A Guide to Encoded HD Video Playback

There are many routes you can take. I just posted the specific tutorial that the majority of people have great success with.

Right now in Vista Media Center, there are some conflicts and codec problems that need to be worked out.
 
w1retap said:
There are many routes you can take. I just posted the specific tutorial that the majority of people have great success with.

Right now in Vista Media Center, there are some conflicts and codec problems that need to be worked out.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. Yeah, I have had some codec issues with my Ultimate x64 box, but have been lucky with my Premium x86 HTPC.
 
w1retap, do you have any experience with ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre? From what I understand it has a plugin for VMC and MCE2k5 for seemless blu ray and hddvd playback.
 
Haven't tried it yet.. but I know quite a few people that have. It's still a very buggy implementation. I'll wait a while for it to develop more.
 
I really wouldn't recommend ffdshow anymore, as it hasn't been updated in years. when people say to use ffdshow, they really mean the tryouts located at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/ Some of the latest builds have been within 5%-10% of CoreAVC's speed along with having working DVD decoding, more codec support and more.
 
If it helps, heres a small test i did earlier, just measuring the processors usage of the player and not the whole machine. This is with a E6600 and no overclock.

The clip is an encode i did from a HDDVD at 1080p with the video at 12Megabit per second. I included the older (Aug 21st) version of FFDSHOW as its still included in a few codec packs. For a lot of the content there isnt a big difference between core/ffdshow, but at some points coreavc's effeciency really does show, where its using approx 25% less cpu.

Sample was taken from the first 2 mins, so definetely not a great comparison, but enough to see some differences.

AVCDecoding.gif
 
It improved in December, but it really improved in February. Build 1723 is January. 1846 is early February.

939a41d37c.png


edit: Core is ok. however it tends to display errors. the latest version allegedly fixes most of them, but I haven't had a reason to try it now that ffdshow is enough.
 
Ryokurin said:
It improved in December, but it really improved in February. Build 1723 is January. 1846 is early February.

edit: Core is ok. however it tends to display errors. the latest version allegedly fixes most of them, but I haven't had a reason to try it now that ffdshow is enough.
Click to expand...

I agree. Last year I switched back and forth a good bit between Core and ffdshow, but since the more recent releases of ffdshow, I have seen no reason to switch back to Core for now. Core may be more efficient by just a few percent but ffdshow has so much more fine tuning ability and is updated a LOT, in addition to having a lot more community support as it's free. Unless Core one day adds GPU acceleration ("coming soon" has been announced for several months or more, but in their forums they state that neither Nvidia nor ATI have provided any assistance or any intention to make any code available to help this effort), I see no reason to use it unless your comp is just on the border of being able to decode h.264, you may gain a few percentages of efficiency.
 
"coming soon" has been announced for several months or more
Click to expand...

I purchased this software for the WorldCup06, GPU acceleration was mentioned as comming soon then :)

neither Nvidia nor ATI have provided any assistance or any intention to make any code available to help this effort
Click to expand...

Not sure they need to, last time i read upon it, you just pass the file bitstream directly to DXVA and the gpu handles it (if its compliant), a bit like using SPDIF to a reciever for audio.
 
Toytown said:
Not sure they need to, last time i read upon it, you just pass the file bitstream directly to DXVA and the gpu handles it (if its compliant), a bit like using SPDIF to a reciever for audio.
Click to expand...
Thats what I thought too, makes you wonder why GPU acceleration is taking so long then. :confused: :confused:

I've been having major issues with h264/x264 files recently, no idea why but they just decided to flip me the bird and stutter every five seconds or so. And using VMC doesn't really help the situation (some play fine in Zoomplayer while none play smooth in VMC). Going to reinstall and see if that helps.
 
Added a "how to" for hardware accelerated playback of x264 material under MPC. Great for you folks that have the ATI HD series cards and Nvidia 8/9 series with h264 acceleration. ^_^
 
Does anyone know if the new ati and nvidia cards do h/x264 encoding in hardware like they have been promising? That would be so nice...
 
