The Guide for best H.264 playback (with both SD and HD content)

[Dark Shikari]

Video decoding in general doesn't need much RAM. Even Blu-ray decoding technically only needs about 12 megabytes (the decoded picture buffer size).

[Fahd]

Originally Posted by Nagato

Just want to report about my problem regarding haali's video renderer and nvidia card compatibility issue. Seems like, the problem was lying in the nvidia 3D setting. It had nothing to do with cccp. You just can't set the card to performance, balanced, or quality setting, otherwise haali's will produce artifacts like I posted here

I had your gray bar issue as well, although if I turned Anti-aliasing off the problem went away. I can't remember whether it was caused by having Anti-aliasing set to 2xQ or if all modes caused it; I'm formatting at the moment and installing Vista on my main PC, so I can't check...

[fict_ticious]

Originally Posted by martino

mplayer guide

Get mplayer (Windows version) from here ("CCCP" build by Nicholi). Unpack the contents of the 7zip file into a directory. Go into the directory where you unpacked the files, and navigate into the mplayer directory and open config in a text editor like WordPad and amend the following section so that it looks like:

#[libass]
ass=true
embeddedfonts=true
correct-pts=true  # fixes 1-2 frame delay in ssa/ass subtitles - make sure to comment out when using the CoreAVC decoder

Make sure that [libass] is commented out with # and save the amended config file.
Now, download a simple mplayer GUI from here (get the the version without mplayer) and put the contents of the zip file into the same directory where you unpacked the files from the previous step. Now open MPUI, go under Tools -> Options and make sure that Postprocessing is set to Off and click Apply and Save. Now drag the video file into MPUI's window, wait a while for mplayer to cache the video file/fonts, and voila! All should work fine, and should be much faster than using MPC/ZP with CCCP. Also, if you already have CoreAVC on your PC, copy the CoreAVCDecoder.ax file into mplayer's codecs directory and go into MPUI's Options window and add

-vc coreavc

into the Additional MPlayer parameters field. Apply, Save and you should have faster playback (704x400 23.976fps h264 encode with softsubs played fairly smoothly on my 500MHz P3).

Note: This was for Windows. Mac OS and *nix people will have to help themselves with mplayer...

Strange... it's actually kinda slow for me using coreavc with this mplayer build. I must investigate this matter.

[Daiz]

Most likely you forgot to comment out correct-pts=true in the config file.

[fict_ticious]

Originally Posted by Daiz

Most likely you forgot to comment out correct-pts=true in the config file.

Nope. Did that, still no go.



Not that it's a problem. Sans Coreavc, it works fine on this machine anyways. Reading the Mplayer CCCP just had me interested, is all.

[sunfy8]

great guide!!!! my old p4/ht/7600gt finally plays some 720p mkv!! yippi!!
now i'm testing if it can handle 1080p(rambo4 & diehard4)...

wish me good luck..

[HJJ5899]

Originally Posted by martino

Well, that might be true, furthermore it's not like CCCP gets a new version every month. If you really need to be up to date then there are the beta versions; http://www.cccp-project.net/beta/ or you can install everything yourself, which I wouldn't personally recommend if you needed this guide or have little clue about what the settings during installation and etc mean...

Yes, i agree with you .

[Chase]

StormCodec will solve most of yall's problem playing HD(H.264) video. Its better than CCCP imo

[Daiz]

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Storm_Codec.htm

Important Note :

- This download may includes adware (and spyware) software.

Spoiler:

Storm Codec 3 08.02.01 includes :

- RealPlayer 10.5 decodings cores & ActiveX 6.0.12.1698
- RealMedia Splitter 1.0.1.1
- QuickTime 7.13 decodings cores & ActiveX (contains AMR/3GP & H264 in the MOV support)
- Flash Player 9 r16
- Kopei's XviD Codec 1.10 (Build 20.05123 million)
- Ffdshow MPEG-4 Codec 20.060526 million (contains realaac, liba52, libdts, libtremor and so on)
- On2 VP7 Codec 7.0.10.0
- On2 VP6 Codec 6.4.2.0
- Ligos Indeo Codec 3.2 - 5.2
- GV Codec 1.2
- CyberLink Video/SP Filter (ATI) 6.0.0.1625
- NVidia PureVideo Decoder 1.02-223
- RatDVD Decoder 0.78.1444
- OGG Splitter 1.0.0.0
- AAC Parser 1.1
- CoreFLAC Audio Decoder & Source DirectShow Filter 0.4.0.46
- DS Monkey's Audio Filter 1.0 + APE Audio Lib 3.99u4
- SHN to WAV Filter 20.051008 million
- TTA DirectShow Splitter 1.0.0.203
- RadLight MPC DirectShow Filter 1.0.0.3
- OGG Vorbis MSACM Codec
- Voxware Metasound & Metavoice ACM Codec
- Haali's Splitter 20.060707 million
- PMP Splitter 1.0.0.8
- VSFilter (Direct VobSub) 2.37
- Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0
- G.Spot 2.60 B00

