Best software player setup for Surface Pro 4

[dave_in_gva]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 configured as follows:

Core i5-6300U at 2.4GHz
8 GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 520


The Surface Pro 4 has a 2736 x 1824 pixel screen. I travel quite a bit and would like to use it to watch films on. At home I have installed the suite of software now described on the Ezoden tutorial (MPC-HC, ffdshow, madVR, Reclock and AutoFrequency) on our laptop which is connected via HDMI to our TV. This is giving me great quality video playback on our television.

I suspect going the Ezoden route with my Surface Pro 4 would be pushing it too far, given the processor, RAM and graphics.

Still, I am up to tweaking the playback capabilities of the Surface over and beyond a plain vanilla VLC or MPC-HC install.

What would people here recommend I do to optimize my video playback on my Surface?

Dave M

[jkauff]

I can run MPC-HC using madVR at the default settings on my HP Stream 7 tablet, which is far less powerful than your Surface Pro 4. You could start there.

Do you really need ffdshow? If you're using it for the QuickSync capabilities, you could do QuickSync decoding and de-interlacing via the LAV Video filter in MPC-HC. However, the author of LAV recommends using software decoding instead of QuickSync. And madVR has very good software de-interlacing. You have plenty of CPU power to go that route.

madVR, of course, has a great many options for improving picture quality beyond the default settings, limited only by your GPU and your willingness to tweak. You'll at least want to try the image/luma doubling options with that screen resolution (super-xbr is an efficient doubler). If you post your question in the madVR thread, you'll get recommendations from folks who know madVR much better than I do. I'm just a consumer like you, but I'm learning. ;)

[Asmodian]

Zoom Player would be amazing on a Surface Pro, it has decent gesture support and a tablet mode. :D

I want a Surface Pro 4 just for Zoom Player support (compared to an iOS or Android tablet).

Definitely keep using madVR, the Surface Pro 4 is plenty fast enough for basic settings, keep to Lanczos/Spline or bicubic resize. You can probably even use some of the new upscaling refinement options in madVR. I wouldn't use reclock or AutoFrequency though, use madVR's smooth motion instead.

edit: what is the point of AutoFrequency with madVR anyway? Does it do something madVR cannot? Why is ffdshow used at all? I never like tutorials, they always suggest something weird I don't agree with. A good way to start but it is better to understand the point of each piece of software and pick settings yourself. :p

Install LAV Filters, madVR, and Zoom Player (or MPC-HC), and XySubFilter Beta3. That should be all you need.

[dave_in_gva]

Thanks both. I'll dig further into madVR and the other software and LAV filters suggested.

Any great advantage in moving over to Zoom Player from MPC-HC?

[Asmodian]

Any great advantage in moving over to Zoom Player from MPC-HC?

I like Zoom Player a lot more, it is extremely customizable (maybe too customizable for some, there are really a lot of options in advanced mode) and has gesture support, e.g. swipe left to skip to the next chapter. Gestures are only in the pay version though. A tablet mode too so the UI is designed for a touch interface. No video quality changes however.

Zoom Player also has an "Install Center" which will download and configure codecs as well as keep them up to date. I tend to manage them on my own anyway but it doesn't install anything bad unlike most codec packs.