Blue ray rips: H.264 is Smooth; VC-1 is jittery

[craigap]

I started ripping blue rays to my HDD in BDMV folders. I've noticed that the movies in H.264 play nice and smooth with about 25% CPU usage, while the movies in VC-1 use about 70% CPU and is are slightly jittery. I'm using the built in Windows 7 decoders for MPEG2, H.264, and VC-1 playback. Please look in my sig for list of hardware. If I watch the VC-1 movies on my HD300's they play smooth. I'm also bitstreaming HD audio to my AVR using FFDshow. No problems there it seems.

Any ideas on how to get smooth playback of the VC-1 content?

[Bagal]

The Microsoft VC-1 codec doesn't support hardware acceleration which is why you're seeing higher CPU usage, so your best bet is to try a codec that supports hardware acceleration, I can't remember what I'm currently using but I'm pretty sure the likes of the PowerDVD and Arcsoft codecs do, though I'm sure others will be able to give you some suggestions.

[panteragstk]

I use ffdshow and vc-1 plays nice and smooth. The WMVideo Decoder DMO has never been smooth for me.

[craigap]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I use ffdshow and vc-1 plays nice and smooth. The WMVideo Decoder DMO has never been smooth for me.

Is that the DXVA version of FFDshow? I thought I recall there being a check box to enable DXVA in FFDShow somewhere. There is a separated DXVA version of FFDshow correct?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by craigap

Is that the DXVA version of FFDshow? I thought I recall there being a check box to enable DXVA in FFDShow somewhere. There is a separated DXVA version of FFDshow correct?

DXVA makes sage crash quickly so I use the non dxva version and playback is nice and smooth. Just be sure you don't tell ffdshow to use wmp and use ffmpeg. The cpu on my client has no problem keeping up. Good luck.

[craigap]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Just be sure you don't tell ffdshow to use wmp and use ffmpeg.

Where in the setup is this exactly?

[panteragstk]

When you go to the configuration in the start menu or filter manager or whatever. Choose libavcodec instead of wmv.

[craigap]

Ok, That's what I thought you might be reffering too. I tried both anyways and I get unwatchable playback. I'm wondering if there might be some other settings I need to adjust.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by craigap

Ok, That's what I thought you might be reffering too. I tried both anyways and I get unwatchable playback. I'm wondering if there might be some other settings I need to adjust.

What client are you using? Is it the server in your sig?

[craigap]

yes

[panteragstk]

What driver version do you use. AMD loves to screw up video playback at random. 10.9 was the most stable that I've used.

[craigap]

I went through and reinstalled everything at close to default in FFDshow as far as video decoder is concerned. I just have it set up for VC-1 Libavcodec, no DXVA boxes checked. Same unplayable content.
FFDshow Audio decoder is setup to bitstream everything except for 2 channel sources for which I have FFDshows PLII encoding enabled.
(can't get my AVR out of PCM mode for some reason to do it's own PLII encoding).
I'm using 10.10 drivers. I'll give 10.9 a try.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by craigap

I went through and reinstalled everything at close to default in FFDshow as far as video decoder is concerned. I just have it set up for VC-1 Libavcodec, no DXVA boxes checked. Same unplayable content.
FFDshow Audio decoder is setup to bitstream everything except for 2 channel sources for which I have FFDshows PLII encoding enabled.
(can't get my AVR out of PCM mode for some reason to do it's own PLII encoding).
I'm using 10.10 drivers. I'll give 10.9 a try.

10.10 made all video act horrible for me. 10.9 was a good version. Also, when I installed a codec pack that included ffdshow it never worked. I got the latest version off of their site and that one has been great for vc-1 when before it never worked. The version I'm using is either 3760 or 3757. At work so I can't verify. I reinstalled windows on my client because of how bad sage 7 acted from the get go. Not using a codec pack and relying on ffdshow and built in decoders has been so much better. No issues since the reinstall.

[craigap]

I'm getting the same garbage playback with 10.9. I'm using build 3744 of FFDshow. Going to go find a newer version.


