need help in playing h264

[Tasuke00]

Hmm... when i play .mkv files my screen got lagging and audio lag too... i check use ctrl alt del to check my cpu process and its reach 100% usage.. Is all the mkv files like this or only just this one i can play??

[celcius]

I'm guessing that you're playing a pretty hi-res h.264 file on a not so adequate processor.
But just in case, what's your processor, codecs you got, and the resolution of the file you're playing?

Alternatively, you might want to check the thread below this one (as of this posting, titled "Staggering h.264")

[Tasuke00]

Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz 2.41 GHz, 1.50GB ram

Filter 0: Default DirectSound Device
Filename: C:\WINDOWS\system32\quartz.dll
Filter CRC: EF5A266F
Date: 2005-08-30 | 11:54:26
Filter 1: Video Renderer
Filename: C:\WINDOWS\system32\quartz.dll
Filter CRC: EF5A266F
Date: 2005-08-30 | 11:54:26
Filter 2: ffdshow Audio Decoder
Filename: C:\Program Files\Combined Community Codec Pack\Filters\FFDShow\ffdshow.ax
Filter CRC: 4FD5914D
Date: 2007-02-14 | 19:47:32
Filter 3: ffdshow MPEG-4 Video Decoder
Filename: C:\Program Files\Combined Community Codec Pack\Filters\FFDShow\ffdshow.ax
Filter CRC: 4FD5914D
Date: 2007-02-14 | 19:47:32
Filter 4: C:\Documents and Settings\Boon\My Documents\BitTorrent Downloads\Zero no Tsukaima\[SS-AYU]_Zero_no_Tsukaima_01_[DVD_h264_aac][9
Filename: C:\Program Files\Combined Community Codec Pack\Filters\Haali\splitter.ax
Filter CRC: 12B13584
Date: 2007-02-15 | 03:25:04


This is the test render Results i get from CCCP insurgent.. I don't understand a single word at all

[martino]

Hmmm... That system should be fast enough to play that file fine (or do P4s suck that much?). Go into ffdshow Video Decoder Configuration -> Output (on the left) -> check YV12 and hit apply.

[Nicholi]

P4s do suck alot unfortunately , especially the older ones. The specs of this file are accordingly somewhat high because it is a dvdrip, I'm guessing the res listed is only the anamorphic one. So it probably should be something near 704x480. If turning on YV12 in ffdshow does not help...well we can wait for Ledgem's #1 answer...but I'll just say you should look into CoreAVC.

P.S. The file is not slow because it is MKV (or Matroska), the laggy playback is caused from the video codec inside the container. Which in this case is H.264.

[Tasuke00]

sorry to be noob but how to set ffdshow stuff? :P

[martino]

Originally Posted by martino

Hmmm... That system should be fast enough to play that file fine (or do P4s suck that much?). Go into ffdshow Video Decoder Configuration -> Output (on the left) -> check YV12 and hit apply.

:V (Maybe I missed the first few steps... Start -> Programs -> CCCP and then continue the rest from my quoted post)

Or do you want it step by step using pictures??? n_n

[Tasuke00]

I have apply already but still the same Is it all mkv file the same?

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Nicholi

well we can wait for Ledgem's #1 answer...

I'll type it up fresh, just for you.

As was already mentioned, your processor sounds like it's struggling to keep up. The only sure-fire fix for this is to upgrade your hardware. But we can try a few free solutions first, to see if you can't squeeze a bit more life out of your current setup:

Boost the process priority of your media player. To do this, open the task manager (ctrl+alt+del), with your video player loaded, and go to the Applications tab. Find your video player, right click it, and select "go to process" - this will now take you to the Processes tab, with a process highlighted. This process is your video player. Right click it, and mouse over the "Set Priority" menu - you will see a number of options, with a bullet near "Normal" selected, unless your media player set its own priority differently. Go ahead and set the priority to "Above normal." In my experience, setting it to "High" has very little effect, and anything more than that will cause your computer to slow down massively.

Also, what media player are you using? While I've never noticed it myself, popular opinion claims that the media player you use can impact your performance. If you're using Windows Media Player, you may want to consider switching to another player. As Nicholi mentioned, CoreAVC is considered the ultimate player for processor efficiency (it's also the only player currently that will make use of dual cores; this won't help you, though, as your Pentium 4 is a single-core processor).

