LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[FreeFall]

nevcairiel,

The latest nightly builds are crashing when playing DVD's, happens with MPC-HC x86 / x64 and Zoom Player. Zoom Player shows a crash report pointing to avutil-lav-55.dll as the problem. The problem seems to affect LAVFilters-0.67.0-14 and later builds.

This is on Windows 7 x64 Pro.

Thanks.

[Nullack]

nevcairiel,

The latest nightly builds are crashing when playing DVD's, happens with MPC-HC x86 / x64 and Zoom Player. Zoom Player shows a crash report pointing to avutil-lav-55.dll as the problem. The problem seems to affect LAVFilters-0.67.0-14 and later builds.

This is on Windows 7 x64 Pro.

Thanks.

Yes, it intermittent but Im replicating it on Win 10 x64 during DVD playback. Heres what the app log spat out from the crash:

Fault bucket 120380086268, type 4
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: mpc-be64.exe
P2: 1.4.6.1053
P3: 567b658a
P4: avutil-lav-55.dll
P5: 55.10.100.0
P6: 01185798
P7: c0000094
P8: 00000000000235cb

[Aleksoid1978]

Hi nevcairiel.
1 - thanks for you code for VP9 DXVA2, work great on GTX 960.
2 - can help deal with a small problem : when use LAVVideo and close playback do first calling CLAVVideo::BreakConnect() with dir == PINDIR_INPUT. When use MPC-BE's Video decoder, close playback - do first calling ::BreakConnect() with dir == PINDIR_OUTPUT.
I can not understand the reason for different behavior. Can you help me ?? :)

[mark0077]

I also tried my Queen Greatest Hits DVD today and it also has issues but with the latest official version. With internal mpcbe mpeg2 decoder there's no issue. This DVD always seemed to cause ffdshow issues in the past but haruhiko had fixed all of those. Is it worth uploading the menu for this somewhere. Basically the menus freeze and windows blue spinning icon appears.

[Aleksoid1978]

https://yadi.sk/i/eFmQ-MWBiHWR3
About 50 second video stream changes (changing the frame size from 720x576 -> 1920x1080). In DXVA mode only Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder can normally handle this situation.

But - if you seeking this place, the resolution is changed and continues to play normally.

[Nullack]

You should generally not have LAV convert video to RGB, especially on UHD content its just going to be rather slow because it uses the CPU for that

Thanks. Should this be default to leave it as untouched as input? Currently LAV is defaulting to PC levels 0-255.

[nevcairiel]

Thanks. Should this be default to leave it as untouched as input? Currently LAV is defaulting to PC levels 0-255.

The option makes no difference if you don't force RGB conversion by disabling everything else. And once you do convert, full range RGB is more standard. There is usually a reason for the defaults to be what they are ;)

[nevcairiel]

1. Which parameter of a nested chapter is used in LAV Splitter?

The duration of an ordered-nested-chapter seems not to be used. Only the start time marks the chapter.
Also the segment uid will be ignored and an existing chapter-segment-link will not work.



Only the primary chapters directly under an edition are used for "ordered chapters", anything else wouldn't really make much sense, IMHO.
You can't "nest" ordered chapters, the interaction with the top level and the levels further downwards would be very bizzare.

For example, in your "00 Menu nested chapters.mkv", you have a top level chapter that says (Episode 2) "Play 0:00.000 to 0:07.487 from Segment #2", which is a clear instruction.
Then nested chapters try to override this - the first nested chapter says "Play 0:00.000 to 0:02.000 from Segment #1". Is this supposed to override the first 2 seconds of the top level chapter? Or make it longer? Its just not clear what its supposed to do, because there is no clear spec.

A more logical way to approach this would be to not have the top level chapters actually be ordered chapters, and only the level below - but alas thats not how it was designed, or how any other ordered chapters MKV works.

So in short, top level chapters inside an edition are used for ordered chapters, any further nested chapters are purely cosmetical for navigation purposes.


2. Is this a bug or a not implemented feature?

Nested chapters are not really good documented and I think you has programmed this so good you knew.