So instead of downloading CCCP that uses FFDShow to decode H.264 you should download an incredibly bloated and possibly adware & spyware including codec pack that also uses FFDShow to decode H.264?

Brilliant!

[Chase]

Originally Posted by Daiz

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Storm_Codec.htm

Spoiler:

Storm Codec 3 08.02.01 includes :

- RealPlayer 10.5 decodings cores & ActiveX 6.0.12.1698
- RealMedia Splitter 1.0.1.1
- QuickTime 7.13 decodings cores & ActiveX (contains AMR/3GP & H264 in the MOV support)
- Flash Player 9 r16
- Kopei's XviD Codec 1.10 (Build 20.05123 million)
- Ffdshow MPEG-4 Codec 20.060526 million (contains realaac, liba52, libdts, libtremor and so on)
- On2 VP7 Codec 7.0.10.0
- On2 VP6 Codec 6.4.2.0
- Ligos Indeo Codec 3.2 - 5.2
- GV Codec 1.2
- CyberLink Video/SP Filter (ATI) 6.0.0.1625
- NVidia PureVideo Decoder 1.02-223
- RatDVD Decoder 0.78.1444
- OGG Splitter 1.0.0.0
- AAC Parser 1.1
- CoreFLAC Audio Decoder & Source DirectShow Filter 0.4.0.46
- DS Monkey's Audio Filter 1.0 + APE Audio Lib 3.99u4
- SHN to WAV Filter 20.051008 million
- TTA DirectShow Splitter 1.0.0.203
- RadLight MPC DirectShow Filter 1.0.0.3
- OGG Vorbis MSACM Codec
- Voxware Metasound & Metavoice ACM Codec
- Haali's Splitter 20.060707 million
- PMP Splitter 1.0.0.8
- VSFilter (Direct VobSub) 2.37
- Media Player Classic 6.4.9.0
- G.Spot 2.60 B00

So instead of downloading CCCP that uses FFDShow to decode H.264 you should download an incredibly bloated and possibly adware & spyware including codec pack that also uses FFDShow to decode H.264?

Brilliant!

why would download anything from that site plus that version is not the version i have, the adware is the result of people downloading the chinese version from that site, which in turn was being uploaded to that site for a while. If you want it. I can upload it myself then one i have on my computer, its virus free and works like a charm with even my crappy 3200 HD card.

[Arm]

Originally Posted by Chase

why would download anything from that site plus that version is not the version i have, the adware is the result of people downloading the chinese version from that site, which in turn was being uploaded to that site for a while. If you want it. I can upload it myself then one i have on my computer, its virus free and works like a charm with even my crappy 3200 HD card.

Spyware warning aside, CCCP and the pack you suggested both use FFdshow to decode h264; the codec pack you suggested is also much more bloated with useless/outdated codecs, so why would it be superior to CCCP? In laymen terms, they use the same thing to run the video, except the Storm Codec has extra shit you don't need.

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by Arm

Spyware warning aside, CCCP and the pack you suggested both use FFdshow to decode h264; the codec pack you suggested is also much more bloated with useless/outdated codecs, so why would it be superior to CCCP? In laymen terms, they use the same thing to run the video, except the Storm Codec has extra shit you don't need.

But OBVIOUSLY more is better, right? RIGHT?

