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Author Topic: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075  (Read 3474 times)

bassmann

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Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« on: February 02, 2012, 03:42:48 am »

Hi there, I'm running MC 17.0.075 and looking to get the best quality audio and video playback possible with my gear. n.b. Its more of a tinker because I can situation rather than an issue.


Hardware/OS:
- WIN7 Ultimate x64
- CPU E8400
- 4GB Ram
- NVidia 9500 GT via HDMI to screen (with Hardware acceleration enabled in NVidia control panel and MC)
- Samsung 46" LED Series 6
- MAudio Profire 610 Firewire interface set to 24bit @ 48KHz (since i believe most Blurays today are @ 48KHz). Also using the ASIO Drivers and running balanced analog outputs given the quality of the DAC's.
- Behringer DEQ2496 to EQ the main speakers

Whist the PC hardware is a bit dated still adequately plays bluray so why upgrade (that is unless I start using DSP extensively)?


To get the most out of this setup:
- Do I need to install codec packs like K-Lite (or is this not utilised by MC17, or does not create an improvement)?
- Do I need any other Codec's/packs? e.g. the TMT dtsdecoder.dll
- Aside from CPU optimisation, does hardware acceleration on 9500GT give a better picture?
- Any tips to optimise the hardware above?
- Is there any benefit setting the frequency response of the Profire 610 higher than the source material (i.e 48KHz)? n.b. The unit does up to 10 Channels simulaneously at 24bit up to 192KHz.
- What would be recommended in the way of DSP "SURROUND" audio plugins, potentially VST based for functions such as bass management, equalisation and crossover (im interested in bi-amping the mains).

Thanks in advance

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audioriver

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2012, 08:51:39 am »

You don't need to install codec packs - in fact, avoid it at all costs. MC will automatically provide the best decoders. Dtsdecoder.dll is only needed if you need to decode DTS-HD MA tracks. If you don't have it, the regular DTS-core track will be decoded. About frequency response, it's usually best to leave it intact.
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glynor

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2012, 09:15:05 am »

- Aside from CPU optimisation, does hardware acceleration on 9500GT give a better picture?

No.  It just allows you to pull the decoding off on lower-end hardware (or with lower CPU utilization).

- Do I need to install codec packs like K-Lite (or is this not utilised by MC17, or does not create an improvement)?

No.  Audioriver's answer covered this.  Red October uses its own internal filters which are carefully selected to provide the best output quality and compatibility.  JRiver works directly with many of the actual developers of these filters (like madshi and nevcairiel).

- Do I need any other Codec's/packs? e.g. the TMT dtsdecoder.dll

See this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=69592.0

For MC to decode DTS-MA you do need a copy of the dtsdecoder.dll file.  All the other "HD Audio" formats work correctly out of the box.

- Any tips to optimise the hardware above?

You probably won't be able to pull off Red October High Quality on that system without keeping Hardware Acceleration enabled.  ROHQ seems to require roughly a Nehalem/Lynnfield CPU ("original" Core i5/i7, or Sandy Bridge Core i3/i5/i7) or better to run smoothly without GPU assist.

I have a Q9550 CPU in my HTPC (overclocked, even) that can't quite manage ROHQ with certain files without GPU acceleration.  My Core i5 750 on another system handles it without GPU acceleration without breaking a sweat though.
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bassmann

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2012, 02:28:58 am »

Thanks guys,

In Summary based on input so far,
- audiowise i am already there, except for the DTSHD bit which i'll fix over the weekend.
- Software ROHD will outperform GPU acceleration on a 9500GT.

On the second point, will ROHD outperform newer, faster GPU's on the market? If no, what GPU is recommended (but must be fanless)

I wish to determine should i upgrade the GPU or the system.

Thanks in advnace
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glynor

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2012, 09:07:32 am »

- Software ROHD will outperform GPU acceleration on a 9500GT.

On the second point, will ROHD outperform newer, faster GPU's on the market? If no, what GPU is recommended (but must be fanless)

No, you have that backwards... Well, maybe.

I don't know if the 9500GT has enough "CUDA Juice" to be able to handle the GPU Acceleration.  It probably does though.  The 9500GT isn't that old.  I suspect that the 8800GT and better will work.  It is, however, an either-or thing.  It either works or it doesn't.