EDIT: I have to go back to 10.10. The driver keeps crashing on me and my overscan settings keeping getting screwed up. However, I did install build 3760 of FFDhshow and tried it with 10.9. No change, still crap.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by craigap

I'm getting the same garbage playback with 10.9. I'm using build 3744 of FFDshow. Going to go find a newer version.


EDIT: I have to go back to 10.10. The driver keeps crashing on me and my overscan settings keeping getting screwed up. However, I did install build 3760 of FFDhshow and tried it with 10.9. No change, still crap.

wow. sorry that didn't help. I eventually had to convert all vc-1 to .mkv because the mkv sage splitter plays nice with the decoders while the .m2ts splitter for bdmv and the .m2ts files work great with h.264. You could also use fuzzy's external player plugin for the bdmv folders as that gets you all the menu's plus subtitles. I use it and it works great.

Try converting a movie to .mkv and see if that helps. If you use mkvtoolnix don't get anything higher than 4.1.1 as 4.2 and above cause very strange playback issues.

[Bagal]

I went and checked what codecs I'm using on my Lounge client and currently that's setup to use the MPC Video Decoder for VC-1, playback is nice and smooth and cpu usage is fairly low, I should point out though that all my VC-1 content is stored as MKV's.

Here's my complete list of Video/Audio settings:

Video Renderer: EVR
MPEG2 Filter: Default
H.264 Filter: Microsoft DTV-DVD Decoder
VC1: MPC - Video decoder
Media player for non-MPEG files: DirectShow
DScaler filter: Disabled
Audio renderer: default
MPEG2 Audio Decoder filter: ffdshow Audio Decoder
HD Audio decoder filter: default
Audio playback delay: 0
HD audio output: disabled

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Bagal

I went and checked what codecs I'm using on my Lounge client and currently that's setup to use the MPC Video Decoder for VC-1, playback is nice and smooth and cpu usage is fairly low, I should point out though that all my VC-1 content is stored as MKV's.

Here's my complete list of Video/Audio settings:

Video Renderer: EVR
MPEG2 Filter: Default
H.264 Filter: Microsoft DTV-DVD Decoder
VC1: MPC - Video decoder
Media player for non-MPEG files: DirectShow
DScaler filter: Disabled
Audio renderer: default
MPEG2 Audio Decoder filter: ffdshow Audio Decoder
HD Audio decoder filter: default
Audio playback delay: 0
HD audio output: disabled

I haven't tried the mpc filters with my i3, but with the ati/amd it was awesome since it supports dxva. The mkv splitter seems to like vc-1 more than the m2ts splitter for some reason. Since doing that I haven't had an issue.

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I haven't tried the mpc filters with my i3, but with the ati/amd it was awesome since it supports dxva. The mkv splitter seems to like vc-1 more than the m2ts splitter for some reason. Since doing that I haven't had an issue.

My lounge client has an ATI card and the mpc filter was the only dxva one that I could get to play nicely with Sage for VC-1 content, though I was previously using the mpc filter with both MediaPortal and 7MC anyway.

All of my Blu-Ray rips are stored in MKV's simply because I use MakeMKV to rip them as I've found that to be the easiest way for me, I've tried ripping as m2ts before but at the time the process wasn't so straightforward and playback wasn't great (it was a couple of years ago though and pre-Sage for me).

[craigap]

How do I go about getting this MPC video decoder installed on my machine? Do I just download and install the whole Media Player Classic Player and then search through the list of decoders in the SageTV VC-1 codec list for MPC something?

[Bagal]

You can download the filters on their own and just pick out the ones you want, they're available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpc-hc/files/, just choose the appropriate 'Standalone Filters' package depending on whether you're running on 32 or 64bit.

The actual decoder you want is called 'MPCVideoDec.ax', and you'll need to register this for it to then be available in Sage, have a look at Damian's article on MediaSmartServer.net, the article concentrates on setting up Bitstreaming HD audio in Windows Media Center but it's also a very useful guide to manually setting up codecs and registering them as the default for the system etc.