New release of Media Player 6.4

[Blight]

Well, I noticed that if FFDShow is placed between the MPEG1 decoder and the VMR9 filter, that the resolution of the VCD will now be reported as 352x240, no AR adjustment reported at all and the scaling artifacts are gone...

Something is really fishy if it's doing two resizes and one of them at "Near-Neighbor/Point resize" (352x240 -> 313x240).

And did you check DVD quality with this? VMR9 looks aweful, tons of scaling artifacts.

And ... in VMR9 the mouse cursor doesn't work for highlighting and menu navigation. I mean, don't they test the code?

[bbq@KL]

Go grab DVDSynth (http://www.roundelay.net/dvdsynth/prerelease.html) and say goodbye to macrovision.

How do we make use of major type and subtype? I have no clue at all. Do you have an example for beginners? Thank you.

[Blight]

Gabest:
I think there's something fundamentally wrong, your "fix" by cropping is not exactly doing what you expect it to.

Try the following:
Use a 352x240 NTSC VCD source.
Render the video in VMR9.

1. Use VMR9 without any tweaking.
2. Use VMR9 with crop.
3. Use VMR9 with ffdshow in RAW mode, but with all its filters disabled.

Scale the images to 1024x768 using VMR9, then save them to BMP (screen capture).

#1 will have scaling artifacts
#2 will not having scaling artifacts.
#3 will not having scaling artifacts, will not have AR flag, WILL BE SHARPER.

What's happening as far as I can tell is, VMR9 will downscale the VCD to 313x240. If you don't crop, it will use point scaling, if you do crop it will use bilinear scaling. But then the video is hard scaled... now when you set it to 1024x768, it will scale from 313x240 instead of the original 352x240, hence, resolution loss and a blurry image!

I don't think there's any way around this.

[gabest]

Hm, but why do you think it's downscaling first? In my allocator-presenter I just calculate the ar corrected size, scale that to the actual window frame and use that as the target frame for StretchRect. Only one resize is there. I can't believe vmr9's own a-p would do it differently.

[gabest]

Originally posted by bbq@KL
How do we make use of major type and subtype? I have no clue at all. Do you have an example for beginners? Thank you. Ah, sorry, I didn't notice this question first :) I'm not sure how you mean it, but when the exact input types are specified that helps me finding the connectable filters a bit faster.

[Blight]

Did you try the procedure I listed?

What resolution does VMR9 report when you try playing an NTSC VCD file? On my system it's 313x240, and VMR9 actually scales to that resoltion.

Heck, here are screenshots:
NVIDIA v30.82 - Standard VMR9, no special code. (http://www.inmatrix.com/temp/VMR9-10m-30.82.png)
NVIDIA v43.45 - Standard VMR9, no special code. (http://www.inmatrix.com/temp/VMR9-10m-43.45.png)
NVIDIA v43.45 - Crop code used to fix point scaler (http://www.inmatrix.com/temp/VMR9-10m-43.45c.png)
NVIDIA 43.45 - No special code is used, but ffdshow is in the graph without any processing filters enabled (not even post-proc) (http://www.inmatrix.com/temp/VMR9-10m-43.45ffdshow.png)

Download all 4 images and flip through them. You'll see what I mean.

[gabest]

Well, on the second pic it really looks like to be the case. Maybe it works like this:
- first it uses StretchRect (with the broken filtering) to put the incoming video frame on a texture, in the ar corrected size.
- does some mixing between the inputs when it has to.
- paints the texture in 3d onto the backbuffer or on screen directly with good bilinear filtering in its full size to fill the window.

Does ffdshow change the media type from FORMAT_VideoInfo2 to FORMAT_VideoInfo? That would be an explanation why.

[bbq@KL]

I thought that we can modify the major type and subtype in order to change the acceptance or refusal of connections between two pins. Maybe that would be my stupid imagination or something.

Just FYI, latest CyberLink Audio Decoder 4.0.0.2614 gave me these registry settings and the old ones were quite different:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CyberLink\PowerDVD
AuDsDnmx
0x00000002 = Stereo
0x00000008 = Dolby Surround Compatible Downmix
0x00000010 = A3D/DirectSound3D
0x00000200 = Dolby Headphone
0x00000400 = TruSurroundXT

AuDsInterface
0x00000004 = Use SPDIF
0x00000008 = 2 Speaker
0x00000010 = 4 Speaker
0x00000020 = 6 Speaker
0x00000040 = 7 Speaker
0x00000080 = 8 SpeakerDVS and PL-II settings were still greyed out so might not be available without running PowerDVD XP itself.

