FFdshow configurations

[ExtraEye]

Since I just saw a thread in which doom9 said you could make other threads about ffdshow I thought it should be o.k to make a new thread about ffdshow configurations.
I want to know what configurations other people use since I don't completely understand what all the options do but I want to achieve the best possible visual result for my videos.
I personally have a huge collection of AMVs(anime music videos) and use preset loading (that sometimes breaks) for the different kinds of files (like "realmedia" files and "avi" files).
my normal preset is set to have mplayer postprocessing with accurate deblocking enabled (don't know what it does but doesn't sound too bad) and 100% processing strength (so it looks o.k for good looking files and ugly ones).
I also set the levels on 30 to 240 so that the colors look much better.
I used to use the direct x9 renderer but black areas in videos would sometimes look a little green so i came back to using the overlay mixer.
with the directx 9 renderer i used avisynth with "Tweak(bright=0, cont=1.3, sat=1.3, hue=0, coring=false)" but with overlay mixer i find it better to use zoom player's color controls.
I also used Lanczos4Resize(1024,540) but wasn't sure it was doing anything except the sharpening after a while so gave up on it.
does resizing files to higher resolutions really help achieve better quality?

my computer is an AMD 3000+ with 1024 MB DDR Ram and Geforce 6600 GT.
hoping to see feedback and your own configurations, ExtraEye.

[madoka]

This is what I use. Nothing too fancy, as my main playback computer isn't too beefy.

http://www.geocities.com/ayanami_rei_ii/misc/ffdshow-post.png

[ExtraEye]

yey
someone answered...
luminance can add alot sometimes but i usually prefer not using it
what kind of computer do you have?

[Shirokuu]

Thanks for posting your settings for FFDSHOW, ExtraEye. If more people would post their settings, people (e.g. you and me) could learn more about the best quality / workload ratio. The following settings work fine on my rig. I have a P4 3,06 Ghz with Hyper Threading enabled on a Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra 2 motherboard, 512 megabytes of memory and a GeForce 4-Ti4600. The framerate with these settings is on par unless you play something which exceeds 720p by a lot.


http://xs42.xs.to/pics/05333/ffdshow01.png

http://xs42.xs.to/pics/05333/ffdshow02.png

[ExtraEye]

thanks Shirokuu,
yes I agree, people should share their settings.
Also there should be more information about this matter.
I don't of any guides that help and if there are, I'd like it if someone shared them...
thanks for sharing you settings, doesn't "soft threshold" make it too blury for you?
also,
do you know if resizing the video helps improve the quality?

[Shirokuu]

I like the image better with "soft treshold" enabled, but i think it's a matter of taste.

Your advice about the resize postprocessor is welcome. But in the past i tried to set it appropriately but i failed doing so. Let's say i have an XVID video inside an AVI container with a set resolution of 640x480. I use the BSPlayer to play the video. When i switch to fullscreen FFDSHOW's OSD says the input equals 640x480 as well as the output. Which is strange because it doesn't switch to a fullscreen display mode of 640x480x32 but to a fullscreen mode of 1024x768x32. When i select resizing in FFDSHOW and resize the video to 1024x768 it simply is too big to fit on screen. I didn't figure it out how to use it properly so i left FFDSHOW with resizing disabled. Maybe you have some pointers for me?

[ExtraEye]

well
first of all if you turn resizing on while the video is running the picture will be too big
you need to click apply and then restart the video.
if that wasn't the cause then try using a different player.
i personally use zoom player.
i think it handles videos better than any other player.
u can use the following avisynth settings to resize:
Lanczos4Resize(1024,540)
u need to have avisynth installed and the filter in fffdshow enables ofcourse

[Shirokuu]

Thanks ExtraEye, I will give it a go as soon when I am sitting behind my own PC which has FFDSHOW installed. (I am currently living on two locations far apart.) I didn't restart the video after applying changes so that's probably the problem. If BSPlayer doesn't work I will try ZoomPlayer and the Coreplayer since i have both installed too. But I only use them to play MKV's since my BSPlayer doesn't handle them (well or not at all). Anyway, I will keep you posted in this thread but it could take a few days.

Oh, BTW, could you give an indication on forehand how much extra strain the lancos allogarithm puts on the cpu load for resizing? Is it as heavy as SPP?