If you've already enabled YV12 in FFDShow (and/or your video player), there is one more tweak you can try. I used BSPlayer as my media player. As unpopular a player as it was, it had some interesting options. Try playing around with the Overlay Modes/Mixer - I had options of Overlay Type 1 and Type 2, and Type 2 gave me better performance. If I remember correctly, you need to adjust the setting in FFDShow as well (in your case, you might only need to adjust it in FFDShow). Sometimes improperly matching the overlay modes caused the video to be skewed for me. Just remember what your original settings were so that you can revert back, if need be.

Lastly, there is a contraversial method you can try: use a different build of FFDShow. I found that using a SSE2-optimized build of FFDShow gave me performance improvements over a generic build of FFDShow. The specific build that I used to use can be found here. However, it's a bit old; there may be better current versions that exist. I don't recommend this except as a last resort, since you'll have to change your video setup slightly (removing CCCP and going with this). It shouldn't cause any instability, though.

Disclaimer about that last one, given that some people get a bit touchy about it:

Originally Posted by http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/html/en/faq.htm

All builders use the GCC compiler to build libavcodec, which is ffdshow's main library for decoding. This library contains a lot of hand-optimized assembly code (which auto-detects the CPU's supported feature and instruction sets). Using additional compiler optimizations or advanced instruction sets (such as SSE/SSE2) doesn't result in any significant or noticeable performance increases. So when comparing pure decoding performance, there is almost no difference between the builds.

However, while the difference is incredibly slim, there is a difference. It may be the edge that your setup needs to play the video back properly - nobody can say for certain, but it's definitely worth a try before you give up on your system, or prepare to buy a newer one.

[martino]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Also, what media player are you using? While I've never noticed it myself, popular opinion claims that the media player you use can impact your performance. If you're using Windows Media Player, you may want to consider switching to another player. As Nicholi mentioned, CoreAVC is considered the ultimate player for processor efficiency (it's also the only player currently that will make use of dual cores; this won't help you, though, as your Pentium 4 is a single-core processor).

Correction. CoreAVC is not a player, but a DirectShow video filter that is used for decoding h264/avc1 video streams. Use MPC or ZP as a player. WMP is bad, and so I won't bether mentioning the "other" player.

http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/ind...?title=CoreAVC

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by martino

Correction. CoreAVC is not a player, but a DirectShow video filter that is used for decoding h264/avc1 video streams. Use MPC or ZP as a player. WMP is bad, and so I won't bether mentioning the "other" player.

http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/ind...?title=CoreAVC

Thanks for the correction; I mixed it up with the Core player.

[Nicholi]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

However, while the difference is incredibly slim, there is a difference. It may be the edge that your setup needs to play the video back properly - nobody can say for certain, but it's definitely worth a try before you give up on your system, or prepare to buy a newer one.

Recommending 1+ year old builds (pushing 2 years now in fact) is not really "worth a try" since it comes with the territory of the 1+ year old problems involved in them. That build specifically was even before milan (the original developer) disappeared. So you are missing god knows how many updates which were performed before even tryout's came along. I also mentioned this in the last thread, that build is guaranteed to have slower H.264 decoding then current builds. Regardless of if it were MMX, SSE, or SSE2. This is just because of the older ffmpeg code in it.

P.S. It's not controversial. The "experts" (see developers) quite clearly say the difference in speed is indistinguishable in regards to plain decoding. The margin of error in the results is acceptable, that means the difference you see in the results (however subtle) is not representative of any "zomg SSE2 means slightly fastar!" There is still no truth in saying that. Otherwise you would consistently see the SSE2 results with the highest numbers, but they are not. Meaning some other small variable was in place which can explain the difference in speeds. Otherwise making them indistinguishable.

They even go on to say that "SSE2-optimized builds showed no improvement over SSE builds". Wow, whoda thunk it. Now in my magical happy fun world I call reality, usually only something is controversial when two experts have come to two different conclusions. Though maybe that's too pompous of me to claim Ledgem et al. and their testing does not really count as an expert opinion. Even though Ledgem et al. have submitted no such tests to the prestigious Journal of INTERNET or at least discussed their remarkably different results with anyone else.

Please don't point people to ancient celtic_druid builds as something to "just try" because maybe fairies will sprinkle some dust on their CPU ;-;. If there were up to date SSE2 builds, well that might be different, but you'll notice no one makes them. Gaspu...should we use critical thinking to ponder why there aren't any up to date SSE2 builds? NEIN!

