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[JimH]

JRVR, or JRiver Video Renderer, is our new in-house video renderer, designed from the ground up to be cross-platform and offer high-quality video playback on all devices.

JRVR is in active development, and is available now on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Philosophy

JRVR is designed with a few key ideas in mind

1) Cross-Platform
    A cross-platform renderer allows us to offer a consistent video experience on all supported platforms, on Windows, Linux and Mac
2) High-Quality Video
    High-Quality processing and presentation of the videos is the primary goal of JRVR. Including full support for HDR and other modern video technologies.
3) Ease of Use ("It just works!")
    The experience should be good out of the box, and only get better with a bit of configuration, and not require hours of research to tune hundreds of options
4) Efficiency/Scalability
    Low-end machines can still play video just fine. And we want to enable them to do so in high-quality. At the same time, faster machines can use more advanced features to get even more out of the videos.

JRVR may not be a full replacement for madVR for the hard core enthusiast, but it should work very well for the typical video user. And this is our goal. A solution that offers high-quality video for everyone, at no to very little setup effort.

Design

JRVR is designed on a flexible framework, supporting the Vulkan graphics API, D3D11 on Windows, as well as OpenGL, depending on what is available on your system.
This design allows JRVR to run on any system, from a high-end Windows desktop, down to a Raspberry Pi, with almost the same features.

On Linux and Mac, you should already be seeing improved performance and higher quality right now, in comparison to our old video renderer.

How to Use?

On Windows, you can opt-into using JRVR in Options -> Video -> Video Mode: Red October JRVR
JRVR is the default renderer on Linux and Mac, you can confirm it is enabled in Options -> Video -> Video Renderer

Status and Plans

JRVR is still in active development. For the current status and future plans, check our dedicated topic:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,131214.0.html

Technology
JRVR uses the excellent libplacebo rendering library for all heavy lifting.

JRVR on the Wiki
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/JRVR_-_JRiver_Video_Renderer

[SamuriHL]

Ohhhh this sounds fun!  I really wish my HTPC wasn't dead.  I'll try it out on my laptop when it's ready though.  madvr on PC has some...deficiencies that may never get resolved, so, you never know about that madvr statement.

[mwillems]

This is exciting!  I can't wait to try it out.

[jmone]

I too am pretty excited to see how this project goes!  Well Done for taking this on.

[Hendrik]

The first version coming later this week will be a preview, as there is still more to do, but it's basically ready to replace the old Mac/Linux video renderer, and already offers better features.

Here are the main features available today:

- Quality up/down scaling, selectable* from Bilinear to Jinc (with anti-ringing)
- High quality colorspace conversions
- HDR to SDR tonemapping, for HDR10 and HLG
- Dithering
- Optional debanding
- Linearization/sigmoidization for upscaling
- Subtitle blending and colorspace correction

Future plans:
- OSD integration, blending and color correction
- Zero-copy decoding (eg. "Native"), D3D11 on Windows, VAAPI (and maybe others) on Linux, Mac TBD
- 3DLUT
- HDR pass-through
- Investigate doubling-type scalers (nothing concrete on these yet)

Known Limitations:
- DVD and Blu-ray Menu playback is not yet supported

The version coming this week will not have access to all of these features listed above, mainly because the settings dialog is taking a lot of detail work, and will be added as a next step, while I take this week to make sure it works on all platforms.

The Linux/Mac video engine also lacks integration of some video image control features, like Pan&Scan and other size controls, which won't be available right away here either, but we will definitely hook all of those up properly now, as the renderer makes it much easier for us to control all of this than the old one did.

Integration into Red October for Windows is still a work in progress, and will come in a few weeks.

[jmone]

Hendrik, that is an amazing list of features and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it goes on Windows.  For me
- Jinc+AR has always been a good sweet spot
- HDR, HLG tonemapping + Passthrough is a big benefit.  Will it be "smart" in that if I have an HDR file will it passthrough if connected to an HDR display else tonemap?
- I "presume" it will work with Blu ray structure playback?
- Any changes / benefits to the display rate / ability to tune timing to prevent dropped/repeated frames when bitstreaming?

