CoreCodec/H.264 Codec "CoreAVC"

[BetaBoy]

CoreAVC is known in the industry as being the standard for playback of high quality H.264 video. CoreAVC allows you to directly offload video decoding with either NVIDIA CUDA. ATI with Microsoft's DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) interface for any Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 PC.

More info here: http://corecodec.com/products/coreavc .

CoreAVC™ 3.0.x Professional Edition Decoder
* Supports Windows 7
* 32/64 bit support
* 8/9/10 bit support
* DXVA 1/2 Compatible
* NVIDIA CUDA GPU support
* NVIDIA DXVA GPU support
* ATI GPU support (DXVA)
* Intel Media SDK support
* ARM NEON support
* Netlogic/RMI MAE GPU support
* Supports unlimited CPU Cores
* 8100x8100 Resolution support
* Low Latency support
* Uses Directshow for MKV
* Includes the Haali Media Splitter
* Full Interlaced support

OEM Licensing
OEM/ODM/Third party developers looking to license or evaluate the CoreAVC 2.x SDK for Android, iPhone/Touch, CE, CE Embedded, Windows Mobile, Windows, OS X, Linux, and DSP's can contact our Licensing Group licensing@corecodec.com or for general information info@corecodec.com for pricing, SDK, Promotional and or reference material.

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CoreCodec / CoreAVC H.264 Decoder
Configuration Properties Guide
*** UPDATED FOR v3.0 ***

INPUT FORMATS
This controls which DirectShow Media Types the CoreAVC video decoder accepts on input. Uncheck this only if you are troubleshooting problems with CoreAVC incorrectly decoding some variant of H.264, or want to use another decoder for it.

avc1 / AVC1 - Accept streams with avc1 / AVC1 FourCCs.
h264 / H264 - Accept streams with h264 / H264 FourCCs.
x264 / X264 - Accept streams with x264 / X264 FourCCs.
VSSH - Accept streams with VSSH FourCC.
Mainconcept H.264 - Accept H.264 streams from the Mainconcept splitter.
ArcSoft H.264 - Accept H.264 streams from the ArcSoft splitter.

OUTPUT FORMATS
This determines the preferred output color space. The decoder tries each enabled format in order from top to bottom until it is accepted by the Video Renderer filter.

9/10 Bit (checkbox) - check to enable

YV12 - YUV 4:2:0 planar format.
I420 - YUV 4:2:0 planar format with chroma planes in reverse order.
NV12 - YUV 4:2:0 with interleaved chroma samples.
YUY2 - YUV 4:2:2 packed format.
UYVY - YUV 4:2:2 packed format with different sample ordering.
RGB32 - 8 bits per channel RGB format with an extra padding byte.
RGB24 - 8 bits per channel RGB format.
RGB16 (565) - RGB format with 6 bits per green sample and 5 bits each for red and blue samples.
RGB15 (555) - 5 bits per channel RGB format.
Up Arrow - Increases the priority of the selected format by moving it towards to the top.
Down Arrow - Decreases the priority of the selected format by moving it towards the bottom.

INPUT LEVELS
TV (16-235) - always assume the stream uses TV levels.
PC (0-255) - always assume the stream uses PC levels.
Auto detect - use the full range flag in the stream to determine Luminance range.

OUTPUT LEVELS
TV (16-235) - assume the Video Renderer expects TV levels.
PC (0-255) - assume the Video Renderer expects PC levels.
Auto detect - use PC levels when VMR is used as a Video Renderer, and TV levels for all others.

INPUT COLORSPACE
BT.601 - use BT.601 colorspace coefficients when converting to RGB.
BT.709 - use BT.709 colorspace coefficients when converting to RGB.
Auto detect - use the colormatrix flag in the stream to determine the colorspace coefficients.

DEINTERLACING
This specifies how interlaced material is handled by the CoreAVC decoder.

None (Weave) - Each output frame contains two fields, flagged as progressive.
Single Field - Each output frame contains one field. Only one frame is produced for each field pair.
Bob - Each output frame contains one field. Two frames are produced for each field pair.
Hardware - Each output frame contains two fields, flagged as interlaced to allow the video renderer to perform deinterlacing.
Aggressive - in addition to SEI messages and POC numbers, assume the source is interlaced if any interlaced coding tools are used (MBAFF, PAFF)

DEBLOCKING
This controls how the deblocking step of H.264 specification is executed by the CoreAVC decoder. Deblocking is a complex process that consumes significant processing resources. If your machine is not fast enough, you might want to turn off deblocking for some frames, but it will degrade visual quality. This setting has no effect when hardware acceleration is in use.

