Originally posted by TheLion
...

Excellent, factual post. I too would be interested in multiple filter instances.

Originally posted by Owen
Then there is the problem of black and white level crush with overlay. Above white 235-255 and below black 0-16 levels are lost. This can mostly be corrected buy adjusting Contrast down and Brightness up but gamma is still wrong with overlay.


Owen, this is not true. I have looked closely at the output of my 9600 with a scope and it can easily be adjusted so that the entire range 0-255 is carried with no clipping at either end.

I reported this here...

Scope measurements of overlay (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4100635#post4100635)

I have no trouble with above white/below black with overlay either.

I also can't see the >=720 colour change, but I've just change video cards, (9000 to 9500), so I'll look again.

"@ AndyIEG

Please allow for two questions about ffdshow:

Does the new Denoise3D Fast mode differ from the previous HQ mode or the standard mode in any other way than the limitation of luma/chroma parameters? Does FAST mean it performs less advanced algorithms for denoising?

To you think it would be possible to make multiple filter instancing an option for future ffdshow releases. For instance I would enjoy the possibility of using the resize filter twice in my filter chain. That way I can upscale to some really high resolution ("unlimited" because just the VMR9 output is restricted by the graphic card driver/memory), do some filtering there (sharpening if needed, deinterlacing, denoising, whatever...) and use a second instance of the resizing filter afterwards to scale down to my native display resolution (with better results/more options than VMR9 linear resizing). THAT WOULD BE A WONDERFULL FEATURE!!!!

Thanks anyway!"

The fast mode is a adapted "normal" mode using the same "algo" (in fact the algo is kinda simple, even in the so called HQ mode)

For features stuff: Im working on some stuff milan is not, milan is the main men behind the features and ffdshow, he has the full power to add base features. I just debug and optimize some in deep stuff he dont look at. So this is prolly some work for him, since atm i have no clue how the class for the filter chains work.

U can contact him by mail: Milan Cutka <cutka@szm.sk>

Just my two cents...

I have not done any visual tests on this but I notice that if I force YUY2 output from ffdshow there is no sign of missing levels in a subsequent Avisysnth histogram. This is not so when using levels with YV12 output. There the comb effect is quite notable. I don't know how this can be since the expansion from normal 16 to 235 levels to 0 to 255 must lose 36 or so levels unless some dithering is done. I don't imagine that dithering is viable at real-time speed so who knows what is really happening?

I observed much edge enhancement in Lanczos at any setting in the latest ffdshow. In the neighborhood of 40mv overshoot on both rising and falling edges. While this may be legal it is not desirable from my viewpoint. I can see signs of edge enhancement on all my test patterns that have any high or mid-level content. To escape this I have had to go to 'bicubic' since my favorite 'spline' is gone from ffdshow.

Charlie

Im a bit confused by all this latest discussion and decided to turn off ffdshow in theater tek to see if I noticed a differance. There wasn't much differance. Some contrast level changes that I can adjust for in my crt projector but thats about it.
Do I have to actually uninstall ffdshow to notice any real changes?

Im starting to beleive that I have no use with ffdshow using theater tek on a marquee 8500 crt projector. Im starting to understand from what I've read here that if I don't use ffdshow with theater tek that I would be using divx mode which is hardware dependant. If I use theater tek with ffdshow enabled im switching to software mode which is not a good thing.
I would guess that this would all be differant if I had a powerfull pentium system so I could resize to 1440x960...

I wonder how the new theater tek 2 would be with all this...

Currently my MOST want feature of ffdshow is to add DScaler's MoComps2 video deinterlace as a internal video deinterlace method, like the TomsMoComp in ffdshow.

Because using 20040709_SSE2, on my 845 chip, P4 2.4B oc 3.0, using ffdshow internal TomsMoComp I get smooth playback at CPU 40-50%. Using ffdshow Dscaler plugin with TomsMoComp I get heavy stutter with 100% CPU. Actually I want to use Dscaler's MoComp2 video deinterlace. As the 2 methods use about the same CPU in Dscaler, so I use it to compare.

I tried on a friend's 875 chip P4 3.0C oc 3.3G 1G DDR400 ram 9800 Pro with same result.

These are under VMR7/9 playback.

regards,

Li On

@ The Lion,

Quote The Lion.
“Real information would read like: Since Catalyst 3.7 (so it has nothing to do with ATIs hardware implementation of Overlay) ATI has implemented the HDTV color matrix (which differs from the SDTV CM) for all vertical resolutions >=720 rendered via Overlay. So if you resize your SDTV signal (DVD content) via ffdshow to >= X x 720 ATIs driver assumes a native HDTV signal and applies its color matrix (which is wrong for SDTV content, and not even accurate for HDTV content).”

I am using a Cat version 4.x and resolutions of 1776x1000 and 1920x1080.
I have not noticed any change in color balance using these resolutions or standard PAL DVD 720x576.
It would appear that the driver bug you mention above does not affect me or other PAL users, probably because we are using 50Hz.
In short you above comment does not apply.

Quote The Lion.
“On a digital display output device you should not be able to see levels other than YUVs 16-235 range.I recall you are using a Samsung DLP. To use all your displays contrast capability (RGB device -> 0-255 level range) you have to convert "video" black (DVDs are YV12 encoded -> black is RGB 16) to the black of your output device (RGB device -> black is RGB 0). The same with white (YUV white (-> RGB 235) must be the "whitest" white of your display device (RGB 255)). If you are outputting YUV material to an digital device somewhere along the way YUV levels (16-235) need to be converted to RGB (0-255). If you see "above" white and black levels on test DVDs (-> AVIA, DVE) this is not done correctly. These "above" levels are only present on special DVDs for setting the right contrast and brightness (= black point) of your display chain. You don`t have them on any other DVD. If you see "blacker than black" on your test charts the pure black in DVDs (RGB 16) is never pure black on your display. It is dark grey. You DONT want to have that. You are wasting your displays contrast range. High quality DLPs can show good enough black levels nowadays (in contrast to LCD devices). You are wasting yours by feeding it with grey signals instead of black (RGB 0). Try ffdshow levels: input 16-235 (probably you can go to 14-235 before your displays black gets grey), output 0-255 Full range. You may not like the higher contrast of it, but thats the right setting. Gives you an almost perfect 2.2 gamma curve with VMR9. Confirmed by an ISF calibration on my system (Radeon 9800pro->VMR9->DVI->Sharp Z10000) and by logic! Think about it...”

I think you have me confused with someone else, maybe vpopovic who uses a Sammy DLP.
I use a 57” Hitachi CRT HD RPTV that has had the interior of the cabinet blacked out and has shields installed to prevent light reflected from the lenses from hitting the screen. The blacks on this display are REALLY black, even in a darkened room.
Using VMR9, I set my black levels so that I can see a difference between a level of 0 and 4, yet my blacks on DVD’s are still black and NOT gray and I get excellent shadow detail.
If I use the levels filter to limit input to 14-235, my shadow detail goes out the window and I need an excessive increase in gamma to even get reasonable shadow detail.
If I then try to increase brightness on the display to compensate, I risk getting gray blacks. It just does not work for me.
Maybe my display has an unusual gamma curve, but I doubt it.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about whether DVD’s actually contain information below 16 RGB and above 235 RGB.

See this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=416292&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

I am a firm believer that there is.
I don’t often notice the lake of above white information, but I most definitely notice if below black data (0-16) is simply cutting off by setting the input of FFDShows Levels filter to 16-235.
By making RGB 16 appear black on the display, information in the 16-32 range is converted to very dark shadow and just looks wrong on my current and previous CRT RPTV’s.

Maybe its just a strange coincidence that the two CRT RPTV's I have owned worked best when setup with both video card and player picture controls set to default with VMR9 and no Levels filter applied to cut off below black and above white information.

I do understand the point that you are making, but in practice the issue is more complicated IMHO.

Regards,

Owen

___________________________
The FFDShow resize-sharpen dude.

Originally posted by gazzagazza
Owen, this is not true. I have looked closely at the output of my 9600 with a scope and it can easily be adjusted so that the entire range 0-255 is carried with no clipping at either end.

I reported this here...

Scope measurements of overlay (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4100635#post4100635)

Gazzagazza,

I did mention that the Overlay could be adjusted by reducing Contrast and increasing Brightness to give acceptable unclipped results, but at the default setting, the Radeon Overlay most definitely does crush black and white levels.

Using Overlay is definitely not all bad.
It allows things that are otherwise not possible with FFDShow at the moment, like using both Dscaler sharpen and Denoise3d AFTER a resize to 1920x1080 on my system.
This does show some promise.



Regards,

Owen

I agree. The problem is, how many of us have the very expensive scopes neccessary to adjust Overlay to a true blacker than black? I'd love to be able to adjust my overlay to that point, but that means spending a whole lot of money on a scope or paying for an ISF calibration.

Hey Owen, which Hitachi do you have? Slightly OT, but I assume from your post above you Duvetened the inside. The shields however were something I've not heard of before. Can you point me to a reference? I have a Hitachi 57XWX20B that is my "secondary" display to my Epson 500 projector.

-MP

Originally posted by Owen
I did mention that the Overlay could be adjusted by reducing Contrast and increasing Brightness to give acceptable unclipped results, but at the default setting, the Radeon Overlay most definitely does crush black and white levels.

Correct! But then the picture dynamic hurt too much. Now I use VMR to get WTW and BTB. Overlay is great with 16-235 as there is still the argument that 16-235 are all the levels we should see anyway. Use whatever suit your taste.

regards,

Li On

Madpoet,

I have an Australian model C57WD5000 “Ultravision” Hitachi.
This model has been available here for 6 months and may be similar to the new “Ultravision” Hitachi models currently being released in the US.

I have blacked out the cabinet with Duvetyne and flat black spray paint.
As for the shields, I can’t point you to any reference as I made it up as I went along. :D
The idea is that the lenses are hidden behind a Duvetyne covered shield so that they cannot direct any light directly onto the back of the screen.
If you remove the screen and hold your hand beside the lenses, you will see that some light is refracted of the side of the lenses and you don’t want that getting onto the screen.
I constructed this shield out of wood and cardboard and covered it with Duvetyne.
Care has to be taken to avoid blocking the light path from the mirror to the screen.

This was only the finishing touch to my RPTV mods.
I have also moved the CRTs closer to the mirror to shorten the light path.
This allows me to use about 10% more of the surface area of the CRT’s for display and also allows me to use a full 1920x1080 resolution without any overscan and without reducing picture width and height in the service menu, as that would mean less of the CRT surface would be in use.
The results of this mod are VERY impressive.

I posted my concept here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=431315

but received very little response, even though I have never seen this done by anyone before.

I like to break new ground. :D

Regards,

Owen

___________________________
The FFDShow resize-sharpen dude.

P.S.
I do have a scope, but I find that the overlay can be adjusted quite adequately so as to avoid crush with a gray scale test pattern, like that in DVE.
Give it a go and see how you like it.

Holy moley. You are a brave, brave man ;). I'll have to pull my screen off again and take a look. Every time I do I start to shudder at what I might screw up ;).

Madpoet,

Don't despair! ;)

I have seen 'lots' of very adequate older scopes sold on ebay for $20 up. If you decide to get one try getting a Tektronix since it has made great scopes for years. If you no nothing about scopes check out model numbers first to be sure that it will be OK. You will also need at least one probe and again the best place is ebay.

I am always amazed at how helpful it is to visualize the video at the point where it enters my projector. It allows me to check for any errors in the signal path and fix them before experimenting with filters. It is a great time saver. I'm (always) in danger of going on and on about scopes....

Reference white and reference black are set by eye so using a scope does not help with setting these levels but it does show clipping and overshoot as well as the basic voltage range of your video signal. A scope is the only practical way of getting this information. I believe that any dedicated HTPC videophile will benefit by actually knowing what their video signal is like. There is just too much that can go wrong and a scope will ferret out most of the problems. And they are fun!:)

Charlie

Unfortunately most poeple like me do not know how to use or read a scope :(

stylinlp,

Don't be sad!;)

They are much easier to use than they appear. Once you get past the problem of the mechanical hookup to your signal source it is good to get a little help unless you just enjoy experimenting. Just tap a local ham, or technician or for that matter, here to get going.

Charlie

One thing that I think may be coming into play is the display. I have a Samsung DLP, and my computer's settings know the display and have settings adjusted to work with the type of display.

But when I was trying to see if I could use my DVI output, I hooked up a regular monitor to the VGA out, and it looked green, dark, etc. I think this is because my monitor is set to the Samsung DLP display type. This could be affecting the levels, etc. -- I used to have my Levels OUTPUT (not input) to 16-235 to get the picture to look normal, although now I am just using Overaly Brightness/Contrast.

Update on my FFDShow issues.....

Image stutters in TT with FFDshow on.....FFDshow OSD shows CPU usage pinging 100% Windows shows my CPU usage at 92-96%.

I tested the system using Sisoft Sandra 2004 and CPU performance was awful (Athlon 64 2800+) and Ram benchmarks were decent. I've triple checked all settings and can't find any reason that CPU performance should be hindered. I couldn't find any settings for "fast write" anywhere in Windows so I donwloaded the new Omega drivers for my 9600XT which had the Smartgart tab needed to enable fast writes. I OC'd my Ram from 333 to 400 Mhz .... now my Ram benchmarks are almost off the scale however my CPU benchmarks are still only about 2/3 of what they should be. I tried FFDshow again with these changes and got similar results....Stutters and OSD shows the CPU maxed out however now Windows showed my CPU load at only 55-65%. With FFDshow off while running TT, Windows shows my CPU load bouncing around 5-10% and the picture never stutters.

I've tried everything I can think of and have only two idea's left.

1.) For some reason the CPU is not performing up to par and simply can't run FFDshow in it's present configuration. A config that many of you are now running on slower CPU's

2.) The CPU is running fine and for some reason FFDshow is stuttering....That's if you believe Windows saying CPU utilization is only around 60% while running FFDShow.....from reading other posts that actually sounds about right for this setup. The Benchmarks may just be reading low for some reason.

