix. Lucky me.

[Andy o]

It works!

The blu-ray of Paprika has forced subs (5 subs in the whole track, translations of signs in the movie, from Japanese). The blu-ray has 3 English PGS subs. One is the normal one, with the 5 forced subs inside them. The other one is SDH with no forced subs and the other is the commentary. All this was confirmed with BDSup2Sub as well.

So I ripped it with makeMKV and selected only the two English sub tracks of the movie. I checked also the "(forced only)" option. As Samuri said, this made a whole new track for just the forced subs, and I ended up with 3 English sub tracks.

I played with MPC-HC and its sub renderer. The first Eng track did have the flags preserved, and it worked great. I can see forced only when enabling the option in LAVF Splitter. The second Eng sub track did indeed have only the forced subs, no problem there. The 3rd track is the SDH, which didn't have any forced subs.

[Andy o]

Correct, MakeMKV does NOT set flags for forced subs - you must load the file into mmg's header editor to set the forced flag (which only takes a few seconds).

Posted before I saw your post. It does seem to be preserving the flags. I tried with 1.6.8, but I haven't seen this specific issue on the release log.

[SamuriHL]

Posted before I saw your post. It does seem to be preserving the flags. I tried with 1.6.8, but I haven't seen this specific issue on the release log.

Check it with mkvinfo gui.

[joeydrunk]

It works!

The blu-ray of Paprika has forced subs (5 subs in the whole track, translations of signs in the movie, from Japanese). The blu-ray has 3 English PGS subs. One is the normal one, with the 5 forced subs inside them. The other one is SDH with no forced subs and the other is the commentary. All this was confirmed with BDSup2Sub as well.

So I ripped it with makeMKV and selected only the two English sub tracks of the movie. I checked also the "(forced only)" option. As Samuri said, this made a whole new track for just the forced subs, and I ended up with 3 English sub tracks.

I played with MPC-HC and its sub renderer. The first Eng track did have the flags preserved, and it worked great. I can see forced only when enabling the option in LAVF Splitter. The second Eng sub track did indeed have only the forced subs, no problem there. The 3rd track is the SDH, which didn't have any forced subs.

i hope your right. ive done 905 of my mkvs with makemkv

[joeydrunk]

thats suppose to be 90%

[Andy o]

i hope your right. ive done 905 of my mkvs with makemkv

may depend on the version too, though.

[Andy o]

Check it with mkvinfo gui.

What can I look for? It only shows if the tracks themselves have the forced flag, not the individual subs. It's showing me the 3 Eng tracks I referenced above.

I don't see how it could be working the way I described above though, if makeMKV wasn't preserving the flags for the individual subs.

[SamuriHL]

What can I look for? It only shows if the tracks themselves have the forced flag, not the individual subs. It's showing me the 3 Eng tracks I referenced above.

I don't see how it could be working the way I described above though, if makeMKV wasn't preserving the flags for the individual subs.

Yea, it very well may be. I honestly don't know.