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[soundcheck]

Hi folks.

I'm pretty new to playing HiRes movies on the PC.

After a lot of confusion ( due to lack of documentation and knowlegde) , hazzle and trial and error I figured that latest 16.0.176 MC is doing a pretty good
job on playing straight blu-ray copies. For now it'll be my tool of choice.
 
However. I do think there is some work to do for me to get things right.

I'm running a low steam machine ( ATOM 330 ION, 4GB RAM), which seem to require pretty careful setup and won't allow for RO HQ playback.
I'm forced to use standard RO mode. Fair enough - at least for now.

I got some questions now:

1. Is there a in-depth description what MC is using as splitter/decoder/filter? All the background tools/filters/decoders used and the related configuration are a black hole to me.
    As you'll see under 3, some knowledge seems to be necessary for best results.
2. When copying stuff from BD to HDD with DVDFAB BD Copy I end up with an m2ts main-file in a BDMV folder structure. Is MC using the AVCHD or the BDMV mode to run those?
3. What I noticed is that during RO standard playback with standard RO and HW acceleration turned On  movies become noisy and a little choppy.
    I installed coreavc 3.01 and changed settings so that coreAVC decoder is used. I also turned the MC HW acceleration off when coreavc is used!
    Now playback becomes crystal clear and no more choppyness's left. That's great.
     However. I'd like to know why there is such a big difference between my coreavc setup and Standard RO???
4. I do got an issue with the coreavc setup. It seems that the 5.1 sound is not converted to stereo anymore. How can I solve that one? 
5. When restarting playback during the first couple of seconds the movie and sound is out of sync. After a couple of seconds it syncs. Is that the normal behaviour?
6. Has anybody an idea how to configure lip-Sync correctly.
7. When starting up MC it seems to take a while until things settle ( scanning HDDs etc, db updates). That seems to impact the performance on my machine.
    How can I make sure that MC related background processes get settled before I start playback??

Lots of stuff. Thx for your patience.

Cheers 

[JimH]

Sounds like you're doing pretty well with the machine. 

1.  No.  MC uses what we believe are the best filters.  For your machine, Red October Std is probably the best choice, but it's worth trying HQ as well.

2.  MC can rip for you.  No need to manually copy files.

3.  Coreavc can't be distributed with MC.

5.  Yes, on a low powered PC especially.

6.  Try setting MC's Videoclock option on.

7.  That should improve over time.  Thumbnailing, cover art lookup, etc. are optional.

[soundcheck]

Sounds like you're doing pretty well with the machine. 

The results are quite good with my coreavc setup.

1.  No.  MC uses what we believe are the best filters.  For your machine, Red October Std is probably the best choice, but it's worth trying HQ as well.

Hmmh. coreavc, even though a commercial product, is giving me better results on my machine. 
As I said. I tried Red October Standard + HW acceleration with rather unsatisfactory results in comparison to coreavc,.

2.  MC can rip for you.  No need to manually copy files.

I know. You just introduced the BD rip function.  Though it stills requires an Anydvd or a DVD Passkey in the background to get things going.
In that sense MC can't do the ripping on its own.

My question though was a different one. It refers to the setup menu. Do I select BDMV or AVCHD ( which seems to take care on m2ts)?
Curretly I got coreavc applied to both.

3.  Coreavc can't be distributed with MC.

I know. But it seems to work pretty well.

5.  Yes, on a low powered PC especially.

Not nice, but good to know.

6.  Try setting MC's Videoclock option on.

I'll try.

7.  That should improve over time.  Thumbnailing, cover art lookup, etc. are optional.

Perhaps I'd better turn all that automatic background stuff off and do it all manually.
Can I do that?


How about that 5.1 to stereo issue with coreavc in place?

Cheers

[CountryBumkin]

when you are playing a movie, right click on desktop and move pointer over "Direct Filters". What filters are displayed?

When I rip a Blu-ray I use the (free) program Clown_BD (from Slysoft, the makers of AnyDVD). It is easy to follow and I just rip straight to a m2ts format (nothing but a single file). You may want to check this out (if you already own AnyDVD HD program). The program is found at the Slysoft forum under High Definition Software thread (first or seconf sticky).
(4) Go to Options>Tools>Audio>Settings and select "DSP & Ouput format ...".  There you can pick the number of channels to downmix to.
(5) Possibly try Options>Tools>Audio "Play silence at startup for hardware synchronization".
(6) under Tools>options>Video>Advanced there is an A/V sysnc option.

