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[JONCAT]

I'm not seeing Avivo as an option for decoders when using MC12. I have at set as the preferred decoder on my XP SP2 install using the Microsoft DVD codec utility. I can use PureVideo, or did with x64 and MC12. MC doesn't detect any installed MPEG2 decoder.

I haven't been able to test with ZoomPlayer or PowerDVD yet; anyone else using Avivo & MC12?

thanks
DC

[glynor]

I think the actual filter is called ATI Cyberlink Decoder.  Check for that, or something similar.

I, personally, uninstalled those filters because the 1-2% CPU usage it got me back for MPEG-2 wasn't worth having a non-homogeneous filter setup for MPEG-2 decoding.

[JONCAT]

I was using Purevideo on my last setup. I've been reading the Directshow Wiki..good stuff. Could you elaborate on the filter setup you use for DVD decoding?

thanks
DC

[JONCAT]

ATI MPEG decoder is installed; it shows up in the Microsoft Decoer Utility ans is set as preferred deocder, even says MCE compatible. I just don't have that option in MC. Installed Cyberlink and a bunch of Cyberlink deocoders popped up in MC12.

Glynor, I installed Itunes, and withit a fresh copy of Quicktime gets installed, but that broke playback of MKV which CCCP had enabled. I have FFDshow installed also. Is this normal...maybe I haven't reached the page of the Wiki yet.

DC

Media Center Registered 12.0.375 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 3, v.3205 (Build 2600)
AMD Unknown 2997 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2096 MB, Free - 1467 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.13 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive M:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive M: PLEXTOR  DVDR   PX-716AL    Addr: 0:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  Library Server (Active/Enabled)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  UPnP Server (Active)

[glynor]

Glynor, I installed Itunes, and withit a fresh copy of Quicktime gets installed, but that broke playback of MKV which CCCP had enabled. I have FFDshow installed also. Is this normal...maybe I haven't reached the page of the Wiki yet.

Quicktime can do some nasty stuff if you don't install it very carefully.  You'll want to follow these instructions: http://www.codecguide.com/quicktime_installation.htm

I'd probably uninstall iTunes and Quicktime.  Then download and install Quicktime separately (following said instructions).  Only then, install iTunes if you really want it there.

Oh, and don't install any Cyberlink players if you don't intend to use them.  It certainly could have been that (and not Quicktime) that caused your MKV issues.  If those MKV files are x264 (as many "scene" files are) then this would very likely be the explanation, not Quicktime. More here: http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Guide#After_installing_PowerDVD_7_H.264_playback_is_broken.21

The ATI decoder is written by Cyberlink.  It doesn't have anything to do with their players.  Like I said... I'm not sure what it is called, since I don't have it installed.  I just use CCCP for my occasional DVD playback.  It doesn't work with WiMP but it works just fine with MPC and with MC.  I probably only play DVDs once or twice a year though, so I don't have a lot of experience with the decoders.  Someone like Mastiff would probably be better qualified to answer.

People seem to really love the PureVideo decoders.  From what I hear, the new ATI decoders have slightly better quality though (especially with oddball Anime DVDs and whatnot).  I just don't use either.

[JONCAT]

Thanks, I'll have to do some research with the links you provided. I yanked Quicktime and playback of MKV returned; I would like to install Cyberlink with a choice of decoders - three get installed. One of them is the HD/Blu-Ray decoder which shows up as an option in MC. I can't test it because I don't have a PS3 or compatible driver (and probably won't for years) but might be of interest to another thread here I was reading.

DC

[glynor]

I'll try to look into the ATI decoder stuff this weekend if I have time.  I do have a X1900XT card, so it might be nice to figure out.

Exactly what codec do you have and where did you get it?

[JONCAT]

The AVIVO codec is what I believe it's called; check out ATI GAME - they have a lot of download packages there for all the MS OS flavors...I can't check the exact name until I get home but I think it displays as the ATI Mpeg decoder...doesn't say AVIVO per se.

DC

[glynor]

Okay... Yeah, I already have that Decoder downloaded.  BTW -- It's not "really" part of the AVIVO stuff.  It's included with any of their All-in-Wonder line of cards, and I think their TV Tuners too.

The AVIVO stuff is mostly hardware acceleration for H264 and VC1 compressed video (provided by Nero or Cyberlink decoders) and their fancy video converter thing.  It looks like the AVIVO package also contains an encoder for their TV Tuners, but I'm not clear on how that is different from the regular drivers for those cards...

[JONCAT]

Yeah I have a feeling the AVIVO codec is not installed, some other members of AVS forums had a similar issue. I'd like to get it working.....