In theory, ROHQ with GPU Acceleration and ROHQ without GPU Acceleration will result in the same picture quality*.  If you are able to turn on GPU Acceleration (right now, you need a supported Nvidia card), it'll just let you use ROHQ on a computer that otherwise doesn't have the CPU power to handle it.  Whereas without GPU Acceleration (if you have an AMD video card, or are using onboard Intel graphics), you'll need a quad-core Core i5-class CPU to be able to turn on ROHQ without dropping frames all over the place.

That's the difference.

So... The answer to "will the 9500GT work" is... Not sure, try it.  I think it will.  If you enable ROHQ and turn on Hardware Acceleration, and then try to play a high-bitrate H.264 1080p movie (like a BluRay rip), does it work or is it all slow and stuttery?

If it works, you're good.  Improving the video card won't improve "quality".  Not for MC's video support anyway (you'd still see better performance in games and whatnot, of course).

If it doesn't (the video stutters, drops frames, or doesn't work at all), then you either need a better CPU (which also means a whole new motherboard and probably RAM in your case), or you need a better/newer Nvidia GPU.  If you need one, the Nvidia GeForce GT 430 cards seem to be a good choice for quiet CUDA-supporting Nvidia cards that work well with ROHQ's GPU acceleration.  Zotac makes a whole line of passively-cooled graphics cards, including a few different newer Nvidia options (ProTip: The GT 430 is a better GPU than the newer GT 520, despite the fact that the latter's model number is 90 "points" better).

* I'm not using a supported Nvidia card in any machines right now, so I can't explicitly test this.  In theory, it should be identical, but nev would have to confirm that Nvidia isn't taking any shortcuts in it's hardware decode acceleration.  It is also possible that Nvidia is "cheating" in the parts that are passed off to hardware.  Either way, if there are differences, they are extremely minor.  It still uses madVR, and the same filter settings.
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CountryBumkin

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2012, 11:41:48 am »

Hardware/OS:
- WIN7 Ultimate x64
- CPU E8400
- 4GB Ram
- NVidia 9500 GT via HDMI to screen (with Hardware acceleration enabled in NVidia control panel and MC)
- Samsung 46" LED Series 6
- MAudio Profire 610 Firewire interface set to 24bit @ 48KHz (since i believe most Blurays today are @ 48KHz). Also using the ASIO Drivers and running balanced analog outputs given the quality of the DAC's.

FYI
I have a computer with the same hardware - except I don't use a separate audio card, and I could not run RO+HQ (with the built in nVidia 9400 GPU). Then I added the nVidia GT430 which allowed me to switch to RO+HQ but I had some frame drops. So I returned the 430 and got the GT440 (DDR5) and have not had any problems with RO+HQ since. I bit stream to my Onkyo 705 and can play anything I throw at it. So my conclusion is that the GT430 (DDR3) is just a little too weak to get the job done. Others may have had different experiences with the 430.
Good luck.
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glynor

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2012, 12:59:26 pm »

Like most low-end GPUs, there are multiple different versions of the GT 430, so yes... YMMV depending on which model you get.

Good to know that you couldn't quite pull it off with your onboard graphics.  However, you mentioned a 9400, and the OP had a 9500.  These may be substantially different cards, though one of you could have just misspoken.
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CountryBumkin

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2012, 05:30:27 pm »

Like most low-end GPUs, there are multiple different versions of the GT 430, so yes... YMMV depending on which model you get.

Good to know that you couldn't quite pull it off with your onboard graphics.  However, you mentioned a 9400, and the OP had a 9500.  These may be substantially different cards, though one of you could have just misspoken.

You're right. But just to clarify my 9400 was on-board (I have Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H motherboard with iGPU nVidia 9400. OP has discrete 9500 GPU. My comment was just to point out that 430 was a little too weak for me - so anyone considering adding card may want to play it safe and start at the 440.
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bassmann

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #8 on: February 05, 2012, 09:23:29 pm »

Hi Guys,

Ive now added the dtsdecoderdll file and enabled ROHQ and playback on Inception Bluray seems fine and playing DTS-HD no probs.

