The Core Media Player 4.0 RC1 Released

[BetaBoy]

Thanx to Doom9 for reminding me to post a follow-up here with his announcment.

The past year we have been working on The Core Media Player 4.0 and finally released RC1. I will not bore all the forum users here with details of what is new because it all is ;-)... so goto http://www.corecoded.com checkout it's features and see if you like it.

Thanx for Looking and Enjoy!


Dan "BetaBoy" Marlin

[Gaia]

Is it just my system or is this player really so full bugs at the moment? Strange conflicts with few filters, random crashes, lock ups etc. Subtitle problems(not just with VobSub)... List is endless. Only mp3's and simple avi files with mp3 audio streams seems to play fine. Major problems with OGM files. AccesViolations, endless number of Yaiks! boxes with silly errors. Bad thing is that they are all random so impossible to write decent bug reports. I have few other player installed and they work fine.

It looks like really nice player i have to admit but in my opinion you have realeased first RC far too early.

Before i give any details i want to know is it just me or are other people having huge problems with this player.

[robUx4]

Strange, many people have been using earlier versions without much problem. And this one is supposed to be stable.

Are you sure your computer is not fucked up ?

[Gaia]

Originally posted by robUx4
Strange, many people have been using earlier versions without much problem. And this one is supposed to be stable.

Are you sure your computer is not fucked up ?

Everything should be fine but maybe it's 98SE what is causing all the problems.

[hulkenstrong]

I got some problems with it to. First when I load a mp3 directory it starts to read the files then it stops when about 75-85% done and ocupies 100% cpu usage. Then when I tried the equalizer it first worked then after a reboot I just can´t get it to work. Also when I use tv-tool to switch to tv and start amovie the aduio isnt synced but it works in windows media player without sync problems. Also first when I started a mp3 the sound was really bad and I had to switch to waveout (not sure if ds or wave).

Any1 else having same problems or just me?

[BetaBoy]

Thx for the feedback guys... strange both your issues are. If you could please take the time to register/add your bugs to http://bugs.corecodec.com with you full system information and well look into what going on.

Wierd, like steve noted... we tested this current build for weeks with our test team and none noted the extremes of which the two of you reported. Thats why I stress that if you can please submit a bug report if you can. Please be a descriptive as possible in the notes about your specific system software/hardware configuration.

Thanx!

[hulkenstrong]

bugs submited. Hope they get fixed as it loked promising. Can you load equalizer settings from winamp3 in tcmp 4?

[angelyote]

On a more positive note I didn't have any trouble playing my ogm's, divx3-5 and xvid movies or my mp3's.

Not an exhaustive test by any means but I really enjoy this player and am putting it through its paces against zoom player to see who will win coveted desktop icon. :)

Dave

[Jorgosch]

Hi, very nice player, fast, can play almost all formats without a problem.
However, useless for me since it maximizes windows on TV-Out to the computer monitor and not to the TV. Too bad, could have been a good player.

[dvd2mpeg4]

So far I haven't had any problems, however I just use it for viewing divX files/movies. I was a big fan of the 3.12 next generation version, I'm glad they finally released TCMP 4 RC1. I've noticed big improvements as far as audio goes. Now I can crank up the Pre-Amp on equalizer and enjoy :D

[pirata]

First of all:

The TCMP installer has FUCKED UP (I repeat: FUCKED UP) my file associations (OGG an OGM). I can forgive a non working player, but not a installer that invades and alters regions of my system it should (and doesn't need to) touch. I "warmly" recommend you to change your install methods or rather provide a zip file that doesn't need installation.

Secondly: nice player, but it does not play full fledged OGMs (vbr mp3+ogg+ac3). The file does not even start playing. Seeking won't solve it. DS filter configuration is OK.

Finally: a OGM file with all audio channels encoded with ogg vorbis plays pitifully. Poor fps speed. Jerky audio. Some buried setting I should change?

I guess OGM with ogg and ac3 won't also work, as it does not with Zoom Player. The problem is in Tobias' DS filters, and they are stuck since a long time ago.