Standard deblocking - do deblocking exactly as specified by H.264.
Skip when safe - skip deblocking step when decoding B-frames.
Skip always - does not perform any deblocking.

CROP 1088 to 1080
H.264 encoded video size is always a multiple of 16, and sequences that are 1080 pixels high are encoded as 1088 padded at the bottom. Also H.264 specifications provides a set of cropping parameters to signal that parts of the encoded picture are not important and should not be displayed. Some H.264 encoders fail to specify cropping parameters when encoding 1080 video.

Not Checked - do not crop video.
Checked - when input video is exactly 1088 pixels high, crop 8 pixels off the bottom.

PREFERRED DECODER
Overrides any other AVC directshow video decoders, and uses CoreAVC instead.
Not checked - does not change system merit.
Checked - enables the highest merit on the PC. This option is recommended to be on.

FORCE VMR AR CORRECTION
This option can be used if you are working with the decoder outside the normal player environment.

Not checked - does not change VMR settings.
Checked - instructs VMR filter to maintain aspect ratio of the video that it displays. Normally this AR correction is the responsibility of a video player. This option should normally be off.

USE TRAY ICON
This determines if an icon will be shown in the system tray when the CoreAVC decoder is in use. The tray icon can be used to access the configuration settings while media is playing. Changes to this option may not take effect until the means for playback is restarted or the computer itself is restarted.

Not checked - does not show the tray icon.
Checked - enables the tray icon while media is playing.

LOW LATENCY
This causes frames to be decoded synchronously, reducing the time between when a compressed frame is received and when the corresponding decoded frame is output.

Not checked - use asynchronous decoding, improves CPU utilization.
Checked - use synchronous decoding, less than optimal CPU utilization.

Low Latency Technical: When a stream is properly muxed into a MP4 format, it has the advantage of storing the NALU lengths at the beginning of each frame. When the Byte stream format is used instead, the size of the NALU can only be determined when the next startcode is seen, this adds one frame of latency, plus the existing one frame delay.

Additionally you will need to use FORMAT_MPEG2Video for the input connection format type, with dwFlags set to the length of the size field (commonly 2 or 4 bytes) and the sps and pps NALUs should be passed in dwSequenceHeader. Also note that you should not use MEDIASUBTYPE_MAINCONECPT_H264 ({0x8D2D71CB, 0x243F, 0x45E3, 0xB2, 0xD8, 0x5F, 0xD7, 0x96, 0x7E, 0xC0, 0x9B}) for the subtype, as it is not meant for this format. Use one of the other regular H264 subtypes made by using either "avc1" or "h264" as the fourcc.

ACCELERATION
This sets the preferred method of hardware acceleration for decoding H.264 streams. Changes to this option will not take effect until playback is restarted.

CUDA - Use a compatible NVIDIA graphics card if the stream is encoded using compatible features.
DXVA - Use an ATI or NVIDIA DXVA1/DXVA2 compatible graphics card if the stream is encoded using compatible features with a renderer filter connected.
NONE - Use software decoding only.

TRAY ICON STATES
When the "Use Tray Icon" option is enabled, the tray icon indicates whether or not hardware acceleration (GPU) is active in CoreAVC.

Blue - CUDA or DXVA is not active or in use.
Green - CUDA acceleration is active and in use.
Red - DXVA acceleration is active and in use.

PICTURE LEVELS
Picture level slider adjustments can be made in ‘real time’ so you see the effects of the changes as you make them. Once the adjustments are made, ensure that you press ‘Apply’ to save changes or they will be lost.
Note: Picture levels cannot be adjusted when DXVA hardware acceleration is in use.

Brightness - Adjusts the overall brightness level.
Contrast - Adjusts the difference between light and dark areas.
Saturation - Adjusts the vibrancy of colors.
Restore Defaults - Reset all picture level adjustments. It is not necessary to click Apply after this option.


Full Changelog:
http://corecodec.com/products/coreavc/changelog


Also... as a reference here are the install flag options for Haali's splitter:

Haali Media Splitter supports the following command line options:
/S 		- silent install without any UI
/MKVONLY 	- register only Matroska components
/AVI=[yes|no] 	- register AVI support
/MP4=[yes|no] 	- register MP4 support
/OGG=[yes|no] 	- register OGG/OGM support
/TS=[yes|no] 	- register MPEG TS support
/PS=[yes|no] 	- register MPEG PS support
/WMP=[yes|no] 	- register WMP to play in Windows 7

Also when reporting issues, please include the following:

People, how about providing detailed bug reports? Simply saying that it's not working or it's slow for me won't really help. It should be something like this:

1. Description:  Explain the problem throughly and provide video sample if possible, if not then at least provide screenshots
2. OS: 
3. CPU:  
4. GPU:  
5. Video Driver Version#:  
6. Player and Version#:  
7. Renderer:  
8. Splitter and Version#:  
9. Codec Version:  
10. Output:  
11. Acceleration (DXVA/CUDA):  
12. Other info that might help.

