LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[nevcairiel]

You are once again the wrong thread. Also, you should really learn some patience.

[senseipiledrive2]

I'd like to get some help updating the LAV filters in MPC-hc (latest stable build) to the latest nightly build LAV filter. I install the nightly build just fine, but when I play a movie in MPC-hc it still shows 70.2.1 version in the system tray for splitter, audio and video filters. Any help please?

Side question: should my output range for my limited RGB TV set to TV output in Lav Video Settings if I use madVR and have it set to TV range in there already?

[sneaker_ger]

It's probably using the built-in LAV filters. Easiest is to simply delete the LAV Filters sub-folder from the MPC-HC folder. As a bonus you can go to the "External Filters" options and add all LAV Filters (Video, Audio, Splitter (Source)) and set them to preferred.

[sneaker_ger]

@nev:
MKVToolNix 19.0.0:
* mkvmerge, GUI's multiplexer: MIME types: added the `font` top-level media types from RFC 8081. This means that the following new MIME types for fonts can be used: `font/ttf`, `font/otf`, `font/woff` and `font/woff2`.
Relevant for splitter?

[clsid]

Side question: should my output range for my limited RGB TV set to TV output in Lav Video Settings if I use madVR and have it set to TV range in there already?That setting is only for when LAV converts to RGB, which should never happen if you use madVR. All output formats and settings should be left at default in LAV. It will automatically use the appropriate ones.
Only touch the output range settings of the driver and madvr:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1271416

[Gee]

are there any problems with "lav direct 3D 11 +yadif" + nVIDIA +madVR yet?

[AngelGraves13]

are there any problems with "lav direct 3D 11 +yadif" + nVIDIA +madVR yet?

Besides the fact that it doesn't work?

[huhn]

should work perfectly fine in copyback mode.

[el Filou]

Works on my system apart from dropping one frame every 1-2 seconds, but that's because my CPU can't handle YADIF.
What problems are you experiencing?

[jmone]

Here is a 40 sec sample (https://ufile.io/kjezf) from a UHD BD with Atmos Track (325MB) where at the 33sec mark the ATMOS track drops out when bitstreaming to an AVR. There is no issue when playing the original Disc using a HW Player (and others have reported that it also plays fine on a PC using PDVD). The issue is constant across several users all with different setups but one commonality is that it just seems to be SW players like JRiver and MPC-HC that has the issue.

Thanks for looking.
Nathan

Edit PS - you can not demux the sample with eac3to but with the full M2TS it reports no issues.

[nevcairiel]

Here is a 40 sec sample (https://ufile.io/kjezf) from a UHD BD with Atmos Track (325MB) where at the 33sec mark the ATMOS track drops out when bitstreaming to an AVR. There is no issue when playing the original Disc using a HW Player (and others have reported that it also plays fine on a PC using PDVD). The issue is constant across several users all with different setups but one commonality is that it just seems to be SW players like JRiver and MPC-HC that has the issue.

The actual layout of the Dolby MAT frame used to encapsulate TrueHD for HDMI transmission is unknown and undocumented, so unless someone finds the specification how to do this, I'm afraid there isn't even a starting point to start looking.

[jmone]

Thanks - I'm not sure how common the issue will be but it seems to be limited to 2 x Disney discs so far (and both report having a high audio bitrate). The majority of the sound track is fine, but you then hit these points and sound is dropped (the amount of the drop seems to vary by the users setup from a brief drop to my setup where it is 10 sec). We are just guessing it is ffmpeg related given the players that are affected but don't really know. Is it worth opening a Ticket at https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ or would it just be wasting everyone time (and also if so is the sample too large)?

[ashlar42]

Am I correct in assuming LAVfilters won't upmix stereo audio to 5.1 (or surround in general)?

[LigH]

No affirmative answer from me ... but I believe no. LAV Filters will surely not upmix any stereo with arbitrary parameters, and I believe it has no ProLogic decoder either. Leave that to an attached A/V receiver in your shelf...