Sounds like you are doing something that its not meant for.

If you really want to shove multiple episodes into one mkv, best would probably to use one edition for each. That way you can even share OP/EDs properly.
Or don't use nested chapters, and just name them differently, ie. name them like LAV would name them if they are nested "+ [Name]" etc, that way it looks like its nested, but its all top-level.

Otherwise, nested ordered chapters are not something that works. The top level chapters under the edition need to be the ordered chapter entries, no others will be used for ordered chapter handling.

[hubblec4]

Only the primary chapters directly under an edition are used for "ordered chapters", anything else wouldn't really make much sense, IMHO.
You can't "nest" ordered chapters, the interaction with the top level and the levels further downwards would be very bizzare.

Ok. I figured out that LAV work like you described but I think thats a limit of your programming and not a limit of the specs.
I have seen other menu chapter.xml files which have nested ordered chapters.

A possible way for ordered chapters is set the ChapterTimeEnd equal to the ChapterTimeStart or let it empty. If you found such top-level ordered chapter and it has nested chapters too, than you could use this start and end times for ordered chapter handling.


For example, in your "00 Menu nested chapters.mkv", you have a top level chapter that says (Episode 2) "Play 0:00.000 to 0:07.487 from Segment #2", which is a clear instruction.
Then nested chapters try to override this - the first nested chapter says "Play 0:00.000 to 0:02.000 from Segment #1". Is this supposed to override the first 2 seconds of the top level chapter? Or make it longer? Its just not clear what its supposed to do, because there is no clear spec.

A more logical way to approach this would be to not have the top level chapters actually be ordered chapters, and only the level below - but alas thats not how it was designed, or how any other ordered chapters MKV works.

So in short, top level chapters inside an edition are used for ordered chapters, any further nested chapters are purely cosmetical for navigation purposes.


Sounds like you are doing something that its not meant for.

If you really want to shove multiple episodes into one mkv, best would probably to use one edition for each. That way you can even share OP/EDs properly.
Or don't use nested chapters, and just name them differently, ie. name them like LAV would name them if they are nested "+ [Name]" etc, that way it looks like its nested, but its all top-level.

Otherwise, nested ordered chapters are not something that works. The top level chapters under the edition need to be the ordered chapter entries, no others will be used for ordered chapter handling.


Normally my Matroska menu editor creates for each episode an edition and an edition with all episode. It works like it should.
Only if in the episodes an existing segment-link to another file then it doesnt work with nested chapters well.
(but I think I can write a workaround)


I know LAV Splitter has other priorities and maybe you have in future a little bit time to enhance the Matroska splitting.
I would help you if you like.

[nevcairiel]

Ok. I figured out that LAV work like you described but I think thats a limit of your programming and not a limit of the specs.
I have seen other menu chapter.xml files which have nested ordered chapters.

You have to ask yourself one thing:
Does it work with Haali Splitter?

If the answer is No, then the specification does not allow it.
There is no written specification for ordered chapters, whatever works with Haali is the specification. And I'm not going to invent any arcane use-cases that are never going to be used by more than 2 people anyway.

[hubblec4]

You have to ask yourself one thing:
Does it work with Haali Splitter?

Im sure it would not work with Haali Splitter, cause the segment-linking works not perfect like you said(many posts before).
The other reason is Haali was not a fan of a menu so i think he don't implement such a feature.



And I'm not going to invent any arcane use-cases that are never going to be used by more than 2 people anyway.

Yes, that can I understand. How many people would be needed so that such a function is incorporated?

[thomaz909]

i have a problem with 0.67.

when i install 0.67 i cant bitstream "Reclock encoded AC3" over "Realtek HDMI Audio" anymore.
with 0.65 all fine.

same settings used for both versions.

i absolutely have no idea what happens.

reclock shows that it gets 6 channels and reclock output say that it is in "ac3 enc mode (wave out)" but my denon avr stays in "analog" mode which indicates that no digital signal is coming.
then i run 0.65 installer and after that it works again immediately.