[soundcheck]

when you are playing a movie, right click on desktop and move pointer over "Direct Filters". What filters are displayed?

When I rip a Blu-ray I use the (free) program Clown_BD (from Slysoft, the makers of AnyDVD). It is easy to follow and I just rip straight to a m2ts format (nothing but a single file). You may want to check this out (if you already own AnyDVD HD program). The program is found at the Slysoft forum under High Definition Software thread (first or seconf sticky).
(4) Go to Options>Tools>Audio>Settings and select "DSP & Ouput format ...".  There you can pick the number of channels to downmix to.
(5) Possibly try Options>Tools>Audio "Play silence at startup for hardware synchronization".
(6) under Tools>options>Video>Advanced there is an A/V sysnc option.

A right-click shows

1. Enhanced Video Renderer
2. CoreAVC Video Decoder
3. LAV Source Splitter

If I open video prefernces via right-click menu I end up at

Blu-Ray (BDMV)


I got following settings

JRiver Video Engine with direct show filters

Source filter: Automatic
Other filter: CoreAVC
Video Render: Automatic


Cheers

[soundcheck]

Hi folks.

Just played around with the sound channel issue.

As I mentioned before. The combinations of LAV Splitter plus CoreAVC wouldn't
give me a 5.1 converted stereo signal.

I now installed ac3filter which is supposed to take care on above problem. It is supposed to work on my dts streams.

I added the filter to my setup. I can see it ( and hear it) being active with the right-click method during playback.

When opening AC3filter I also see that 5 channels are merged into two. 

So far so good. One step further.

The problem now is that the sound gets badly chopped due to whatever reasons.
Any hints/advise how to solve this would be appreciated.


BTW. I did not manage to get the Haali Splitter activated instead of default LAV splitter. How can I accomplish this??


Thx folks.


Cheers

[soundcheck]

Ok guys.

All that complex stuff is a jungle ( compare that to a 100$ BluRay player ).

However. By coincidence I got my sound setup working now.

I removed and reinstalled AC3filter (64bit only).
I set AC3filter to stereo 2/0 and 24bit.
I also figured that AC3filter is set to Direct Sound by default! ( I suppose it won't work with ASIO configurations)

Guess what I tried next: Next I changed my RME soundcard from ASIO to Direct Sound in MC.

That did the trick.

What's weired to me: I won't see AC3filter as filter option in MC anymore after reinstalling it in 64bit only.  
Q: Is it really the AC3filter which is working independently of MC and doing the 5.1 to stereo conversion job for DTS? I need to find that out somehow.

Obviously there's some more stuff that needs to be figured out.

Cheers

[rick.ca]

What's weired to me: I won't see AC3filter as filter option in MC anymore after reinstalling it.

I assume the 32-bit version is required if it's to work with MC—another 32-bit application.

[soundcheck]

I assume the 32-bit version is required if it's to work with MC—another 32-bit application.

OK. What you're saying.

All plugins and filters etc need to be 32bit if these are supposed to work with MC on a Windows7 64bit system, since MC is native 32bit.

Interesting. And good to know.

I'm a bit worried that this situation might always cause this or that hickup.


Anyhow. I'll give that AC3filter 32bit installation another try.

[soundcheck]

BTW:

Feature Request (JimH: Are you watching?)

Implementation of a part of that AC3filter functionality into MC

AC3 streams and DTS multichannel streams should be made convertable on-the-fly  to 2.0 Stereo from inside JRiver.
The user should have the choice through a simple configuration dialog: Multichannel/Stereo   (add more options if you like e.g. 2.1)

Output modes like ASIO,KS and all others shouldn't be impacted or being limited in any way.


What do you think?

I do think that this should be a pretty standard (or better "basic") feature.


Cheers

[soundcheck]

One more:

The 32bit AC3filter showed up in the MC menu, after installing it.

rick.ca - you were right on that one.

However. I got the choppy sound back even though everything was set
to KS.

By getting the 64bit filter back in I got back to "normal".  I'm doing OK - at least soundwise.

However. I have the feeling that all this works now by coincidence (and might change with the next update).