[ExtraEye]

no not as heavy as SPP
I don't know how heavy it IS though...
if it's too heavy, you can remove the 4 in the lancoz cause that adds sharpening

[iron2000]

My settings used to be:

Postprocessing:
Process whole image
Preset slider full
Auto quality control on
Processing Strength 100%
mplayer checked

Sharpen:
xsharpen strength 10 threshold 150

But now I don't use postprocessing and sharpen anymore because for a small minority of videos (mostly Xvid) lags on playback with those options on.

And the videos I watch don't look so bad without postprocessing, in fact they seem better and clearer to me.

Some time ago after abandoning the settings I checked :

Output:
Use overlay mixer
HW deinterlacing

Don't know whats the difference but it didn't spoil the video.

[Shirokuu]

What I can tell about the "HW (hardware) deinterlacing" settings is the following. When checked FFDSHOW lets the videocard handle the deinterlacing. On older NVidia cards like my own GeForce4 the ability to deinterlace delivers a rather poor quality. The software deinterlacing provides much better results regarding visual quality. I can't tell from personal experience but I heard the current generation of videocard does provide much better results.

[ExtraEye]

cool i didn't know that
thought i'd enable that only if i have a deinterlaced video.
other than that i agree with iron2000 that while some videos can have more filters on them others lag and suffer from them.
that's why you can make presets for certain type of files for example a preset for real media files.
i have a large collection of music videos so i need to have working presets. for some reason they don't work anymore for me:(
sometimes when the video doesn't look good i have to play with the settings and sometimes it's actually better to work without the sharpening and the postprocessing.
also there's a matter of taste...

[Raziel6969]

Hello,

I use mainly 2 presets to play:
My box: ATHLON XP 1700+ 384 RAM DDR HD7200RPM GEFORCE2MX400

Non Anime:
Image Settings > Postprocessing >
Presets = (Full)
Processing Strength = 512
Processing Method > mplayer > Accurate deblocking

Anime:
same above +
Image Settings > Blur & NR > denoise3d, HQ (default)

sometimes: Image Settings > Sharpen > msharpen > threshold = 8-15 (adjust, see with mask). Strength = 20
old anime with bad bright: Image Settings > Levels > Input (adjust with 'Show histogram')

Bye.

[Smile2]

For High Detail Video:
Post Processing: Deblock(H) Chroma, Deblock(V) Chroma, Dering Luminance, Dering Chroma.
Overlay: Adjust Brightness and Contrast.

For Medium Quality Video:
Post Processing: Deblock(H) Chroma, Deblock(V) Chroma, Dering Luminance, Dering Chroma. mplayer -> Accurate Deblocking + Luminance (for dark Videos) + Full Range (when appropriate).
Overlay: Adjust Brightness and Contrast.

For Low Quality Video:
Post Processing: Deblock(H) Chroma, Deblock(V) Chroma, Dering Luminance, Dering Chroma. mplayer -> Accurate Deblocking + Luminance (for dark Videos) + Full Range (when appropriate).
Levels: adjust shadow, gamma, highligths accordingly
Noise: New Noise Algorithm -> Luma Noise: 6 Chorma Noise: 3
Overlay: Adjust Brightness and Contrast.

For Blurry Anime:
add Warpsharp: Chroma Mode -> none.

[ExtraEye]

Raziel6969,
isn't so much postprocessing too blury for non-anime content? also i can see you're using a pretty old version of ffdshow...

Smile2,
I actually find that a little bit of noise (mplayer's) could look really good on high quality videos while on old videos i find it way too visible...
on high quality sources it can sometimes seem like video details :)
I see mostly anime watching people replied to the thread :) doesn't anyone use levels?
i find it too make the video look much better, especially on anime.
you should try it.

on another note I'd like to ask if someone here really knows ffdshow well how upsizing videos help you and what can i do with the dscaler filter functions when I add them through ffdshow.
anything worth knowing about that?

[Raziel6969]

Hello,

I've been using an old FFDshow, now: ffdshow-20050803 CVS by Celtic Druid

I leave "Processing Strength" so high because with my few test i don't see obvious difference, now i left at 100%

As you can see in my old post: 'old anime with bad bright' I do use Levels!. I did see anime most time...

I'll try noise later. I use Zoom Player to see all, then i don't worry about upsize. But to resize i always prefer Lanczos, because the other methods smooth image :(

I did use dscaler long ago, but i think you can get similar filters in ffdshow. You can try installing dscaler ...

Bye