DVD playback in MPC with ffdshow as a filter

[mkenney]

Let me preface this post as saying that I've been hunting through the forum archives for two days now looking for an answer to my problem and I haven't gotten anywhere so far. With my luck, this question has been answered a billion times so far and I just can't seem to search for the right topics to find the thread I'm looking for.

Try as I might, I CANNOT get ffdshow to "kick in" when I play movies off of dvds using MPC. I've gathered so far I might need to do some work with "filter chains" or something, but even after twiddling with the values under MPC options "filters" and "filters---> Overrides", I'm still having ZERO luck. When I goto "file" then "Open DVD", the only dvd/mpeg2 related options listed under filters when I right-click the movie as it plays is "MPEG-2 Video Decoder" (and its greyed out as well).

If I open the .vob directly from the dvd, then Ffdshow is listed under the filters, however the the css scrambling kicks in (I'm assuming) and the image and sound is garbled.

I'm using MPC 6.4.7.6 and the 11-30-2003 alpha of ffdshow.

Again, I'm probably overlooking something very simple and if the answer has been posted on here a billion times now and I've just somehow managed to miss it in all my forum searches, I apologize. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[echo]

Have you tried opening ffdshow properties -> Codecs -> Set decoding of Raw video (on bottom) to all supported?

regards
echo

[mkenney]

Yes, unfortunately that hasn't made any difference. MPEG2 is also set to "libvacodec", which I gather (from looking at the default decoder for XviD's and the DivX's) is ffdshow.

[rakaz]

I just looked quickly at the source code of ffdshow and I do not think it can function as a DVD MPEG2 decoder.

First of all it doesn't handle the DVD mediatypes, which means players will not be able to include this filter in the graph, which is exactly what you are seeing. Secondly, it doesn't look like it is able to handle CSS encrypted data. And finally it looks like it isn't able to handle sub-picture data, which is required if you want to show properly working menu's and subtitles.

So ffdshow isn't a DVD MPEG2 decoder.

[Perplx]

Turn mpeg2 off and turn raw video on in ffdshow. WFM.

[mkenney]

Perplx:

SUCCESS!

After turning off the mpeg2 filter in MPC and putting raw video on "all supported" in the ffdshow codec page, it now works. Thank you! Now I can use ffdshows powerful processing features to tweak the image.


rakaz:

Thank you anyways for taking the time to look address the problem. The menus and subtitles all work fine as well. I have no idea how any of these components work together otherwise I'd offer up my hypothesis on why this all works. Thanks again for taking the time and looking through the source to find a solution.

[rakaz]

mkenney: Perhaps I am wrong about the DVD MPEG 2 decoding abilities of ffdshow. I only looked for about a minute or five.

Are you perhaps using ffdshow as a post-processing filter only? If that is the case ffmpeg is used, but not for the actual MPEG 2 decoding. That could work most of the time, but might cause problems if there is a resolution change in the DVD source material. Resolution changes aren't that common for movie DVDs.

[mkenney]

rakaz:

Frankly I have no idea. I just wanted to be able to use the processing features of ffdshow (postprocessing, sharpen, resize, etc.), and prior I was unable to.

In case you are curious, here are all the "filters" that MPC lists when I right-click the movie in progress. I don't know if this is a complete list of what codecs/filters ffdshow is using or not, but hopefully it'll help clarify my situation:

Default Directsound Device
Video renderer
Audio switcher
ffdshow mpeg-4 video decoder
AC3 filter
MPEG-2 Video decoder (greyed out)
DVD Navigator

[rakaz]

Okay, your list of used filters confirms that ffdshow is not used for the actual MPEG 2 decoding, just for the post-processing. I'm just curious now because I haven't been able to get this working properly, are you using NTSC or PAL?

[mkenney]

I've only heard of the terms ntsc/pal being used in context with outputting video to televisions and stuff, however the dvd's I'm using for playback are Region1 and playback at 29.97 fps, so I'm assuming "NTSC" is what you are looking for.

Ok, this is odd, I don't know if this is a bug or what; the filter list I gave you in my previous post was with MPC 6.4.7.5, not the more recent 6.4.7.6 (.6 was giving me some playback problems, the video would lockup after seeking occasionally). After playing around with different versions, I've discovered the following:

In 6.4.7.5, ffdshow kicks in REGARDLESS of whether or not "mpeg-2 video decoder" is checked in MPC's filter properties.

In 6.4.7.6, fddshow kicks in ONLY when "mpeg-2 video decoder" is NOT checked in MPC's filter properties.

I don't know if this is intended, or a bug, and/or has to do with the updated mpeg2 decoder in 6.4.7.6 that "handles resolution changes better", according to the release notes.

In either case, if the mpeg-2 video decoder is NOT selected, the "MPEG-2 Video decoder" filter that was listed when I right-clicked the movie in progress, is replaced with "InterVideo video decoder" (which is odd, considering I uninstalled WinDVD months ago but whatever).

So it looks like the problem was with 6.4.7.6's mpeg2 decoder. I think. If someone else can confirm this, maybe this should be added to the bug database on sourceforge.

[rakaz]

Okay, you are using NTSC DVD's. I think that is the reason why it works in your case. I use PAL DVD's. I seem to recall that the DVD navigator always initialized the graph with a resolution of 720x480. If you use a PAL DVD the DVD navigator changes the resolution to 720x576. If you use NTSC DVD's their is no resolution change needed. ffdshow can't handle resolution changes, so for you it works (as long as the resolution stays the same), while for me it won't work at all.

The change in behavoir between 6.4.7.5 and 6.4.7.6 you are seeing is something I think is intentional. The internal MPEG-2 filter now forces a direct connected to the Overlay Mixer or the Video Rendering Mixer, so ffdshow or divxg400 won't work anymore. I think this also has something to do with a bugfix that ensures better compatibility with resolution changes. Perhaps Gabest can shed some light on this.

[gabest]

Connecting to other filters than renderers in dvd mode was always forbidden for the internal mpeg2 decoder, or at least that was my intention :)

The fix of 6476 was that when the movie resolution changed for example from 720x576 to 352x576 then it could still update the media type towards the renderer and didn't leave the half screen in blackness. This one is rather tricky to handle because a horizontal resolution change can also arrive from the renderer to tell the filter about the pitch used by the output buffer, which is usually a surface or texture (and which cannot be allocated at any resolution by many video cards).

[Blankman]

I've tried everything in this thread and have not been able to get MPC 6.4.7.8 to playback IFO/VOB files. I've try using both ffdshow raw and MPC's internal MPEG2 filter, neither worked. The best result I got so fdar was with MPC's internal filter. I was able to move the slider to get random still images, but whenever I attempt to play the file, MPC either freezes after 1/10 of a second or crashes.

[Sharkbyte]

I got the same problem ! I'm trying to get subtitles displayed. I got a R1 DVD and I found the correct subtitles in .srt format, but whenever I want Media Player Classic to open a DVD, it crashes as soon as the menu shows up or it locks up !

OK, forget I just said that, for some reason now it does work !

Gabest, just offtopic but you still rock hard !