[ashlar42]

No affirmative answer from me ... but I believe no. LAV Filters will surely not upmix any stereo with arbitrary parameters, and I believe it has no ProLogic decoder either. Leave that to an attached A/V receiver in your shelf...Yeah, that's what I do. I was asking for a fellow Kodi DSPlayer user.

[foozoor]

Is kodi dsplayer still working?
I thought this sh*t was unstable and no longer maintained.

[mclingo]

Is kodi dsplayer still working?
I thought this sh*t was unstable and no longer maintained.

Well, you'd be completely wrong on both counts thankfully, a lot of hard work has gone into this and dev is still going strong, your comments and not appreciated.

[ashlar42]

Hopefully I get some more time over the holidays to finish some things and make a release then.Hi! Any progress on this? Just an update request, no hurry or anything. All the best for your 2018. :)
:thanks:

[ashlar42]

Is kodi dsplayer still working?
I thought this sh*t was unstable and no longer maintained.Well... I'd say it's arguably the most advanced media center solution available, with the best video and audio quality available. Far from being "sh*t", unstable or no longer mantained.

[DragonQ]

Well... I'd say it's arguably the most advanced media center solution available, with the best video and audio quality available. Far from being "sh*t", unstable or no longer mantained.
Kodi DSPlayer is generally stable and maintained, but the MediaPortal TV-Server plugin is very buggy, which prevents me from moving from MediaPortal for live TV playback.

[foozoor]

I didn't know aracnoz continued the development.
I thought he was looking for a new owner.
It seems mediaportal works with madvr now.

[iSeries]

Hi, I get occasional audio dropouts when bitrstreaming atmos/truedhd. All other formats work fine. If I switch to decoding, also fine. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing the dropouts? (MPC-BE with internal renderer, MadVR, Win10)

[ryrynz]

Try a different HDMI cable.

[nevcairiel]

Atmos bitstreaming is not fully understood. If the bitrate exceeds a certain limit, it breaks apart, because its not known how to handle that. This was never a problem with ordinary TrueHD since the bitrate doesn't get high enough. Unfortunately the specifications for that are not available anywhere online (not even to buy), since its not part of the IEC standard that usually controls HDMI bitstreaming. So if anyone knows how Dolby MAT (Metadata-enhanced Audio Transport) works - the format used to wrap TrueHD and Atmos for HDMI transmission, please let me know. :)

[iSeries]

Thanks for the explanation Nev. I'll switch to software decoding for problematic tracks.

[VAMET]

Dear Friends

Hi, I get occasional audio dropouts when bitrstreaming atmos/truedhd. All other formats work fine. If I switch to decoding, also fine. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing the dropouts? (MPC-BE with internal renderer, MadVR, Win10)

Try a different HDMI cable.

Atmos bitstreaming is not fully understood. If the bitrate exceeds a certain limit, it breaks apart, because its not known how to handle that. This was never a problem with ordinary TrueHD since the bitrate doesn't get high enough. Unfortunately the specifications for that are not available anywhere online (not even to buy), since its not part of the IEC standard that usually controls HDMI bitstreaming. So if anyone knows how Dolby MAT (Metadata-enhanced Audio Transport) works - the format used to wrap TrueHD and Atmos for HDMI transmission, please let me know. :)

The problem exist for example in movie PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES [2017] [2160P], where Dolby Atmos is 9Mbps, there are lots of dropouts for 1 second long and then sound is playing OK. It occurs, when there are shooting, explosions etc. HDMI cable change do nothing at all, I have tested for the cheapest and the most expensive ones and everytime the same problem with audio. When I convert to LPCM or change to not bitrstreaming via LAV Filters, there is no problem. After changing to bitstreaming, the problem occurs.

Sincerely

[iSeries]

Nev is it possible to add an extra box in the audio decoding properties, for Atmos/truehd tracks? So I could choose to bitstream truehd tracks but software decode atmos/truehd tracks.

EDIT: Also, does anyone know why software decoding is so much quieter than bitstreaming?