[nevcairiel]

Thats a ReClock bug. You can fix it by checking the legacy 5.1 layout option in LAV settings.

[thomaz909]

yes,
it works.
thx.
:)

[Nullack]

Thanks very much Hendrik for the commit in the git log fixing DVDs cheers :)

[nevcairiel]

The latest nightly builds are crashing when playing DVD's, happens with MPC-HC x86 / x64 and Zoom Player. Zoom Player shows a crash report pointing to avutil-lav-55.dll as the problem. The problem seems to affect LAVFilters-0.67.0-14 and later builds.


Thanks very much Hendrik for the commit in the git log fixing DVDs cheers :)

I was meaning to comment on that last night but got distracted. But yes, it should be working again in the latest nightly, hopefully.

Do let me know if the issue persists.

[nevcairiel]

https://yadi.sk/i/eFmQ-MWBiHWR3
About 50 second video stream changes (changing the frame size from 720x576 -> 1920x1080). In DXVA mode only Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder can normally handle this situation.

But - if you seeking this place, the resolution is changed and continues to play normally.

The behavior seems to be quite similar in software mode and in DXVA mode for me. It briefly hangs and shows artifacts for a second, then just continues without problems.
Since software mode behaves the same way, it seems like a problem in the FFmpeg decoder. Having said that, resolution changes are a bit on the complicated side as it is. If there is a clean cut in the video stream it should work OK, but not always.

[Aleksoid1978]

It's working on Nvidia, but fail on ATI. But - Microsoft video decoder fine on ATI too.

[mark0077]

I was meaning to comment on that last night but got distracted. But yes, it should be working again in the latest nightly, hopefully.

Do let me know if the issue persists.

Nev do you still have the Queen Greatest Hits I DVD. I remember a while back I posted lots of issues with both it and the Star Wars Episode II DVD with LAV Video Decoder. Just even with the latest nightly using LAV Video for the Queen DVD, it pretty much doesn't work at all anymore. The windows blue spinning icon appears when I navigate to Title 1.

If you have it would you mind trying it with the latest nightly?

[nevcairiel]

The spinning icon would indicate a problem with the player instead, it gets stuck in its main thread, which LAV should have no direct control over.
I don't think I have that DVD.

[mark0077]

Ah right OK no worries. I can't reproduce with other video decoders like ffdshows mpeg2 one or mpc-be one thats the only reason I mentioned it.

[dansrfe]

Is it possible to have a quick shortcut or way to automatically detect current default audio output to turn mixing on/off?

I often switch between bluetooth headphones and the multichannel speaker system and remember to enable/disable mixing however its a bit difficult to get everyone else using the setup to follow suit.

[Nullack]

Hendrik a quick comment on testing. Theres some toolsets in the commercial space that are achieving a very high level of test coverage - and doing so with test frameworks that make it quick and easy. Argon for example have built a model of the various specs such as VP9 and HEVC, and have produced test coverage that is mathematically based on all possible values from the standard:

http://www.argondesign.com/products/argon-streams-vp9/

Then there is intel as well:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-stress-bitstreams-and-encoder/

There is obvious value in this for both FFMPEG and Lav Filters - it goes far beyond what FATE does.

Given your leadership in the field and name recognition, I just wonder if they would be willing to negotiate with you on donating their software "for the cause" to FFMPEG / LAV Filters. It would be good PR for them, and given FFMPEG is the open source leader in the field it would be a strong statement to add to their brand. Theres lots of examples in the past where commercial companies have done this and I would encourage you not to dismiss it out of hand. Cheers

[nevcairiel]

There is no need. There is plenty people running FFmpeg against various automated testing and fault finding tools to identify problems, including people from various "big" organizations like Google and Mozilla who frequently provide results for all sorts of codecs, not just limited to VP9 or HEVC.
FATE is not comparable to such tools (and not wanting to be), since its "just" a deterministic automated regression test, and not out to find "new" bugs, just to prevent old ones from coming back.