Athlon 64 2800+ ...... Runs at 1800

Benching slightly slower than

Athlon XP 2400 ....... Runs at 2000

I'm wondering if this 32 bit version of Sandra for some reason isn't testing the new CPU in a way that utilizes the 64's potential. If true it would make sense that the 2400XP @ 2000 Mhz would bench a little higher than the 2800 + @ 1800 Mhz. If this is the case and the CPU is performing normally and the benches are off then it's just a matter of why FFDshow stutters....

Any idea's on what I can try next? Which CPU monitor is more accurate?

Thanks Guys.........

Jeff

As fare as DVD decoders are concerned, the Sonic decoder is not the best choice for FFDShow users.

Believe me, I have wanted to see something different after being told over and over from people that the other decoders look better but I just do not. I guess this just shows each opinion can differ. What you describe as more noise in the background translates in more detail in the foreground, at least for me. Other decoders, as well as vmr9, seem to "wash over" the picture on my CRT. Sonic just looks more film-like and that is all I am after. So my advice to people is not to assume, test each out.

Brian

Things will probably look different on different TVs/displays, as well as your viewing distance.

Thanks Charles... I'd like to have one just because I enjoy playing, but I would have no idea what to do with it! I'll poke around.

madpoet,

I am concerned that scope buying/use details might not be OT enough. If it is then OK but otherwise PM me, if you want to, for info on hardware possibilities.

Charlie

This may have been covered, but all my searches have yielded bubkiss. I am running Sonic DVD Codecs (Video and Audio), via Zoomplayer, plus FFDShow. everything is latest versions, except FFD show is SSE version 0801 I believe as that is the newest for my CPU. FFDShow when in use is Blur & NR - denoise - FAST, and Resize after at 1440 x 960.

System = Opteron 146 with Radeon 9800 Pro and 1 GB PC2700 ram. Possibly most important here is soundcard is Audigy 2 ZS. Fed to Panny AE-500 and Integra Receiver via 1/4 minijack to RCA adapter and RCA cable.

Zoomplayer without FFDShow is very nice looking, and with FFDShow is even better - BUT...

I am getting mega audio dropouts. About every 20 seconds will lose audio completely - then hops back in again...Sometimes if I let it run for a while I get out of synch.

My first guess is the CPU useage to run FFDShow, but I am maxing out at 67% (and it is usually closer to 30% than 67%)...so I think there is something else here. Also toned down the Denoise and still dropouts.

I also tried to run the WinDVD 6 codecs, but I guess I had installed the software earlier, and my demo time had run because the Send to SPDIF in the codec configuration section of ZP for Windvd 6 had "send to SPDIF" greyed out.

Any thoughts...Audigy 2 and Sonic/FFDShow/ZP not playing nice? Still not enough raw horsepower? Missed an earlier post to solve this in the 127 pages of text?

THANKS!!!

Charlie,

I agree with the "off topic" comment, but would you please start another thread to discuss the scope use instead of by PM? I'm certain that it will be of general interest, especially if you start it off with a general post about how you use the scope, benefits, requirements, etc.

^-- Agree with Mark.

Ck, that's an odd one. Have you looked into Reclock for adjusting some of the latency issues?

MY WInDVD6 trial period has ended as well, but I'm only using the video codecs. I use my NVDVD audio codec to output SPDIF with no processing.

This works nicely, since you can select separate audio and video codecs in ffdshow.

Thanks cyberbri - I think I have an old copy of Power DVD 4 around from an OEM DVD-Rom Drive. I think I will install and then try the audio from that to see if it runs more smoothly.

Do you notice a huge advantage with the Windvd 6 codec for video??? It seems like they take less overhead on the machine from all I have read, and it is pretty popular on this forum. But of course...There are opinions in every direction.

I have tryed to see the color changes with overlay for >=720P but have not noticed any.
I then decided to open Colorfacts and compare the primaries coordinates for NTSC, PAL (what I use) and HDTV.
I think that these coordinates are used to define the color matrixes...

NTSC coordinates (x,y):
R: (0.630, 0.340)
G: (0.310, 0.595)
B: (0.155, 0.070)

PAL coordinates (x,y):
R: (0.640, 0.330)
G: (0.290, 0.600)
B: (0.150, 0.060)

HDTV coordinates (x,y):
R: (0.640, 0.330)
G: (0.300, 0.600)
B: (0.150, 0.060)

Looking at the coordinates we see that the PAL and HDTV coordinates are almost the same, except a slightly difference in green x coordinate, while NTSC differs in all coordinates. I suppose this is the reason why us PAL users do not notice the color shift with the overlay...

I have not yet tested with NTSC, but I will post my results after it.

About the levels, I have tryed what TheLion suggested (Levels: 16-235 at input and 0-255 at output) but then I noticed my whites are crushed. I don't understand this because if there is no whites above 235 why I noticed the crush?


Recently I have increased the size of my screen, and noticed that the image was more softer than before, I was almost considering decrease the image to get the quality I had with the smaller screen. I then realized that the problem was VMR9. Now with overlay the image is much better, and I can keep my new screen width (9ft) :D

Should it not be 16-235 on the output levels ? :confused:

Here is my take on Levels filter in Ffdshow:

It all depends on 2 factors (i think),
1. The kind of connection you are using to your display device (vga, dvi, svideo, etc)
2. Your output colorspace (VY12, YUV2, RGB32, etc)

I use DVI from a NV5900XT to a Sony LCD RPTV
When using VY12, I do not need to adjust Levels (0-255 in, 0-255 out), but need 1.10 gamma
When using RGB32, Levels (0-255 in, 16-235 out)
I'm currently using VY12, because the grey levels look better to me, and takes alot less of a cpu hit then RGB32

**Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like different combinations of hardware/software will need different Levels adjustments. Or SHOULD it be universal regardless :confused: **

Originally posted by N3W813
Here is my take on Levels filter in Ffdshow:

It all depends on 2 factors (i think),
1. The kind of connection you are using to your display device (vga, dvi, svideo, etc)
2. Your output colorspace (VY12, YUV2, RGB32, etc)

I use DVI from a NV5900XT to a Sony LCD RPTV
When using VY12, I do not need to adjust Levels (0-255 in, 0-255 out), but need 1.10 gamma
When using RGB32, Levels (0-255 in, 16-235 out)
I'm currently using VY12, because the grey levels look better to me, and takes alot less of a cpu hit then RGB32

**Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like different combinations of hardware/software will need different Levels adjustments. Or SHOULD it be universal regardless :confused: **

It SHOULD be universal regardless and it should all be calibrated later in the video chain. Anything adjusted before it hits the video card to be rendered WILL result in the loss of resolution in the color space. It may be the easiest place to adjust but it really should be your last resort.

-Pat

Originally posted by ckarabian
Thanks cyberbri - I think I have an old copy of Power DVD 4 around from an OEM DVD-Rom Drive. I think I will install and then try the audio from that to see if it runs more smoothly.

Do you notice a huge advantage with the Windvd 6 codec for video??? It seems like they take less overhead on the machine from all I have read, and it is pretty popular on this forum. But of course...There are opinions in every direction.


I don't think there's an advantage, per se. I just like the interface the NVDVD audio codec has for some reason.

And I use the WinDVD 6 codec, because I don't feel like taking the time to get the NVDVD codec to work, Sonic codecs don't work on the trial version so I couldn't try them, etc. etc. I had WinDVD 4 and was using those, and just upgraded it.

Using VGA to a Samsung DLP, I can't use the RGB32 colorspace for output.

And maybe I didn't do it correctly, but I didn't notice a difference between YUY2 and YV12 outputs...

Yesgray3,

Welcome aboard.
Anyone with Colorfacts is always welcome around here. :D

If it would not be too much trouble, would it be possible for you to do another set of measurements using VMR9 and if you are really keen, for VMR7 as well.

Thanks.

Regards,

Owen

New Cat drivers look like they have some interesting details... possibly help with blacker than black.

N3w813,

Your Sony LCD RPTV should be happy with black at 16 and white at 235 since it is a TV. If you use YV12 output from ffdshow you should have the best situation for good output. If you output RGB32 or YUY2 it will put black at 0 and white at 255. This is great for computer monitors but wrong for TVs. Your way of correcting the range of RGB32 by using the output sliders will give you the proper range but will be somewhat lower quality due to extra conversion errors so it should be avoided. Just force YV12 output and don't use any levels changes at all unless you want to do your gamma correction there. If you have Powerstrip it will do a better job of gamma correction than ffdshow since ffdshow's gamma sliders are not actually gamma function at all.

Any recommendations for ffdshow output adjustment strategies (ideally) should take into account that both TVs and computer monitors are used as output devices and that they have significantly different input ranges.

Charlie

Now that you're talking about these levels, I must ask some help with my setup as well.

I have a 32" PAL SDTV. I'm using YV12 with FFDshow.

I've increased brightness a lot via bsplayer and zoomplayer, since my TVchip outputs a very dark picture. I've tweaked it quite a bit and I'm quite happy, but what is this below black and above white levels thingy?

Does it apply to my setup? And if it does, any recommendations?


Sabbe

I have a question for all of the colorspace master around here. I am using a Panasonic PT-L500U projector through DVI from my ffdshow computer. Now, since the DVI input on this projector is describe as a computer input instead of a video one, is using YV12 the right thing to do? After reading the lastest post, I would think I should use something like RGB32 since black i 0, not 16 like YV12. Am I correct? I would get blacker black instead of grey black. I sure will try it, but I would like to know what would be best based on logic. I am a kind of logic guy:).

Ok, while we're on the subject! :)

For Radeon DVI->component dongle output to a consumer HDTV, do I want YV12 or RGB32? Output levels 0-255 or 16-235?

Originally posted by salsbst
Ok, while we're on the subject! :)

For Radeon DVI->component dongle output to a consumer HDTV, do I want YV12 or RGB32? Output levels 0-255 or 16-235?

YV12 (definite) and no levels filter (IMHO).

@yesgrey3

I fix the SDTV->HDTV color problem with ATI drivers:
Filter (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4076291#post4076291)

Carsten

Owen,

I have read my post and realized I was not very clear...

The values I posted are the reference values, not values that I measured.

When we use Colorfacts we have to select the colorspace to which we will calibrate, and these coordinates serve as a reference to compare with the coordinates of our projector primaries, to see if our projector could reproduce the entire color gammut of the selected color space.

On the other hand, you gave me a good idea. I will try to take some measures to see if I can find any relevant differences.


Another problem that I have is that with overlay I get a more sharp picture than with VMR9, but on the other hand with overlay I have CUE and with VMR9 don't - Perhaps these two issues are related...

It's a tough world...

Originally posted by Carsten2004
I fix the SDTV->HDTV color problem with ATI drivers:
Filter (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4076291#post4076291)
Thanks for this tip! Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me you need both these lines in the FFDShow AviSynth script space provided:

LoadPlugin("F:\BT601ToBT709\BT601ToBT709.dll")
BT601ToBT709()

using appropriate path for the first line. In your picture, you only show the second line by itself and this confuses FFDShow. Now I get a color change if switching AviSynth on and off. I see less red with this dll loaded, if that's correct. Does that mean I will get even more green? I'm not sure if that's what I want, but I'll test it on my LCD projector. I'm using the Radeon 9500Pro with Cat 4.6 at 1368x768 display res (at or greater for Resize). Using TheaterTek with Overlay only.

Originally posted by Charles Black
Any recommendations for ffdshow output adjustment strategies (ideally) should take into account that both TVs and computer monitors are used as output devices and that they have significantly different input ranges.

Charlie

Charlie, what is your definition of TV vs computer monitor? Modern HD displays work quite well as a computer monitor. To be more precise do you mean the type of inputs that a display device uses (ie RGBHV, component, VGA, etc)? Or do you mean analog (CRT) vs digital (LCD, DILA, DLP)?

What you've stated makes sense, I'm just trying to understand how this works for my DILA front projector which can be thought of as both a computer display and a TV... It also has DVI as well as analog inputs so would someone use say YV12 for the analog inputs and RGB32 for the DVI?

I have found that 16-235 Input levels on my DILA does make a huge change. It gives more contrast and my whites don't look crushed but at the other end (darks) shadow detail is lost....

I would really like to know how this (input levels and colorspaces) should work...

To tell you the truth, I can't see a bit of difference between selecting YV12 or RGB32 in the Output dialog. I close and reopened TT and still no change. I haven't tried any other other checkboxes, but I have a feeling I've missed something here. I am using DVI to my projector and Overlay, AFAIK, since TT is not capable of VMR9 until 2.0.

Originally posted by Carey P
To tell you the truth, I can't see a bit of difference between selecting YV12 or RGB32 in the Output dialog. I close and reopened TT and still no change. I haven't tried any other other checkboxes, but I have a feeling I've missed something here. I am using DVI to my projector and Overlay, AFAIK, since TT is not capable of VMR9 until 2.0.

RGB32 will work if you are using DVI out.

If you try it with component out it will be all messed up. At least that was the case the last time I tried it, round about Cat 4.2 if I remember correctly.

Just for reference... this is what I am seeing when using WinDVD6 to play the discrete grey bars from the DVE DVD. I've attached it to this post.

Is this what everyone else is seeing? I have already installed ATI's Catalyst 4.8 drivers as well for my Radeon 9700 Pro card. I've never seen black and white crush this bad before.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jeff

Originally posted by jvincent
RGB32 will work if you are using DVI out.

If you try it with component out it will be all messed up. At least that was the case the last time I tried it, round about Cat 4.2 if I remember correctly. I'm not saying it doesn't work. It just looks the same as YV12. I am using straight DVI out. Am I supposed to see anything different?