CPU usage is no higher than 30%.
Not sure how much headroom is left in the GPU, does anyone know of a tool to measure the utilisation?


I just want to check with you that I understand of the operation of hardware acceleration.
My understanding is JRiver renders the file via ROHC codecs and with hardware accelartion enabled sends this to the GPU for processing rather than the CPU. Is that correct?
At this point it gets a bit grey for me, as to whether the GPU is processing the JRiver codecs (i.e. MadVR) or doing this with NIVidia codecs. Does anyone know?

Finally, in my NVideo control panel I have everything set to use NVidia settings (e.g. Color set, color adjustments, Dynamic range, upscaling and enhancements).

Does enabling these features override the JRiver rendering functions? What should I set these to for best picture?

Thanks Bassmann

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bassmann

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2012, 03:51:23 am »

All - just found this comparsion showing graphics and processing differences on NVidia GeForce cards.

Based on this the GT430 has 2 * more graphics and processing power than my 9500GT.
Also highlights the model number is not an indicator of performance. i.e. a 9800 GT is more powerful than the GT430.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/graphics_cards_buy_now.html
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glynor

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #10 on: February 06, 2012, 09:58:37 am »

CPU usage is no higher than 30%.
Not sure how much headroom is left in the GPU, does anyone know of a tool to measure the utilisation?

GPU-Z can give you a VERY ROUGH GPU usage percentage meter.  However, because measuring GPU utilization is not simple (at all), you should consider this number to just be a very rough guide.  Different GPUs may react differently to the way they measure usage, and the numbers it puts out can't be directly compared to a CPU utilization number.  Also, there is really no documentation from the GPU-Z people on exactly what this number is measuring or how it is calculated.  It is a mystery black box.

I've explained this in other threads if you want to take a look around.

My understanding is JRiver renders the file via ROHC codecs and with hardware accelartion enabled sends this to the GPU for processing rather than the CPU. Is that correct?

MC uses a set of third-party filters for ROHQ (mostly madVR and LAV, but there are other things too).  When you enable GPU Acceleration, it could actually change the set of filters that are used behind the scenes, though in practice, on Nvidia hardware, this basically means it uses the modern-day version of LAV CUVID (which has now been "rolled into" the normal LAV filters... CUVID is dead, long live CUVID).

It does not use any of the Nvidia decoders.  You do not need to install any additional third-party decoders to make use of Red October for normal video playback in MC.  Even if you do, MC won't use them in the standard Red October modes.  It is totally isolated from the normal filters installed on the system.

I'm really not sure about the Nvidia control panel color settings.  I think the default is to "use application settings".  It would make sense that if you are overriding this behavior, that you won't be able to use the color controls inside MC.  But, I'm really not sure.  Someone with more experience with an Nvidia card would have to comment.

Also highlights the model number is not an indicator of performance. i.e. a 9800 GT is more powerful than the GT430.

Absolutely.  And you can't even go by "generation" and "product segment".  So, the 9800 GT was supposedly a GeForce 9x00 series card by the model number, right?  Actually, no... The chip inside is identical to the 8800GT.  They just changed the name.  They do this a LOT.  Particularly at the low end.

And, a month or so earlier, they'd released the high-end GTX 280 card, which was an order-of-magnitude larger and more powerful than the older 9x00 and 8x00 series cards, but some of them were actually less powerful at launch than the older cards on the older architecture.

Nothing at all, when it comes to GPUs, is simple.  There is a LOT of marketing mumbo-jumbo.

Even if you have two 9800 GT cards, they can have wildly different clockspeeds and memory configurations, that can dramatically impact performance.  That's why I said above that just because one person had trouble with a GeForce 430 card, doesn't mean that all 430 cards will have trouble... Just THAT one with THAT CPU and THOSE drivers.

That's one of the main reasons that I prefer AMD hardware (in general terms) at the low end.  While they still play games with model numbers and rebrand older GPUs, they don't do it as often or as egregiously as Nvidia does at the low end.  For anything under $150 (or so) from Nvidia you really, really have to spend time and research the particulars of the card and the GPU on it before you buy, if you want to know what you're getting.  That can be true for AMD cards as well, but you usually don't see the problems until you get down to the very-low-tier $50-$60 cards.  And, frankly, at those price points you are really just getting something that can display pixels on a monitor.  Everything else is gravy, and you can't expect much.

