XVid and overlay color space decisions

[Bluedan]

At this point I quit posting about this in this thread (ffdshow 2003-01-22) (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43773) for that version never really was going public anyway.
I wonder about the dependencies of color space decisions (which is the last instance to decide upon this??) when I play back XVid videos.
Is the only reason to prefer YUY2 output because some graphic cards do not properly perform YV12 overlay meaning quality loss??
NVIDIA cards, and especially TNT based ones, for instance are said to have problems with YV12 overlay though I never noticed a degradation in image display quality with my TNT2pro.
Apart from "hardware"/driver issues there should be no visible qualitiy difference, right?
Playing back XVid content in a OGM container does default to YUY2 overlay in every case no matter if I tell bsplayer to use YV12 overlay (overlay mode 1 in player presets). Also, using ffdshows similiar functions do not have any effect on this.
How come?

[drebel]

Did you try another player except bsplayer?I know that you have dx8.1 installed.How can you be so sure about the color output ?

[unplugged]

I'm not sure if your issue is the same of mine, but in my PC with GeForce2 MX (first MX model, equivalent to MX400) my latest YV12 encodes look perfect in VirtualDub whereas pretty reddish and a bit dark with players (Zoom Player, WMP, TCMP-RC1...), and even with ffdshow.
When happened first time, I immediately speculated that was related to card/driver color visualization/conversion, and yes, when I disabled overlay acceleration my YV12 XviDs looked perfectly bright as same way in VirtualDub.

In our case, maybe the Nvidia hardware, maybe just a silly software video conversion bug in driver.
...even if I still consider Nvidia driver the best overall ;)


P.S.: my crappy method to disable overlay accel. (when needed) is to load and play two player sessions and close the first :p (the 2nd will automatically redirect to software (frame-buffer) printing).
BSplayer instead has option to disable this.

[Bluedan]

@Drebel
Grace à ffdshow!
Launch config window during playback, under info tab, directly below OSD you'll be updated with usefull information like this ten times a second.

@unplugged
My hardware is more outdated than yours so I really doubt my TNTs fabrication being superior to your Geforce2s', but since almost 3 years that I've been watching a couple hundred of movies I didn't notice any irregularities in terms of picture qualtity except with "jumpy" RGB overlay (and I got to wear my glasses only since last year :) ).
I've been using XVid+bsplayer combo for nearly 2 years with bsplayer at default overlay mode1 -> YV12 and XVid until recent modification also performing YV12 output.
I was surprised to find out that the use of OGM which I used a lot since its first days led to YUY2 output in any case. So, I read about it instead of actually spotting a change.
BTW, since bsplayer is still buggy, I'm often forced to be unfaithful: picturewise the same.
Lucky that I am, my card seems to be able to handle those overlays, to me the strangeness lies within the software initialisation of it.
Sometimes it simply fails and RGB overlay is switched on, in situations where I didn't do anything than starting my computer and clicking on the movie file, and this affects every player.
VDub equals bs equals Zoom equals wmp6.4

[Chibi Jasmin]

A few words about YV12 problems on Matrox cards (G400/450/550 and Parhelia) here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40286)!

[Bluedan]

Yes, already read that on my forum search prior to posting here. Don't misunderstand me, I did not take this for minority problems. Instead I'm lucky that my card is kind of domesticated in contradiction to what blivit wrote about TNT chips.

Maybe I should ask more explicit questions:
I started playing around with Zoomplayer, MDVD and mplayer2 in combination with ffdshow, all tested videos XVid encoded (AVI or OGM), decoding done by XVid.

1. I enabled all overlay color formats: default output YUY2.
2. I disabled YUY2: UYVY used
3. I disabled YUY2 and UYVY: RGB32 used!
4. Additionally RGB32 turned off: YV12 used
5. That disabled, too: ffdshow not loaded, no info about that

Bsplayer is different game, see "appendix" below.

Conclusion: Since XVid defaults to YUY2 also, YV12 seems to be the last solution for overlay, at least for ffdshow!
WHY?
Except for buggy hardware support, I don't understand that, for it's supposed to be the fastest and that's why BST provides it as overlay mode for slow machine users.