Jeff, if my CRT monitor didn't fool me, then you have some serious Black and White level crush! The position between and include the "dots" are 16-235 grap step levels. At the very least you must get ALL the gray steps within that range. The leftmost White step outside the "dots" is level >235 (Whiter than White) and the other side is a Black level <16 (Blacker than Black). If you want Whiter than White and Blacker than Black, you should get ALL the gray steps.

regards,

Li On

Mark,

I better get ready for the blast but here goes...

From a home theater perspective a TV input (RGB, YPbPr, YCbCr, DVI?) has an input with reference black at level 16 and reference white at 235. A computer monitor has a (RGB, DVI) reference black at level 0 and a reference white at level 255. I don't have a DVI input to my CRT but from what I have read it should look the same as the RGB output just without the final DAC. Any devices that have inputs that correspond to the input levels as above would be categorized as such.

Most computer RGB/DVI input monitors are not adjustable enough to mimic TV input levels but some are. Many CRT projectors have the ability to be set up either way but there are definite problems with setting up a CRT to a different input standard than the designers anticipated. For example: If I adjust my Electrohome 8000 to look like a TV it will play back DVDs with a great picture. But if I also have some Windows material projected it will have severe blooming of the peak white since it is at level 255 and I have adjusted my monitor to have a reference white of 235. Also my Windows black is at level 0 and I have my monitor adjusted to reference black at level 16. The result is that my blacks will look 'compressed'. In the end it is too much trouble for me to deal with all the negitives so I am usually in computer monitor mode.

The basic problem I have is sitting here with only a HTPC and a computer monitor style CRT. No matter what the real world presents to others I can really measure only what I have. I can set up my CRT projector to look like a TV but I can't check out DVI subtleties or how a DILA black/white reference really looks like in a certain situation or whether a monitor really follows the appropriate standard for each of it's inputs. It is fairly easy to guess what most TVs want and what most computer monitors want but there are displays that may be non- standard.

Your case is a perfect example. You may be right in thinking that the different inputs on your DILA may have different input specifications. Some may be TV style and some computer style, who knows? Any YPbPr or YCbCr input would surely be TV style but the RGB could be either way. The DVI input should be computer monitor range but there is a new push toward including DVI on what would be thought of as a TV so maybe there is a 16 to 235 DVI input specification out there as well. Often the owners manual is a help or customer support. I usually just experiment until I know what is going on. Admittedly my CRT monitor is simple in comparison to many of the new multi-input monitors but at least it seems likely that only two input level standards are popular today in consumer equipment.

If you have a choice of inputs use the ones with the least number of manipulations to the input signal as a first choice since they should be less noisy. If you have a good TV style 16 to 235 input use ffdshow YV12 output since it will have no lost levels due to converting to computer monitor levels.

One tool I have used to help me understand what my system is doing is the Spyder/Optical combination. It lets me know if my system is out of kilter. If I can do a calibration with it and have it only make small adjustments to my system during calibration then I know things are reasonable. It really helps with my CRT adjustments that affect effective CRT gamma. I don't know if it will be as effective with a DILA though. Also this tool is has a significant learning curve.

Cheers,

Charlie

Iceblade,

You are supposed to see individual levels out to the two sets of three dots and just black or white respectively beyond them.

Charlie

Li On,

Oops! sorry - I didn't noice your better answer.

Charlie

Charles Black,

Thanks for the explanation. I think I understand the concepts now I just need to dig further and see what is going on with my particular HW.

Thanks!

@Carey P

If you put the dll in the AviSyth-Plugin folder, you don’t need the “LoadPlugin” line. In some pictures you see less red and sometimes more green. Do you know the “Siemens Stern” test pattern? Here you can see the less green without this filter.
You can’t correct the wrong colors with RGB adjustment! It´s a complex matrix calculation in YV12 color space.

Carsten

Originally posted by Carey P
I'm not saying it doesn't work. It just looks the same as YV12. I am using straight DVI out. Am I supposed to see anything different?

That's the $64,000 question. Some people say they can see the difference, others cannot.

I wish someone would make a FAQ for ffdshow settings per display device per dvd software and codexs.
Something like this below for every combination.

Display type:
Video Cable:
Video Card:
Driver Version:
DVD Software:
Codex:
CPU:
Resolution:

FFDshow version:
--Resize:
--Filters:
--Input:
--Output:


So far mine is what is below as an example. (mine may not be setup right)

Display type: Marquee 8500 crt projector
Video Cable: RGB to "Extron 120p" to 5BNC cable 15'
DVD Software: Theater Tek
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9200se
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: AMD 1800
Screen Res: 1280x720@72hz

FFDshow version: 04272004
--Resize: 720x480
--Filters: Denoise3D 0, 1, 5, HQ
--Input: 0/255
--Output: 16/235

It's not fooling you. That's REALLY what the screen capture from WinDVD6.. so the display I have it hooked to should make no difference whatsoever. This was using a Radeon 9700 Pro via DVI with catalyst 4.8 drivers installed. My results looked exactly the same on 4.7 as well. Any ideas what the hell is going on?

thanks,
Jeff


Originally posted by Li On
Jeff, if my CRT monitor didn't fool me, then you have some serious Black and White level crush! The position between and include the "dots" are 16-235 grap step levels. At the very least you must get ALL the gray steps within that range. The leftmost White step outside the "dots" is level >235 (Whiter than White) and the other side is a Black level <16 (Blacker than Black). If you want Whiter than White and Blacker than Black, you should get ALL the gray steps.

regards,

Li On

Charles,

Having calibrated several inputs with Avia, VE and DVE on this and other sets, I knew what I was supposed to see... the question is... wtf is going on such that I don't see the discernible discrete grey levels at all in the upper and lower regions. Again, these are screen caps with Windvd 6.. so my understanding is that it is saving the image straight from video memory.. so my display settings have nothing to do with it. My thoughts are that WinDVD 6 is just a thunderous pile of excrement, but I wasn't sure if I was the only one to ever see this. For reference, using the ColorFacts test patterns (similar to DisplayMate), I can barely discern the 1 and 2 IRE boxes for brightness and contrast on my screen. Obviously this seems to completely fly in the face of what WinDVD is showing me... as you can tell from the pic. Hell... it looks like everything short of 40 IRE or higher than 80 is crushed to hell, back again, and then crushed one more time. Very weird. I'm going to try loading PowerDVD again and see if it appears the same with that player.

Thanks,
Jeff


Originally posted by Charles Black
Iceblade,

You are supposed to see individual levels out to the two sets of three dots and just black or white respectively beyond them.

Charlie

Originally posted by Iceblade
Very weird. I'm going to try loading PowerDVD again and see if it appears the same with that player.


I looked, but didn't see what your ffdshow settings are.

What filters/version of ffdshow are you using?

Display type:
Video Cable:
Video Card:
Driver Version:
DVD Software:
Codex:
CPU:
Resolution:

FFDshow version:
--Resize:
--Filters:
--Input:
--Output:

Stylinlp,
I've tried starting a new thread on exactly what you are doing couple months back, and it sunk faster than the titanic. Nobody wanted to post their settings. :(

It would be nice if poeple would post their settings when asking a questions on this thread in that format I suggested.

But, what I would really like is for someone like Owen to create a FAQ and keep it updated with a combination of common settings with:

CRT Projectors: AMD, Pent4, dvd player, ffdshow settings
Rear Projection: AMD, Pent4, dvd player, ffdshow settings
Plasma screen: AMD, Pent4, dvd player, ffdshow settings
Direct View: AMD, Pent4, dvd player, ffdshow settings

The number of different configurations would be overwhelming.

Like this thread? :)

Precisely ;)

Man, I have been out for a week, and I feel like I'm on a different planet! Stuff is getting so technical that I can't follow half of it, and I don't know if I'm even getting much out of the other half. This thread is in serious need of a split, or even better: A full on new forum. I'm pretty dang sure there are many more people using ffdshow than the penguin stuff (Linux), so why not a subforum for ffdshow? After all there are only around 1000 posts in that Linux forum and more than 2500 in this thread alone! Or at least create one thread for highly technical questions, like crushed white level, volts and all that, and one for general ffdshow settings and bugs! Please!

Hmmm...the more I read, the more questions come to mind. I have a Sony HS10 FP with DVI, and the DVI can be set to "video" or "computer" mode. I've assumed that the former would be using 16/235 and the latter 0/255. Of course, then there's the variables of ffdshow, the MPEG codec, overlay/VMR7/9 and the ATI drivers. I tried changing to RGB32 output last night, had to crank the brightness up pretty high when recalibrating with DVE. Looks like I have some more reading to do....

Originally posted by Mastiff
Man, I have been out for a week, and I feel like I'm on a different planet! Stuff is getting so technical that I can't follow half of it, and I don't know if I'm even getting much out of the other half. This thread is in serious need of a split, or even better: A full on new forum. I'm pretty dang sure there are many more people using ffdshow than the penguin stuff (Linux), so why not a subforum for ffdshow? After all there are only around 1000 posts in that Linux forum and more than 2500 in this thread alone! Or at least create one thread for highly technical questions, like crushed white level, volts and all that, and one for general ffdshow settings and bugs! Please!

I would like to second the notion that this thread should be broken into various subforums... maybe one for resize, another for blur&nr, etc.

In fact the HTPC forum itself has gotten too big and unwieldy. The htpcnews website is much better organized because it has broken out the various htpc topics into a separate forum. I find that I've been spending more time on htpcnews just because of how well it is organized. One forum for video cards alone would be a huge help....

I have to give inumerable thank you's to Andy for the SSE2 optimized ffdshow. I was struggling to run anything other then bicubic for the resize and gradual denoise. With andy's ffdshow I can now use lanzcos and denoise3d. here are the pertinent details

denoise 3d and lanzcos ffdshow to 1440x960 resolution. right now my crt rptv (mitsubishi) is running at the 1440x480 (p) resolution through dvi.

setup is

2.0G celeron (oced to 2.52G)
256MB PC2100 Memory
Radeon 9200

pretty moderate equipment, i think i could get these settings to run at an OC of 2.2, which i might have to use as i only recently started running at 2.52G

anyway, hope this helps people with more humble hardware. thanks to Andy again, his mods are the real deal, helped me tremendously as I was looking at an upgrade. well off to tweak some more!

mihni, you using the regular SSE2 or the preview version? If you're not running the preview yet I highly recommend it.

-Pat

Mark Peterson, I agree. I just revisited HTPCnews forum and was pleasantly surprised. They has a forum for the one subject I was looking for: Remote Control

Originally posted by Iceblade
Just for reference... this is what I am seeing when using WinDVD6 to play the discrete grey bars from the DVE DVD. I've attached it to this post.

Is this what everyone else is seeing? I have already installed ATI's Catalyst 4.8 drivers as well for my Radeon 9700 Pro card. I've never seen black and white crush this bad before.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jeff

I know what caused the problem. You may have incorrect setting in WinDVD 6's color subpanel, just goto the color subpanel, and set it to default, you would correct the problem.

Ok, just reloaded powerdvd 5 and all of a sudden I have my blacks and whites back after a little tweaking in the ATI CP for overlay.

Ended up at
Brightness 5%
Contrast 94%
didn't touch anything else.

Guess it's just telling me that WinDVD is a POS.

Wonder why overlay made no difference no matter how much I cranked any of the sliders with WinDVD, yet they work like a champ with PowerDVD?

Later,
Jeff


PS - 3dhunter.. not sure how you get to defaults in the color subpanel... unless it is just selecting the CUSTOM preset and leaving all sliders in the middle. Either way... playing around in the color sub panel allowed me to get rid of some black crush, but the white crush was even worse.

minhi thats amazing that you can do full resize of 1440x960 with a lowly Celeron 2.0
I was thinking of getting that Fry's special for $120 thats P4 2.4 533fsb with motherboard combo deal. Before I saw your posting I was hesitant that would work.

It might be wise to hold of untill Theater Tek 2 comes out and see what that program would take to get optimal movie quality. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much of a response on that on here. Just vague referances of seeking obscure posts on nVidia codexs.

I understand that everyone wants “a free lunch”, and be able to just pick the “Best setup” from a list for there display type, but like most things in life, it’s just not that simple.

Even using the same display, one mans perfect setup is another mans over sharpened, over processed crap.
There are just to many variables in systems and personal preference.
Added to that the ball game changes with each new development in software.

If people are not prepared to spend the time to test the various options and get a feel for what FFDShow can do and how best to apply it with there hardware, then I think FFDShow is not for them.

A good basic setup of the Denoise, Resize and Sharpen functions is not rocket science and the difference between a good basic setup and the “Perfect” setup is VERY small in real terms.

If you are fussy enough to want that “little extra”, then you have to expect to put in a little effort to get it.
Unfortunately using other people’s settings will NOT get you there.
You MUST do your own testing to get the result that is best for you.

Just keep this basic rule in mind.
If you attempt to get dramatic visual changes with noise reduction or sharpening, you will undoubtedly get unwanted side effects. So keep your expectations modest and you will be happier in the long run.
The combination of several small changes can add up to a substantial overall improvement.

So get out there and start testing all the possible options for yourselves people.

Happy tweaking,


Owen
____________________________
The FFDShow resize sharpen dude.

P.S.

It is high time this thread was made sticky, and broken up into more manageable sub threads.

Madpoet,
Can you advise how this might be done?

just one simple question.
Which CPU is best for FFD?

Originally posted by yipchunyu
just one simple question.
Which CPU is best for FFD?

This is easy. Buy the fastest CPU that you can afford. Most people seem to prefer a fast P4 for running ffdshow.

Originally posted by Mark Petersen
This is easy. Buy the fastest CPU that you can afford. Most people seem to prefer a fast P4 for running ffdshow.

so, should i choose ATHLON 64 or intel? How about the heat generated?

Originally posted by yipchunyu
so, should i choose ATHLON 64 or intel? How about the heat generated?

it's hard to answer questions like heat, because that depends on how comitted you are to controlling it (quality heatsinks, fans, proper sized case etc).