DC

[glynor]

I just realized while looking at another thread that I'm actually using the Nero decoders.  Who knew!

I'll give the ATI Decoder a whirl sometime soon and let you know.  Perhaps MC isn't able to see it for some weird reason or another...

[JONCAT]

Apparently, x264 standard encodes won't do hardware acceleration.

"Sorry - I should have made it clear - this 1080p problem i'm having is only affecting x264 encodes. Like yourself - vc1/h264 is fine in any resolution.
I suspect there's not much you can do about it - apparently x264 encodes done with typical options don't strictly meet the h264 standards, and thus the cyberlink decoder gets tripped up with hardware acceleration"

 I'm trying to get HA working, I can see the ATI MPEG decoder in MC's Direct Show filter list but it's not showing up as a decoder.

From AVSforums:

"On my computer, it shows up as "ATI MPEG Video Decoder" in software using DirectShow filters.

If you want to use the AVIVO MPEG2 decoder in Media Center, follow this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11910292#post11910292).

If you want to use the AVIVO H.264 decoder, it's the same "ATI MPEG Video Decoder" filter you need to select in your DirectShow player (i.e., ZoomPlayer, MPC), but I have not had any success getting the decoder to work for H.264. See my results with DXVA here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12229674#post12229674)."

I'm playing back AVC1 in MKV 720p with 35-40% cpu using a 3gHz single core AMD64. When I turn off x264 in FFDSHOW the Cyberlink decoder jumps in even though I set mkv for ATI MPEG. I need to read the WIKI still, but I want to try Zoomplayer. Got to get hardware acceleration of x/h264  working to give this PC a few more years of life.

DC

[glynor]

Ah, yes... I thought you were trying to get just the MPEG-2 decoder working (which I got working this weekend on my AIW X800XT).  I haven't messed with the h264 acceleration at all.  I do know that x264 is completely compliant with the MPEG-4 AVC standard, so you should be able to make encodes that will work with the acceleration HW.  My guess is that the HW only supports a subset of the possible options in AVC, and encoding to High Profile or whatever doesn't work...

I haven't looked at the links yet (I'm busy right now) but when I start encoding HD footage, I'd like to make sure it is compliant.  (Because I do have a X1900XT and I might eventually end up with a HD 38XX series card or a Nvidia 8800GT).  Did anyone post what specific settings you need to change to get it to work?

[JONCAT]

I tried Vista x86 last night for a LONG time.....my conclusion after a ton of testing is that the runmors of Nforce3 & Vista being problematic are true - I get lockups as soon as the ATI 7.10 driver is installed. The worst thing was the corrupt AVC1 playback which I fixed once but it broke again; I almost blew my top. CCCP install for Haali splitter with CCCP version of FFDSHOW. AVC1 looked aliased (Disney intro) then I installed VistaCodecs FFDSHOW and it fixed it, but after a clean install I did the same thing, and playback stayed aliased. XP x86 everything is okay, and I think   should sticj with it, but of course Network shares aren't working between my laptop and XP no matter what I do. I may try Vista one more time with this method:

"I have gotten DXVA working with files (TS, MKV), HD DVDs, and Blurays, using my VisionTek HD2600PRO AGP 512MB.

I haven't done anything beyond what we've discussed here. I am currently running the Crysis hotfix drivers, because they are actually a newer build than the official 7.11 release. My normal routine:

Uninstall old drivers using ATI Uninstall Tool. (I don't use DriverCleaner, as it hoses up my Catalyst Media Center and TV Wonder 600 installs.)
Download the new drivers + CCC package.
Run the installer and wait for the error saying the card is not supported.
Cancel the install.
Go to the install folder, and add the AGP tweaks.
Run the installer.
If I get the "Notify" errors, then go to Device Mgr, right-click on the video card, select Update driver, and tell it to look in the new driver folder under "C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[latest release]\Driver\Driver\XP_INF". When done installing the driver, install the CCC --- in XP, by running "C:\ATI\SUPPORT\[latest release]\Driver\CCC\setup.exe". In Vista, I'm not sure what you have to do with the Install Mgr.
Run my program to install arfster's tweaks.
Reboot. _______"

DC

[glynor]

Socket 754 eh?

I actually even have a worse issue... I have a Socket 939 Nforce3 board.  Makes me angry... It supports all sorts of processors (dual core and the whole bit), and runs fine.  But Nvidia won't release drivers for Vista.  Erg!   

