LAV Filters - DirectShow Media Splitter and Decoders

[e-t172]

I have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Windows Audio. Probably because I suffered through TMT3's evolution of decoding. And have seen numerous problems with PDVD's channel mapping over the years, as well. Is that a Windows Audio problem? Not entirely, but, it certainly didn't help matters. For me I want it simple...decode audio, send decoded audio *AS IS* to the receiver. I trust my Pio. I don't trust Windows.

It's true that the audio engine in XP had serious problems. However they rewrote the whole thing since Vista. It does all processing in 32-bit float, with a sampling rate of your choosing. It won't resample if it doesn't need to, and when it does, I've never heard anyone complain about its quality. It does proper dithering when converting to integer (according to the Microsoft blogs from the people who actually developed the thing). And I've yet to see proof that the new audio engine was/is responsible for any channel mapping or downmixing issues. In fact, I'm not aware of any issue, past or present, with the Vista audio engine, except maybe from gamers who don't like the fact Microsoft ditched all hardware processing capabilities (which we don't care about).

I'm not sure why TMT's audio processing, or your receiver's, would be more "trustable" than the Windows Audio engine.

[Budtz]

How do I get the ArcSoft DTS decoder. Can i get that separatly or do i get it by installing their player: TotalMedia Theatre 5?
And will LAV audio support DTS-HD on its own someday?

[jmone]

If you want to use the Arcsoft decoder you should buy TMT5. There is a TMT5 trail that you could download that would include the file for testing etc. LAV Audio will not be able to nativly decode DTS-HD till it is supported by the ffmpeg project and given the spec has not ever been relased publically it may be some time.

[SamuriHL]

It's true that the audio engine in XP had serious problems. However they rewrote the whole thing since Vista. It does all processing in 32-bit float, with a sampling rate of your choosing. It won't resample if it doesn't need to, and when it does, I've never heard anyone complain about its quality. It does proper dithering when converting to integer (according to the Microsoft blogs from the people who actually developed the thing). And I've yet to see proof that the new audio engine was/is responsible for any channel mapping or downmixing issues. In fact, I'm not aware of any issue, past or present, with the Vista audio engine, except maybe from gamers who don't like the fact Microsoft ditched all hardware processing capabilities (which we don't care about).

I'm not sure why TMT's audio processing, or your receiver's, would be more "trustable" than the Windows Audio engine.

Again, my distrust of these things is from past experience. Where the problem lies, I don't care. What I know is that if I simply decode and send that directly to the receiver without manipulation, I get perfect sound. Equivalent to bitstreaming...all channels mapped correctly, no resampling, etc. LAV Audio gives me this experience when I use a renderer that can use exclusive mode to bypass Windows Audio. It's probably true that Windows Audio itself is fine, but, that the drivers from AMD and nVidia have caused a lot of the problems I've dealt with in the past. Also buggy decoders which we beat on ArcSoft to fix. :D So the situation today is FAR different from when I first got into this game. I just prefer the audio to be as untouched as possible. Even if it does perfect resampling and channel mapping, why? If I don't need that to be done, why do it? For those that DO need downmixing, maybe doing it in Windows Audio is a good solution. I do it through ffdshow audio processor on my laptop. Nonetheless, LAV Audio gives me EXACTLY what I want from a decoder. Unmolested decoded audio. That's it. :)

[Andy o]

And I've yet to see proof that the new audio engine was/is responsible for any channel mapping or downmixing issues.

With all the 7.1 audio devices I've tried (Ati 4000, 5000, Nvidia Gtx460 and 9200mGS, Intel G35, 3 C-Media chipsets, various onboard), when your player sends 5.1 audio and the Windows mixer is set to 7.1, Windows sends the surrounds to the back surrounds, and keeps the sides silent, when it should do the opposite, according to Dolby literature, and pretty much every HDMI receiver out there.

[Mark_A_W]

With all the 7.1 audio devices I've tried (Ati 4000, 5000, Nvidia Gtx460 and 9200mGS, Intel G35, 3 C-Media chipsets, various onboard), when your player sends 5.1 audio and the Windows mixer is set to 7.1, Windows sends the surrounds to the back surrounds, and keeps the sides silent, when it should do the opposite, according to Dolby literature, and pretty much every HDMI receiver out there.


Does this with my Xonar too. IMO Windows gets this wrong. Consistently wrong, but wrong all the same.