Thus, nothing has changed. :-(

[Mikele]

Nice work, guys! It's the perfect player for newbies/normal users cause it allows to access some advanced features easily (direct manipulation of dvobsub's options mainly). It's not so useful for advanced users though, Zoom Player has been the king of that category for a long time and it looks like that situation won't change :) Oh, and the animated OSD is really cool for TV watching :)

Two small glitches:

1. I've found a situation where the stop function via the V key didn't work, the OSD appeared but the movie kept playing. I couldn't reproduce the error yet.

2. I added a new AR definition, it worked fine at first but then I exited and reopened the player, cycling ARs didn't work at all, no OSD and the picture disappeared when playing at fullscreen. I deleted my AR and everything's fine again.

[BetaBoy]

Originally posted by pirata
First of all:

The TCMP installer has FUCKED UP (I repeat: FUCKED UP) my file associations (OGG an OGM). I can forgive a non working player, but not a installer that invades and alters regions of my system it should (and doesn't need to) touch. I "warmly" recommend you to change your install methods or rather provide a zip file that doesn't need installation.

An association dialog box will be in the next update.... we have been working on it but did not get it in for RC1..... Funny thing is... that by default we do not alter ANY file associations at all. We let the user do that themselves... which imho is a better way to do it. Maybe not for the average 'Joe' but for our target demographic like yourself.

On OGM.... i'll have Ludo ping Tobias... on you issues... but for OGM... Tobias was a major Contributor to the TCMP codebase as well as Ludovic for OGM as well.

On a zip install.... like ZP, Playa you can simply ZIP the current directory "C:\Program Files\CoreCodec\The Core Media Player\" and put it where you want. The issue is adn we will address this for RC2 adn RC3 reelases is that when you do this you aslo remove hardcoded functionality. Like Skins .CSZ association in the shell.... we can make TCMP more flexable to detect (when started) and adjust the registry based upon if it has been moved... I will talk it over with the team and see what there thoughts are on it.

Also always, I value opinions like this..... it is comments like this that add substantial value to our efforts. Thanx!

Dan "BetaBoy" Marlin

[pirata]

Here is a feature request:

Some time ago a filter in doom9 download section called my attention. It is called ReClock (http://ogo.nerim.net/reclockfilter/).

The author states that having a monitor refresh frequency that is not a exact multiple of the movie frame rate, as well as using a reference clock for rendering the frames that is not locked to the video card monitor clock can cause jerky playback.

I give credit to this statement and have made some simple calculations. At 25fps, a video frame lasts 40ms, and it can be extended by 12ms (@85Hz vertical refresh frequency), time that is taken from the following frame. These are comparable amounts of time! Moreover, since this effect is caused not only by one, but by two different problems (more incidences that by only one problem), and repeats itself constantly during all the vieweing time, the perception of jerkyness on playback can be, therefore, quite noticeable, even in powerful systems.

My system is powerful enough to render movies, but somehow I fell myself some jerkyness, which I could never remove by increasing priority of the player process or other means. Maybe this is the reason. This is a problem that no CPU can solve, no matter how powerful it is.

The filter promised perfect video experience without jerky playback by:

-adapting playback rate to monitor refresh frequency (first source of jerky playback)

-creating a reference clock for the Directshow graph that would be somehow locked to the clock in the videocard -the one that commands the monitor- (second source of jerky playback)


Unfortunately, I tried the filter and didn't work at all. Playback was awfully slow, and thepitch of the audio was changing constantly. I don't know whether the problem was on my system, or it was a bug that has been lately removed.

Anyway, I find the first issue (frame rate and monito refresh desynch) could be solved by changing monitor refresh to 100Hz (PAL) or 96Hz (24fps) when going fullscreen. No solution for NTSC (23.976fps). The player should have some setting to switch automatically to a given refresh frequency when a given frame rate is detected. All user defined, of course.

The second problem (reference clock locked to the video card refresh frequency) is other feature request: could TCMP 4.0 include some means to achieve this synchronization?