[nevcairiel]

LAV doesn't currently know if a stream contains Atmos extensions.

[huhn]

EDIT: Also, does anyone know why software decoding is so much quieter than bitstreaming?

because your system and player audio are not at 100 %?
alternatively the mixing.

[iSeries]

Using wasapi exclusive so always 100% when sending lpcm (but regardless all are set to 100% anyway). I noticed this a bunch of years ago when I had a Yamaha avr and it's the same with my Denon now. Sending lpcm to my receiver is notably quieter than bitstreaming.

[Manni]

Using wasapi exclusive so always 100% when sending lpcm (but regardless all are set to 100% anyway). I noticed this a bunch of years ago when I had a Yamaha avr and it's the same with my Denon now. Sending lpcm to my receiver is notably quieter than bitstreaming.

It's simply because LPCM uses different levels. It has always been the case.

[huhn]

decode: lavfilter decodes it to lpcm = low volume
bitstreaming: the AVR decodes it to lpcm = high volume

no sorry doesn't make sense.

[iSeries]

If it made sense, I wouldn't be posting here. I'm not lying ;-)

[nevcairiel]

Its just how receivers work. They have different reference levels for HDMI input and decoding on their own. Maybe its intentional so that compressed formats are perceived "better" (since for most people louder is better), but who knows.

[bisse]

There are some new features of mpls playlists being used on some blurays. The german version of "Grand Budapest Hotel" uses multi-angle mpls files to select the different language versions (they differ by localized inserts and title cards). Unfortunately LAV only picks the first playlist-angle out of such a mpls playlist, without any option to choose the other (sub-playlist) versions. This is completely different from multi-angle video streams.

This purely a matter of an mpls feature. The playlist file contains all the "angles" - no bd-j logc necessary. At the moment LAV plays the first angle of such playlist files. It would be nice if it would expose a choice of which angle to play - just like LAV has chapter support. This is not hugely important and might not even be on the agenda of the LAV developers, but maybe its easy to implement. And even if not, then i hope its still interesting to see that such mpls files exist.

Even if it did allow switching of angles, there is no guarantee that there is any information which angle is which, so you would probably still have to guess which to play.

This would be no different from having to guess which subtitle track is for the hearing impaired, contains only forced subtitles or is the regular subtitle track. Also with audio tracks sometimes it's not obvious which track is which (due to wrong language flags, or multiple english tracks for SDH, commentary, music only etc.).

With "Grand Budapest Hotel" it would not involve much guessing as the first localized titlecard appears right after the credit sequence.

Anyhow - it's not a "crucial" feature or anything. But as LAV opens mpls files it would be nice if it also supported this feature. And as you are aware now (or have been all along) that these files exist my mission is complete - the rest it up to your judgement, mood and time.

Could this function quoted in these old messages above still be implemented?

I've just purchased a bunch of GKIDS BD's that uses the MPLS angle feature to differentiate between credit sequences. As of now I'm forced to watch them with English credits, but I'd strongly prefer the original Japanese credits. Very frustrating.

I've tried using the modded mpc-hc with dslibbluray (with madvr, navigating blindly through the BD menu), but the subtitles seems to have a life of their own. They don't follow the timecode. I've tried both XYsub and the built in subs renderer.
I've also tried using the seamless playback function in Potplayer by adding each corresponding m2ts file the playlist, but with this method there's loads of audio glitches/skippings and the audio always gets out of sync, regardless of which audio decoder/renderer I use.

Is there any other method I can use if madvr is mandatory? Ripping is not an option.

[chros]

decode: lavfilter decodes it to lpcm = low volume
bitstreaming: the AVR decodes it to lpcm = high volume

no sorry doesn't make sense.

Its just how receivers work.
If I remember correctly when I start to use wasapi exclusive mode in MPC-* (instead of any other output device) then all my low vol problem has gone that was there before with my Yamaha AVR.
And not to mention that e.g. dts-hd bitstream has metadata that the receiver can process differently than a raw stream.