[Blight]

gabest:
You'll also see that http://www.inmatrix.com/temp/VMR9-10m-43.45c.png is alot blurrier than http://www.inmatrix.com/temp/VMR9-10m-43.45ffdshow.png

The 30.82 driver still gives the best PQ on an NVIDIA card.

[gabest]

bbq@KL: You can of course remove a few types to disallow filters for certain connection attempts. For example if you add ffdshow and delete the div3 fourcc type, then it won't decode divx3 avi files, no matter what you set in its settings.

Blight: Meanwhile I read the answer from S.E. at DXAV... Now I'm eagerly waiting what he's going to say on the point sampling prob, I guess he will be pointing at nvidia and the drivers :)

[ma2trigk]

Hi guys !

I've got one problem, one terrible bug :

I'm running MPC 6.4.4.2 on my K6-2 550Mhz under W98SE and i've got problems with avi files.
All my avi files (raw avi and also XviD) crash the player and totally freeze my computer. But WM files and QT files are OK !!!

I tried different options, uninstalling the SviD codecs, installing the FFDShow filter, but it didn't work :(

Does anyone have a solution for me ?

[gabest]

Do they run in other players? Is the keyframe finder for avi files enabled in the options?

[Blight]

Gabest:
99% he won't answer.

It seems like standard MS tactics. I ask a question, they answer with a reply that doesn't really answer my question, I further clarify and get no reply.

I don't know if you've noticed it but with VMR9 enabled in DVD Rendering, mouse-based menu navigation is completely broken (no highlighting with mouse-over or clicking).

I've made a post about that too, they told me I need to make sure IVideoWindow is in use (even though I'm in Windowless mode and it doesn't really apply), to be on the safe side I actually tried it out, but of course, it didn't help.

I wonder if they'll fix it by DX10. Phasing out overlay without first replacing it with a stable interface is a no no.

[gabest]

The dvd nav filter needs to know about the video window frame to be able to match the mouse cursor coords with the menu items, it uses IVideoWindow or IVMRWindowlessControl when it finds these on the renderer, but apparently MS forgot to update this filter to use IVMRWindowlessControl9 too. The VMR9 works with dvd menus in normal windowed mode when it can feed the dvd navigator with the needed information through IVideoWindow, but windowless (doesn't know about IVMRWindowlessControl9) or renderless (the a-p can impelment IVMRWindowlessControl9 but what for...) mode is not working.

Ah, and there is one more thing. The IDvdInfo2::GetButtonRect call, the only way which would allow us to highlight menus explicitly, is not implemented!

Return code Description
E_NOTIMPL This method is currently not implemented

[gabest]

http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc2kxp6444.rar
http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc98me6444.rar

Not much changed, I'd just liked to find out if it crashes because of the new graph building method. (probably still :P)

With the autoloading of filters I ran into a few hard to solve problems, so now only the "add from file" dialog uses the known filters list to autofill its edit boxes. There are still filters missing (with a high probablity to be ever loaded there): xvid.ax, sonic dvd filters, nvidia dvd filters. It would be great if someone who has these could look up the file name and clsid.

Also, options page got a new look and top/left of the window is used again when "remember to last window pos" is checked.

[ookzDVD]

I still don't understand,
all version after 6.4.4.2 seems to be broken on my machine.
as you can see from this screenshot : http://ookzdvd.japati.com/mpc_error.gif

Thank you.

[gabest]

This is normal, I didn't expect this to work on everyone's machine first :)

Could you try it with /open switch? This would tell me if it crashes before or after the graph starts to run. I think it does before, but worth a try.

[rakaz]

gabest: could the crash of the newer builds of MPC caused by one specific Directshow filter? Last weekend I reinstalled my computer and now everything seems to be working fine. The only ds filter I installed on my new system is ffdshow. On my old system I had all kinds of ds filters installed.

[gabest]

It can be. I read FilterData from the registry directly to find out the attributes of the filters (merit, if it has input pins, what media types it can accept).

ookzDVD: Could you export and send me everything under this key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{083863F1-70DE-11d0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}\Instance

[rakaz]

gabest: Okay, I also have the crash problem at my PC at work. I am going to try to unregister all the non-standard filters on the PC at work one by one. If this is the cause of the problem I guess everything will work again after the problematic filter is unregistered. I'll let you know the result of this.