[JONCAT]

Yeah I was/am playing the upgrade game because this board isn't really that old...AMD with three chipsets in something like 18 months? CRAZY! This was the final piece of the puzzle, h264 HA would be great; I've got this old 754 with a Mobile 4000+ naked mounted under a Big Typhoon at 3gHz P95 stable. But it may be time to face the fact that a quad-core is going to solve many of these issues with pure crunching power, but I'd like to hold off on that for a year or so.....

There are some NF3 drivers for Vista but just SMbus, ethernet etc., but something isn't right there...I have a feeling no matter what kind of clean install I do followed by the method above ...the system is going to keep locking up.

Have you tried Vista x86 on your board? Seems the major issue is with AGP dual-core and Vista, but I'm having issues, as I said, with my single-core. On XP I installed a full Remix pack of NF3 drivers including the Nvida GART...I think...or I may have removed it but then had to re-install to get CCC to show 8x AGP etc.

With Vista, there is no such driver support...the only thing to try is yet another clean install and newest drivers.

DC

[JONCAT]

I was able to get a 1080P MKV (avc1?) accelerated on Windows XP SP3 with DXVA...needless to say I was pretty pumped given that the Vista install with this card and Nforce3 would lock up my system.....

I watched Elephant's Dream with DXVA, cpu 15% during major action, and w/o DXVA enabled in Cyberlink....cpu 100%....unwatchable.
1. I need to figure out how to check the encoding options used on existing MKV files I have. Will try this:

"there is a quicker way to get the encoding options used in any container (mkv, mp4, avi, etc). Just download and install AVInaptic. (The first time you run it click on the box that says "Italiano" to select English as the language.)"

2. I need to remove DirectVobSub from the filter chain; do I need to uninstall it completely?

3. I'll post encoding options for my backups that do HA here:

"I played a file with the following encoding options:

Code:

    string is ".E....H..,. .#..x264 - core 56 svn-676 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec -

 Copyleft 2005 -


http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=5 debl
ock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=umh subme=7 brdo=1 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma



_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=6 nr=0

decimate=1 mbaff=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=1 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 wpredb=1 bi
me=1 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40(pre) rc=2pass bitrate=6100 ratetol=


1.0
 rceq='blurCplx^(1-qComp)' qcomp=0.60
 qpmin=10 qpmax=51 qpstep=4 cplxblur=20.0 q
blur=0.5 ip_ratio=1.40 pb_ratio=1.30."

You can see the encode uses most of the advanced encoding options: CABAC, 5 reference frames, B-frame RDO, mixed reference frames, adaptive 8x8 transforms (High Profile), 3 B-frames, B-frame pyramids, and adaptive b-frames. I was expecting one of those options to be the trigger to make DXVA fail, but apparently not.

DXVA worked with the following video renderers (I checked the input pin on the renderer, which showed "DXVA 1280x528 23.98fps"):

Overlay Mixer
VMR7 (Windowed)
VMR7 (Renderless)
VMR9 (Windowed)
VMR9 (Windowless) (ZP only)
VMR9 (Renderless), plain offscreen, 2D & 3D Surfaces
EVR (using .NET 3.0, MPC HC only)

DXVA did NOT work with the following video renderers (I checked the input pin on the renderer, which showed "RGB 1280x528 23.98fps" or "YUY2 1280x528 23.98fps"):

Haali Video Renderer
Nero Video Renderer

DXVA did NOT work with the CoreAVC or MainConcept H.264 decoders (despite "HA" set to "on" for the MainConcept decoder)."


DC

[JONCAT]

Glynor,

Here are some encoding options that currently work for x264 although sound like if we complain to Cyberlink enough some issues might get fixed:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12401597#post12401597

It's nice to be able to use MC and achieve hardware acceleration for these codecs and the mkv container; I've had issues in the past.

Someone mentioned the splitter deals with seeks, and a few poeple, myself included, have noted how pause/resume or seeking works but is really (laggy i.e. dropped frames on resume playback). I am using Haali and apparently he doesn't have time to look into it. Any ideas?

DC

[JONCAT]

Strange that MC doesn't pickup the ATI decoder is registered on the system.

Glynor - are MKV files able to have their encoding options changed - reframes = 5 changed to 4?

DC

[glynor]

The mkv file format is a container... It doesn't care what encoders you use, or what settings you use.  MKV can use XviD, MPEG-2, x264, MPEG-1, DV, and all sorts of other video formats?

Do you mean can x264 do that, or is "reframes" a container setting?

(Either way, that's more advanced that I understand about x264... I'd suggest you ask on Doom9.)

[JONCAT]

My bad, I meant x264. I'll figure it out...

DC