In general such commercial tools are usually more marketing than useful. Both VP9 and HEVC provide a wide range of official conformance streams that test the behavior on "correct" bitstreams, and there are plenty of smart tools to create and test "broken" streams available to us today.
So in short - the "obvious value" just isn't there, since such things are already done today, and one more tool that does the same thing just isn't going to make any big difference.

[Nullack]

Good stuff, so its already in play - I get your point about FATE being for a cut down regression test suite and not an attempt to cover functional ranges in a mathematical way - but this type of automated functional testing has a place just as much as regression. What impressed me about these tools was the maths model used in mathematically ensuring test coverage over the whole ranges of possibilities. That goes way beyond a few companies looking at a few validation streams. And its not fuzz testing if that what you mean to imply (I read about what google did in this space it was top stuff). This is different to fuzz testing. This is developing a framework to mathematically analyse functional ranges and cover all such scenarios. Logically, if this is all "marketing" and the companies arent offering anything of value beyond what is already existing for free, then they have no sales and no business; yet they do exist....If your sure this is actually already being done with full range functional test coverage from an IV&V standards point of view, well awesome :) Its very difficult to do - a friend of mine had a whole team doing a formal IV&V process for an aircraft system which took 2 years of intense effort. Most test efforts rarely put more than a fraction of test coverage into their functional tests simply because of the numbers involved unless they get into automated functional test frameworks.

[hdboy]

Hi

I have a TrueHD 7.1 track that ac3filter cannot handle but LAV can. However I like ac3filter's extensive mixer options, including creating a custom mix (why I want to do this is a long story I probably don't need to go into here). Ac3filter has not been updated for a while and I want to use lav for everything (already use it as splitter and video decoder). Is there a way to have lav do the decoding and ac3filter do the mixing? Thanks.

Edit: I figured it out. Duh. In ac3filter's system tab, uncheck truehd in the "use ac3filter for" box. Then put ac3filter above lav audio decoder in external filters list of your player (MPC-HC in my case). Voila.

[Nullack]

Hello Hendrik. Thanks for the commit in your latest nightly on fixing the formats tab with high DPI scenarios when operating under media players like MPC-BE. It was a cosmetic item but nonetheless it looks great now its fixed and I'm thankful for the fix. Regards

[NikosD]

Hello and Happy New Year to all.

It's been confirmed about 4 months ago here in Doom9, that Skylake accelerates in HW 8bit HEVC format up to 8K resolution and I thought that maybe you could add this resolution in LAV video properties.

I don't have a Skylake to test it, but I believe that you allow Skylake to accelerate 8K HEVC, even if you haven't added this resolution to LAV video yet.
Right ?

[nevcairiel]

The 4K checkbox really means "4K and up", so yes, if the driver accepts 8K then it should work.

[nevcairiel]

Ah right OK no worries. I can't reproduce with other video decoders like ffdshows mpeg2 one or mpc-be one thats the only reason I mentioned it.

I had one thought - does this only happen with madVR by any chance?
Maybe I shouldn't be calling this one madVR function the way I do, I'm not sure really.

Unfortunately, none of the test menus I have shows any problems, and the number of full DVD discs I have is rather limited.

[mark0077]

Actually yes when I switch to use EVR-CP the blue spinning icon doesn't appear, but the menus don't really behave properly. There is an "OPTIONS" menu button which when clicked doesn't seem to bring you where it should. Just some animation appears which seems to then get stuck mid animation, and you don't get brought to a different screen. Maybe its just bad luck that the very few DVDs I have always seem to be tricky to deal with.

Heres a screenshot after I click "OPTIONS", the screen seems to be stuck mid animation. I tried getting the DVD menu to work without the bigger .VOB files but it won't so I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to upload any parts of the menu to show you.

http://i66.tinypic.com/358c95u.jpg

EDIT: Actually the menus do work fine, it was SVP that was causing the second issue :) So yeah using evr-cp fixes the first issue so maybe there is a change needed if using madVR as you say.

