FFDshow, and SageTv

[Watter]

Eureka!!!

When doing all of my testing I would always try both Overlay and VMR9 using the "Video Renderer" control on the SageTV Detailed Settings/Video screen. I tried both so that I could rule the renderer out as a factor in making this not work for me.

Well guess what? Forcing the renderer to either VMR9 or Overlay is what was causing my problem. When I set the Renderer to "Default", I can load FFDShow without any problems at all. I can then specify whether to use Overlay or VMR using the Cinemaster Control Panel Applet outside of Sage.

Yay!!!! Finally!

A big thanks to all of you who have offered advice and have tried to help me get this working. Now, here comes the fun part of figuring out what settings to use. Any advice there?

-Watter

[stanger89]

I like a little Denoise3D + unsharpmask

Oh, and Logokiller is cool too (Use Weighted Average).

[flashbacck]

interesting... I think I'll give that a shot when I get home.

[Watter]

I've tried dozens of things with FFDShow and after all of that effort getting it working, I can't seem to get any FFDShow settings that surpass just using the Cinemaster's codec's standard DXVA in Overlay mode (or VMR - I can't seem to tell the differencxe between VMR and Overlay). However, I'm still not thrilled with this picture. It's not horrible, but it's still a little like fuzzy velvet at times. Maybe I'm just being too picky...

Would anyone care to post their exact FFDShow settings? Are you using Dscaler through FFDShow?

-Watter

[stanger89]

ffdshow-20040405
In order...
unsharp mask 50
denoise3d .5 .5 1.07

That's applied to nVDVD 3 decoded video.

[flashbacck]

Changing the video mode to "default" WORKS!!!! Brilliant! Thanks Watter!

[zz5]

stranger89, how did you get NVDVD 3? I just researched NVDVD and from what I understand it's no longer being sold from the Nvidia website. And the last version was 2.55

[kny3twalker]

email kny3twalker

well pm me for my email

[flashbacck]

uh... ok, so apparently my 2500+ isn't enough horsepower to do much with ffdshow. Even if I turn off everything (no blur, no resize, no sharpening, etc), I'm seeing an increase in CPU% from 40 to 80%. Is that suppose to be happening?

EDIT: oops, didn't have DxVA on. Ok, with DxVA on, it goes from 10% to 70% CPU usage with FFDshow doing no processing.

[Watter]

Originally posted by flashbacck
uh... ok, so apparently my 2500+ isn't enough horsepower to do much with ffdshow. Even if I turn off everything (no blur, no resize, no sharpening, etc), I'm seeing an increase in CPU% from 40 to 80%. Is that suppose to be happening?

That seems odd. Do you truly have "nothing" checked in the FFDShow dialog? I've noticed that on my setup enabling the FFDShow OSD causes significant CPU usage. If I have absolutely nothing checked in FFDShow (i.e. no OSD, no histogram, nada) then my CPU usages is the same as if I weren't using it at all.

Another thing I've noticed is that under certain conditions having the Sage OSD on screen while video is playing has caused big time stuttering when using FFDShow. Not all of the time, but with some settings it's definitley noticible.

-Watter

[mlbdude]

You can't use DXVA with ffdshow so that instantly sends the CPU usage up a bit. Also, unless you are hitting 100% often you don't have a problem. Running at 80% is fine.

I get about 70% with just sharpen and denoise running. This is on an XP1800+.

I also get some help if I use Overlay and not VMR9. VMR9 seems to add a little overhead in too.

[Fluffdaddy]

stanger89

What version of DScaler Filter are you using ? In

your "Configuration and Tweaks" page it said to

select "FLT_Histogram.dll" I could not find the "FLT_Histogram.dll"

filter in the Version 4.0.1 I downloaded yeasterday.




I'm getting 0x80040217 error when I try to use ffdshow as my

video decoder. Is this because I can't find "FLT_Histogram.dll" in

my version of DScaler Filter ?

Thanks

[stanger89]

Try the 4.1.8 beta.

[Fluffdaddy]

Thanks

[flashbacck]

hmm. I'll check it out more when I get home. The CPU usage is high enough that the menu is lagging a few seconds. I'll recheck what happens when I turn off everything including OSD.

My Radeon 7000 shouldn't be able to do VMR9, so it should be set to overlay. Could the Radeon 7000 be the problem? How much of a GPU does FFDshow need?

[stanger89]

ffdshow is pure software, when using it the only thing the GPU does is put the video on the screen.