madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[Ripmann]

Originally Posted by Stereodude

Huh? clsid is updating it all the time. https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases

Whoa, thanks. I was not aware of this fork. Will take a look at it ASAP. The official page hasn't been updated since 2017, though:

v1.7.13 is released and farewell
https://mpc-hc.org/2017/07/16/1.7.13...-and-farewell/

[huhn]

it's open source because the person in charge of the github page said farewell doesn't mean anything.

why the project was not directly given to someone that clearly wants to continue is beyond me.

[artins90]

Update on the W11 crash situation:
Today the OS has been updated to ver. 22000.132.
After the update, MadVR is working again.
I didn't change any setting, so I think it was indeed an OS incompatibility or bug that caused the crash.

[SirMaster]

Originally Posted by huhn

it's open source because the person in charge of the github page said farewell doesn't mean anything.

why the project was not directly given to someone that clearly wants to continue is beyond me.

While his branch is technically a fork, he was contributing to the original project long before that as well. So IMO it's a direct continuation.

[creatine]

I'm setting up MadVR for the 1st time. I am trying to understand the scaling options and how they apply to source material and video levels. I am running a dedicated Win10 HTPC connected to a 2013 Panasonic 1080p plasma. The TV has been calibrated to REC.709, 2.2 gamma, RGB limited. I read through the MadVR guide and setup the video levels as follows.

(madVR) TV levels (16-235) -> (media front-end) Use limited color range (16-235) -> (GPU) Full Range RGB 0-255 -> (Display) Output as RGB 16-235 ( MadVR native display bit depth 8bit)

I am mostly playing 1080p bluray rips, occasional HDR videos and some 4k\720p rips but will focus my question on 1080p rips. The rips are 8bit 4:2:0

Considering the video levels, resolution and encoding of the rips, is there any advantage\visual improvement upscaling the chroma using NGU AA high or should I leave the Madvr settings at default for 1080p ?

[gfxnow]

Originally Posted by creatine

Considering the video levels, resolution and encoding of the rips, is there any advantage\visual improvement upscaling the chroma using NGU AA high or should I leave the Madvr settings at default for 1080p ?

Video is always encoded and stored as 4:2:0 (chroma subsampling, as opposed to non-subsampled 4:4:4) but MadVR runs its algorithms and processes on RGB (which implicitly does not have any chroma subsampling) because internally a PC GPU works in RGB only.

Therefore there is always chroma upscaling when using MadVR (even if you are playing a 1080p video on a 1080p screen. The word scaling confuses people, maybe it should be called chroma upsampling or chroma extrapolation or something) and it happens before any of the other processes in the pipeline (because those all work on RGB, not subsampled 4:2:0 chroma). The output of chroma upscaling is the input for the rest of the MadVR processing. So why not provide the best input for Image Upscaling/downscaling algorithms, provided that you have a powerful GPU and enough headroom?

Edit: I could be wrong about the video is always encoded part but I mean most commercial formats/standards such as blu-ray.

[ryrynz]

Originally Posted by creatine

Considering the video levels, resolution and encoding of the rips, is there any advantage\visual improvement upscaling the chroma using NGU AA high or should I leave the Madvr settings at default for 1080p ?

I recently switched off Pure Direct mode on my set to test motion handling which is improved when off and as a result of that 4:4:4 is disabled. I compared chroma upscalers briefly, my take away is that even if I wasnt using 4:4:4 I would still prefer NGU AA for my chroma. Low is fine, medium is good. YMMV depending on ur viewing distance and hardware. I decided to switch Pure Direct back on and use Smooth Motion as panning shots looked better with that enabled rather than without and using the TVs own motion handling processes in 4:2:0. For the majority of scenes and viewers chroma upscaling differences between upscalers won't be noticeable and depending on your hardware you may prefer to keep this area dialed back to spend on luma processing or post.

[tp4tissue]

There's not a huge difference to the chroma upscalers.

Some color cast may show up in test patterns, but in real world, it's almost impossible to notice.

Zoomed in 3x-4x you can maybe see a little hair that's slightly sharper sometimes, impossible to notice in motion.

[tp4tissue]

Originally Posted by creatine

The TV has been calibrated to REC.709, 2.2 gamma, RGB limited. I read through the MadVR guide and setup the video levels as follows.

(madVR) TV levels (16-235) -> (media front-end) Use limited color range (16-235) -> (GPU) Full Range RGB 0-255 -> (Display) Output as RGB 16-235 ( MadVR native display bit depth 8bit)

You always want to use NATIVE color gamut and rgb 444 (0-255)

For calibration, NEVER use the TV's CMS features except for gamma-tracking. The TV's cms is not nearly as good as MADVR's processing, you want madvr to do most of the work.

IN FACT, double check if the gamma tracking causes trouble on its own, because it might.

[tp4tissue]

Originally Posted by Sunspark

I use YCbCr 4:4:4 in the Intel driver settings to my monitor. The reason is because I find using RGB on this PC a little more straining on the eyes (maybe too many layers of dithering?). I have a displayport to hdmi active adapter between the PC and monitor as well. The difference is subtle but it is there. One thing I can observe when set to ycbcr in the driver is that 10-16 bit greyscale gradients in a regular image viewer will show slight subtle bands onscreen that RGB mode doesn't

The problem is you guys are still eyeballing what's going on.

i1studio probe, measure it, then you know EXACTLY what's going on.