[clsid]

Are you planning to add a fallback to software decoding for unsupported VP9 profiles?

[nevcairiel]

Are you planning to add a fallback to software decoding for unsupported VP9 profiles?

Fallback works fine today, just don't use DXVA2-Native if you care about that, VP9 does not allow detecing the profile before decoding starts - ie. not early enough to fallback in time.

[nevcairiel]

Actually yes when I switch to use EVR-CP the blue spinning icon doesn't appear, but the menus don't really behave properly. There is an "OPTIONS" menu button which when clicked doesn't seem to bring you where it should. Just some animation appears which seems to then get stuck mid animation, and you don't get brought to a different screen. Maybe its just bad luck that the very few DVDs I have always seem to be tricky to deal with.

Heres a screenshot after I click "OPTIONS", the screen seems to be stuck mid animation. I tried getting the DVD menu to work without the bigger .VOB files but it won't so I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to upload any parts of the menu to show you.

http://i66.tinypic.com/358c95u.jpg

EDIT: Actually the menus do work fine, it was SVP that was causing the second issue :) So yeah using evr-cp fixes the first issue so maybe there is a change needed if using madVR as you say.


SVP breaking DVD menus is not surprising, menus need rather careful handling as every single frame needs to be displayed without delay, while things like SVP tend to add a bit of delay for temporal interpolation.

Anyway, can you try the latest nightly with madVR?
https://files.1f0.de/lavf/nightly/

I hope it should work now.

[mark0077]

Hi nev. I have disabled SVP for the test now, but unfortunately with the latest nightly (LAVFilters-0.67.0-38.exe) when I play the DVD and Navigate -> Jump To -> Title 1 the seekbar seems to show the correct chapter markers in mpc-be and I see the duration of the actual DVD appearing correctly but the blue spinning icon shows up again on what looks like the first frame.

[nevcairiel]

Maybe it is in fact a madVR problem then. LAV uses a special subtitle interface with madVR for DVD subs and menus, maybe it blocks somewhere unfortunate.

[mark0077]

Maybe it is in fact a madVR problem then. LAV uses a special subtitle interface with madVR for DVD subs and menus, maybe it blocks somewhere unfortunate.

OK Thanks for looking into it nev, do you think I should bring this over to the madVR thread to see if madshi can see if its anything from that side thats causing it.

[Gleb Egorych]

Hi, nevcairiel,
Here is a sample that there are artifacts in all hardware-assisted modes (DXVA2/CUDA): https://www.sendspace.com/file/nfhb8p. Software mode is OK.
Win7 x64, LAV 0.67.0-43 x86, GTX660, Forceware 359.06.

[wanezhiling]

Hi, nevcairiel,
Here is a sample that there are artifacts in all hardware-assisted modes (DXVA2/CUDA): https://www.sendspace.com/file/nfhb8p. Software mode is OK.
Win7 x64, LAV 0.67.0-43 x86, GTX660, Forceware 359.06.

Same here.
But works good with Intel GPU.

[oddball]

I have an issue with LAV in MPC that I cannot get my head around. I recently purchased a Denon AVR and connected it using HDMI from an AMD video card. My problem is I cannot get stereo Dolby Surround decoding when I set the AMD to 5.1 or 7.1 channels. I can only get it by setting the AMD speaker configuration to stereo. I then have to set LAV to bitstream. I would prefer to have LAV set to decode audio to multi-channel output (So that I can have multi-channel+DS) but in order to do this I have to set Windows to 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configuration. But this then sends stereo as 2 channels over multi-channel (all channels are active so the amp does not think it's stereo only) and I lose stereo Dolby Surround sound.

It's Kinda annoying really. If I play a MP3 in foobar with 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configuration set it auto switches the AVR to Dolby surround so I know it's possible. I can only think it's the way LAV is splitting the channels to multi-channel.

Any ideas?

[huhn]

try ac3 filter.