[windstar!~]

Thanks Daiz

[incube]

I have CCCP and CoveAVC installed, unchecked the H.264 option at the CCCP config but when i try to start a .mkv with MPC i get this error msg:

Media Player Classic could not render some of the pins in the graph, you may not have the neede4d codecs or filters installed on the system.
D:\Down\Naruto_Shippuuden_093_(1280x720_h264+AAC_s oftsubs)_[03ECA82F].mkv::Undetermined (Video 1)

Media Type 0:
--------------------------
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1280x720 29.97fps

AM_MEDIA_TYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Video {73646976-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
subtype: Unknown GUID Name {31435641-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
formattype: FORMAT_MPEG2_VIDEO {E06D80E3-DB46-11CF-B4D1-00805F6CBBEA}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 1
cbFormat: 166

VIDEOINFOHEADER:
rcSource: (0,0)-(0,0)
rcTarget: (0,0)-(0,0)
dwBitRate: 0
dwBitErrorRate: 0
AvgTimePerFrame: 333666

VIDEOINFOHEADER2:
dwInterlaceFlags: 0x00000000
dwCopyProtectFlags: 0x00000000
dwPictAspectRatioX: 1280
dwPictAspectRatioY: 720
dwControlFlags: 0x00000000
dwReserved2: 0x00000000

MPEG2VIDEOINFO:
dwStartTimeCode: 0
cbSequenceHeader: 34
dwProfile: 0x00000064
dwLevel: 0x00000029
dwFlags: 0x00000004

BITMAPINFOHEADER:
biSize: 40
biWidth: 1280
biHeight: 720
biPlanes: 1
biBitCount: 24
biCompression: AVC1
biSizeImage: 0
biXPelsPerMeter: 0
biYPelsPerMeter: 0
biYPelsPerMeter: 0
biClrUsed: 0
biClrImportant: 0

pbFormat:
0000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 17 05 00 00 00 00 00 ........b.......
0030: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 00 00 d0 02 00 00 ............Ð...
0040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 00 00 00 05 00 00 ........(.......
0050: d0 02 00 00 01 00 18 00 41 56 43 31 00 00 00 00 Ð.......AVC1....
0060: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0070: 00 00 00 00 22 00 00 00 64 00 00 00 29 00 00 00 ...."...d...)...
0080: 04 00 00 00|00 18 67 64 00 29 ac 34 e6 01 40 16 ......gd.)¬4æ.@.
0090: e8 40 00 00 fa 40 00 3a 98 23 c6 0c 46 80 00 06 è@..ú@.:˜#Æ.F€..
00a0: 68 ee 84 f3 00 c0 hî„ó.À

[Simon]

Thought I'd necro this thread after finding it via the link in Daiz's signature (thanks mate).

I gather CCCP has changed a fair bit since 2007, especially with things like DXVA support. How many of these guidelines still apply for the 2010-10-10 release on Win7? For example, I'm guessing Overlay Mixer is no longer the recommended renderer.

[SeijiSensei]

Personally I don't use anything these days on either Linux or Windows besides smplayer.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Simon

Thought I'd necro this thread after finding it via the link in Daiz's signature (thanks mate).

I gather CCCP has changed a fair bit since 2007, especially with things like DXVA support. How many of these guidelines still apply for the 2010-10-10 release on Win7? For example, I'm guessing Overlay Mixer is no longer the recommended renderer.

about DXVA: still as useless as ever
about renderers: if Haali's renderer doesn't work you probably don't deserve to watch anything anyway (or you can try EVR I guess)

[tyranuus]

DXVA is hardly useless if offloading to a modern card. Yes CPU requirements are higher than VDPAU on an equivalent linux platform, but compared to decoding completely via the CPU its a completely different ball game.

Newer cards tend to have much more tolerant/widespread decoding support than older ones, but either way, DXVA or the linux equivalents are one of the main reasons why the atom based media players have taken off; without the GPU offloading there's no way on earth they could cope with 1080p files fluently, so calling DXVA 'useless' seems a little...OTT.

That said, I'm speaking about DXVA2 on Vista/7, so if you're referencing the original DXVA implementation in XP, then yeah it's limited. Despite the increased hardware requirements, I've found Vista/7 much more likeable/easier to implement as media platforms than XP.
Take a low end computer with PCI-E and 1-2GB of RAM, throw in a recent Nvidia card (2/4/5 series), MPC-HC, and you're away with hardly any hassle. You'll occasionally find files unsupported by DXVA, often old XVID/DIVX, but they'll tend to run fine on anything since P4, so hardly a problem.

The only issue I do occasionally see with DXVA is that some encodes aren't treated equally by different cards, or even by different DXVA implementations (ie VLC/XBMC vs FFDShow/MPC-HC), rather than universally treated identically as long as a card supports XYZ level of H.264 accelleration via DXVA, but identically VDPAU doesn't run every file identically/well either.