[mojave]

JRiver does anything AC3Filter does, but better. JRiver does everything in its 64-bit audio path and makes sure that the highest quality is maintained. I removed AC3Filter a long time ago. Go to Player > DSP Studio and make sure the Output Format is set to whatever you need. That is where you set the number of channels. The JRSS mixing is a very high quality matrixing system that I think is better than Dolby ProLogic IIx. If you want to use a subwoofer and bass management, set the Subwoofer to Silent in Output Format and use the Room Correction DSP for advanced Bass Management. You also set the speaker distances and levels in Room Correction. The DSP has to be checked in order for it to be active.

[soundcheck]

JRiver does anything AC3Filter does, but better. JRiver does everything in its 64-bit audio path and makes sure that the highest quality is maintained. I removed AC3Filter a long time ago. Go to Player > DSP Studio and make sure the Output Format is set to whatever you need. That is where you set the number of channels. The JRSS mixing is a very high quality matrixing system that I think is better than Dolby ProLogic IIx. If you want to use a subwoofer and bass management, set the Subwoofer to Silent in Output Format and use the Room Correction DSP for advanced Bass Management. You also set the speaker distances and levels in Room Correction. The DSP has to be checked in order for it to be active.

  . You're the man. That's it.

I just removed AC3Filter.
 

[JimH]

JRiver does anything AC3Filter does, but better. JRiver does everything in its 64-bit audio path and makes sure that the highest quality is maintained. I removed AC3Filter a long time ago. Go to Player > DSP Studio and make sure the Output Format is set to whatever you need. That is where you set the number of channels. The JRSS mixing is a very high quality matrixing system that I think is better than Dolby ProLogic IIx. If you want to use a subwoofer and bass management, set the Subwoofer to Silent in Output Format and use the Room Correction DSP for advanced Bass Management. You also set the speaker distances and levels in Room Correction. The DSP has to be checked in order for it to be active.

Thanks, mojave.  I've added your comment here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Blu-ray

And you deserve a lot of the credit for pushing us in that direction and for your valuable advice.

[soundcheck]

Hi folks.

I encountered another weired issue.

Two recent blu-ray copies I've done do have a problem with sound and video being out of sync about a couple of seconds.
I copied those particular discs several times even with different audio tracks. The issue remains.

I'm not sure though if it is a MC issue rather than a copy tool issue.

Perhaps somebody else encountered a similar problem. Please let me know.

Cheers

[fitbrit]

Sometimes a seek (skip fwd or back a few secs resyncs everything). If you use a keybaord, just hit left or right arrow during playback. The skip interval can be set in options>video.

Hi folks.

I encountered another weired issue.

Two recent blu-ray copies I've done do have a problem with sound and video being out of sync about a couple of seconds.
I copied those particular discs several times even with different audio tracks. The issue remains.

I'm not sure though if it is a MC issue rather than a copy tool issue.

Perhaps somebody else encountered a similar problem. Please let me know.

Cheers

[CountryBumkin]

Hi folks.

I encountered another weired issue.

Two recent blu-ray copies I've done do have a problem with sound and video being out of sync about a couple of seconds.
I copied those particular discs several times even with different audio tracks. The issue remains.

I'm not sure though if it is a MC issue rather than a copy tool issue.

Perhaps somebody else encountered a similar problem. Please let me know.

Cheers

There is a setting that may help it is at Tools>Options>Audio>Settings> "Play Silenace at startup for Hardware synchronization".
I have not experienced the problem you descibe so I don't know if my suggestion will help or not.
Good Luck.

[soundcheck]

I tried the last two hints with no success.

Just to let you know:
I just figured out that  my CoreAVC3.01 won't show up in MC on these particular videos. Hmmh.

[soundcheck]

Another try:

I just tried plain standard RO mode, without additional filters and HW accelaration turned on.

Guess what.

Both films I had problems with before when using the RO additional filter with CoreAVC setting (as I mentioned CoreAVC was somehow not running with those films)  play fine with RO Standard setting.
LAV Cuvid is being shown active.

It seems that there is something wrong when using CoreAVC. Or maybe CoreAVC dies and leaves the system in a weired state. I don't know how to trace what's going on there.


Perhaps a nice (workaround) feature would be to fall back to RO standard if no other filters are attached ( due to whatever reason).

Cheers


Edit: Note: I copied that disc also with another copy program and encountered the very same behaviour.