Luckily, some helpful bugger put me onto the hidden DPLIIx in the soundcard drivers :)

[andyvt]

With all the 7.1 audio devices I've tried (Ati 4000, 5000, Nvidia Gtx460 and 9200mGS, Intel G35, 3 C-Media chipsets, various onboard), when your player sends 5.1 audio and the Windows mixer is set to 7.1, Windows sends the surrounds to the back surrounds, and keeps the sides silent, when it should do the opposite, according to Dolby literature, and pretty much every HDMI receiver out there.

Check your NVIDIA card again w/ 270.61.

[Andy o]

It's not the 7.1 surround channel swap that plagued Nvidia HDMI devices at least twice (they actually shipped broke, fixed it, broke it again, and fixed it again, last time I checked). It's a different issue that happens with 5.1 output by the player into Windows set at 7.1. When playing 7.1 content, all channels are OK.

Actually, because of the channel swap bug, with those broken Nvidia drivers you'd not get the effect of this bug on 5.1, but with 7.1 obviously the surround sies/backs would be swapped.

[betaking]

Hi is this a lav filters bug? lav filtsers mpeg and mpegts can not connect coreaac ffdshow(lpcm) and ffdshow aac (libfaad2) ffdshow ac3(liba52)! use ffdshow ac3(libavcodec) ffdshow aac(libavcodec) and use ac3filter (LPCM)no problem! and use other ts filter no problem too!

[DrNein]

Off topic but what is the purpose if the portable data file?

Portable creates the configuration files under the XBMC folder rather than Users. So it is just a preference and affects where to place the playercorefactory.xml edited for MPC-HC:

wiki.xbmc.org
To customize playback behaviour, users need to create an extra playercorefactory.xml file inside their "\UserData\" folder.

[nevcairiel]

Is there any negative aspect to run the debug builds most of the time?

Its a bit slower, otherwise should pretty much be the same.
The logfile shouldn't grow excessively, as like i said its cleared every launch. After watching a few hours of a movie, it might still be quite large, however.

[Carpo]

MPC-HC + madVR + LAV + ArcSoft or CyberLink + XBMC = :)
:thanks: to gabest, madshi, nevcairiel, and other developers.

Indeed, now i have it all working in xbmc (windows media center sucks!!!), i am reconsidering my move to a linux/mythtv setup :D

Just have to see how the current windows setup handles eac3

[andyvt]

It's not the 7.1 surround channel swap that plagued Nvidia HDMI devices at least twice (they actually shipped broke, fixed it, broke it again, and fixed it again, last time I checked). It's a different issue that happens with 5.1 output by the player into Windows set at 7.1. When playing 7.1 content, all channels are OK.

Actually, because of the channel swap bug, with those broken Nvidia drivers you'd not get the effect of this bug on 5.1, but with 7.1 obviously the surround sies/backs would be swapped.

the current driver doesn't push l/r surrounds to the l/r rear surrounds when playing 5.1 on a 7.1 system

[Carpo]

After more tests i can play dts-hd files as it defaults back to core dts, but no such luck with truehd, unless I've not set it right, suppose it will save me having to re-encode all those blurays with eac3/truehd :p (until i can afford a new receiver)

Still at least using lav i have been able to remove ffdshow :D

[SamuriHL]

Decode TrueHD to PCM.

[Carpo]

How would i do that with Lav, looking at it now, but i must be missing something

[nevcairiel]

Just don't enable Bitstreaming for TrueHD, and it'll be decoded.

[Carpo]

tried that and it still squeaks at me, wonder if its because im trying to play the .truehd file directly, will mux it and see

edit: yes muxing it works, just have to change receiver to DD PLII Movie otherwise it just shows stero, suppose its bearable till i can afford a HD receiver :)

Now i just have to decide if i want to redo them all and at what crf :p

[SamuriHL]

If it shows stereo that's what your Windows Audio is set to output. Try setting Windows Audio to 5.1.

[Carpo]

Using dfault windows drivers on windows 7 as asus hasnt updated them for my board, and i dont have any spare slots to put the audigy card i had back in here :( Looks like windows is only going to let me have 2 channels or spdif, will see if i can hunt down some drivers for another board with are supposed to be compatible and see what happens with them :(

[SamuriHL]

Well that sucks. :(

[nevcairiel]

If you're actually using S/PDIF (coaxial or optical), try using ReClock and setting it to encode to AC3, that way you can get 5.1 to your Receiver. S/PDIF itself only supports 2 channel PCM. For more you need HDMI.