Best news I've heard in ages, but looks like us Windows users will have to wait a bit longer!

Thanks
Nathan

F5 F5 F5

[leezer3]

Now, what this really needs is a selectable scaling profile based upon video tags. Should be easy if all the settings are integrated with MC (I know, probably not easy....)

I've got some older RM content that would really benefit from a dedicated scaling profile.

[mattkhan]

Sounds great

Would be nice to get integration with measurements tools (i.e. a patch generator that can be driven via an API) for (auto)calibration purposes, aka a madtpg replacement

[JimH]

Please hold your requests for a while. Hendrik has his hands full.

I may move them to a new thread.

[Hendrik]

- HDR, HLG tonemapping + Passthrough is a big benefit.  Will it be "smart" in that if I have an HDR file will it passthrough if connected to an HDR display else tonemap?

Smart HDR is of course the ideal goal, HDR that "just works" would be a great advancement over the current situation, but we'll have to see if everything cooperates. But its definitely the goal.

- I "presume" it will work with Blu ray structure playback?

Once its available on Windows, it should work with anything that EVR/madVR can work with, ideally. Blu-ray menus will take some extra work for the interactive menus, but we'll get there.

- Any changes / benefits to the display rate / ability to tune timing to prevent dropped/repeated frames when bitstreaming?

There aren't exactly any things you can do. You render video on VSYNC and thats it. I would love to be able to use HDMI VRR, but its entirely designed for gaming, eg. render as fast as you can, not for video, eg. "present video at perfect time X", it would be great if extensions come around that allow perfectly timed presentation, but alas I have not seen anything like that.

Now, what this really needs is a selctable scaling profile based upon video tags. Should be easy if all the settings are integrated with MC (I know, probably not easy....)

Profiles are like a Future-Future-Plan, but profiles are overall pretty useful, as different content will require different settings once you start properly tuning, so in the long run we'll likely have them, but not right away.

[SamuriHL]

This is definitely exciting.  HDR that "just works" would be a huge benefit to all.  While I love madvr and the quality it gives, it's not for the faint of heart, the current development is geared towards improving their for profit product, and there are many bugs that may never get cleaned up.  nVidia even had to work around a madvr issue in their driver due to getting flooded with so many complaints about it breaking madvr.  Technically that should have been the other way around.  My point here isn't to deride madvr at all.  It's brilliant.  But for most users, having something that "simply works" is going to be a godsend.  I'm extremely excited to see the development on this.  Anything we can do to help test and move it along, you can bet we'll be there. 

[glynor]

This is super exciting. The video renderer on macOS is stinky.

[jmone]

Thanks for the info, the roadmap looks great and well thought out
. 

Smart HDR is of course the ideal goal, HDR that "just works" ....

Another Q that popped into my mind overnight is on Win 11 - Now you can leave HDR ON all the time and Windows tone maps? SDR --> HDR (do I have that correct), and if so will JRVR work with this or ??

Thanks
Nathan

[BryanC]

Hooray, I can finally move my HTPC client from Windows to Linux! That should remedy a lot of issues caused by mixing OSes I've run into lately. My little 1505G rig can't quite do Jinc with madVR for 1080P->4K, I'm very curious if this will allow higher quality settings to be used on the low-end. I'm also interested in tonemapping performance because my 8-bit panel renders 10-bit content terribly. Can't wait to test it out. I'm waiting on a 15ft USB cable to arrive so I can test out a live USB on my HTPC.

[mojave]

This is very cool!

[JimH]

There's a small possibility of a Linux build today.  If not, probably Thursday.

Don't expect too much.  We'll be doing well if this build installs and runs.

[JimH]

Linux builds are here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,130673.msg906019.html#msg906019

More soon.

[zybex]

Amazing work, thank you! Hopefully over time it will completely replace MadVR.

