Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

2016-03-30 10:42:21

Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

It seems that ffdshow (and tryouts)'s development is halted since 2014 but I really love the smoothness of SVP, and the realtime postprocessings of ffdshow like denoise 3d, deband, color correction, logoaway and so on. I guess the current version of ffdshow can still be useful for at least 2-3 years but I cannot use it forever if there is no update.

Do you have any suggestion (freeware)?

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #1 – 2016-03-30 11:14:02

You found another MPC-HC + ffdshow (tryouts) + SVP user. I use ffdshow decoders even when SVP isn't in use as I prefer the control of postprocess settings and I don't need GPU accelerated decoding.
I understood SVP 4 might work without ffdshow but I haven't really looked into it.

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #2 – 2016-03-30 11:27:16

I use ffdshow as my main decoder, and 'lav filters' exclusively in MPC-HC. I got two copies of MPC set up, one to use internal filters and another one to use system ones. I use ffdshow mainly for its subtitle and OSD functions, which look very nice, and don't require interaction between multiple components, which doesn't always go well. The Grab is very good and can be used to capture with OSD baked in (eg, frame number, frame type), a range of frames near position of interest.

The filter is showing obsolescence because it doesn't support bleeding edge codecs. I don't care much about them. Google's rapid pushing of new VPx iterations is annoying. That is the most frequent codec I've encountered that can't be played. Not many others exist, h.265, I think it doesn't play some higher color resolution h.264, dts-ma.

Sorry, I got no experience with SVP.

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #3 – 2016-03-30 12:02:16

My haswell i3 can decode 1080p60 h264 easily but for h265 it is a different story since CPU usage is significantly higher. GPU decoding is definitely helpful if I watch h265 videos with SVP and ffdshow's postprocessings turned on. I have a fairly new GTX950 card which supports h265, but it still doesn't support hi10p for both h264 and 265.

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #4 – 2016-04-02 07:37:38

You can have your LAV decoding and ffdshow's filters too. I'm running XP but the flavour of Windows shouldn't matter.

If you enable ffdshow's RAW video decoder (at the bottom of it's codecs list), you can still leave MPC-HC set to use LAV for decoding (internal filters), but ffdhow will processes the decoded video, which means you can use it's filters. The same principle applies to audio. The filters list for the video I'm watching at the moment looks like this:

Filters currently loaded:
  - Default DirectSound Device
  - Video Mixing Renderer 9 (renderless)
  - Audio Switcher
  - ffdshow Video Decoder
  - ffdshow Audio Decoder
  - LAV Video Decoder (internal)
  - LAV Audio Decoder (internal)
  - LAV Splitter Source (internal)

I'm not sure if ffdshow can still load subtitles in the usual way. I rarely use them myself, but it doesn't stop MPC-HC from loading them.
Enabling LAV's Nvidia Cuvid hardware decoding still works properly, but I can't vouch for DXVA. MPC-HC doesn't support DXVA on XP any more. MPC-BE does but when ffdshow is processing the decoded video it seems to prevent it using hardware decoding. The GPU icon doesn't appear in the status bar.

Edit 1: I don't use SVP, but I just had a look and it seems the same idea applies.
https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/SVP3:User_manual#How_does_it_work
Long description
2. The player has to be configured to use ffdshow Video Decoder as video stream decoder or the ffdshow Raw Video Filter should be enabled.

I think I vaguely remember reading something about a stripped down version of ffdshow somewhere. Just the filters, no decoders. Maybe in a codec pack such as K-Lite... or maybe I imagined it.

Edit 2: According to the info here, it appears DXVA2 will work if LAV is decoding.
https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/FAQ#What_hardware_video_decoders_can_be_used_with_SVP.3F

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #5 – 2016-04-03 11:05:13

I use SVP and have used ffdshow, even without SVP.

For any updates, someone will have to pick it up and take over development.
Someone with a lot of dedicated time as I heard on the doom9 forums that to add anything new like the new AVS 2.6 colorspaces (yv16 -- instead of yuy2 -- and yv24 or even y8), everything would have to be rewritten. And then debugged. Lots of user feedback with in-depth testing.

There aren't any other alternatives, really. Otherwise it would be mentioned by SVP devs.
FFDShow is really the only thing to help with live-playback and frame interpolation via Avisynth.

SVP team is already so busy trying to make SVP stable for Linux and MAC OS'es, as well as Windows (AVS 2.6 MT, AVS+ MT beta builds, Vapoursynth), they're not going to have the time to update FFDShow. At least not right away.
They might do a few patches for use with SVP if there's enough merit for it.

If LAV forks a post-processing DSF/VfW codec, I'm certain they'd be able to include the newer AVS 2.6 colorspaces.

But for any live-playback with avisynth, you don't really need more than YV12.
Even if UHD-BD AACS 2.0 gets cracked and you can backup to your PC, it's going to be pretty resource-intensive to do anything for live-playback with Avisynth manipulation.

Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's not useful anymore.
What would the reason be for an update?

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #6 – 2016-04-18 19:25:06

Hey,

I'm currently booted into a Mint Live session so can't verify my Windows MPC-HC setup verbatim. However:

- I purchased SVP. Not impressed. Bloated, only worked on 32 bit MPC. Flaky and unreliable.
- The best alternative DmitryRender.

MPC-HC setup (from memory):

LAV filters kept up to date via K-Lite Codec Pack.
No FFDSHOW anywhere.
In MPC-HC, the only filter I'm using is DmitryRender.
Using EVR Sync.

Flawless. My graphics card is low, low, low end. Perhaps when I upgrade I'll use MadVR but to be honest, theres nothing in it that does what a really good shader can do.

Cam

EDIT: I should add: LAV video set to software decoding only. CUDA has been buggy since Win10, my card isn't the greatest, whereas my i7 3770 is rock solid.

Re: Anyone use ffdshow + mpc-hc + svp?

Reply #7 – 2016-04-19 06:31:12

SVP + ffdshow + MPC-HC works fine with CUVID and DXVA2 in LAV so I think I will stick with this setup until something breaks, as Sparktank mentioned.

ffdshow's postprocessings and auto profile loading (based on file name/codec/etc) are important for me. I use ffdshow not just because SVP uses it but because I need ffdshow's functionalities as well. What I worry about is ffdshow will eventually be unsupported by future hardware/os etc few years later.

Not really interested in madVR since traditional bilinear/bicubic scalings are my favourite and I am not interested in other shader effects. EVR custom presenter works best for me.