APPENDIX:
With bsplayer, set to overlay mode 1(YV12), playing AVI,containing XVid
1. default YV12 output
2. YV12 disabled in ffdshow: YUY2 output
3. YV12 and YUY2 diabled: UYVY used
4. additionally UYVY turned off: error message, unknown file format (XVID)

Same settings, but OGM container.
1. output was YUY2
2. disabling it in ffdshow: unknown file format ()

In overlay mode 2 (YUY2), shortly resumed, OGM crashes player if YUY2 disabled, with AVI I receive error message "overlay failed" and then "surface initialization eror"

[drebel]

@Drebel
Grace à ffdshow!
Launch config window during playback, under info tab, directly below OSD you'll be updated with usefull information like this ten times a second.

That's not the best way to tell if you 're actually outputting in yv12 with your video rendener(overlay 1).Of course,ffdshow shows the color conversions up to there,but you can't be sure if the video rendener is accepting the yv12 format in your system ...
I suggest u install latest graphedit (www.progdigy.com) and check the input and output pins of your video rendener filter in the chain.

In our case, maybe the Nvidia hardware, maybe just a silly software video conversion bug in driver.
...even if I still consider Nvidia driver the best overall


P.S.: my crappy method to disable overlay accel. (when needed) is to load and play two player sessions and close the first (the 2nd will automatically redirect to software (frame-buffer) printing).

Some detonators experience problems with overlay.But that's certainely no reason to bisable it(you can do it with direct control.cpl ,btw).Image will look like crap without dx9...
Just change det. version(Gforce2mx modded here )

regards,
george

[MaTTeR]

Has anyone else had problems with the Detonator 41.09 and YV12 overlays yet? 40.82 seems to give me the best results.

@drebel

Wasn't it you that mentioned some time ago that changing the LOD BIAS to +15 would provide slightly better picture quality when the overlay was in use? I've tried +/- 15 with the 41.09 Detonators and can't really see a difference. Perhaps RivaTuner is buggy in this respect?

[drebel]

Wasn't it you that mentioned some time ago that changing the LOD BIAS to +15 would provide slightly better picture quality when the overlay was in use? I've tried +/- 15 with the 41.09 Detonators and can't really see a difference. Perhaps RivaTuner is buggy in this respect?
Yes.Hi again! ;)
In fact,according to rivatuner,detonators are buggy : there 's a bug that 's not allowing values below -3 ,i think ,eventhough rivatuner is applying the -15,+15 option.So inside rivatuner's forder there 's a patch for this.
"Better image" is purely substancial...all that this option is doing is present crisper image in cost of making macroblocks also more obvious
No overlay probs on my Prolink Geforce2MX with all detonators after 40,xx.My favourite is by omegacorner,(although guru3d is very persuative about 30,xx superiority)but makes rivatuner obsolete and causes the test cube in directx diag to spin like crazy with dx9 installed .The good news is that it outputs in yuy2 with vmr9 but no yv12 yet(very good for low bitrate encoded movies)

sorry for the long thread
regards,
george

[Prettz]

I think I have a related problem when playing divx clips using ffdshow in both WMP6.4 and Zoom player. When you resize the player or go full screen, there is nasty color bleeding; sometimes it isn't noticeable, but sometimes it is painfully obvious (it's especially noticeable in the intro for Azumanga Daioh). Funny thing is though, there's no color bleeding at all when playing through bsplayer.
I have a Hercules Geforce3, if it matters.

[SiXXGuNNZ]

yeah last night I had problems, I had just upgraded to the 42.70's

gonna go back to the official nvidia release/WHQL and I'll let ya know if I still get the gayness++

edit: it seems to still happen for me at least with the 40.72's

installing the ones I had before now, the 41.09's(before I ugraded this is the det's I was using and had no problems)

hmmm, the 41.09's look the same, I even made one wihtout lumi and it looked the same, made a 2pass with lumi on both passes and the results are: looks the same as the others. maybe lumi is broken, I dunno

[unplugged]

Just to mention, 1337player (http://www.daansystems.com/1337player/1337player.exe) from Daan Systems is pretty minimalist but uses correctly (and requires) DirectX 9 extensions doing its job at full quality with latest Nvidia Detonator(s) (tried 42.00 and now 42.70).
Try it! Good also for OGGs! Only 77k exe UPXed! :p