[voodoo5_6k]

Wow, this came out of nowhere, great and exciting news

I take it that madVR will still be retained as Red October HQ option (as I'm currently using that)?

However, it is a great idea to have an internal/own renderer you can develop to whatever is needed. No longer will you then have to rely on external programs. And maybe, with madVR development being basically geared completely towards Envy, with nobody knowing whether the madVR "Plus" (i.e. paid) version will ever come, the JRVR will some day be close enough in features and image quality that there's basically no longer any need for using madVR.

Also, you now have the advantage of being able to fully integrate this into the rest of MC.

Like I said, great and exciting news. I'll try to closely follow this. Thanks Hendrik

[Manfred]

Do we need an external graphics card or is Intel iGPU or AMD APU enough?

[tij]

Is it possible to output decoded video untouched at 4:2:0 bypassing Windows RGB? Kind of bitperfect streaming for video.

So can feed this directly to video processors like Lumagen or Envy for processing of "original" material without any chroma upscaling.

[Hendrik]

Is it possible to output decoded video untouched at 4:2:0 bypassing Windows RGB? Kind of bitperfect streaming for video.

So can feed this directly to video processors like Lumagen or Envy for processing of "original" material without any chroma upscaling.

This is not possible.

[Inquisition]

Sounds good and i am very excited to test it.

Madvr is surely good, but horrible for most to set it up for max. performance depending on used hardware.

[tij]

This is not possible.

Darn ... then must keep MadVR around at least for chroma upsampling

[lello]

Great news! More and more happy to have paid my "mite"  every year to JRiver's boys

[SamuriHL]

Darn ... then must keep MadVR around at least for chroma upsampling

Why?  Hendrick didn't say chroma upscaling wasn't possible, only sending untouched 4:2:0 chroma.  Which is a windows/driver limitation that they have no control over.  But they could certainly upscale chroma like madvr does. Maybe not using NGU or whatever but certainly with jinc.

[JimH]

There's a chance we'll get a Mac build out today.  Fingers crossed.

[JimH]

There's a chance we'll get a Mac build out today.  Fingers crossed.

It's out now:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,130689.msg906127.html#msg906127

[tij]

Maybe not using NGU or whatever but certainly with jinc.

Exactly that ... plus i realize 4:2:0 will not work nicely with subtitles. This is only for dedicated movie room where i try to get maximum quality (even though it can be argued that i cannot percive the differdnce between NGU and Jinc on real content)

[BY96]

I am very interested in this new video renderer, but will MadVR still be available on JRiver for the foreseeable future? I have spent many hours learning to use it and may not want to move from it. I just started using "black bar detection" and really like it. Not sure if JRVR will include that feature.

It would seem that having both options available would be the ideal scenario.

[JimH]

There will still be options.

[lello]

I just started using "black bar detection" and really like it...

For those with a 21: 9 screen, it would be interesting if JRVR had this option along with "screen config"

[Hendrik]

Black Bar detection is not currently planned, but the future is a long time.

One advantage MC has is of course the library, so even if we don't have detection, we might be able to more easily let you manually specify different image configurations for videos. Or move detection to an offline analysis process, instead of trying to do it during playback. We shall see. We'll start collecting requests/ideas once we're further along in the development of the core features currently in the works.

[mattkhan]

I use blackbar detection and the automated zoom in madvr in order to use an anamorphic lens, do you plan to support this or that will be one of those to consider later?

[TheShoe]

This is excellent news!

Please if you can, support 3D if possible!  SBS, TAB, and MVC (though I use TAB now on a 4K set since nVidia dumped 3D support in their drivers).

[fitbrit]

Thank you Hendrik and everyone involved in this project. This is great news. It makes using Linux a viable proposition, especially if there is/will be a WDM equivalent on Linux too.
Very excited to see it in action on Windows too.

[JimH]

Our next JRiver Id will use the new renderer.  Please read more about the IdVR.