[pirata]

Here is a feature request:

Some time ago a filter in doom9 download section called my attention. It is called ReClock (http://ogo.nerim.net/reclockfilter/).

The author states that having a monitor refresh frequency that is not a exact multiple of the movie frame rate, as well as using a reference clock for rendering the frames that is not locked to the video card monitor clock can cause jerky playback.

I give credit to this statement and have made some simple calculations. At 25fps, a video frame lasts 40ms, and it can be extended by 12ms (@85Hz vertical refresh frequency), time that is taken from the following frame. These are comparable amounts of time! Moreover, since this effect is caused not only by one, but by two different problems (more incidences that by only one problem), and repeats itself constantly during all the vieweing time, the perception of jerkyness on playback can be, therefore, quite noticeable, even in powerful systems.

My system is powerful enough to render movies, but somehow I fell myself some jerkyness, which I could never remove by increasing priority of the player process or other means. Maybe this is the reason. This is a problem that no CPU can solve, no matter how powerful it is.

The filter promised perfect video experience without jerky playback by:

-adapting playback rate to monitor refresh frequency (first source of jerky playback)

-creating a reference clock for the Directshow graph that would be somehow locked to the clock in the videocard -the one that commands the monitor- (second source of jerky playback)


Unfortunately, I tried the filter and didn't work at all. Playback was awfully slow, and thepitch of the audio was changing constantly. I don't know whether the problem was on my system, or it was a bug that has been lately removed.

Anyway, I find the first issue (frame rate and monito refresh desynch) could be solved by changing monitor refresh to 100Hz (PAL) or 96Hz (24fps) when going fullscreen. No solution for NTSC (23.976fps). The player should have some setting to switch automatically to a given refresh frequency when a given frame rate is detected. All user defined, of course.

The second problem (reference clock locked to the video card refresh frequency) is other feature request: could TCMP 4.0 include some means to achieve this synchronization?

P.D.: the ReClock readme is attached

[BetaBoy]

pirata... thanx for the excellent report... Christianhjw had reported about this issue yesterday to me. I talk to Blacksun and he mentioned he would fix the issues with it. I will forward your post in an email to him to help him test his fixes.

[pirata]

I guess you mean my first post. Nothing about the feature request in my second post? It could imrpove TCMP in issues no other players care about.

[Lobuz]

At the beginnig I must say that player seems to be rather stable, but I'm little disappointed.(sometimes errors)

- One feature I miss in almost all players that is easy switching to other resolution from player. I like watch movies encoded in 640x352 in original resolution thats 640x480, becaus it's less distorted by scaling. It's well done in VPlayer (you can find it by google) as an another one click button.

- Another thing is scaling by %. If movie is encoded in 708x... and I'd like to watch it in res 640x480 without rescaling. So if i want 100% it would be cropped at the ends. Now I don't know if it's 100 or 90 or 110 %.

- To small player and buttons. In higher resolution it's uncomfortable to click its small icons. Should be resizable but not in the way that bitmaps are distorted. Or maybe other skin will solve that problem.

- Bar in full screen should be undocable and appeare at a left click (I prefere little higher then now). Above end of screen. It could be switchable in preferences. Seeking is sometimes a little clumsy.

- Preferences could be changable by right click on element like that bar. Or right click at the icon of sound could show language tracks over that button.

- Preload next file in playlist, so it should be played without delay for example if I watch VOB's copyied from DVD there is a gap between them ( which doesn't play by ifo file )

- Sometimes whole player is little clumsy. It looks like there are some delays if working with gui. If moving video window the picture is jumpy. Whem sometimes in seeking it first refresh video then slider. It could be better handled(or maybe to low priority).

So that's for now. It was to long to wait for that player. And if that's all it's like another average player. It should have been launched earlier as alpha or beta to get right feedback.