Between chosing the CPU to do the work, or DXVA...in most cases I'd pick DXVA
You'll probably also find quite a lot of people using EVR over Haali as well, especially as it's the default for MPC-HC, and Haali has it's own issues with some files and input formats [usually HD audio codecs]

[TheFluff]

there are so many things wrong about this post I'm not sure where to begin flaming, so I guess I'll just do things in presentation order

Originally Posted by tyranuus

DXVA is hardly useless if offloading to a modern card. Yes CPU requirements are higher than VDPAU on an equivalent linux platform, but compared to decoding completely via the CPU its a completely different ball game.

Whether you have a modern card or not is completely irrelevant. All that matters is if you have a video decoder ASIC that supports h264, or if you do not. What kind of GPU you have is completely unrelated to this topic, since video decoding is not done by the GPU, and there are only like four or five different video decoder ASIC models out there, so it's not like you have a lot of variation. Their performance is very similar as well; the only one that is notable at all is that one model that got used on some of NVidia's cards that has some bug that makes it unable to decode certain h264 resolutions.

Originally Posted by tyranuus

Newer cards tend to have much more tolerant/widespread decoding support than older ones, but either way, DXVA or the linux equivalents are one of the main reasons why the atom based media players have taken off; without the GPU offloading there's no way on earth they could cope with 1080p files fluently, so calling DXVA 'useless' seems a little...OTT.

As I said, having or not having video decoding support on your graphics card is pretty much a yes/no question. There are no differences in what is supported or how fast decoding is between different card generations, nor between different card manufacturers. All video decoders ASIC's that support H264 support up to 1920x1080p high profile at level 4.1, at a maximum of 60fps. You cannot get them to decode faster, nor can you get them to decode bigger images or things outside level 4.1. It's fairly easy to create encodes that are incompatible with hardware decoding chips; some fansub groups do it intentionally.

Originally Posted by tyranuus

That said, I'm speaking about DXVA2 on Vista/7, so if you're referencing the original DXVA implementation in XP, then yeah it's limited. Despite the increased hardware requirements, I've found Vista/7 much more likeable/easier to implement as media platforms than XP.
Take a low end computer with PCI-E and 1-2GB of RAM, throw in a recent Nvidia card (2/4/5 series), MPC-HC, and you're away with hardly any hassle. You'll occasionally find files unsupported by DXVA, often old XVID/DIVX, but they'll tend to run fine on anything since P4, so hardly a problem.

There is no functional difference between DXVA1 and DXVA2 from a playback standpoint. Sure, there are a few more operations you can do, but your performance is still limited by a small, dumb and slow ASIC.

Originally Posted by tyranuus

You'll probably also find quite a lot of people using EVR over Haali as well, especially as it's the default for MPC-HC, and Haali has it's own issues with some files and input formats [usually HD audio codecs]

Haali's renderer is a video renderer only. As in, it only deals with video. Additionally, it only deals with rendering uncompressed video, not decoding it, so it most certainly does not have issues with "some files and input formats", and even more certainly it doesn't have issues with audio.

(what the hell is a "HD audio codec" anyway)


Anyway, the moral of this story is that hardware accelerated video decoding is a toy. It's useful in small plastic toys like cellphones and set-top multimedia boxes, but in a real computer where you have a real CPU at your disposal, it's fucking retarded to limit yourself to the performance of a small, slow and dumb 400MHz ASIC tacked on to your graphics card. Whoops, that 15mb decoding buffer needed? Too big for the poor widdle chip. Welp, no video for you.
tl;dr: get a real fucking computer

[sneaker]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

[...]nor can you get them to decode bigger images or things outside level 4.1. It's fairly easy to create encodes that are incompatible with hardware decoding chips; some fansub groups do it intentionally.

This is not true, many cards can decode 1080p with up to 16 reference frames, which is beyond level 4.1.

You won't find any fansub with H.264 that cannot be decoded by current cards from Nvidia and Ati(and with current I mean with the current decoder chips, because it is not done on the GPU itself, as you have pointed out correctly.)

/edit: mea culpa, the 15 ref frames limit was for CoreAVC, not for DXVA1.
/edit2: trying to read up on DXVA1 limits and it seems that the part I deleted from my post (about DXVA1 not supporting 16 ref frames, while DXVA2 does) might have been correct after all. I cannot check this though as I'm on Win 7 and the infos I find using google are contradicting each other.