[lello]

Black Bar detection is not currently planned, but the future is a long time.

So no black bar detection for now, but neither "screen config"? For those who have a projector and a 21: 9 screen, this is a really cool feature

[Hendrik]

We can't think about niche features before even the major features are done. Feel free to come back to that once its more complete and document your needs then - with more details.

[jmone]

I agree, lets get Version 1 up and going.  Then we can see how well it performs, it's relative strengths and weaknesses, from which we can all pile on Hendrik for what we "need"!  Can't wait to test it out.

[lello]

Thank you

[SamuriHL]

Couldn't agree more.  Building a "stable base" from which to build out is super important.  if you try to add too much other stuff before you have that stable base, then it becomes that much harder to find and fix issues as they arise.  This renderer is complicated enough without additional potential issues to wade through.  I'm very much looking forward to seeing it evolve.

[pepar]

I am am curious to know what thinking lead to seeing a need for an in-house renderer? Ease of use for less technically minded, perhaps?

[SamuriHL]

Cross platform functionality.

[zybex]

Also for Windows, MadVR has stopped development of its free version and there's no good replacement. JRVR might also not be free, but at least it doesn't cost 10000€ like MadVR's new business model.

Regarding features... Have patience, this is a years-long process. Just look at MadVR development history. Any complex tool is like that, slowly rolling out new features and many bugfixes on every release.

@Hendrik, is JRVR [eventually] usable by other apps like MPC-HC?

[Hendrik]

I am am curious to know what thinking lead to seeing a need for an in-house renderer? Ease of use for less technically minded, perhaps?

There aren't exactly any good alternatives ready to use available. Microsofts EVR handles very basic needs only, but is not very extensible and doesn't support many modern features. madVR is fine, but it has several issues that went unaddressed for years and its future is rather uncertain in face of it competing with its own hardware version, despite promises of continued updates in the future, its been a long time since the last update and it doesn't seem like that'll change soon.

Other renderers used by DirectShow players are typically old or based on EVR with all its limitations.

So if we want to offer a reliable video experience that we actually have control over, having our own is the natural conclusion.
In the past we were lucky that madVR's goals aligned with what we needed for video, but actually having control in our own hands just makes more sense.

The second factor is cross-platform support. As we make a new renderer, it'll not only be available for Windows, but also for Linux and Mac, bringing video features much closer to parity between platforms (platform limitations not withstanding).
This has been a long-standing concern for Linux and Mac users, because video playback, while functional, was not even comparable to the Windows experience. We aim to change this now.

Additional concerns like making it easier to use are certainly a bonus and something definitely on my mind when designing the options, but it was not a thought directly driving the decision to start this project.

TL;DR: The current situation on Windows leaves us worrying for the future, and combined with cross-platform goals, this was the only conclusion that could really fullfill our design goals.

Regarding features... Have patience, this is a years-long process.

Hopefully not quite years, but otherwise definitely right. The features outlined in my earlier post in this thread should be ready soon after the first preview release, but anything beyond that (either already listead as a Future Plan above, or beyond that) will just take time, but we are definitely commited to create a quality video renderer that can serve Media Center for years to come.

@Hendrik, is JRVR [eventually] usable by other apps like MPC-HC?

No. Its a core component of Media Center.

[JimH]

To add a little to Hendrik's comments, we should have a more efficient renderer that will run on lighter weight gear or do 4K on equipment that isn't quite powerful enough now.

I think that makes it greener too.

[lello]

This is great news, especially considering the current prices of GPUs which certainly do not entice you to upgrade your hardware

[Manfred]

If iGPU or APU would be enough, this would be very high value regrading green value and money -a RTX 3060 TI cost more than 700€ in Germany which is more than double the price of my old GTX 960 and that only for video upscaling and rendering!

[pepar]

Crypto mining might take a pause with China’s new stance. ‘Course, that’ll mean a huge dump of abused GPU’s onto the market. Still that should allow new card prices to drift downward.