ffdshow...still not sure?

[X-Nemesis]

Yes I've used the search button and have read various threads but I'm still unsure as to what this tool actually does. Is it meant moreso for viewing avi files that I've encoded with divx or xvid and if so...then what viewing program does it work in conjunction with? I use mediaplayer 9.

:confused:

[dTb]

It's basically an mpeg4 decoder. Upon installation it will be used as the default decoding filter for stuff like divx and xvid. It will work in all players like wmp, zoomplayer, bsplayer etc.
One of it's major advantages is lower cpu requirements and it has a lot of inbuilt filters like various sharpen and noise filters.
You're a bit limited with wmp9 as it can't access any filter properties when playing files. With a player like zoomplayer you can access ffdshow configuration from within the player and adjust things like post-processing on the fly.

[SMT [AQP]]

It's an alternative decoder for divx3,4,5 and xvid and some other
formats. I used it before even though I really didn't like the output
(tried all post processing options) compared to divx BUT I had to
because of the bug in divx5.02 when viewing ogm movies was even more
annoying, but since it's been fixed now in 5.03 I've switched back
to using divx.

[SiXXGuNNZ]

I turn on the tray icon to access the filter from wmp9

[nFury8]

From the ffdshow homepage:

ffdshow is a DirectShow (http://www.microsoft.com/Developer/PRODINFO/directx/dxm/help/ds/default.htm) decoding filter for decompressing DIVX movies. It uses libavcodec from ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/) project for video decompression, postprocessing code from mplayer (http://http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/info.html) to enhance visual quality of low bitrate movies, and is based on original DirectShow filter from XviD, which is GPL'ed educational implementation of MPEG4 encoder.
_
Features
- fast video decompression using optimized MMX, SSE and 3DNow! code
- support for different codecs: XviD and all DIVX versions
- image postprocessing for higher playback quality
- automatic quality control: automatically reduces postprocessing level when CPU load is high
- hue, saturation and luminance correction
- experimental sharpening filter
- noising (of course if you want it)
- presets
- completely free software: ffdshow is distributed under GPL

[dTb]

Originally posted by SiXXGuNNZ
I turn on the tray icon to access the filter from wmp9

lol, I never realised a double click opened the config window. That's what you get for not reading. I'm not about to start using wmp9 however.