[Tasuke00]

Currently i'm using mpc.. with this media player is there any setting i can do to improve? I have switch the process to above normal but it seen no different at all.. At first is all right but half way it become lagging again. Btw i have apply the YV12 already but still the same

[martino]

Then you have only two choices:
1) Get CoreAVC
2) Upgrade your CPU

Or 3) Use mplayer, however this won't help unless it's a softsubbed release that is in question. Otherwise it should be of the same speed as using MPC with ffdshow and the rest.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Nicholi

Recommending 1+ year old builds (pushing 2 years now in fact) is not really "worth a try" since it comes with the territory of the 1+ year old problems involved in them.

That'd be understandable.

P.S. It's not controversial. The "experts" (see developers) quite clearly say the difference in speed is indistinguishable in regards to plain decoding.

They said that, and I figured you'd feel vindicated by it.

Though maybe that's too pompous of me to claim Ledgem et al. and their testing does not really count as an expert opinion. Even though Ledgem et al. have submitted no such tests to the prestigious Journal of INTERNET or at least discussed their remarkably different results with anyone else.

Tell me how I can benchmark it, and when I have the time, I'll do so. The Pentium M system that I cited is currently in the care of my mother, but I still have access to it. I'd happily swap out FFDShow versions and post the results, just so that we can settle this once and for all. To me, this isn't a matter of pride, I'd really like to know which is best. If my way is true, then I can happily suggest it to people and not have to wait for you to come roaring in - if it's as you say, then nobody will hear about it again.

Please don't point people to ancient celtic_druid builds as something to "just try" because maybe fairies will sprinkle some dust on their CPU ;-;. If there were up to date SSE2 builds, well that might be different, but you'll notice no one makes them. Gaspu...should we use critical thinking to ponder why there aren't any up to date SSE2 builds? NEIN!

Yeah, SSE3 has been out for a while now

Joking aside, I understand your point (your response would be "you don't see any SSE3-optimized builds, do you?" - I know there is at least one, but again, I get your point). Tell me how I can benchmark this stuff and I'll do it when I can. I know you hate to hear this, but I noticed a huge improvement when changing FFDShow builds. Maybe the builds today have made such vast improvements, as you say, that their performance is even better. I wouldn't know.

I will say that I found the graphs on the page I cited to be interesting. As you said, the SSE2 optimized builds occasionally performed worse than the SSE or vanilla builds; occasionally they performed better, but the performance differences were almost always +/- 2%. I don't know if that's a statistically significant number when it comes to decoding, because I don't specialize in that. The author of the website sides with your opinion of claiming that it is not. I found it interesting that there was a difference at all. Don't these all use the same decoding libraries, and are all able to make use of the same processor extensions? Shouldn't the results have all been nearly exactly the same? But then, I'm not a programmer, and I freely admit that. So let me know how I can get some numbers for us to see what's going on, and we'll take it from there.

[Nicholi]

Haali's benchmarking app, as clearly stated on the page you enjoy reading...but not really reading. I believe it has been stated many times before.

Also, just for your benefit be sure to compare plain MPEG4 ASP (Xvid/DivX) decoding and also H.264. The H.264 decoding for that build will be extremely slower because all the optimizations for H.264 decoding came out way after 2005. And I'm quite sure the major reason you are recommending this SSE2 build is when people trying to play H.264 can't because it is laggy. You are in fact telling them to use a build which is slower regardless of what set it is optimized for.

[Tasuke00]

Ermmm.... I confuse So the only way is for me to use CoreAVC???

[Dnous]

Pretty much. Or upgrading your CPU, or you can just try to avoid the h264 files and go for XviD ones, but that isn't a real solution >_>.

[SeijiSensei]

It's a "real solution" if the subbers kindly make both formats available, as Eclipse does for instance.

If I'm forced to download an H.264 sub, I re-encode to XviD in AVI with mencoder. That's a solution, too, but an annoying one, and one not easily accessible to most viewers.

I never have a problem watching XviD's on my Celeron, even at 1280x720. I can't watch any H.264 encodes, even at lower resolutions, without losing sync. I keep thinking about buying a new computer, but I can't justify spending money just to watch a particular video format.

I'm on Linux, so CoreAVC is not really an option for me unless it works well under Wine, which seems unlikely.

[Tiberium Wolf]

I had an athlon xp 2200 + gf4 mx and I couldn't watch those h264 that demanded a lot of resources so I bough a new pc. I bough a C2D 6600 + 8800 GTS 320 e my problems were solved and I am happy! I know I wasted 1200 euros but was worth it. The feeling of having new hardware running things smoothly is refreshing.