If i were to pick today, I'd pick Intel just because Andy has done so much work with the SSE2 extensions. That and the higher clock rate *will* make a difference in this case (i know blah, blah, clockrate isn't everything, but in this case it makes a difference). Obviously the Intel will require a lot more work to minimize heat, but that's part of the HTPC process...

If i were buying a year from now, I'd hope the Athlon64 had more support and lean that way. But right now my money is on Intel, if you look at the last few pages, the most postings are from folks with Intel running at high clock speeds.

And don't call me an intel fan, with the exception of my HTPC, i never login to windows, and my HTPC is my only Intel box, the other 3 that i work on are mac and ultrasparc. So I don't want to use Intel, but I think you should use the best tool for the application, and i haven't seen much data that says the AMD is better in this case...

stylinlp

keep in mind that i was not able to run resize + lanzcos without Andy's modified ffdshow.
also keep in mind that my Celeron 2.0G is overclocked, i bumped it up some more and now I'm at 2.6G.

I saw that Frys Combo deal (i live on the east coast, no Frys nearby, but i still look!), good price as the CPU is worth that much on the street. If the board supports moderate OC, I'm sure you can bump it up to 2.6-2.8 and that would be a decent HTPC. It won't be like Owen with the 3.5OC (almost limitless CPU available), but it should let you do the most popular filters with a 1440x960 resize before running out of juice.

PS. multiple subthreads would be nice, but how is that possible? we would need our own forum, and I don't expect that happening, there are quite a few other threads on avs with 2000+ messages, why should this one be any different?

Of course Andy also does all of his dev on an Athlon 64 and is trying to do a native 64-bit port which will boost performance again so if you want to future proof specifically for ffdshow I might be inclined to go with an Athlon 64 (though I actually use a P4 2.8 because it was hard to beat the price).

-Pat

Could someone explain why I should keep using the setting in ffdshow of Output: 16/255 ??

Display type: Marquee 8500 crt projector
Video Cable: RGB to "Extron 120p" to 5BNC cable 15'
DVD Software: Theater Tek
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9200se
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: AMD 1800
Screen Res: 1280x720@72hz

FFDshow version: 04272004
--Resize: 720x480
--Filters: Denoise3D 0, 1, 5, HQ
--Input: 0/255
--Output: 16/235

Some people need Input levels of 16/235. Some people need Output levels of 16/235. I was the former, but decided to go with Brightness and Contrast adjustments in my Overlay panel instead, after some more calibration.

There are a lot of factors, like video card, video display, display driver, colorspace (YUY2, YV12, RBG32, etc.), etc. and you will need to try and calibrate your levels on your own.

Check out some darker movies - I like using Matrix Reloaded (Chapter 3, Upgrades, where Neo comes up and is handed the ear-piece -- should be able to see his jacket and the buttons on it; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - scene near end in the cave with the giant spider - should be able to see the details of the spider's face --- I use my regular DVD player through component as a sort of reference to see how much dark/shadow detail I should be getting).

If you feel your dark scenes are too dark, with no detail (without fixing mine, my levels look like that grayscale bar image posted yesterday, with huge black and white areas on each end, and the middle 3rd with a few greyscale bars), or if you just want to go straight to calibration, use one of the video calibration discs. I borrowed one from a friend a few months ago, although my color adjustments in my Service Menu were really weird (went with what other people are using as posted on the thread for my TV, and made minor adjustments from there to balance color pushes).

But besides the two DVDs I mentioned for checking how the levels look "real world," I use the THX calibration test section on Monsters, Inc. I know they're tailored for the specific movie, but I like using this one (Fight Club version of THX was very dark in comparison - had Monsters Inc in my DVD player and Fight Club in my computer, and was frustrated that they were so far off - in the same drive, they looked very different). I adjust it so that on the THX drop shadow image has a black (not grey background), I can see the THX stand out, but just barely, barely see the drop shadow. Then I try the Matrix Reloaded scene I mentioned to make sure I can see his jacket and the buttons on it (not washed out in black), but not have the whites too bright. There's a good scene a little after that, where the people are letting the ship dock from a white VR space - too bright white and it will "blind" you, but I have it white enough to be white and not light grey.

For my service menu calibrations, going into the service menu kicks the TV back into Dynamic mode (default for showroom floors - most people hate this setting), so if I try and calibrate there, and then go back to my Custom picture settings, it looks different. What I do, now that I realized I'm adjusting in Dynamic, is get the picture (colors, etc.) like I like it, leave it in Dynamic, and turn the color to Cool 1. It's no ISF calibration, but I'm confident I've done a good job at making it look as good as it can.

Long answer...
HTH

Just for u, stylinlp :)

Display type: Sony GWIII 42" LCD RPTV
Video Cable: DVI
DVD Software: Zoom Player 4.02 VMR7
Codex: Nvidia 3.0 beta
Video Card: Nvidia 5900xt 128mb
Driver: 61.77 WHQL
CPU: Intel P4 3.0 (OC'd to 3.45)
Screen Res: 1920x1080i@60

FFDshow version: latest SSE2 preview
--Picture properties: Saturation 57
--Resize: 1920x1080
--Filters: Denoise3D FAST
--Levels: not used (0/255 in, 0-255 out)
--Colorspace: VY12

cyberbri
I do the same thing using Starwars and Little Nemo DVD's THX optimizer menu's. Everytime I change something in ffdshow I reset my contrast and brightness in my crt projector to those menu's.
I just wanted to know why we are suppose to use Output of 16/255 with Overlay on a crt projector. Maybe I don't need to do that because of the full range of my projector.

Great N3W813. Nice setup. People with simular settings will find this issue

EDIT: Why do I have the feeling that poeple that mess with Input and Output of FFDshow do not have a CRT Projector?

Originally posted by minhi
it's hard to answer questions like heat, because that depends on how comitted you are to controlling it (quality heatsinks, fans, proper sized case etc).

If i were to pick today, I'd pick Intel just because Andy has done so much work with the SSE2 extensions. That and the higher clock rate *will* make a difference in this case (i know blah, blah, clockrate isn't everything, but in this case it makes a difference). Obviously the Intel will require a lot more work to minimize heat, but that's part of the HTPC process...

If i were buying a year from now, I'd hope the Athlon64 had more support and lean that way. But right now my money is on Intel, if you look at the last few pages, the most postings are from folks with Intel running at high clock speeds.

And don't call me an intel fan, with the exception of my HTPC, i never login to windows, and my HTPC is my only Intel box, the other 3 that i work on are mac and ultrasparc. So I don't want to use Intel, but I think you should use the best tool for the application, and i haven't seen much data that says the AMD is better in this case...

stylinlp

keep in mind that i was not able to run resize + lanzcos without Andy's modified ffdshow.
also keep in mind that my Celeron 2.0G is overclocked, i bumped it up some more and now I'm at 2.6G.

I saw that Frys Combo deal (i live on the east coast, no Frys nearby, but i still look!), good price as the CPU is worth that much on the street. If the board supports moderate OC, I'm sure you can bump it up to 2.6-2.8 and that would be a decent HTPC. It won't be like Owen with the 3.5OC (almost limitless CPU available), but it should let you do the most popular filters with a 1440x960 resize before running out of juice.

PS. multiple subthreads would be nice, but how is that possible? we would need our own forum, and I don't expect that happening, there are quite a few other threads on avs with 2000+ messages, why should this one be any different?

Thx a lot for your kindly advice. It makes my mind clear. Thx

EDIT: Why do I have the feeling that poeple that mess with Input and Output of FFDshow do not have a CRT Projector?

Your not the only one with this thought.

Certainly a CRT projector will work best with a full range output. I have no need at all to change any input or output levels in FFDshow for driving my CRT projector.

NEC 6Pg Xtra
Radeon 9600SE with 5 BNC mod
Theatertek
FFDshow

I have scoped the output of my Radeon 9600SE using Digital Video Essentials (Can use AVIA also) and adjusting the Overlay controls in Theatertek - this is very important.

Aaron

Display type: Barco Data 801s 8" CRT projector
Video Cable: VGA to port 3
DVD Software: Theater Tek (outputs YUY2)
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9800pro
Driver: Catalyst 4.6
CPU: Intel 2.8E (Prescott)
Screen Res: 1440x960@48hz

FFDshow version: ffdshow-20040709_SSE2.exe
--Resize: 1440x960 Spline, no l/c sharpen (maintains YUY2, no conversion)
--Filters: None
--Input: NA
--Output: NA
--Output Colorspace: YUY2

Wish someone had posted stuff like this when I got started with FFDShow, so here is my setup:

Display type: Sharp Z9000E DLP 100"
Video Cable: VGA
DVD Software: ZoomPlayer 4 Overlay
Zoomplayer Settings: Brightness 740, Contrast 10000, Gamma 1, Hue 0, Saturation 12000
Codec: Nvidia 3.0 beta with Post Processing YV12
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: Intel P4 2.8 (OC'd to 2.9)
Screen Res: 1280x720@60

FFDshow version: latest SSE2 preview
--Resize: 1280x960 NTSC, 1280x1152 PAL (both: Lanczos 4, Luma 1.6, Chroma 0.0)
--Filters: Denoise3d L0.5, C1.0, T5.0 HQ
--Levels: not used
--Colorspace: VY12

Originally posted by wireburn

DVD Software: Theater Tek (outputs YUY2)

--Resize: 1440x960 Spline, no l/c sharpen (maintains YUY2, no conversion)

--Output Colorspace: YUY2

Wireburn, it was my understanding that the DVD spec uses YV12. Does TheaterTek convert YV12 to YUY2?

I'm very curious as I'm using TT and have been using YV12 output colorspace...

Here are my settings:

Display type: JVC SX-21 DILA front projector
110" Stewart StudioTek 130 screen
Video Cable: DVI
DVD Software: TheaterTek (also using ZP).
Overlay (VMR7 on ZP)
TheaterTek settings (default picture settings)
Codec: Standard TT
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600
Driver: Catalyst 4.8
CPU: Intel P4 Prescott 3.2 (OC'd to 3.5)
Screen Res: 1400x1050@48hz (anamorphic lens)

FFDshow version: latest SSE2 preview
--Dscaler Sharpen 20-30
--Picture saturation 65 (to align ffdshow for resize)
--Resize: 1408x1050 Lanczos 4, Luma 0.8-1.0, Chroma 0.0
--Filters: Denoise3d FAST (L.5,C.5,T5 HQ)
--Levels: Tried (16/235 input 0/255 output). Achieved more contrast but caused poor shadow detail. Also tried (0/255) input and 4/255 output) this resulted in improved shadow detail but slightly elevated black level. Not using levels now.
--Colorspace output: VY12

Originally posted by Mark Petersen
Wireburn, it was my understanding that the DVD spec uses YV12. Does TheaterTek convert YV12 to YUY2?

I'm very curious as I'm using TT and have been using YV12 output colorspace...

The output of the Sonic decoders, which the current TT uses, is indeed YUY2.

Originally posted by Mark Petersen
Wireburn, it was my understanding that the DVD spec uses YV12. Does TheaterTek convert YV12 to YUY2?

I'm very curious as I'm using TT and have been using YV12 output colorspace... This was my understanding too. I'm using TT and have FFDShow set to YV12 output. I have input (under Raw Video) set to YUY2, expecting that from TT. I'm probably all screwed up.

I've been doing some testing regarding a phenomenon I noticed caused by FFDShow.

It is a lag or ghost image and I accidentally saw it appear as what looked like a "burn-in" of a CRT. I'm using an LCD projector, BTW. I tried many variations of settings in FFDShow and narrowed this down to the Time parameter of Denoise3D.

You can test this easily at the beginning of Star Wars when it says "In a galaxy far far away..." - right after this goes away on the black background, you can see the image lag for a second or so as if it were burned into the image. It is much fainter of course, so you need a dark room and look very carefully. You may even think you're imagining it at first.

If you turn off Denoise3D you won't see it. I tried playing with the Time parameter and it seemed like a value of 3 or less makes the effect less or gone. I can't be certain (could be my imagination :p) as I had to turn off Fast in my Preview version and use it before Resize and hope it was having an affect.

I think this may be part of why I have seen this lagging of the image in other low-level scenes on poorer quality DVDs. However, I have found Denoise3D instrumental in getting rid of most crawling dot noise in solid and dark stationary backgrounds. I've attempted to list my settings, but they are changing every day. In fact in some cases DXVA looks better so I just turn it off.

For those of you using standard TT overlay settings, try bumping up the Gamma another notch. This is a good test to show some of the detrimental effects of adding post-processing -very apparent in the darker scenes or shadows. It could be my projector setup, but these are the effects I see on occasion at normal Gamma settings, and sometimes I need to turn up brightness or gamma which makes things worse. Someday I might find the right combination of settings I can live with. That's why I've saved different Image Setups for different DVD's, but sometimes I just have to turn it off.

Display type: Sony HS20 LCD Projector
110" Stewart GrayHawk 16:9 screen
Video Cable: DVI to DVI
DVD Software: TheaterTek 1.5.64
Overlay
TheaterTek settings (default picture settings)
Codec: TT Sonic decoders
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9500Pro
Driver: Catalyst 4.6
CPU: Intel P4 Prescott 3.0 (OC'd to 3.15), P4C800E-Deluxe
Screen Res: 1368x768@56
Reclock 1.4 (Yellow Icon)

FFDshow version: latest SSE2 preview
--Input colorspace: YUY2 under Raw Video. Avisynth enabled.
--Dscaler Sharpen 20-32
--Levels: 0/255 Input, 1/255 output (also turns on YV12)
--Avisynth: Script to correct colors
--Resize: 1376x768 Lanczos 4, Luma .2-.6, Chroma 0.0
---sometimes Bicubic, Luma 0.4 for less EE noise
--Filters: Denoise3d FAST (L.5,C.5,T5) wishing for ability to adjust
--Ouput Colorspace: VY12
using ~50% CPU.