[iSeries]

Whether it's additional metadata or whether it's just something my AVR does when processing bitstreamed formats, it definitely sounds different. Not even just a case of lower volume. Turning the volume up does not match the sound 'impact' of bitstreaming. It sounds fuller, a more natural 'enveloping surround' sound, with better bass. LPCM in comparison just sounds like 7 individual channels of audio, plus much lower sub output. Poor explanation I know, and I know some might be sceptical lol. Anyway, nothing to do with LAV, definitely my receiver.

[e-t172]

If you're having issues with sub levels it might be that the LFE channel is being mishandled, i.e. the standard +10dB gain is not applied in one scenario or the other.

[chros]

LPCM in comparison just sounds like 7 individual channels of audio, plus much lower sub output. Poor explanation I know, and I know some might be sceptical lol
:) No, I completely undertand what you mean! I had tge same observation back then. E.g. when you convert dts-hd into flac and try to compare how these 2 sounds.
Do you have any other filter in the audio chain than splitter/decoder/renderer?
If you want I can post my mpc-be related config options.
If you're having issues with sub levels it might be that the LFE channel is being mishandled, i.e. the standard +10dB gain is not applied in one scenario or the other.
It's different from this: it's like bitstreamed audio has more "life", more dynamic.
But as I mentioned, using wasapi exclusive mode (I think the shared mode is also fine) in internal filters in mpc* solved my issue.

[max79]

Problem with "LAV Splitter Source", it can't grab second wmv3 video stream from this 3D-video file example:
http://www.3dtv.at/Movies/Oldtimers.wmv

[nevcairiel]

Only MKV 3D files or Blu-ray 3D SSIF streams are supported. No plans for any other files at this time.

[Manni]

Only MKV 3D files or Blu-ray 3D SSIF streams are supported. No plans for any other files at this time.

Hi Nevcairiel,

Does this mean that a player such as MPC-BE can play a 3D ISO once mounted?

[fluffy01]

When I try to play a 3D Bluray, I just get a black screen in madVR.

My current setup is Windows 10 FCU, Radeon Rx 460, Intel 6700T Skylake, Latest LAVFilters nightly (0.70.2-83), MPC-BE 1.5.2.3285 nightly, madVR 0.92.10.

I included the MVC download, when I installed LAVFilters.

When I try to play a 3D Bluray, madVR goes into 3D mode, and opening the stats confirm that it is in 3D mode, and the audo starts playing. But I just get a blank screen, and looking in the stats screen, I can see that the decoder queue does not fill up, and stays at 1-1/16, and after a little while, MPC-BE freezes and needs to be killed from the task manager. Also, I can see that the CPU usage is stuck at 25% (2 threads running at 100%).

However, if I pause the video and point at the seek-bar getting the small preview window to show, then that one actually shows video (It shows 2 pictures in OU-mode, but it at least shows something).

If I look into the LAVFilters video status window, I can see that the active decoder is "msdk mvc".

Since the decoder queue in madVR does not fill up, I am guessing that the problem lies in LAVFilters, hence the reason I am asking here. Please forgive me, if this is not the case.

If I reencode the video using FRIM, then the video works fine, so at least I know that the Intel SDK is working properly.

Any help is apreciated. If you need any additional info, please don't hesitate to ask, and I will answer as good as I can.

[mclingo]

hi, it can be really hard to track down issues with 3d playback as there can be lots of variables, i currently have an AMD RX 550 but I had an RX480 before that and it worked perfectly.

1. Install MPC-HC (easiest to configure for testing)
2. add the latest LAV filters as external filters - 1x audio 1x video 2x splitter - set to prefer
3. untick internal source and transform filters
4. set madvr back to defaults, (you can dial in your own preferences for scaling etc once its working again)
5. turn on all stereo 3d options in MADVR - (4 ticks)
6. Turn on FSE (full screen exclusive mode) - this is always required for AMD card at the moment, not necessarily required for NVIDIA cards
7. AMD cards can already do 23.976 so no need to faff about with custom res but add 1080p23 to display modes for now on its own, this is assuming the 3D movie is a 3D MKV RIP at 23.976
8. Power cycle you TV and receiver, sometimes mine stops working, about once a month and i have to power cycle my TV.
9. Set MPC to open in full screen but make sure autochange monitor mode is unticked.
10. make sure you set the RX460 as you renderer in LAV filters (external)

try again.