At the $250 midrange price points and above, the situation is much cleaner on both sides, and the model numbers tend to make much more sense.

That said, if a particular product doesn't offer the acceleration support you need with the filters provided... Well then, they aren't a good choice at all.  And that's where we are right now with LAV and MC and AMD.  Nev just doesn't like AMDs hardware or drivers (he's used to Nvidia), and so development there will likely require waiting for a real unified GPGPU solution.

However... Along those lines, this article from over the weekend gave me a lot of hope.
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glynor

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #11 on: February 06, 2012, 10:02:17 am »

PS. Laptop GPUs are an even bigger mess.  The model numbers literally mean nothing at all in most cases, from both Nvidia and AMD.  They most certainly do not equate to the same models of desktop GPUs.  And, they don't even always mean that the chip itself is the same between different models of laptops.
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audioriver

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #12 on: February 06, 2012, 12:07:46 pm »

Doesn't the latest MC support ATI DXVA acceleration through LAV 0.45? I'm not sure DXVA copy-back is automatically enabled by Red October though, cpu usage seems fairly high.
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mojave

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #13 on: February 06, 2012, 12:27:46 pm »

- What would be recommended in the way of DSP "SURROUND" audio plugins, potentially VST based for functions such as bass management, equalisation and crossover (im interested in bi-amping the mains).
You can use JRiver's Room Correction and Parametric Equalizer DSP for bass management, EQ, and even crossovers (add low and high pass filters in the PEQ for crossovers).
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stealth82

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2012, 07:24:57 am »

Does using parametric equalizer functions - e.g. xover - introduce delays for a given speaker or those delays are automatically handled so as to keep them aligned?
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stealth82

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #15 on: February 17, 2012, 05:53:39 am »

Anybody?
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bassmann

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #16 on: September 25, 2012, 05:56:07 am »

Hi all,

Been a while since I started this thread but I've got a video issue on MC17. My HTPC is still the same as mentioned at the start of the thread except I changed the GPU from the 9500GT to a HD6770 with 1GB GDDR5.

The performance however is not as good as I expected;
- In ROStd the picture seems to drop frames whenever video is panned. This is something I never noticed on the 9500GT. GPU acceleration enabled and CPU utilisation is <20%.
- ROHQ performance varies...depending on the movie dropping of frames is more evident, infact is only a marginal improvement on my 9500GT.

It could be the old PC but I wouldn't expect it since I've got the GPU acceleration doing the work and there are issues with ROStd. The other thought is its a driver compatibility issue.

Before I go out and buy a new HTPC does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Bassmann
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bassmann

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Re: Getting the best Audio and Video out of MC 17.0.075
« Reply #17 on: September 28, 2012, 08:07:45 am »

ok - so I stopped being tight and bought a new PC, problem solved, but I've sinced been doing some benchmarking on video usage and ROHQ which i thought I would share.

New system is;
H77M chipset
8GB DDR2 @ 1600MHz
i5-3450S
SSD Sandisk Extreme for OS ( a 12sec system)
Using existing SATA 3 drives for data and done benchmarks on GPU's as follows;

Assumptions;
- enabled HW accel in MC18
- enabled ROHQ
- Movie = The avengers at about 1:52 - 1:58 (battle scene)

S1 Benchmark- H77 onboard HDMI
- GPU Load 98% on GPU-Z
- Task Mgr, CPU 20%, Mem 27%
- MadVR - lots of dropped and delayed frames

S2 Benchmark - HD6450 (IMO best fanless value GPU)
- GPU Load 76% on GPU-Z
- Task Mgr, CPU 20%, Mem 22%
- MadVR - some delayed frames

S3 Benchmark - HD6670
- GPU Load 0% on GPU-Z, 25% spike every 30sec
- Task Mgr, CPU 20%, Mem 22%
- MadVR - no dropped or delated frames

Then with the HD6770 increased the anti-alising and isotropic filters to 16x. No change in stats.

Conclusion is if you want best quality @ full spec then don't do the ADLI route, just buy the VW in the first place.

Lessen learnt. 
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