[troticielo]

rakaz: Did you happen to have 3ivx installed previously? Unregistering the video decoder fixed the crashes on my end.

[gabest]

Hm, this is it :)

I even have to click through four access violation dialogs to get mpc started when this is installed :P Now debugging further...

edit: The last media type of "3ivx D4 Video Decoder" seems to be trucated and contains some garbage from elsewhere. It is at the end of (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{083863F1-70DE-11d0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}\Instance\{0E6772C0-DD80-11D4-B58F-A86B66D0611C}\FilterData. It is one GUID shorter and the last media type is just a unicode string: "Input It's"

[gabest]

http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc2kxp6445.rar
http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc98me6445.rar

[epere4]

Tested the last version and works fine for me so far (but I never had problemas, so my opinion in this matter doesn´t add anything ;) )

I noticed an option in the Player to store the settings in a ini file. I didn´t notice it before, but I don´t know if it is new.
The questions are thre:
1- If I leave this option on, then the player doesn´t write in the registry?
2- Does it first scan the folder where it is present to see if it finds this file and then scan the registry?
3- The ini file is equal in NT and in 9X version?

I make autorun CDs and use your player. But I wasn´t able to set some propertiers by default. So if the player first scan for the ini file, it would be great. And if the file can be the same for every windows version, I can generate one ini and use it in every computer (I mean, I don´t have to switch to Win98 just to make the apropiate ini file).

CU

[ookzDVD]

Originally posted by gabest

ookzDVD: Could you export and send me everything under this key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{083863F1-70DE-11d0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}\Instance

Sure, here is the file : http://ookzdvd.japati.com/ookzdvd.zip

PS: I've tried to open an .ogm file with /open but still crashed.

[edit]
Wow... the latest 6.4.4.5 finally fix the problem :) everything is working well now :)

Thank you.

[rakaz]

troticielo: No I don't have 3ivx installed.

gabest: MPC 6445 still didn't work, so I tried removing all non-standard ds filters on my affected system. Everthing started working again after Subtitle Mixer (SubTitDS.ax) was unregistered. Older versions of MPC work with this filter installed, the last couple of builds crash with this filter installed as soon as a video file is opened.

SubTitDS.ax contains the following filters:

Category CLSID:{083863F1-70DE-11D0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}
CLSID: {E2BD78F2-79A2-413D-A052-EE2E91B9D821}
FriendlyName: [Subtitle Dest]

Category CLSID:{083863F1-70DE-11D0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}
CLSID: {00A95963-3BE5-48C0-AD9F-3356D67EA09D}
FriendlyName: [Subtitle Mixer]

Category CLSID:{083863F1-70DE-11D0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}
CLSID: {52780691-D7FB-4335-B38E-EC40280EDC57}
FriendlyName: [Subtitle Parser]

If you need for information (registry, the filter file, etc) please let me know.

[rakaz]

Gabest: Removing SubTitDS.ax from my system also seems to have solved another problem I had with MPC 6441 and 6442. The bug in question is #105:
http://vobsub.edensrising.com/phpbt/bug.php?op=show&bugid=105

Currently I cannot reproduce this bug anymore. After re-registering the SubTitDS.ax filter the problem seems to be back.

[gabest]

epere4:
1. Not it's settings, only the file associations.
2. Yes.
3. Should be, but I have never compared them.

ookzDVD: Yea, you also had the 3ivx filters. In 6445 I added more error checking for bad "FilterData" :)

rakaz: Thanks, I'm going to test ogm's subtitler as soon as I get back to my computer.


edit: The ogm subtitle mixer is crashing after the enumeration of the output types reaches about the ~12th one. I think the original graph builder extracts only one each time and it can find a connecting filter before reaching the crash. I do this by searching the filters for all possible output types in one go...

[gabest]

http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc2kxp6446.rar
http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc98me6446.rar

I had to disable the subtitle mixer... but most of the graph building problems should be fixed now.

[phrentec]

I love this new tree layout for the options. Thanks.

also Would there be a way to add a time lapse feature like to play every other 3,4, or 5 frames or play through all detected keyframes? thanks again Gabest.

[Yusaku]

another minor feature request: Icon in alt-tab programs change screen - I tend to confuse MPC with Bittorrent lately...

[gabest]

phrentec: I see no chance for such playback mode.

Yusaku: Ah, I forgot to set an icon for the new hidden/top-level window, which is needed to hide the taskbar button when the tray icon is active.