[Manni]

6. Turn on FSE (full screen exclusive mode) - this is always required for AMD card at the moment, not required for NVIDIA cards


This is not correct. FSE is not needed by some, but is required by others with nVidia too. I and others nVidia GPU users have reported they can't get 3D without FSE, including on Windows 10.

Please refrain from making generic statements. There are very few things that are true for every one, even on the same platform (same OS version same GPU family) due to the many parameters involved in a HTPC.

[mclingo]

This seems to change depending on which forum you are on and who you are talking too but i have amended my statement for now.

Has anyone ever given a reason why some cards dont work and so do and which ones, is it a driver issue or setup?, certainly when I was asking this question on the MADVR forum several people where quite clear in stating I didnt need FSE for 3D MVC, I disputed that until I tried it and it worked without FSE on my 1050.

[Manni]

This seems to change depending on which forum you are on and who you are talking too but i have amended my statement for now.

Has anyone ever given a reason why some cards dont work and so do and which ones, is it a driver issue or setup?, certainly when I was asking this question on the MADVR forum several people where quite clear in stating I didnt need FSE for 3D MVC, I disputed that until I tried it and it worked without FSE on my 1050.

I posted this https://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1827132&postcount=47727 a few posts after one of yours, but for some reason, you seem to only retain some of the information in the thread and bring everything back to your own personal experience as if what you experience on your system was true for everyone. In most cases, it's not.

I don't know why it works for some and not for others. I haven't seen a trend re GPUs or OSes. I just know that 3D doesn't work for me and others without FSE on nVidia.

[mclingo]

Well, its hard to keep track and make sense of what people say, often answers come out of context out of place or a few pages later and they get missed, also , everyone is always contracting each other, I said the same thing as you and as soon as I did a load of people came back saying FSE wasnt required for NVIDIA cards. Then you alone came back saying it was, I went with what seemed to be the majority and my own experience.

Sometimes you can really only rely on your own experience, especially when you are trying to advise someone with a similar setup to yourself.

[Manni]

Well, its hard to keep track and make sense of what people say, often answers come out of context out of place or a few pages later and they get missed, also , everyone is always contracting each other, I said the same thing as you and as soon as I did a load of people came back saying FSE wasnt required for NVIDIA cards. Then you alone came back saying it was, I went with what seemed to be the majority and my own experience.

Sometimes you can really only rely on your own experience, especially when you are trying to advise someone with a similar setup to yourself.

Not with HTPCs. Please stop giving any advice to people if you based that advice simply on your personal experience and dismiss other people's experience to make general statements. Your experience, or the experience of the majority, doesn't mean that the issues experienced by a minority are not real.

More experienced people in the thread, such as Madshi or Nevcairiel, can make general statements because they infer their advice from all the personal experiences they have collected in the past, which adds to their vast knowledge and expertise in the tools they have created.

If you don't pay attention, don't remember, please refrain from giving unsolicited advice on all matters. Leave other more experienced people offer their advice first, and learn from it. You don't need to comment on everything. It adds noise and confusion.

There are only limited areas of discussions where I think I might be able to help. Half the time, I'm wrong or have forgotten something. So I try to post less to help more, and I would say I am significantly more experienced than you. :)

[fluffy01]

Thanks for the advice, but the only thing on your list that I haven't tried is the FSE part, but I am not sure that is the problem.
It goes fine into 3D mode. I have to use the glasses to see the stats, and they pop out at me.
The problem is that the decoder queue does not fill, and it is stuck on 1.

If it matters, the computer is connected to an Integral, which is connected to my Denon AVR, which is in turn connected to my Optoma 1080p projector.