[SamuriHL]

Oh right, I was thinking there was an analog connection. DOH. Yes, Nev is 100% correct.

[Andy o]

the current driver doesn't push l/r surrounds to the l/r rear surrounds when playing 5.1 on a 7.1 system

I opened a thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=20453722#post20453722) at AVS to continue this, pls head on there.

[iSeries]

Hi,

Regarding dts-ma decoding with the arcsoft dll. With the 1.1.0.0 version, LAV audio is telling me my soundtrack is 7.1, but its actually 5.1. Where are these extra channels coming from? With the 1.1.0.8 version, if the movie gets loud I hear a lot of static (quieter parts ok). If anyone has any ideas about these 2 issues please let me know :thanks:

[nevcairiel]

1.1.0.0 is not fully supported yet. The next version will add support for this.

For the other issue, it may just be a bug in the decoder, as i do not process the output at all.
Once supported fully, 1.1.0.0 will most likely be the best version to use anyway.

[Carpo]

If you're actually using S/PDIF (coaxial or optical), try using ReClock and setting it to encode to AC3, that way you can get 5.1 to your Receiver. S/PDIF itself only supports 2 channel PCM. For more you need HDMI.

Any particular things i should look at, apart from AC3 encoding? seeing as i don't require the video part of it i can just leave it alone?

[Andy o]

Once supported fully, 1.1.0.0 will most likely be the best version to use anyway.

Why is this? BTW, from googling there seems to be a dtsdecoderdll.dll version 1.1.0.10 that came with "TMT 3.5", by which I think the poster meant TotalMedia 3.5. Apparently it doesn't work with eac3to, so I don't know if it could work with LAV.

[nevcairiel]

1.1.0.0 is the version eac3to was developed against, and it reproduces all audio perfectly. 1.1.0.7/8 drop the back-center in 6.0 layouts, and molest mono audio for no good reason.
I'm not sure when they changed the decoder, so i cannot say which versions between 1.1.0.0 and 1.1.0.7 have what bugs/features.

[Carpo]

so guessing TMT5 version is right out then

[nevcairiel]

Its fine, you just won't have a back center in 6.0 DTS files. Luckily, thats a rather rare layout. 6.1 works fine again.

[Carpo]

glad i saved it before i updated :)

[SamuriHL]

I'm using 1.1.0.8 and not having any issues. So, unless you care about that back center channel, meh.

[Gleb Egorych]

Version 1.1.0.0 came with TMT2. But TMT2 installs 2 dtsdecoderdll.dll-s, one to Common files and the other to the program folder, the first from 21.04.2008 and the second from 25.04.2008. They are 1.1.0.0 both, but binary different. nevcairiel, which particular version are you testing with? In that thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1484933#post1484933) mindbomb wrote about mono and 16 bit bugs in 1.1.0.7 which were fixed in 1.1.0.8. As I understood those bugs did not exist in 1.1.0.0, right?

[Markolc81]

I'm encountering a new problem, but seemingly not with the decoder. What happens is if I use LAVsplitter to decode DTS/TrueHD/whatever instead of bitstream, whenever I'm done playing my movie and go back into windows media Center there's no sound anymore (or sounds are very distorted). When this happens I can no longer play Live TV or Netflix or Boxee because they error out. However I can go right back into MPC-HC and play another movie just fine. If I restart the computer, then all works fine again until I play another MKV with lossless audio. I do use re-clock if that makes any difference.

Now If I have LAV Audio set to Bitstream, then all works perfect and Windows sounds (including WMC, Netflix, and Boxee) all work fine before and after I play an MKV. Anyone know what could be the problem?

I'd rather LAV Audio decode the lossless audio so I can maintain the benefits of ReClock.

[SamuriHL]

It's not a LAV Audio issue. It's ReClock and pretty much every other exclusive mode renderer that's causing it. It doesn't reset the audio connection when the exclusive mode lock is dropped. I personally feel that's a bug in the audio driver. (I'm guessing you're on AMD hardware?)