But don't take my words to negative. It's just my feature requests and small critics.:devil:

[BlackSun]

Originally posted by pirata
First of all:

The TCMP installer has FUCKED UP (I repeat: FUCKED UP) my file associations (OGG an OGM). I can forgive a non working player, but not a installer that invades and alters regions of my system it should (and doesn't need to) touch. I "warmly" recommend you to change your install methods or rather provide a zip file that doesn't need installation.


That's not my fault, try yourself, re-register the OGM filters...

As for the jerky playback, could you check it is not using the WaveOut device...

[KoVaR]

WTF ???
something is wrong with my (is this just me?) PLayer
i have to start DSP plugin manually every time player starts !
Help me PLS:(

[pirata]

@ Blacksun:

"That's not my fault, try yourself, re-register the OGM filters... "

Sure it is. I have been using my OGM file associations for ages. I have installed und uninstalled trillions of players. Then, I install one all-mighty player called TCMP 4.0, I test it, don't like it, uninstall it, and my OGG/OGM file associations are all FUCKED UP, when there was no option in the installer warning of any change in the file associations. Restoring them was quick, but I don't trust programs that invade my system when there is no need to, and above all, when I am not told so.

What do you want me to think????? That it was not your installer? That my file associations auto-fuck themselves right at the moment I install your player? It's hard to believe...


"As for the jerky playback, could you check it is not using the WaveOut device..."


What should I do if it is using it?

[Mikele]

Originally posted by pirata
What do you want me to think????? That it was not your installer? That my file associations auto-fuck themselves right at the moment I install your player? It's hard to believe...
It's OGG filters' fault, they always screw those file associations. Anyway, TCMP should not install any filters without asking :(

[Lobuz]

Any coments to my post requests? Especially to the first one - switching to fullscreen to other resolution from player? Are there any chances? :sly:

[hulkenstrong]

Originally posted by pirata
@ Blacksun:
"As for the jerky playback, could you check it is not using the WaveOut device..."

What should I do if it is using it?

Maybe switch to directsound instead.

[BetaBoy]

Originally posted by KoVaR
WTF ???
something is wrong with my (is this just me?) PLayer
i have to start DSP plugin manually every time player starts !
Help me PLS:(
If the Plugin resides in the WA2\plugins directory.... try copying it to your TCMP plugins directory and see if it resolves your problem. LMK.

[BetaBoy]

pirata.... TCMP by default does not associate any files with it from the install. If it did, then I will look ino the reason why it did this to you. RC2 which will be out in less then 3 weeks will have a file association dialog box in the NSIS so you can chose what you want associated with TCMP from the get go.

[BetaBoy]

Originally posted by hulkenstrong
Maybe switch to directsound instead.
pirata and others .... there is an issue with Win98 and sound output... we are trying to trac the problem down now and are asking for some testers to help us. Read this:
http://www.corecoded.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=59

[MaTTeR]

@pirata
Is it really so hard to fix file associations? Sheesh!!:rolleyes: Sounds like the end of the world. LOL

Did you forget you downloaded _pre-released_ software. Your tone and cursing don't further the issue.

BTW- Uhmm...like BlackSun said about WaveOut, simply try one of the other audio devices such as DirectSound and see if the jerkiness goes away.

[KoVaR]

Originally posted by BetaBoy
If the Plugin resides in the WA2\plugins directory.... try copying it to your TCMP plugins directory and see if it resolves your problem. LMK.
no go
DSP plugin still does not start automaticly :angry:

[Mikele]

Originally posted by BetaBoy
pirata.... TCMP by default does not associate any files with it from the install. If it did, then I will look ino the reason why it did this to you. RC2 which will be out in less then 3 weeks will have a file association dialog box in the NSIS so you can chose what you want associated with TCMP from the get go.

I repeat: it has something to do with registering ogg filters. Every time I update those filters, my ogm association gets screwed. Installing TCMP did the same thing cause it registers those filters again. This time, my ogms went from Zoom Player to Winamp (?).