[dtomoyo]

Hi, gabest.

How about ( /unreg or /restore ) command-line parameter?

for... Uninstall MPC and restore media-file association.

----------------

[int 21h]

Ability to right click a file in Windows and add it to the playlist in MPC would be great :)

[rakaz]

gabest: Thanks, MPC 6446 no longer crashes if the Subtitle Mixer is registered.

[lump1]

Hi Gabest--I tried the command line /ADD switch on the new player and it works great! Thank you so much! I noticed a glitch that may not be a big deal, but it might have a very easy fix so I thought I'd mention it. MPC refused to play a windows media stream from the web. The stream wasn't linked directly, but instead through a temp file that shows up in the cache. I assume the player is supposed to find the actual link to the stream in that temp file, but MPC doesn't seem to manage it for Windows Media (though .ram works great).

This is what's in the temp file:

<ASX version="3.0">
<Entry>
<STARTTIME VALUE="00:01:37"/>
<Duration Value = "15:04" />
<Ref href = "mms://193.99.41.100/2003/0425/TS-20030425-1714.high.wmv" />
</Entry>
</ASX>

When I try pasting the mms:// URL into MPC's "open" dialogue, the stream plays fine. But when the player tries to play the temp file, playback never starts. (These streams are on tagesschau.de.)

[gabest]

Do you have the original link?

I tried to put this into a file and uploaded it here: http://vobsub.edensrising.com/test , but it opens to me from there.

int 21h & dtomoyo: Ok, sometime I add these.

[troticielo]

gabest:
Would it be possible to add 'Filter Menu' to the keys definition menu?
Its convenience is one of the primary reasons I use MPC.

[wertherman]

Can you make sort by path (and possibly sort by label) case insensitive?

This makes sense as under all windows file systems you can't have two files with the same name but different case, so your sorting should reflect this.

Also it would be good if you could select multiple files in the playlist so you could remove them all at once....

[lump1]

Yeah, you can find the .wmv streams that refuse to play on http://www.tagesschau.de/ (click on "letzte Sendung" in the left-hand column and choose Windows media). I'll try a direct link (http://www.tagesschau.de/sendungen/0,1196,SPM11,00.html) too, but it might not work because they dynamically change the addresses.

[gabest]

Well, I went there and set these: Windows Media, Player direkt starten, and still couldn't find the prob. Did you try it with the latest build of mpc?

wertherman: Multiple file selection has to wait, but the other is ok.

troticielo: ok.

[Yusaku]

Keyboard shortcut request: previous/next subtitle and previous/next audio track (especially the later). It would be also nice to save recently played subs/audio track numbers in registry as DVobSub does, so that one would not have to switch audio for every single file of OGM dual-audio playlist.

[gabest]

Keyboard shortcut request: previous/next subtitle and previous/next audio track (especially the later).okIt would be also nice to save recently played subs/audio track numbers in registry as DVobSub does, so that one would not have to switch audio for every single file of OGM dual-audio playlist.Hehe, I still remember that. Till then try to set the default dvd language, it also applies to OGM now. (only the audio, I forgot about the subs in 6446 :))

[civic5zigen]

gabest

MPC is a great replacement for Realone or quicktime. However, not sure if its a bug but the "/fullscreen" paramter doesn't work when opening realmedias. It simply just open in window mode and not fullscreen like other format like divx or mpg.

Thanks

[gabest]

It's a bug, try 6446 from here.

[gabest]

http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc2kxp6447.rar
http://vobsub.edensrising.com/mpc98me6447.rar

Compiled with visual c++ 7.1 for the first time. (And ran into two new compiler bugs at the same time :))

[iwod]

does that mean it should be or may be faster??

[gabest]

Maybe. But there is not much to speed up on it, except the file opening. The new graph building technique should take care of that, now all filters get inserted once and not replaced after letting the automatic builder do its job. Filters having tray icons used to flash because of that.

[ma2trigk]

Thanks gabest for your reply and also for the great job you're doing. I had a lot of work for the University so I couldn't do anything, but I will try this setting just after I wrote this post. I will also try the 6447 version

It seems that here is a problem with the 3ivx codec ? What's the story (shortly) ? (Sorry I didn't have the time to read the all 33 pages)

[gabest]

The data what it put into the registry for the filter registration was corrupted at the end, but I have already added the necessary checks to prevent mpc's crash in such a case.