Has there been any definitive agreement over the Avisynth script? Is it truly needed?

Originally posted by Carey P
I've been doing some testing regarding a phenomenon I noticed caused by FFDShow.

It is a lag or ghost image and I accidentally saw it appear as what looked like a "burn-in" of a CRT. I'm using an LCD projector, BTW. I tried many variations of settings in FFDShow and narrowed this down to the Time parameter of Denoise3D.

You can test this easily at the beginning of Star Wars when it says "In a galaxy far far away..." - right after this goes away on the black background, you can see the image lag for a second or so as if it were burned into the image. It is much fainter of course, so you need a dark room and look very carefully. You may even think you're imagining it at first.

Cool. I had been noticing this lately and had not chased down the reason. I did think I was seeing things for a while or that there was some long latency in my projector.

Thanks for identifying the cause.

Since this does not fade promptly, I wonder if it is the result of the culling operation that FFDShow uses to avoid processing black areas of the screen. When the screen goes black all the way across, I think it may shut down processing with the last image still visible and thus the residual from denoise 3D continues to be displayed long enough for you to notice it.

dang its soo much easier to see what everyone is talking about now! lol :)
I love how this standardized format for peoples systems makes it easy to see how they are setup. Helps others to get their settings right to match their dvd player and display device also. :)


I have been using FFDshow with Output of YV12 also. Thats what I was told to try a few months ago on this thread. Could someone respond to that? Using Theater Tek also.

Originally posted by jvincent
The output of the Sonic decoders, which the current TT uses, is indeed YUY2.

Interesting, thanks for the heads up. I'll use YUY2 output with TT from now on.

Since I go back and forth between Zoom Player Pro and TheaterTek I'll probably create to presets under the image directory. One for TT and another for ZP.

There was a reason to use YUY12... I believe it was speed concerns. Also, if the Sonic decoder OUTPUT is at YUY2 then wouldn't you want the TT INPUT to be YUY2 and the output to be whatever you wanted?

Originally posted by madpoet
There was a reason to use YUY12... I believe it was speed concerns. Also, if the Sonic decoder OUTPUT is at YUY2 then wouldn't you want the TT INPUT to be YUY2 and the output to be whatever you wanted? That's what I thought. Is this not the correct order?:
TT-->FFDShow-->ATI-->Projector

Originally posted by madpoet
There was a reason to use YUY12... I believe it was speed concerns.

Also, if the Sonic decoder OUTPUT is at YUY2 then wouldn't you want the TT INPUT to be YUY2 and the output to be whatever you wanted?

Was the speed concern a Sonic Decoder issue or a ffdshow issue?

Also, it does makes sense to me that you would want the ffdshow input to match whatever colorspace the decoder uses and then have it mapped to a desirable output colorspace. This begs the question though of what is the desirable output colorspace. For a digital device and DVI would this be RGB32. So I would use YUY12 input and RGB32 output? Looks like I have a few more combinations to try :)

I believe that setting FFDShow OUTPUT to YUY2 slows it down because Andy optimized it for YUV12. THat was a bit ago however, and he might have changed it.

Ok. I trhink I discovered what causes the image lag I spoke of earlier. I tried the suggestion of processing the "whole" image, but that is not it.

I can't be 100% certain, but the new optimized Fast Denoise3D is the cause. If I have Denoise3D BEFORE Resize, I can turn off Fast and presumably use different parameters. It appears that just having it BEFORE resize is enough to cure the problem. However, I can't try it with Fast checked as this will cause a Fatal Error in either Reclock (if running) or TheaterTek (if Reclock is not running). Either way TT stops and I can't try that setting.

If I use Denoise3D AFTER Resize, I MUST use Fast or else it takes 99% CPU cycles and I can't use it. With this order I see the problem. But I can't try unchecking Fast to see if there is an effect or play with the Time parameter. Note - the Time parameter has no bearing BEFORE resize as the problem is gone even with a Time set to 5.

So I have verified the lag is cause by Denoise3D one way or another if used AFTER Resize. I am now using it before Resize with Fast Unchecked, of course. I am also back to Bicubic and have checked Process Whole image for all modes as safety precaution, which only uses another 2% or so CPU power.

I may go back to an earlier non-Preview version if I find out that Denoise3D works better with HQ mode checked, instead of Fast unchecked.

My FFDshow update.

I bought a Radeon 9600 off ebay for cheap and just installed it today replacing my Radeon 9200se. Now Im full DirectX9 with 10bit video dac :)
It looks to me like my image quality has cleaned up somewhat. Smoother and noise free.

Problem. My demo for Powerstrip has expired and will not allow me to use it anymore. So all I have for a choice with the newest Catalyst 3.7 driver is 1440x960@60hz and 1280x720@60hz. I can't seem to change my refresh rate to 72hz anywhere. Bummer.
So I look at both resolutions and saw that 1440x960 looked decidedly sharper and detailed without much more noticable artifacts. At 1280x720 I could allways see the scan lines from 10' away on my 92"x48" screen.

Right now since Im using a res of 1440x960 I turned off FFDshow resize of 720x480. Just using Denoise3D now with Output YV12 16/235

Display type: Marquee 8500 crt projector
Video Cable: RGB to "Extron 120p" to 5BNC cable 15'
DVD Software: Theater Tek
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9600
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: AMD 1800
Screen Res: 1440x960@60hz

FFDshow version: 04272004
--Resize: n/a
--Filters: Denoise3D 0, 1, 5, HQ
--Input: 0/255
--Output: 16/235 YV12

Originally posted by Carey P
I may go back to an earlier non-Preview version if I find out that Denoise3D works better with HQ mode checked, instead of Fast unchecked.

HQ mode checked in older versions is the same as Fast unchecked in the preview version. The old HQ mode is now used if u uncheck Fast. For the crash before resize, i think i found the error. I will try to compile a new preview version with little bugfixes. Still had no time to fully rewrite the stuff im working on.

PS: still in relocation stress/chaos...

My demo for Powerstrip has expired and will not allow me to use it anymore

Fer crying out loud, is $30.00 going to kill ya?

For around the price of a DVD or two, you can buy a legal copy over the Internet.

I just don't understand how people can begrudge the developers of a critical and very reasonably priced piece of the HTPC equation a few measly $......

I purchased this software years ago, and have never regretted it.

Just my $.02.

Vern

Vern I didn't say I wouldn't pay it. I've allways considered doing but held off from laziness and the news that Catalyst drivers are going to support the res I needed. The latest drivers now do give you 1440x960 and 1280x720 (I think...they are there for my use and everytime I try to run Powerstrip I get that expired mssg) but both those res are only at 60hz. I don't remember reading that when Catalyst drivers do finnally support those to res that they would only be at 60hz. Just found all this out 5 min before the family was getting ready to watch out rented dvd movie.
They were coming in with popcorn and I still had to reconverge the projector for 1440x960@60hz. WHich btw looked surprisingly better than the last time I tried that res.

Originally posted by AndyIEG
HQ mode checked in older versions is the same as Fast unchecked in the preview version. The old HQ mode is now used if u uncheck Fast. For the crash before resize, i think i found the error. I will try to compile a new preview version with little bugfixes. Still had no time to fully rewrite the stuff im working on.

PS: still in relocation stress/chaos... Thank you.:) That's good news. I'll leave the Preview version intact for now.

What do you think might be the cause of that image lag? Especially since it occurs only with D3D after Resize. I'd rather use D3D after Resize, since you said it would work better there.

I now realize that the lag is actually permanent until something else takes over the scene. It occurs on any bright area against a dark background that quickly moves or goes away. It leaves an imprint of itself. A better test to see this is by using Chapter Next right after the 20th Century logo appears fully in Star Wars. Then you'll see a black background with the logo dimly burned into the image. Then the "In a Galaxy..." line shows up and when this dissapears, you see this in addition to the logo. You can see them both until a bright scene takes over the field. There is no time delay, but it's permanent until wiped out by something else.

I think this was the reason I was seeing a ghosting of images before - kind of a trailing image in some low-level scenes. Anyway, didn't want to disturb your chaos. Just wanted to help by clarifying it a bit further. Good luck.

Regarding YUY2 input to FFDShow w/TT:

If you use any of the filters except resize, FFDShow converts to YV12. If you only use the resize filter, no coversion takes place, hence no slowdown when outputting YUY2 in this case.

I've tried to denoise and sharpen, but I have found that the best image is produced through scaling only.

-Mike

Regarding YUY2 input to FFDShow w/TT:

If you use any of the filters except resize, FFDShow converts to YV12. If you only use the resize filter, no coversion takes place, hence no slowdown when outputting YUY2 in this case.

I've tried to denoise and sharpen, but I have found that the best image is produced through scaling only.

-Mike

Thanks for the YUY2 feedback Mike! Could you post your setup? I'm curious about your findings regarding use of sharpen and denoise.

Does anybody not use Denoise3D?

I don't use any form of denoise. To my eyes they all degrade the image from the original. I see no reason to remove things like film grain that were present in the original source.

Vern

For me, Denoise3D stops the moving bitrate noise (mosquito noise?) in backgrounds or close ups [Note, this is not film grain I'm referring to here.] I only set it high enough to stop the movement, but not to cause blotchiness in skin textures. It may affect film grain too to some degree, but I'll accept that side effect, if that's true.

Using any of the other filters or combinations thereof without D3D, even with FFDShow off (DXVA only), gives me that noise. So I'm hooked on it for now. :D

I tried to see what using just Resize would do but only but get a green screen. Need something before it to switch to YV12 space. I don't see how it can be used alone with YUY2 input and YUY2 output with TT, but I probably didn't understand what Mike was suggesting. Of course, adding LEVELS or PP with a minor change is enough. In any case, I still need D3D if I'm to use FFDShow at all.

Originally posted by Carey P
What do you think might be the cause of that image lag? Especially since it occurs only with D3D after Resize. I'd rather use D3D after Resize, since you said it would work better there.

As D3D is a temporal filter (acts in the time domain) it isn't surprising that there is some effect like this seen now and then...

As far as YUY2 input to FFDShow my understanding is that FFDShow will always convert to YV12 for any post-processing, including resize. YV12 compresses chroma info, so working in this colorspace reduces the signal bandwith, hence improves processing speed. I might be wrong though - last couple of month I haven't spend that much time around this board.

As far as denoise, I don't use it in FFDShow, however I use two substitutes.

First is denoise filter on my Samsung HLN617W display. This one is extremely mild and I really can't notice any detail reduction no matter how hard I tried, and god knows I am picky. I am sure it does reduce detail, as there is no such thing as a perfect filter, but I just can't notice it. Samsung's filter leaves film grain and more medium to severe cases of mosquitos and the gang. I am quite sure it is some kind of temporal filter.

Second "substitute" is AA and AF processing in my video card. This is a wonderful thing as it is not a filter, and therefore does not reduce detail, but does have the effect of reducing the noise as well as edge enhancement. It does change the original image, but IMO it actualy introduces a new level of detail, especially in combination with some other 3D tweaks. AF and AA are kind of scaling (AF) and upsampling funtions (AA) of video card hardware when composing the image through VMR renderers. There are several threads where I described how this works (or is supposed to work), so whoever is interested can do "AA and AF" search. I don't know anybody else who is using these functions with success, as it boils down to video card hardware and driver support, possibly decoder or front-end support, and of course personal preferences.

Noise like/dislike is a function of display technology, display size, seating distance, source material (not sure if you want to denoise HD signal, I don't) and ultimately personal preference, so it is not likely there will be a consensus on this one any time soon. It is a matter of fact that most people do use denoise in FFDShow.

I’m pleased that someone else can see Mpeg2 compression artifacts and noise (mosquito noise).
I personally find these DVD defects very distracting. They are a constant reminder that I am watching digital video.
Denoise3d does a very good job of suppressing these most unwelcome aspects of DVD performance.

As fare as I know only Andys “preview” build is restricted to YV12 input to the resize filter.
I suspect that this is only because he left out the YUV2-YV12 conversion routine from the preview resize filter.
So, if you want to use YUV2 with resize without using another filter before resize, try an older build.

I don’t think Andy ever said that Denoise3d works better after resize, just that the “preview” version was fast enough to be used there.
I have said that Denoise3d should work more subtly after resize, as do most filters.

The people that had problems with skin texture using Denoise3d should try using it after resize. On my system, using Denoise3d after resize to 1920x1080 has indeed proved to be more subtle then when used before resize, although noise reduction performance is reduced due to the inability to adjust Luma and Chroma with the preview build.
I have not noticed image lag is any worse when Denoise3d is used after resize, but I have not had time to really test it out on a wide variety on DVD’s either, so time will tell on that one.

Regards,

Owen

Thanks for the explanation. Yes, indeed it was you that mentioned the more subtle effect after Resize. I was hoping to use it there again on a future build. I just want to emphasize that the "lag" is definitely NOT noticeable at all, at least on my system, when used before Resize.

I think the HS20 is particularly sensitive to all these effects (including mpeg compression artifacts), much more than my previous projector. Before, I had two lens systems tacked on the front, less CR, a weaker bulb, and less resolution to begin with. I never had the perfectly registered, sharp and bright image I do now. So now I'm forced to be a lot more critical. Many of the harsher filter settings worked great before on a less detailed image to start with. Now I see every subtle effect there is when changing the settings. I suppose this could be both good and bad.:confused:

I don't use denoise at all. I posted a few pages back asking why people used it. I have never been pleased with the way my pq looks with denoise (getting to crawling/floating skin textures, even on after-resize Fast at 5-10 seconds), and actually use the noise filter.