[Sirber]

Sweet!

What is it's speed compared to FFMPEG?

[BetaBoy]

Sirber... from my tests... 75% faster... but this is on my PPC and Palm... Windows, well... read the thread... its a great start... and we have very big plans for CoreAVC.

[Sirber]

at 320x240@12FPS, I can barely decode it on my 400MHz xScale using FFMPEG. I will test this ASAP

[BetaBoy]

You'll probally need some specifically encoded AVC files to test properly.. Picard added 8x8 transform on Friday and b-frames (consecutive b-frames, b-frames referencing...) should work in theory, but he noted there are some bugs left.

Devel will slow on this as we are working on Skins and Symbian for TCPMP at the moment... and are preping for CES (we have 30+ companies demo'ing TCPMP).

[DarkZell666]

Wow, that is definitely a good news !

Been waiting for that for quite a long time now, nice to hear of such an initiative !

Keep up the good work

[BetaBoy]

I just spoke to the Devels 'CoreAVC' is officially born.... next is the 'CoreAVC Encoder'

[Sirber]

Encoder for pocket pc?

[BetaBoy]

Sirber.... no a full blown 'CoreAVC H.264 Encoder'... there is plan with a few of our devels... one envolves our Dr Doom Media Encoder aka DDME. But some of the devels have noted that they did not want another encoder 'program'... we may just adopt Dr DivX 2.0 and mod it to our needs...

[Kostarum Rex Persia]

Great news, BetaBoy.

About encoding quality, anything to say, perhaps, or it's too early, yet.

[BetaBoy]

Kostarum Rex Persia... yeah way too early... its on the roadmap but you are looking at Late Feb. early March at the earliest when I bring on about 6 more paid developers @ CoreCodec to help.

[Kostarum Rex Persia]

Your plans for that AVC encoder, include what. All new stuff that x264 codec have?

[BetaBoy]

to be honest Kostarum Rex Persia..... We plan on a full blown feature rich and licensable encode and decoder for CoreAVC @ CoreCodec @ http://www.coreavc.com

BTW... we just added CABAC - http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/

[Sharktooth]

wow, that was fast
are you going to implement the full specs (all profiles and levels)? and why is it closed source?

[BetaBoy]

Sharktooth... its to be determined still on if we keep it closed source or not. Reasoning is this... with TCPMP we have had 'alleged' thefts of our GPL source code and decoders that are in third party hardware/software. We have worked hard over the past three years to get were we are at now with CoreCodec/TCPMP and are going to take baby steps in protecting ANY of our projects IP.

Why invest our time to get our source code ripped off and that those doing the ripping do not comply with the GPL when we release it that way? Pretty sad since we also state that we own 100% of the code as well and offer a closed source alternative license to it, and they still OPT to steal it.

So with that being said... we are taking the cautious steps first with CoreAVC and yes, we have larger plans with our encoder like you had asked... we do plan on supporting ALL profiles and levels.

Now to get bond a directshow filter.... ;-)

[Sharktooth]

I understand your point. It's not the first time and it's not an isolated case.
However closing the source will help protecting from code stealing but will potentially kill the codec development at some time in its existence.

[BetaBoy]

Well... for the most part yeah. Killing devel in it will not happen as we at CoreCodec are hiring about a dozen plus developers over the next few weeks to work on the various projects we have going on. Including:
- TCPMP
- CoreAVC, CoreMP4, CoreAAC (new version)
- CoreTheque
- Websites

But we can protect what we have... and when the unfortunate few that have chosen to steal the GPL code have been announced they will wish they had not gone the route that they did not only from a community perspective. But as the actual products they sell suffer from the theft as well... I leave the rest to the lawyers.

[ShAQ]

Hi BetaBoy.

Thanks for sharing this with us. I will take a closer look at the codec when I have a little bit more freetime. Feedback will come - soon oder later.

[guada 2]

@BetaBoy

I have a problem.
Look at this:

" ActiveSync not found in this computer. Setup cannot continue and will now exit ".

An idea please.

[BetaBoy]

guada 2... your running the windows TCPMP?

if not LMK...