Alot of things with format conversion/ mismatch are not obvious and fundamentally uncorrectable without a measurement probe.

3DLUT fixes just about everything SDR side of things short of extreme gamut clipping.

the displayport to hdmi adapter is not good. you shouldn't use these things because they can be unpredictable.

I have tried several disp to hdmi 2.0 adapters, and they cause crush, because they do different internal processing DEPENDING on what flags the TV gives it, NOT the gpu.

[Asmodian]

An i1d3 is a great addition to any display, but it does not help when deciding RGB or YCbCr. The banding caused by sending RGB full to an LG TV is not something that shows up during a calibration.

The same with the display port to HDMI adapter, if it isn't a levels change then any minor banding issues won't be obvious from measurements. If an adapter messes with the calibration to the point that you notice it as crush it is doing something very wrong.

[tp4tissue]

Originally Posted by Asmodian

An i1d3 is a great addition to any display, but it does not help when deciding RGB or YCbCr. The banding caused by sending RGB full to an LG TV is not something that shows up during a calibration.

The same with the display port to HDMI adapter, if it isn't a levels change then any minor banding issues won't be obvious from measurements. If an adapter messes with the calibration to the point that you notice it as crush it is doing something very wrong.

With 3dlut, madvr can clear up almost all banding problems with its own dithering.

3dlut can also by itself rectify level mismatch, it will cause slight loss in contrast ratio vs level matched, but it's not significant. <this isn't how you should use it though>

The issue remains, people don't measure, and they don't know what to look out for because they've never seen proper gamma. This leads to all the guesswork arm chair decisions on what looks right. Just like when people recommend setting their playstation hdmi to full, which intentionally crushed gamma on displays expecting limited.

It's a systemic problem of poor av quality on the consumer side.

[Aceman21]

All my movies play great, until I try and watch gemini man. Does the 23 to 60 really make that much of a difference ?

[doffen]

Well it IS about 2,5 times as many frames per second, which means you need even shorter render time per frame for smooth playback.
In short: Yes it does.

[Aceman21]

Originally Posted by doffen

Well it IS about 2,5 times as many frames per second, which means you need even shorter render time per frame for smooth playback.
In short: Yes it does.

Can I make a profile for hdr60 ? I don’t remember how to do that

[tp4tissue]

Hrrrm... If the scaling is linear 2.5-3x faster than a 1060 should do it, so a 2080ti and above may be able to do it. Anyone try gemini man full fat with 3070+ ?

[brazen1]

Originally Posted by Aceman21

Can I make a profile for hdr60 ? I don’t remember how to do that

if (srcWidth > 1920) and (deintFps < 25) "2160p 24fps"
else if (srcWidth <= 1920) and (srcHeight > 1080) "2160p 24fps"
else if (srcheight <= 2160) and (deintFps > 58) "2160p 60fps"

else if (srcWidth > 1280) and (srcWidth <= 1920) "1080p"
else if (srcWidth <= 1280) and ((srcHeight > 720) and (srcHeight <= 1080)) "1080p"

else if (srcWidth > 960) and (srcWidth <= 1280) "720p"
else if (srcWidth <= 960) and ((srcHeight > 540) and (srcHeight <= 720)) "720p"

else if (srcWidth <= 960) and (srcHeight <= 540) "540p"

[brazen1]

Originally Posted by tp4tissue

Hrrrm... If the scaling is linear 2.5-3x faster than a 1060 should do it, so a 2080ti and above may be able to do it. Anyone try gemini man full fat with 3070+ ?

A GTX 960 (4GB) works fine.

[Aceman21]

Originally Posted by brazen1

if (srcWidth > 1920) and (deintFps < 25) "2160p 24fps"
else if (srcWidth <= 1920) and (srcHeight > 1080) "2160p 24fps"
else if (srcheight <= 2160) and (deintFps > 58) "2160p 60fps"

else if (srcWidth > 1280) and (srcWidth <= 1920) "1080p"
else if (srcWidth <= 1280) and ((srcHeight > 720) and (srcHeight <= 1080)) "1080p"

else if (srcWidth > 960) and (srcWidth <= 1280) "720p"
else if (srcWidth <= 960) and ((srcHeight > 540) and (srcHeight <= 720)) "720p"

else if (srcWidth <= 960) and (srcHeight <= 540) "540p"

Just copy an paste this to what I already have ?

[el Filou]

Originally Posted by tp4tissue

There's not a huge difference to the chroma upscalers.
Some color cast may show up in test patterns, but in real world, it's almost impossible to notice.

When I did my tests which made me choose ReconSoft, I could see obvious differences in very small red objects in a scene (ReconSharp would render them way too saturated, all the other algos too muted), and yellow/orange/brown textures too.
It's a shame there's not a lot of native 4:4:4 samples of real scenes out there to be able to do better tests.

Originally Posted by ryrynz

I recently switched off Pure Direct mode on my set to test motion handling which is improved when off and as a result of that 4:4:4 is disabled.

What TV do you have again? I tried to test it on my old plasma after reading your post but I fail to see an improvement in motion with Pure Direct off. Do you have a particular scene you like to test this?