My ffdshow settings:
Sharpen - Unsharp Mask - strength 1 - to change to YV12
Resize to 1920x1080, Lanczos 4, no sharpen
Noise, New Algo, Uniform, Luminance Noise 13-15 (sometimes change, depending on movie)
Overlay - boost brightness to 468, Contrast to 8562
Output YV12

This is on:
Samsung HLN4365W DLP
VGA
nVidia GeForce 5200 Ultra 128MB
HP Media Center HTPC
P4 2.8GHz 512 RAM
Zoom Player Pro
FFDSHOW Aug 1 SSE2 preview

Its really tough making adjustments, restarting Theater Tek then watching for changes. Sometimes I wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me or I can't just seem to notice much differance because of not so perfect optical and mechanical converging. Then you have video cards to worry about, video cables, good or bad DVD's, drivers, etc etc.

I know that alot of us are confused as I am because unlike Owen we don't sit for hours and hours day after day making adjustments and looking at the results lol.
Heck, after work I barely have time to play computer game for 2 hours, have dinner, watching a dvd movie then get to bed. Then I have to fit in a few hours of listening to vinyl records! WIsh I could just quit working and sponge off the wife :)

Hi, I have a big problem:

I use ffdshow with zoomplayer 3 pro and windvd 6 filters, on a radeon 9600SE. Everything is fine when using overlay. But when I activate vmr9 output, it works without ffdshow, but as soon as I add it to the filters, the PC just reboots when the DVD starts.

Any idea what I am doing wrong??

Oh and I'm using ffdshow version 20040725, the more recent releases are much slower for me (couldn't do a lancsoz resize without stuttering anymore).

Thanks

Originally posted by Mark Petersen
Thanks for the YUY2 feedback Mike! Could you post your setup?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4227787#post4227787

I'm curious about your findings regarding use of sharpen and denoise.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3933152#post3933152 got me started checking into YUY2 all the way through the chain, then I saw this http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=3935339#post3935339 and decided to try it. Haven't gone back since.

Sharpen and denoise for me don't look natural. The things they do to esp. poor transfers doesn't look good at all to me. YMMV.

-Mike

stoub - Two possibilites come to mind.

1. Program error and you have set Windows to automatically reboot on an error. Turn this off to see if Windows detected an error.

2. Power. Using the 3D capabilities of the video card will crank up its power demands. If the PSU cannot deliver the power, the mobo will reset the CPU - instant reboot. Try unloading the PSU by lowering the FSB and/or removing a stick of memory (if you have two).

Originally posted by vpopovic
Second "substitute" is AA and AF processing in my video card. This is a wonderful thing as it is not a filter, and therefore does not reduce detail, but does have the effect of reducing the noise as well as edge enhancement. It does change the original image, but IMO it actualy introduces a new level of detail, especially in combination with some other 3D tweaks. AF and AA are kind of scaling (AF) and upsampling funtions (AA) of video card hardware when composing the image through VMR renderers.

Just out of curiosity, how do you determine these are not "filters" but the software operations are? AA and AF are just hardware implementations in the graphics pipeline of things that can be done in software as filters. AA depending on what setting you choose scales the image up to a multiple of the image resolution and then scales it back down. In 3D land it actually renders at a multiple of the screen resolution to get rid of jaggies. In video land I assume it just scales the image up and back down. What you're seeing is just a really large resize (using whatever algorithm the card uses) and it getting scaled back down.

That said, I do actually use AA and AF on my 5700U to get a little extra "free" scaling that doesn't cost me any CPU cycles. With TT2.0 coming out and the NVidia decoder using the GPU to deinterlace I may try eliminating ffdshow and going DXVA alond with AA and AF to see how a complete hardware solution does.

-Pat

Well, for the PSU power, I doubt that she has a problem. Its almost new, and its a 400W power supply, and not very loaded : a small radeon 9600SE, one hard drive, and one DVD drive :-(

I will try to lower the overclocking, but I often use 100% cpu during my testings without any reboot, so...

I'll try to upgrade my catalyst drivers maybe, as I tried the same thing (playing with zp/ffdshow on vmr9) on my other computer, and it works. The only difference between the 2 being the catalyst drivers (4.7 on the one crashing I think, 4.8 beta on the other).

cyberbri,

Mind if I ask why you resize to 1920x1080 and let the Sammy side convert back to 1280x720? Why not resize to the native rez of your DLP? I have an HLN617W1 that I will hopefully be setting up to be an HTPC, so I am keeping a close eye on everyone that owns a Sammy current setups.

Thanks,
Jeff


Originally posted by cyberbri
I don't use denoise at all. I posted a few pages back asking why people used it. I have never been pleased with the way my pq looks with denoise (getting to crawling/floating skin textures, even on after-resize Fast at 5-10 seconds), and actually use the noise filter.

My ffdshow settings:
Sharpen - Unsharp Mask - strength 1 - to change to YV12
Resize to 1920x1080, Lanczos 4, no sharpen
Noise, New Algo, Uniform, Luminance Noise 13-15 (sometimes change, depending on movie)
Overlay - boost brightness to 468, Contrast to 8562
Output YV12

This is on:
Samsung HLN4365W DLP
VGA
nVidia GeForce 5200 Ultra 128MB
HP Media Center HTPC
P4 2.8GHz 512 RAM
Zoom Player Pro
FFDSHOW Aug 1 SSE2 preview

The picture just appears sharper at a higher resize. Plus, Noise (I like to add a slight amount of noise to the picture) is much finer at this resolution.

And at that configuration, I only use about 50% CPU power anyway.

cyberbri,

Fair enough. Thanks for the feedback.

Regs,
Jeff

Jeff, there are 2 camps on the resize. 1 camp says resize as high as you can and let your card scale it back down. The other says resize to your desktop rez (which presumably is your native rez for your display) and it will get you a cleaner picture. The honest truth is, try it yourself and see what works best.

I would like to do a little survey of FFDShow users who have used Denoise3d.

I need to hear from the people that like Denoise3d and have no problems with picture quality and from people who dislike Denoise3d or have problems with quality.

Can you please supply the following information.

1. Is Denoise3d used before or after resize?
2. Denoise3d settings for Luma, Chroma, Time.
3. Perceived quality, good or bad.
4. Display type (Digital or Analogue CRT), display size and viewing distance.

The results will be interesting. :D

Thanks,

Owen

___________________________
The FFDShow resize-sharpen dude.

PAL DVD

ffdshow-20040709_SSE2.exe (Thanks Andy)

P4 3GHZ FSB800
Radeon 9700 pro
Terratec dmx 6 fire lt
TT 1.5.64
Reclock 1.4
PowerStrip 1024x576 50Hz

Denoise 3D 0.5 1 5 HQ
Resize Lanczos 1024x576 Parameter 4 Luma 0.7 Croma 0.4
Unsharp 15
Offset luma x+1 y+1
CPU 65%

-Or Zoomplayer with intervideo ,output colorspace RGB32 , VMR9 .
85% CPU

Entry level CRT SIM2 500HD
Screen 16:9 110"
Viewing distance 4,5 M

Very pleased with this setup ... the best until now :)

Antonio

Originally posted by cyberbri
I don't use denoise at all. I posted a few pages back asking why people used it. I have never been pleased with the way my pq looks with denoise (getting to crawling/floating skin textures, even on after-resize Fast at 5-10 seconds), and actually use the noise filter.

My ffdshow settings:
Sharpen - Unsharp Mask - strength 1 - to change to YV12
Resize to 1920x1080, Lanczos 4, no sharpen
Noise, New Algo, Uniform, Luminance Noise 13-15 (sometimes change, depending on movie)
Overlay - boost brightness to 468, Contrast to 8562
Output YV12

This is on:
Samsung HLN4365W DLP
VGA
nVidia GeForce 5200 Ultra 128MB
HP Media Center HTPC
P4 2.8GHz 512 RAM
Zoom Player Pro
FFDSHOW Aug 1 SSE2 preview

Why don't you use VMR9 rather than Overlay? I though VMR9/7 is better on Nvidia cards than Overlay in order to use the built-in 128-bit floating point thingamajiggy.

Display type: Marquee 8500 crt projector
Video Cable: RGB to "Extron 120p" to 5BNC cable 15'
DVD Software: Theater Tek
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9600
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: AMD 1800
Screen Res: 1280x720@72hz

FFDshow version: 04272004
--Resize: None
--Filters: Denoise3D 0, 1, 5, HQ
--Input: 0/255
--Output: 16/235 YV12

Well, like I mentioned before it sure is hard to see differances sometimes.
But I THINK my DVD movies look better with Denoise turned ON.
But I havn't tried using DVIX only in TheaterTek and cranking up AA and AA in my radeon card settings. Maybe I should try that.
I keep my Unity to off on my Extron.

Pffff ok i found my problem...

Windows was crashing on a file name "ttp9.sys". After some research I saw that it was related to my Aureon sound card. In zoomplayer I changed the sound output from "aureon wave" to "default directsound output"... And it stopped crashing.

The mysteries of winblows....

Display type: Sony GWIII 42" (42WE610)
Viewing Distance: 8.5'
Video Cable: DVI
DVD Software: Zoomplayer 4.00
Codecs: Elecard 2.3, Reclock 1.4, WinDVD audio all @ VMR9
Video Card: FX5900XT
Driver: 61.77
CPU: P4 2.8C 512DDR
Screen Rez: 1384x760@60hz

FFDShow version: 20040801preview
i. Picture Properties - Saturation = +1 (65)
ii. Lanczos4 resize 1440x960 - L=1.0 & C=0.0
iii. Denoise3d - 1.0, 2.0, 5, FAST
iv. Output: YV12 only

Denoise works awesome with this version of FFDShow after resize. Kind of not sure about whether it needs to be set so high though.

Ok now that I managed to run ffdshow with the vmr9 output, I have a problem; there is lots of tearing all over the image, what can i do to reduce this?

I'm using a radeon 9600SE, with direct9.0c installed... The picture seems a little more detailed and smooth, but with that tearing i prefer overlay :-(

madpoet,

Thanks again. As usual, it'll come down to trying things out and seeing what's what. I just wanted to get an idea of what people with similar display setups were doing so I had some idea of a "square one" type setup to try.

Thanks,
Jeff


Originally posted by madpoet
Jeff, there are 2 camps on the resize. 1 camp says resize as high as you can and let your card scale it back down. The other says resize to your desktop rez (which presumably is your native rez for your display) and it will get you a cleaner picture. The honest truth is, try it yourself and see what works best.

Display type: Sony HS20 LCD Digital Projector
Display Res: 1368x768@56Hz
54"x96"" Stewart GrayHawk 16:9 screen
Seating dist: 12ft
Video Cable: DVI to DVI
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9500Pro
Driver: Catalyst 4.6 set to 1368x768 for 1:1 mapping
DVD Software: TheaterTek 1.5.64 (Sonic)
TheaterTek settings (default picture settings)
Overlay
Reclock 1.4 (with Yellow Icon)
CPU: Intel P4 Prescott 3.15, P4C800E-Deluxe, 800FSB, 512MB DualDDR, HT is ON, DX 9.0c.

FFDshow version: latest SSE2 Preview
--CODECS setup: YUY2 under Raw Video. Avisynth enabled, all else disabled.
--Dscaler Sharpen 24
--Avisynth: Script to correct colors (works good!)
--Denoise3d (L .5,C 1.0,T 5) Fast not checked (HQ mode)
--Resize: 1376x768 Bicubic, Luma .2-.4, Chroma 0.0 (Lanczos makes EE worse)
--Output Colorspace: YV12
using ~50% CPU.

Can't use D3D after resize or image lag is seen. Denoise3D necessary to remove moving mpeg compression noise. No blotchiness noticed on skin textures at this level, though closeups with slight movement can show alternating between frozen textures and crawling noise. Only annoying on low bitrate transfers.

Denoise3D survey:

1. Denoise3D used before resize to 1280x768

2. Luma = 0.5; Chroma = 0.5; Time = 5

3. Denoise3D does cause a mild blur in areas of consistent color (skin; sky), especially in low-bitrate / badly encoded transfers. The 'time' setting seems to exacerbate this deficiency the most (set time to 10 to really see what I'm talking about). However, this problem is offset with an incredibly good reduction in compression noise, which is otherwise quite visible on my setup even on decently encoded DVDs. Also, I've found that Denoise3D has little effect on film grain with my settings, which is a good thing IMO (I'm an 'as-it-looked-in-the-theater' proponent). I would use Denoise3D after resize, but that's too slow in the 20040709 version, and I can't use the preview version, because postprocessing is horrendously slow in that build (I need PP for medium-quality DVD rips).

4. 17" widescreen LCD @ 1280x768; roughly a two-foot viewing distance.

Flanger

I'm done using denoise3D (because of the lag issue).

Preview version:
Dscaler sharpen_SSE2 at 40
Resize Lanczos4 L:0,82 1440x960
Gradual denoise at 18
YUV12 out

Desktop at 1280x720@72Hz
Radeon9000 pro
TheaterTek
E'home 8500 CRT

Hey everyone. I just purchased zoom player, the sonic cine player codec pack, and downloaded ffdshow and dscaler.

What settings should I use on ffdshow:
Comp specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Radeon 9800 pro
1 gig of ddr 400 ram
55" Mitsubishi 55819
Dekstop at 1176x1000 60hz

Thanks!

Thanks for the response guys, but in future, please use the revised format below to keep it simple.
I don’t need your complete setup or hardware list.

1. Is Denoise3d used before or after resize.
2. Resize settings.
2. Denoise3d settings for Luma, Chroma, Time.
3. Display type (Digital or Analogue CRT) and refresh rate.
4. Display size.
5. Desktop resolution.
6. Viewing distance.
7. Comments on perceived quality, good, bad etc.

If your display is using noise reduction (Sammy DLD etc), that would also be relevant.

I am tying to get a handle on why Denoise3d works better for some people then others.

Thanks,

Owen

Originally posted by nick9871
Hey everyone. I just purchased zoom player, the sonic cine player codec pack, and downloaded ffdshow and dscaler.

What settings should I use on ffdshow:
Comp specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Radeon 9800 pro
1 gig of ddr 400 ram
55" Mitsubishi 55819
Dekstop at 1176x1000 60hz

Thanks!

