Devices > Video Cards, Monitors, Televisions, and Projectors
4K HDR MKV playback
RD James:
OK, I've done some testing on my i5-2500K / GTX 960 system.
I downclocked the 2500K to 3.1 GHz, as I believe that's the all-core frequency for an i5-2400.
There are two potential issues here:
1. The madVR config.
2. Media Center's hardware acceleration settings.
The default MC config seemed outdated as it's using D3D9 presentation, so what I first did was download the latest madVR and reset the config.
[*]Close Media Center
[*]Download the latest version of madVR here.
[*]Extract it to: "%APPDATA%\J River\Media Center 24\Plugins\madvr\" and replace all files.
[*]Run "restore default settings.bat" in that directory.
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At 4.5 GHz, which I typically run my 2500K system at, nothing else was necessary for smooth playback of 24 FPS 4K HDR video.
At 3.1 GHz, CPU usage was a problem.
This is because Media Center defaults to DXVA2 (Copy-Back) for hardware decoding.
Copy-back is preferred as some features like Zoom Control are disabled without it, but if you have a slower CPU it may struggle at 4K.
The DXVA2 (Native) or D3D11 (Native) decoders were able to handle playback without dropping frames.
To change this, you need to either install the latest version of LAV Filters or register MC's LAV Video decoder to the system.
For the latter:
[*]Open a command prompt with admin permissions.
[*]Run "cd %APPDATA%\J River\Media Center 24\Plugins\lav64\"
[*]Run "regsvr32 LAVVideo.ax"
[/list]
This is my preferred method, as it means that it stays in sync with MC auto-updating LAV Filters.
For either option, you now need to tell MC to use LAV's Video Decoder:
[*]In Media Center: Tools > Options > Video > General Video Settings > Video Mode: Advanced - Custom
[*]Custom Video Mode Settings
[*]Start with the following settings: Red October HQ
[*]Now add LAV Video decoder.
[*]Open LAV Video Decoder's Properties and select the DXVA2 (Native) decoder.
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Hopefully 4K HDR videos will play smoothly now.
With slower GPUs, there are options in madVR that will reduce the GPU load further, but the 1050 Ti should be faster than the 960 I was testing with.
And for what it's worth, it's reporting ~2.5/4.0 GB VRAM usage.
Hendrik:
--- Quote from: RD James on June 05, 2018, 09:35:13 am ---Download the latest version of madVR here.
--- End quote ---
Don't do that if you use Blu-ray Menus in Media Center, because that'll break them. The latest versions of madVR are buggy in that regard, hence why we don't use them.
Also, both D3D11 or DXVA2 (native) modes have drawbacks why its also not used by default. One clobbers the quality, and one disables a bunch of features like Deinterlacing.
JimH:
It would be better to not try to support customizing madVR at all here. doom9 is a better place for that discussion.
I realize your intentions are good.
mattkhan:
FWIW I think simple madvr config for different hardware should be a reasonable topic to discuss here particularly if it relates to MC functionality working or not. The reason being that doom9 will invariably say "ask jriver" or alternatively Hendrik will reply himself over there which seems a bit pointless.
I agree pixel peeping config is unambiguously a topic for doom9.
RD James:
--- Quote from: Hendrik on June 05, 2018, 10:26:31 am ---Don't do that if you use Blu-ray Menus in Media Center, because that'll break them. The latest versions of madVR are buggy in that regard, hence why we don't use them.
--- End quote ---
Ah, I don't use the menus so I was not aware of that.
I suggested the latest version of madVR because it offers performance and quality improvements for HDR playback (specifically for HDR > SDR conversion).
--- Quote from: Hendrik on June 05, 2018, 10:26:31 am ---Also, both D3D11 or DXVA2 (native) modes have drawbacks why its also not used by default. One clobbers the quality, and one disables a bunch of features like Deinterlacing.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I did mention that many features do not work with 'native' decoding, however if the difference is smooth playback vs constantly dropping frames, I would choose the former.
Ideally it would be possible to use an expression so that it is only applied to 2160p videos - which would also eliminate my need to send 2160p videos to a separate zone, but I tried using "Compare([Height, 0], >, 1080)" as the condition and it didn't work.
--- Quote from: mattkhan on June 05, 2018, 11:26:02 am ---FWIW I think simple madvr config for different hardware should be a reasonable topic to discuss here particularly if it relates to MC functionality working or not.
--- End quote ---
Having a "high performance" and "standard" profile for madVR seems like it would be useful.
In this case, it's likely the CPU causing these issues - at least it was on my test system when set to match the specs of an i5-2400.
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