[Markolc81]

It's not a LAV Audio issue. It's ReClock and pretty much every other exclusive mode renderer that's causing it. It doesn't reset the audio connection when the exclusive mode lock is dropped. I personally feel that's a bug in the audio driver. (I'm guessing you're on AMD hardware?)

Yup. AMD Radeon 6850. AMD Sempron 140 cpu also.

[Markolc81]

It's not a LAV Audio issue. It's ReClock and pretty much every other exclusive mode renderer that's causing it. It doesn't reset the audio connection when the exclusive mode lock is dropped. I personally feel that's a bug in the audio driver. (I'm guessing you're on AMD hardware?)

However, when I play a movie that had lossless decoded to FLAC (an old BD rip of mine) then Reclock won't reproduce the same symptoms. Odd.

[SamuriHL]

However, when I play a movie that had lossless decoded to FLAC (an old BD rip of mine) then Reclock won't reproduce the same symptoms. Odd.

That is odd. One would think if ReClock is making an exclusive mode connection it wouldn't matter what the source is. It's when the exclusive mode lock is released that the trouble begins. TMT5 does the same thing when I bitstream, for example. The audio connection gets all screwed up. I generally go to the Audio CP and play the test sound or open Pandora to reset it. :D

[Andy o]

Are you using Media Center as a GUI to call up MPC-HC? If you're not using ReClock's WASAPI exclusive mode, and aren't using a 7.1 system, you can try the Realtek HDMI driver.

Also, try disabling MC menu sounds, or setting your Windows mixer to stereo, before you try Realtek.

[nevcairiel]

I think its a AMD problem with WASAPI or something like that, never happend on NVIDIA for me.

[SamuriHL]

I agree. I believe it's an AMD problem with the AMD HDMI driver. That's why I pegged what hardware he has.

[Markolc81]

Are you using Media Center as a GUI to call up MPC-HC? If you're not using ReClock's WASAPI exclusive mode, and aren't using a 7.1 system, you can try the Realtek HDMI driver.

Also, try disabling MC menu sounds, or setting your Windows mixer to stereo, before you try Realtek.

I'm using Media Browser to call on MPC-HC. And I have ReClock setup to output to WASAPI exclusive mode for PCM (WaveOut for Bitstream, but I don't think it makes a difference).

[Markolc81]

That is odd. One would think if ReClock is making an exclusive mode connection it wouldn't matter what the source is. It's when the exclusive mode lock is released that the trouble begins. TMT5 does the same thing when I bitstream, for example. The audio connection gets all screwed up. I generally go to the Audio CP and play the test sound or open Pandora to reset it. :D

I spoke too soon, I played some more MKVs with FLAC and it disabled the Windows sounds as well.

When I go into the Audio CP to play the test sound it just gives me an error lol. The only way to cure the problem is to reboot windows, or bitstream something (Live TV that happens to be streaming AC3, or set LAV audio to bitstream again.)

[Markolc81]

I agree. I believe it's an AMD problem with the AMD HDMI driver. That's why I pegged what hardware he has.

I'm gonna try the Realtek driver, if that doesn't work I'm going to go bother the folks on the ReClock forums about it, or back on AVS.

[SamuriHL]

It's not a ReClock problem. You won't get it resolved by SlySoft. Trust me. ;)

[nevcairiel]

There, i just commited a re-worked interface to the DTS decoder. It will now always reduce the decoded output to its native channel count and layout, matching the channel layout of the ffmpeg dca decoder.

Next step is a function to actually increase that channel count again to one of the standard formats properly recognized by your typical AVR. ;) (Mono/Stereo/5.1/6.1/7.1)

BTW, anyone sitting on 6.1 samples that are NOT dts? TrueHD? Other multi-channel formats?
I need to confirm the channel order..

[SamuriHL]

I don't think I've ever seen a non-5.1 or 7.1 TrueHD track. All the 6.1 stuff I've seen is DTS.

[Bryanhoop]

I agree. I believe it's an AMD problem with the AMD HDMI driver. That's why I pegged what hardware he has.

I've had the same issue happening to me on my nVidia HDMI output. I've posted about it a few times on INTERACT but no one said much. I also do the sound test to "free" the playback device.

[SamuriHL]

I've had the same issue happening to me on my nVidia HDMI output. I've posted about it a few times on INTERACT but no one said much. I also do the sound test to "free" the playback device.

Fascinating. I hadn't seen that issue on nVidia hardware before.