Do your research, then decide for yourself. Your'e not getting off that easily. Most members will just ignore a post like this, newbie.

Hi all, I've been reading through the last 30 pages or so of this thread and it has answer alot of my questions, mainly whether or not I should fool with ffdshow. It also raised a lot so I thought I'd post them to get fielded. Couple of quick specs so you have something to base your statements on. I have a GWIII 50", P4 2.8, ATI 9800 Pro with 4.8 Drivers, Zoomplayer 4.0, WinDVD 6.0 Codecs with the abstract registry tweak for FFDShow.

1) Whats the specific advantage of resizing? I have my desktop resolution set at 1280x720. Why would resizing to 1440x960 create an improvement if its going to be resized again to output at 1280x720. Would I be better off running the resize at 1280x720? Or would I see an even larger improvment running my desktop at 1440x960 and then running resize at 1440x960?

2) Do the WinDVD codes provide the best video quality? I thought I saw something called Elecard, are they worth the money? Am I going to be able to say, man, this is so much better than WinDVD?

3) I saw that putting the denoise3d filter ahead of the resizing creates a green screen. Not that I understand that but the solution was to put a color saturation filter before the resize. What does this color saturation filter do? For some reason the word saturation invokes bad images to me.

4) What does the color level settings do? I read that the input should be set to 0-255 while the output should either be 16-235 / 16-255 (Different for each setup). How do I figure this out? I have the monsters, inc. DVD to play with the THX setup. What am I looking for? I also have the DVE disc, with this help with the darker than dark pluge tests?

5) Can someone tell me EXACTLY what versions of FFDShow and Dscaler I need to find? There about 8 billion version on the internet. Do I even need the Dscaler download because I think FFDshow comes packaged witht he FLT_Sharpness.dll now?

6) Can someone explain to me color space? I understand what RGB, but what is YV12 and some of the other ones?

7) Finally, I've followed joe's posts and since we have a similar setup I was going to use his settings. Do these look correct?

VMR9 in ZP
DScaler @ 32
Picture Prop. - Saturation @ 65
Resize to 1280x720 or 1440x960 as discussed above
Lanzcos4 @ 0.8 0.0
Denoise3d @ 1.0 2.0 5 FAST

Thanks so much for all your help.

Nathan Harris

Sorry for the length, but I'd rather ask questions and understand rather than just blindly put settings in my computer.

Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I hit send, 1 more quick question popped in my head. I use sage TV with a PVR 250, can I use ffdshow with sage? If so how, or point me in the direction fo the faq.

Originally posted by iamnaeth
1) Whats the specific advantage of resizing? I have my desktop resolution set at 1280x720. Why would resizing to 1440x960 create an improvement if its going to be resized again to output at 1280x720. Would I be better off running the resize at 1280x720? Or would I see an even larger improvment running my desktop at 1440x960 and then running resize at 1440x960?


Technically you don't have to resize at all. If your desktop is at 1280x720, the picture is already being resized to that. The advantage of doing it with ffdshow is you are having it scaled with special algorithms (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) so the up-converting is even better.

For the advantage of resizing to higher than your desktop resolution, that's up to you. I feel that I get a better picture when upscaling to 1920x1080, then outputting it at my desktop res at 1280x720. Try both to see what looks best to your eyes.


2) Do the WinDVD codes provide the best video quality? I thought I saw something called Elecard, are they worth the money? Am I going to be able to say, man, this is so much better than WinDVD?


Can't answer this.


3) I saw that putting the denoise3d filter ahead of the resizing creates a green screen. Not that I understand that but the solution was to put a color saturation filter before the resize. What does this color saturation filter do? For some reason the word saturation invokes bad images to me.


Normally you need some sort of filter, whether it's saturation or sharpen (at a minimal setting) to change the color space to YV12, so the resize can function properly. Normally without anything before resize, you get a green screen.

Any filter should work. I have unsharp mask at a strength of 1 before my resize.



4) What does the color level settings do? I read that the input should be set to 0-255 while the output should either be 16-235 / 16-255 (Different for each setup). How do I figure this out? I have the monsters, inc. DVD to play with the THX setup. What am I looking for? I also have the DVE disc, with this help with the darker than dark pluge tests?


This will depend on your setup and display.
At first I was using Levels Output at 16/235 to get rid of the high contrast (while others were saying they needed Input at 16/235 to add more contrast). Now I use brightness and contrast in the ffdshow Overlay panel.

Use the THX setup on your Monsters Inc disc and go to the THX dropshadow screen. You should be able to see a very dark grey to black background, a THX in the middle, and grayscale bars around the four sides. You're supposed to adjust it so you can see the THX dropshadow, than take it back down to where it's barely visible. You should also be able to see seven shades of gray-black along the top and bottom.

I use this, then check chapter 3 of Matrix Reloaded (scene where Neo comes upstairs and is handed the earpiece - should be able to see his jacket in dark grey, with buttons visible - if darks are too black, his jacket is just black), plus the cave/spider scene in Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets (should be able to see the detail in the spider's face - if darks are too black, you can't see anything). One thing I try if I need to have a reference is put the DVD in my regular DVD player and see how much detail is there in the darks, so I know how much I should be aiming for in ZP/ffdshow.



5) Can someone tell me EXACTLY what versions of FFDShow and Dscaler I need to find? There about 8 billion version on the internet. Do I even need the Dscaler download because I think FFDshow comes packaged witht he FLT_Sharpness.dll now?


I don't know what you _should_ use. I use the August 1 SSE2 preview (I think you need a P4 for this), and I don't use Dscaler.


6) Can someone explain to me color space? I understand what RGB, but what is YV12 and some of the other ones?


I don't understand this perfectly myself.
I just know that I use a filter to change to YV12 for resize, and only have YV12 checked in output.



7) Finally, I've followed joe's posts and since we have a similar setup I was going to use his settings. Do these look correct?

VMR9 in ZP
DScaler @ 32
Picture Prop. - Saturation @ 65
Resize to 1280x720 or 1440x960 as discussed above
Lanzcos4 @ 0.8 0.0
Denoise3d @ 1.0 2.0 5 FAST


If it looks good to you, you should be fine.
Although I think with FAST checked, the defaults for L/C become .5, and anything under .8 is treated as 0.


I went through a few months of tweaking and tweaking, trying to get a good picture, but also struggling with freezing picture every 5-10 minutes. I upgraded from WinDVD 4 to WinDVD 6 codecs, and now my picture is fine (a few dropped frames every once in a while).

Now I have these as my settings (I'm not big on sharpening or denoise, and add a tiny bit of noise for texture/depth and sharpness)

ZP Pro 4, WinDVD 6 video, Nvidia NVDVD audio, DMO_Absract fix
Sharpness - Unsharp Mask @ 1 (to invoke YV12)
Resize - 1920x1080, Lanczos 4, no sharpen
Noise - New Algo, Uniform noise, strength 13-15
Overlay panel - Brightness around 800, Contrast around 8K-9K
(was using Levels Output adjustments, but like the results this way better)
Output YV12


HTH

When using the the presets for FFDShow what do the preset autoload conditions - volume name and volume serial number represent? Can someone explain this and/or provide an example? Thanks

I've never used it, but I imagine that would be to set ffdshow to autoload different presets for different DVDs - say you wanted a different preset for older movies, one for clean transfer movies, a specific one for a specific movie, etc.

Originally posted by Owen
I would like to do a little survey of FFDShow users who have used Denoise3d.



1. Is Denoise3d used before or after resize?
Not used, but was tried before

2. Denoise3d settings for Luma, Chroma, Time.
N/A, but when tried was 0.5, 1, 5

3. Perceived quality, good or bad.

Noted improved noise on backgrounds, but didn't like effect on skin detail.

4. Display type (Digital or Analogue CRT), display size and viewing distance.

Digital, Panasonic L300 LCD projector, 100" at about 12-15 feet.

Big news

I've been checking out Theater Tek 2 and the new Forceware 4.0 codexs.
Learned a few things thats huge to me. Getting me all excited! :)
I want to run it past the FFDshow experts and see what they all think.

I learned from that TT2 programers that their programs and Forceware 4.0 will support some impressive advanced "superduper nucleur prime grade" video processing features. Not sure the exact nature of it all, but, I'm willing to believe what these people are saying. I confirmed some of it by reading other threads on AVS forum on Forceware 4.0 codexs.

Now down to the meat of it that most us non-programers can understand.
Only the newest nVidia 6600 and up video cards have these features. nVidia 5900 and under do not.
nVidia 6600 cards will be out anytime now but as a PCI-Express card. The AGP versions within a month later.

Theater Tek 2 in DVXA mode is a video card process for resizing. FFDshow does this in software mode. FFDshow is suppose to be a superior resize in software mode vs the hardware mode of TT1. But now with the new Forceware 4.0 codexs combined with the newest nVidia video cards it may not be.
Theater Tek 2 will still do PPA in either software or hardware mode.
So you can still use FFDshow in software mode and have TT2 use its PPA.

So any opinions on which will look better?
TT2 does not need very expensive SSE2 instruction set CPU's if in hardware mode with a nVidia 6600 and up card.

Oops... updated...

1. Is Denoise3d used before or after resize.
As above
2. Resize settings.
1440 x 1152, Lanzcos 3 no sharpen
2. Denoise3d settings for Luma, Chroma, Time.
as above
3. Display type (Digital or Analogue CRT) and refresh rate.
as above refresh 50Hz
4. Display size.
as above
5. Desktop resolution.
960 x 540 (as close as you can get to native for this PJ using Powerstrip)
6. Viewing distance.
As above
7. Comments on perceived quality, good, bad etc.
As above

Stylin, I think you misunderstood Andrew's quote.

Now this is really interesting. If TT 2.0 is out it is the most quiet release ever. Anyway, since nobody from TT's team bothered to answer my questions and I already have Nvidia 4.0 decoders I am not really interested.

As world moves on, new hardware offers new features. So 6xxx series of cards is said to have more advanced video processing features than 5xxx series of cards. What exactly is the difference is difficult to tell. I never saw anything that would make me go out and get me one of those. HDR rendering is actualy the only thing that really interests me with respect to 6xxx series of cards, but none of the members that have them reported any real advancements. As far as 6xxx series of cards being able to do resize better than FFDShow, if it is true, I have missed it. As far as I know the basic scaling algorithim is still the same as in 5xxx series of cards. They might have improved on some of DXVA features, but I have not heard it beats software mode with FFDShow. If by "scaling" they mean AA and AF, that is nothing new and 5xxx of cards can do it. AA algorithm changed to rotated grid aliansing, which is an improvement, but this in not something that will make you acquire a new card. AF on 6xxx cards is still the same 16x max as on 5xxx of cards.

So interesing as it might be, I am not convinced that there are any earth shattering improvements in performance of 6xxx series of cards, and definitely not willing to buy another video card just to try it out. If there was sufficient official public information available about the performance of these cards in video arena (especially with Nvidia 4.0 codec) and all the relevant features it could be a different story.

I just built my HTPC and have it up and running, after using powerstrip to set the custom driver settings for my Fujitsu plasma 55".

I know everyone has done some hard work here on FFDSHOW, and I was hoping that someone might have already configured it for my plasma model. If so, I'd love the settings as it would save me a great deal of time. As always, I will give back in research in other areas of the forum as I have in the past.

Thanks to anyone that replies.
Gareth

Hi all, followup on my previous post. Just a quick setting question or two. When selecting the DeNoise3d, where is the "fast" option? I can't find it anywhere and I downloaded the most recent version of ffdshow from this forum. Also, where do you specifically select YV12 versus RGB in the picture properties? Finally, is there a huge difference between lanzcos4 versus 3 versus 5, etc. Thanks!

Newbie question
Hi

Trying to use ffdshow with windvd6 codec (6.0.6.42) with zoomplayer pro4.00. I just can't get it to work. Trying to set
* blur & NR--Gradual denoise =25

But all I get is the first frame when starting a movie, then it stalls. No error or anything and the sound keeps on going. It's like somebody pressed pause on the film! It doesn't matter what settings I have in ffdshow it's still the same.
Has anybody seen this?
Is there a solution?

tried 3-4 diff versions (the latest) of ffdshow but still the same


Machine:
directx9C
1.8 Ghz computer
512 Mb Ram
Nvidia Geforce 2 Mx 400
windows XP with SP1 (tried SP2 but no good)


Please help

Lasse

Originally posted by cyberbri
I've never used it, but I imagine that would be to set ffdshow to autoload different presets for different DVDs - say you wanted a different preset for older movies, one for clean transfer movies, a specific one for a specific movie, etc.

That would be nice but I still don't know what those fields are for. What information would you place there for the autoload to work?

lar282:

Hi! I had the same problems and solved it by setting the value of
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\InterVideo\DVD6\Pasteurization\In tensity" to 0.
After that you have to set a "filter-chain" in ZP's "Customized Media Playback" for "MPEG2 Transport Video" and "MPEG2 Video" like that:

Intervideo Video Decoder
Intervideo Abstract
ffdshow raw filter


At least for me everything works just fine... :)

What i am curious about is which would look better. TT2 in software mode with FFDshow resize with 2.8ghz P4. Or TT2 in DVXA move with nVidia 6600 card.

Originally posted by iamnaeth
Hi all, followup on my previous post. Just a quick setting question or two. When selecting the DeNoise3d, where is the "fast" option? I can't find it anywhere and I downloaded the most recent version of ffdshow from this forum. Also, where do you specifically select YV12 versus RGB in the picture properties? Finally, is there a huge difference between lanzcos4 versus 3 versus 5, etc. Thanks!

I could be wrong, but I think this is in the 08-01 SSE2 preview version.
Try here: http://ffdshow.leffe.dnsalias.com/andy2222/
But I think this is basically the "time" setting only, since L/C are set to .5, which is treated as "0" (anything under .8 is treated as zero). The main reason you would want this is to put it after a big resize.