Vista Media Center Integration guide added in POST #2. It may need to be tweaked.. I just wanted to get it up there quick so people had a rough guide of how to do it. I've had several PM's over the past few weeks about it. 64-bit is a little rough and MKV's might not work depending on which codec versions you have. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND 32-BIT.
 
w1retap said:
64-bit is a little rough and MKV's might not work depending on which codec versions you have. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND 32-BIT.
Click to expand...
Thank god someone else is saying it. I'm tired of seeing people recommend V64 for an HTPC without mention the headaches that come with it when used on an HTPC.
 
Well 64-bit is great for everything except Vista Media Center integration. It has problems integrating the x64 codecs with WMP within media center.
 
I'll back up the 64-bit problems as well. It's been a pain to get what I have now running, and I still have some issues. Switching to 32-bit Vista when I get my HTPC.

Again, stay away from 64-bit for any media center stuff.
 
I am unable to add the MKV to the registry by copy/paste what you have there. Says it can only import binary keys or something.
 
You have to put it into a text file and save the text file as a .reg file. Then you double click the .reg file.
 
Has anyone tried the 64-bit version of ffdshow?

I installed it but no dice getting it to work in VMC. Furthermore, watching movies in MPC, its still using my CoreAVC codec rather than my ffdshow (it doesnt even show up in the list of external filters).


Not sure whats going on. I am running the 64bit version of Windows but I'm a little too lazy to reinstall everything :-\ So I ask, is it truly worth it?
 
If you want painless integration of HD movies within VMC, 32-bit is highly recommended as I said before.

As far as your codec problem, you have to add it to the list of external filters and give it priority. Also try unregistering the CoreAVC codec using the regsvr32 command to ensure it is disabled. I'm using the FFDshow 64-bit version just fine on my main gaming pc.
 
w1retap said:
If you want painless integration of HD movies within VMC, 32-bit is highly recommended as I said before.

As far as your codec problem, you have to add it to the list of external filters and give it priority. Also try unregistering the CoreAVC codec using the regsvr32 command to ensure it is disabled. I'm using the FFDshow 64-bit version just fine on my main gaming pc.
Click to expand...


Yeah, when I click "Add External Filter" or w/e the button is (not at that pc right now) it doesn't list ffdshow in that huge list.


will try unregistering CoreAVC tonight - is it enough to uninstall it?
 
You should mention the fact that to get full functionality of MyMovies you need to donate money to them. I am unable to use the Copy Disc function without doing so.
 
lolwut? It's fully functional for me and I didn't donate any. :p
 
rayman2k2 said:
Yeah, when I click "Add External Filter" or w/e the button is (not at that pc right now) it doesn't list ffdshow in that huge list.


will try unregistering CoreAVC tonight - is it enough to uninstall it?
Click to expand...
Perhaps FFDshow didn't install correctly or something. But if you feel you want to uninstall CoreAVC, you can. You don't need to though. All you need to do is unregister CoreAVCdecoder.ax.
 
Bigbacon said:
You should mention the fact that to get full functionality of MyMovies you need to donate money to them. I am unable to use the Copy Disc function without doing so.
Click to expand...

Copy Disc is dependant on having DVD Decrypter installed, dude, it's in their FAQ. :rolleyes:
 
Still stuck at 55-60% CPU utilisation (system in sig), even using the Cyberlink h264 decoder. This is in KMP and MPC/MPC-HC. Help?
 
Just want to point out that the Vista Codec x64 Pack allows for mkv's to be played back in VMC.
 
Any way to play .mkv files in PDVD?
Click to expand...

Sure just rename it to mp4 and drag it into the powerdvd window. Make sure to change it back when you're finished to avoid confusion.
 
Toytown said:
Sure just rename it to mp4 and drag it into the powerdvd window. Make sure to change it back when you're finished to avoid confusion.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding? That doesn't work.
Maybe actually changing the container to mp4, but not just renaming it.
 
joyntkid said:
Are you kidding? That doesn't work.
Maybe actually changing the container to mp4, but not just renaming it.
Click to expand...

Well I'll be damned! I guess the MKV file I just tried it on didn't really work at all even though it was actually playing it as an .mp4 !!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
I just tried the renaming trick and it didn't work. I couldn't tell how serious/sarcastic you were being, CrimandEvil.
 
l3ender said:
I just tried the renaming trick and it didn't work. I couldn't tell how serious/sarcastic you were being, CrimandEvil.
Click to expand...

Works for me. Several MKVs worked fine like that in several media players (WMP, ZP, MPC, even VMC).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top