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[audunth]

Hi,

I know this is an obsolete file format, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Trying to play an EVO file with Red October (standard or HQ) just produces the this error: "Media Center encountered errors while trying to play the last several files" etc. Switching to Windows merit and using Haali, ffdshow audio/video (wmv9 must be set as decoder in ffdshow video for audio and video to be in sync) and EVR plays the EVO files fine. Tried with two different files, one with DD+ and one with DTS-HD MA. Still not 100% smooth playback, but good enough to watch. CPU load averages around 50% so I guess with a faster processor the occational very minor stuttering would be gone. I have a Core2Duo E6300 clocked to 2.4 GHz (originally 1.8 GHz).

[audunth]

After testing some more, the EVO files don't play that well after all. There are some occational audio stuttering that's really bad, and makes a movie pretty much unwatchable. So if you implement EVO into Red October, it seems you're better off using other filters than ffdshow. Anyone having luck playing EVO files in MC? Install TMT trial and use the Arcsoft filters perhaps? Have used TMT 3 previously playing HD-DVDs without problems. Don't have it on my system now, though.

[audunth]

After just realizing ffdshow also has a DXVA decoder, I tried that, but the audio still stutters at certain points, even though CPU load is down below 10%. So it may be the file is faulty.

Furthermore, when using ffdshow DXVA MC craches when I stop playback. This happens also with MKV files.

[jmone]

Mate, I have heaps of EVO material (HD DVD) and will be able to test later in the week.  There is nothing too special about EVO, and LAVSplitter does handle it so I don't know at this stage what the issue is.  That said, I do plan to remux all my HD DVD content to other containers as it really is a dead format.

[jmone]

Your right - there seems to be an issue with LAVFillter not connecting to the ffdshow Video Decoder when using WMV9 as the decoder over libavcodec.  This is one for nevcairiel!

Thanks
Nathan

[audunth]

I guess RO should use Haali instead when playing EVO files then, until it's fixed.

[audunth]

After some more testing I got a couple of EVO files with MPEG-2 video to play fine. So it seems it only concerns EVO files with VC-1 video encoding. Haven't got any HD DVDs with MPEG4/AVC encoding on my hard drive. I have some discs laying around, I'll check if any of those have MPEG4/AVC video. If they do, I'll hook up my Xbox 360 HD DVD player and test.

Also tested a Blu-ray with VC-1 video. Plays fine.

[jmone]

Here is a response from nevcairiel over in his doom thread on the subject. 

Sucks to have jumped onto the HD-DVD bandwagon before it burned, eh!
EVO is a dead format, ffdshow a broken decoder, and my time is limited.

For the record, i already know that ffdshow fails to honor pulldown flags commonly present on VC-1 EVOs, so even if it would try to decode, it would not play properly.

So the choice will be:
1) change the default splitter (either JR to change the default OR just use RO with Additional Filters and change it yourself) or
2) remux the EVO stuff to another container

While it would be good to get EVO support working, I must admit I'm in the second Camp of wanting to convert my Reds to (I think) Blu/mkv....I'm just stuck on exactly which format, tools, and compromises I'm going to use.

[jmone]

FYI - nevcairiel has made a fix to the splitter (you to be released) that will add back in EVO support.

[audunth]

Thanks for the info - will try it as soon as possible. (Have been away from the forums for a while)

[audunth]

Finally got around to do some HD DVD testing (forgot about it, really, haven't watched a HD DVD in a while) and it seems to be working now with MC 17.0.26. Using RO HQ and enabling decoding in MadVR, a VC-1 EVO file (Terminator 2 Director's Cut) plays with CPU load around 80-90%. Got a Core2Quad Q8400 arriving in the mail in a day or two, which will be a nice upgrade from my current Core2Duo E6300, and should hopefully bring CPU load down to about 50% or below.

[jmone]

While it works again the EVO format as a contain is not a good one.  I've now converted all my HD-DVD's to Blu-structure and it is much more reliable (using Clown BD).

[audunth]

Interesting...so to just do a plain HD DVD to Blu-ray structure conversion will I need the version with all the extra programs or not? And how long does it take on a reasonably fast machine (Core2Quad)? It doesn't convert the video in any way, does it?

Don't have that many HD DVDs so it'd be nice to just abandon the format once and for all, but still be able to keep the extras on the discs

[jmone]

ClownBD is a smart remuxer front end (to eac3to, tsmuxer etc) where you select the titles you want and then the streams you want to keep.  It will keep the Video untouched but will convert the Subtitles and Chapters to the BD or TS/M2TS format (note that you lose chapters if you select TS/M2TS).  It will also transcode audio to other formats and this can be good if you want to reauthor a HD-DVD with DD+ to a BD Disc that will play in BD player.  The focus is on the Main Title (so you will lose any extras unless you create sperate files for these).  

More info is here - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=65442.0

[audunth]

Okay, no use then if I can't get all titles and the title selection that MC now offers for Blu-rays. So I thought why not mux them into MKVs with all video streams in one MKV? But after fiddling with it for 6 hours and getting nowhere (didn't even manage to merge two EVO files into one) I gave it up. So I guess I'll just import every EVO file with interesting content on each HD DVD and just queue the two main movie EVO files when playing the movie.

Is there a way to put a playlist into my Video by Genre view? Or do I have to make a separate view for the playlists for my HD DVD movies?

[jmone]

From memory info from title selection with HD-DVD is not kept in the EVO anyway.  So it you import an EVO you just get the various streams for the file.  In addition, the main feature tends to be split over two large EVO files and the extras each with their own.  It is easy to import an EVO but if you want seemless playback of the main title you need to remux them together anyway.