[Schultz]

Originally posted by Mikele
It's OGG filters' fault, they always screw those file associations. Anyway, TCMP should not install any filters without asking :(

Well TCMP actually asks you .. there is an Option to install Ogg/Ogm media support and you can select or deselect this.. And yes if you Install just the OggDS by its self it will change your OGM File Associations when the dll is registered with windows. Like everyone else has said.. I just wish Tobais would add an option to the OggDS file to ask for the File Associations because its annoying to reassoc any time you install the filters again.

[pirata]

@Mikele: you say it is the OGG filters. This never happened to me in any OGG filter reinstallation (and I've done some). The file associations were there before and after the reinstall.

Anyhow, I guess there will be no problem if you don't install bundled OGG filters. I guess the provided uninstaller is screwing up the file associations.

@Matter: sorry about my tone and cursing. It was my mistake and apologize for it. There were too many hopes put in your player by me which weren't fulfilled. Instead of any success, I had to restore the file associations. It feels rather unconfortable, even when it is quickly done. Got hungry alltogether. Please forget about it.

I want to recall to the TCMP coders about the feature request regarding the ReClock filter features (using a reference clock in playback graphs synched to the graphic card -the one used for refreshing the monitor-, which removes part of the theoretical subtle jerkyness on playback).

[BlackSun]

The OGM filters really register the file extension. Also at the TCMP' installation you can prevent the install to install the ogm filters, so please check before yelling at us ;)

As for the reclock refresh rate, sure I'll do it.

[pirata]

@BlackSun: maybe you will agree with me. I think that this clock synching with the graphic board is something nobody took into account before, but does seem an important part of playback. Maybe you coders, who go deep into the hardware when coding, already knew all that, but I didn't see it in any feature list. The ReClock coder come to the idea first. Is that right?

As to the actual jerky playback feeling, I am in doubt myself. I do notice small jumps at playback, even having enough CPU power. Having a look at the frames with VDub doesn't help: they seem smooth (it would rather weird that the movie itself was jerky; they are almost all DVD rips). Besides, I always launch players with priority above normal and keep all other processes with normal priority (at highest), so players always have the CPU exactly when they need it... In spite of all that, I get those small jumps.

I must say I am not really sure whether that clock synching thing has something to do with the jerky playback I perceive. However, as I've already said in previous posts, the lack of synching with the graphic board could be noticeable, as the jerkyness it theoretically creates is an effect that repeates itself constantly as long as the playback goes. It seems rather clear to me that some cleaning has to be done on that level to be sure that everything is kept under control all along the the video pipeline and that we are getting the best out of our hardware. Then, once that was solved, the user should just select the right refresh rate for the frame speed the movie has to remove those sources of jerkyness.

I recall you once more that the ReClock filter didn't work to me. I got the feeling that it still had a long way to go. But most of the ReClock's functionality is not needed here. No automatical frame rate/audio speed adjust is needed, but just synching the decoders the to graphic board timing.

Because the issue seems interesting, I'd like to know what you have planned to do about it, and when it would be testable by the public.

[BlackSun]

I still didn't got the time to test reclock to see if it's effective, just got the time to install it. What I plan is to change the refresh rate when switching to fullscreen depending of the framerate. Is that ok for you ?

[Lobuz]

@BlackSun

It looks like a good idea changing the screen refresh rate instead of changing playback rate which could result in sound change. But another thing is the optimal for human eye refresh rates it must be considered too.

Is there a possibility to implement that feature:
full screen in another defined resolution and refresh rate

I use it often and thats why I stay at old VPlayer

And one bug:
With AC3 movie I can't change in intervideo filter settings to 4 speakers even if it works in mplayer 6.4

[BlackSun]

Originally posted by Lobuz
@BlackSun

It looks like a good idea changing the screen refresh rate instead of changing playback rate which could result in sound change. But another thing is the optimal for human eye refresh rates it must be considered too.


But reclock will still be needed. As for optimal refresh rate, I can only choose multiple of 24/25 or 30 fps :( 75Hz for PAL is ok, 72Hz for FILM should be ok, 60Hz for NTSC is easy but should be avoided. Reclock is needed because of FILM/NTSC which are not playing at a rounded rate, reclock modify the general speed so you can achieve 24 fps instead of 23.97 fps, etc.