[nevcairiel]

I have an issue with LAV in MPC that I cannot get my head around. I recently purchased a Denon AVR and connected it using HDMI from an AMD video card. My problem is I cannot get stereo Dolby Surround decoding when I set the AMD to 5.1 or 7.1 channels. I can only get it by setting the AMD speaker configuration to stereo. I then have to set LAV to bitstream. I would prefer to have LAV set to decode audio to multi-channel output (So that I can have multi-channel+DS) but in order to do this I have to set Windows to 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configuration. But this then sends stereo as 2 channels over multi-channel (all channels are active so the amp does not think it's stereo only) and I lose stereo Dolby Surround sound.

It's Kinda annoying really. If I play a MP3 in foobar with 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configuration set it auto switches the AVR to Dolby surround so I know it's possible. I can only think it's the way LAV is splitting the channels to multi-channel.

Any ideas?

You want an Audio Renderer with WASAPI Exclusive mode that properly switches the output device to the number of channels the decoder outputs. Thats really the only way.

[nevcairiel]

Hi, nevcairiel,
Here is a sample that there are artifacts in all hardware-assisted modes (DXVA2/CUDA): https://www.sendspace.com/file/nfhb8p. Software mode is OK.
Win7 x64, LAV 0.67.0-43 x86, GTX660, Forceware 359.06.

Sounds like a driver or hardware problem if even CUVID shows the same problem.

[Gleb Egorych]

Sounds like a driver or hardware problem if even CUVID shows the same problem.
CoreAVC in CUDA mode shows no artifacts.

[GCRaistlin]

Feature request: show LAV Video settings window (by double click on the system tray icon) on the primary monitor even if the player's window is not on the primary monitor.

[oddball]

You want an Audio Renderer with WASAPI Exclusive mode that properly switches the output device to the number of channels the decoder outputs. Thats really the only way.

None of my audio renderers in MPC are listed as WASAPI capable. Is there any other way to bypass LAV for stereo sources? I want to use LAV for everything BUT stereo. I don't want to use AC3Filter etc thanks.

EDIT: I have found a workaround by using ReClock. It allows me to set my AVR to WASAPI output. I am unsure why LAV/MPC alone is not enough to achieve the same result. I tried setting my AVR to exclusive mode in MPC and it made no difference.

[AlexKane]

@oddball
The 'Internal Audio Renderer' in MPC, is using WASAPI by default.
I tried setting my AVR to exclusive mode in MPC and it made no difference
You are probably just using DirectSound.

[sneaker_ger]

I believe MPC-HC's new renderer always uses Windows' channel count instead of the source count, so it does not work for your purpose. It has already been asked in the MPC-HC thread to change that.

[nevcairiel]

CoreAVC in CUDA mode shows no artifacts.

CUVID in LAV Video also seems fine here. No artifacts.
The stream is damaged though, and I think it just uses Error Concealment to hide the problems, which doesn't work very well in DXVA2 modes tbh.

The avcodec software decoder has the much better error concealment than any Hardware Decoder i've ever seen, but due to the way DXVA2 works, it cannot function there.

[fluffy01]

I believe MPC-HC's new renderer always uses Windows' channel count instead of the source count, so it does not work for your purpose. It has already been asked in the MPC-HC thread to change that.
Yes. I noticed that too. I have a very similar setup to Oddball with a Denon AVR connected through a HDMI cable.
I use the MPC-BE internal renderer in exclusive mode, as this does in fact always try to switch the output layout to match the input layout, and it works great for me.

My exact setup is this: I configured the windows mixer to 2 channels, so I can let the AVR upsample it to surround, if I want to, when playing normal audio in Windows.
Then I configured MPC-BE to use "MPC Audio Renderer", which is the internal audio renderer of MPC-BE. I believe that the audio renderer can be used with other players too, though I haven't tried.
I configured the renderer as such: The sound device is just the primary audiodriver, though you can choose whatever you want to use.
I set WASAPI mode to exclusive, and ticked "Allow bit-exact output" and unticked the "Use system layout channels".
I set the Sync method to "Sync video to audio", though I do not think this has any effect on what channel layout is used.

I hope this helps.