And one bug:
With AC3 movie I can't change in intervideo filter settings to 4 speakers even if it works in mplayer 6.4


Change the output device to Default WaveOut device

[pirata]

@Blacksun: of course it is not enough to just change the screen refresh rate. ReClock is more than that. As I already told you several times, it synchs the decoder graph to some clock in the graphic board. Screen refresh timings are synched to frame decoding. That removes a source of jerkyness. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Please, read ReClock's readme.

[BlackSun]

Originally posted by pirata
@Blacksun: of course it is not enough to just change the screen refresh rate. ReClock is more than that. As I already told you several times, it synchs the decoder graph to some clock in the graphic board. Screen refresh timings are synched to frame decoding. That removes a source of jerkyness. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Please, read ReClock's readme.

I already know that, you'll need reclock installed anyway to change the framerate. Did you really read the ReClock's readme ?

[Lobuz]

I checked it and it works with both outputs but the movie must be reloaded second time to enable changing settings in iviaudio filter.

Another thing subtitles are working strange or not (ffdshow not installed). I get recently some anime and its in 119,88 fps(in VirtualDub) 23.97(shows in mplayer 6.4) and subs are in frames format. And TCMP plays them like in 23,97 speed.

Some subtitles options besides playlist would be appreciated, like opening subs file.

Is this subtitles format "hh:mm:ss:text" supported? Because I have many subs in it.

[pirata]

blacksun said: I already know that, you'll need reclock installed anyway to change the framerate. Did you really read the ReClock's readme ?

Who wants to change the movie frame rates? Not me. What I am suggesting is rather built ReClock's capability to synch movie decoding to the monitor refresh timing in TCMP. If I just use, say, 72Hz as refresh frequency with 24fps-movies, I am not solving completely the problem ReClock's coder pointed out, because frames are still generated in a timing not correlated to the refresh timing.

Well! I have thought about it, and it seems to me now, that once the refresh frequency is the correct one for the movie framerate, not synching to the monitor refresh timing won't cause jerkyness. Movie frames and monitor refreshments won't be synched, but as long as the latter is a multiple of the former, there won't be jerkyness. So maybe no change is necessary in TCMP.

Anyone willing to comment on this?

[BlackSun]

I finally found the time to test reclock yesterday, and it didn't solved the problem on a movie (but maybe it has been badly encoded). The problem is very complicated and I think that it is also caused by the scanline (vertical synch), a solution would be to force playback at 25fps (for example) (because when playing, it's around 25fps, ie: 24.99 or 25.06). So maybe it is the cause.

[buba king]

tested it today.. and i have a few suggestions/bugs. (this is not ment as a "bitch" ;))

1. Multiscreen support (like in bsplyer and zoomplayer) is a must.
2. Seems to crash at random when loading alot of avi's (26 to be exact) into the playlist (every avi file is valid and working)
3. TCMP really needs a super minimalistic skin/mode (like in sasami2k would be perfect), the current gui is way to bloated (IMHO ofcourse ;))
4. There is some strange problems with loading some ogm's (XviD+AC3+Ogg+Sub)

[BetaBoy]

Originally posted by buba king
[B]tested it today.. and i have a few suggestions/bugs. (this is not ment as a bitch/flame)

[QUOTE] 1. Multiscreen support (like in bsplyer and zoomplayer) is a must.
TCMP already supports Multiple screens (Ctrl+')
2. Seems to crash at random when loading alot of avi's into the playlist (every avi file is valid and working)
This has been fixed... look for it in RC2 in about 2 weeks
3. TCMP really needs a super minimalistic skin/mode (like in sasami2k would be perfect), the current gui is way to bloated (IMHO ofcourse ;))
Already in the works.... read this:
http://corecoded.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=62

Also is RC3 we will have 'corner' and 'sticky bar' skins

4. There is some strange problem with loading some ogm's (XviD+AC3+Ogg+Sub)
We think this has to do with AC3... are you a Win98 user? LMK