Selecting colorspace for output? There should be an Output option at the end of the list in ffdshow.

And the difference between the numbers for Lanczos is the depth of the tap (not that I know what it means). The new 08-01 SSE2 preview version goes up to 4 (that's as far as the optimization goes), and that's what most people seem to use. A huge difference? Try keeping your video running, opening your ffdshow panel, and switching back and forth - I think you'll find that 4 looks better than the lower numbers, but maybe not by a huge difference. If you are worried about speed/CPU usage, definitely get the new 08-01 preview version - it's very, very fast because of all the optimizations.

Originally posted by gEistiO
lar282:

Hi! I had the same problems and solved it by setting the value of
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\InterVideo\DVD6\Pasteurization\In tensity" to 0.
After that you have to set a "filter-chain" in ZP's "Customized Media Playback" for "MPEG2 Transport Video" and "MPEG2 Video" like that:

Intervideo Video Decoder
Intervideo Abstract
ffdshow raw filter


At least for me everything works just fine... :)


For me, I have the WinDVD video codec set, and then in Additional Filters, it's DMO_V Abstract, then ffdshow. Of course I have the Pasteurization set to 0 as well.

Thanks for helping me out so far! Whats the advantage of YV12 versus RGB?

Originally posted by cyberbri
For me, I have the WinDVD video codec set, and then in Additional Filters, it's DMO_V Abstract, then ffdshow. Of course I have the Pasteurization set to 0 as well.

Thanks for the tips. I'll try em tonite when the wif'e asleep.

Forgot the other think...

I have a pvr250 and watching PAL tv. Can I use ffdshow for that too? I saw that in the latest ffdshow that mpeg2 was broken! And I guess that's what the pvr250 uses, right? Is there a another version of ffdshow that works, or will it just screw up my dvd playings?

Thanks again

//Lasse

the Pasteurization trick didn't do it. Same still image on the screen. Nice try though

ANY ideas would be appricated

//Lasse

That could be because you were given bum info if you are trying to play DVD's. ;)

Install the pasteurization filter in the additional filters section of the DVD setup screen, making sure that the ffdshow filter is the last filter in the additional filter list.

Vern

Originally posted by stylinlp
What i am curious about is which would look better. TT2 in software mode with FFDshow resize with 2.8ghz P4. Or TT2 in DVXA move with nVidia 6600 card.

Me too, too bad that neither TT2 or 6600 are out yet. If I look in my crystal ball, I see the "eye" and it tells me that software wins, but DVXA is relatively close (and has always been relatively close).

Originally posted by Vern Dias
That could be because you were given bum info if you are trying to play DVD's. ;)

Install the pasteurization filter in the additional filters section of the DVD setup screen, making sure that the ffdshow filter is the last filter in the additional filter list.

Vern

Man, now I feel really stupid, but I assume u mean to install the filter in zoomplayer right? I don't have it there? Is this filter a optional download maybe?

nobody about the pvr250 deal?

//Lasse

Man, now I feel really stupid, but I assume u mean to install the filter in zoomplayer right? I don't have it there? Is this filter a optional download maybe?

Don't feel bad lar282 I finnaly got abstract filter to work after cyberbri's post. been trying for a long time to get it to work. The secret is to use regedit. goto start then run ... then type regedit then click ok. read cyberbri's post a few above mine and look for the line Hkey _current_user that he mentions. that is the value you must change to 0. Mine was set at 64 I changed it to 0 and bang abstract filter now works without making it weird colors (pasteurization is now zero so no colors yeah)

if you are uncomfortable with using regedit then dont ... but as long as you are careful it should be easy.

The problem I am currently having is that I can only get a video image if I set my video renderer in zoomplayer to overlay mixer. If I try any other option (vmr9,vmr7) the audio continues to play but I have a black screen. Even the info screen shows 0 fps so it simply is not playing but I dont get a error. Is there a setting I am missing somethere so I can use VMR9?

ATI 9600 pro AIW card
zoomplayer pro 402 final
catalyst 4.8
win dvd 5 codec
direct x 9
windows xp pro
p4 @ aprox 3.4 heavily overclocked so I should be able to handle it .
using VGA output to my monovision 30' 16x9 TV VGA in

any ideas?

Originally posted by merlyn29
Don't feel bad lar282 I finnaly got abstract filter to work after cyberbri's post. been trying for a long time to get it to work. The secret is to use regedit. goto start then run ... then type regedit then click ok. read cyberbri's post a few above mine and look for the line Hkey _current_user that he mentions. that is the value you must change to 0. Mine was set at 64 I changed it to 0 and bang abstract filter now works without making it weird colors (pasteurization is now zero so no colors yeah)

if you are uncomfortable with using regedit then dont ... but as long as you are careful it should be easy.

I get that part about the reg key, but. The person who said----
Install the pasteurization filter in the additional filters section of the DVD setup screen, making sure that the ffdshow filter is the last filter in the additional filter list.----

I don't have that filter? not in zoomplayer anyway. I didn't even have the reg keys, but I created it. Where is this filter suppose to be? In zoomplayer or in windvd6?


//Lasse

there is no pasteuization filter that I know of. I think he meant the abstract filter. Not really sure though since he was kinda unclear hehehe.

It is working fine for me with dmo intervideo abstract first then ffdshow under additonal filter in zoomplayer. I used to use the dmo intervideo negative filter and that worked (instead of abstract) but others have said that will effect the image quality some ... but if it works for ya now go ahead and try it
just remove the abstract temporarily and try negative as a temporary solution (it worked for me while i figured it all out).

Originally posted by merlyn29
The problem I am currently having is that I can only get a video image if I set my video renderer in zoomplayer to overlay mixer. If I try any other option (vmr9,vmr7) the audio continues to play but I have a black screen. Even the info screen shows 0 fps so it simply is not playing but I dont get a error. Is there a setting I am missing somethere so I can use VMR9?

ATI 9600 pro AIW card
zoomplayer pro 402 final
catalyst 4.8
win dvd 5 codec
direct x 9
windows xp pro
p4 @ aprox 3.4 heavily overclocked so I should be able to handle it .
using VGA output to my monovision 30' 16x9 TV VGA in

any ideas?

Try AnyDVD or DVDIdle to strip off the macrovision. For whatever reason, the windvd codecs work fine on overlay with macrovision but have the exact problem you're describing on VMR.

-Pat

Can somone explain me how the logoaway works ?
I tried to play with it but I didn't see any effect on the image...

Thx ;)

Try AnyDVD or DVDIdle to strip off the macrovision. For whatever reason, the windvd codecs work fine on overlay with macrovision but have the exact problem you're describing on VMR.

Pcgeek yup that is the problem ... you hit the nail right on the head. I had ruled out macrovison since i am already running DVDidle pro. Well just to double check i ran a dvd-r disk i had here that already had macrovision stripped off it. yup you guessed it dvd played fine ... but only to my local computer monitor. The secondary vga output hooked up to my tv would not show the dvd unless it was on overlay mixer or vmr7 windowed.

I have no idea why VMR9 did not show on my tv ... will have to mess around with settings etc .... maybee its a ati driver issue ... unclicked everything in ffdshow and it still would not work.

I also have no idea why dvdidle pro i am using is not working. might be too old a version. who knows

oh well i am getting closer at least ...

thanks pcgeek

pcgeek,

I also have no idea why dvdidle pro i am using is not working. might be too old a version. who knows

I discovered an issue with DVD Idle where it was not removing MV or doing the region free stuff. I never got it sorted out, went to AnyDVD and subsequently have had no issues whatsoever (with MV or regions at least).

I discovered an issue with DVD Idle where it was not removing MV or doing the region free stuff. I never got it sorted out, went to AnyDVD and subsequently have had no issues whatsoever (with MV or regions at least).

Markstega you are correct. Dvd idle for whatever reason simply is not working. Installed anydvd and have had no problem since. Still cannot play VMR9 but have not had time to really play around and figure out why. Currently playing all movies in VMR7 windowed.

my setup.

Display type: Monovision 30 inch 16 x 9 TV model DM-6552SW purchased from avsforum
computer Display Res: 1600 x 1200 for 21 inch computer monitor (not primary dvd display this is for use with my computer only)
Seating dist: 8 ft
Video Cable: VGA to VGA 45 feet in length with not loss in quality (perceivable)
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600Pro AIW
Driver: Catalyst 4.8 set to 1368x768 @ 62 for (2nd) vga output (of ati card)direct to monovision TV NTSC (max input monovision will accept)
DVD Software: Zoomplayer 402 final with windvd codecs version 5
VMR7 windowed (until i can figure out why VMR9 does not display on 2nd vga output)
CPU: Intel P4 northwood 2.4 @ 3.4 watercooled, ABIT ic7 maxx3 , 800FSB O/C @ 1128, memory @ 900 (5:4) 512MB DualDDR running @ max memory speed settings 2522 (there is nothing faster), HT is ON, DX 9.0c.

FFDshow version: latest SSE2 Preview
--CODECS setup: YUY2 under Raw Video.
settings are constantly changing but currently in this order
--Dscaler Sharpen @ 120 (preview version not sharp enough for me so i crank this)
--sharpen strength 1 (for YV12 conversion)
--Resize: 1920x1080 , Lanczos4 Luma 1.2, Chroma 0.0
--Denoise3d (L .5,C 1.0,T 5) Fast
using ~37% CPU. cycles to spare ... still working on settings...

hummm interesting results .... sharp but mattering on settings it seems to limit "depth of field" meaning that things in focus are very sharp slightly off focus and it is way off in sharpness ... a non preview version of the optomised code may help this.

Any idea why I cannot use the 2nd output of my ati video card (vga) when using VMR9? Screen just turns off so it is not accepting the resolution I guess. Maybee I need to step it down to a different type of output? My 21inch computer monitor displays VMR9 fine. ati driver issue? (set on clone mode - theatre mode - full screen video - 16 x 9 tv ...)

any guesses?

First of all , Hi. I'm new here ;)

I've been reading the thread. Lots of stuff to read. My question is simple , what would be the best ffdshow config to go for my old setup ? I'm outputing via s-video to my widescreen standard resolution tv.

My computer specs:
- AMD Athlon Xp 1800+
- 1 Gig Ram
- Geforce 4 Ti 4600 (gainward) with VIVO , Philips 7108 chip for tv out.
- Detonator 61.77
- Latest ffdshow 28/08/04

I'm using TVtool to go to TV mode using 800x600 and it's going to my philips dwide 28" tv (standard resolution).

Mainly watching dvix/xvid content as i have a philips dvd player outputing via component to my tv.

Should I rezise ? use dnoise for xvid/divx content ?

Thanks for any help provided.

Cheers

[edit] Forgot to mention I use Crystal Player 1.8 and Zoomplayer 4.02.
[edit] I heard about Dscaler is it any good to play divx/xvid movies to output to my tv ?

Seriously if you're using s-video I don't think it matters. The quality is gonna be too low anyway ;)

I am just one step away from receiving HDTV (euro1080) on my pioneer
plasma

I am using FFDshow in my Satellite Software (progdvb) to make a correction
for the rectangular pixels of the plasma tv.

The only problem is that in the Dot by Dot mode of the plasma display the zoom function doesn't work.

With 4:3 material this is now problem because the zoomfunction is not used.

However with 16:9 material i always have to use the zoomfuntion in order
to make the video picture fill the whole plasma screen.

Is there a way to vertically stretch the picture in ffdshow without norrowing it at the same time

To the person wondering about people liking/disliking denoise...

I don't use it at all, but last night watching the original Batman, thought I might try it (Fast, Time 4.0). I turned it on and it looked a little smoother (not necessarily good - lost texture), but watching skin textures, I immediately knew I didn't want to keep it on.

I disagree with the statement that it's not worth it for a 27'' tv. For my Panasonic it makes a rather large change when i use even a basic unsharp mask on the picture at about 30. Since these tvs have a rather low resolution they tend to blur the picture too much for my liking.

Cyberbri,

Did you try D3D after resize with the fast settings? I haven't noticed a degradation in skin textures with this combo. By the same token though, I'm not sure how much smoother the image gets with this combo either. Most of my testing has centered on how much sharpen to use.

Regards,
Mark

Hi All.

Great thread. Anyone running FFDShow with a Matrox Parhelia?

I can't get it to work long enough. The video keeps stopping (after a few seconds) or immediately when I resize Zoomplayer's output window or if I skip to the next DVD chapter.

Only the OSD is turned on - I disabled all the filters since enabling them (like resize & denoise) doesn't help of course.

Using: Parhelia, WinDVD4 codecs, VMR9, ZP WMV Pro 4.02, DX9c, XP SP2, DVI out, no overclocking, RDRAM PC1066

Tried with June and July versions (SSE2 optimized)

Its a clean system with only ZP, FFDShow, WinDVD, Girder and Daemon tools installed.

Any hints?

WINDVD requires a special configuration to run with FFDShow. Search the forum for WINDVD and DMO and abstract. It's been beat to death over the last few years :).

Vern

And I would upgrade from WinDVD 4 to WinDVD 6 as well. Just download the trial version of the software and use the codecs - even when the trial period ends on the software, you can still use the codecs.



Mark Petersen,

Both before and after. I've never liked denoise anyway...
I haven't used any sharpen for a long time either. Just resize, add some noise for texture (it makes it appear sharper, with texture/depth), and boosting levels. I'm on a Samsung HLN DLP set, and it's sharp enough for me. Artificially sharpening makes it look worse, IMO, on my set, sitting distance, etc., anyway.

I just upgraded to an A64 3200+ system, and I installed the 0801 preview version of ffdshow. I have denoise3D and Lanczos resize running, but the latter seems to cause zplayer and windows explorer to crash. Does anyone else experience this?

Originally posted by Goi
I just upgraded to an A64 3200+ system, and I installed the 0801 preview version of ffdshow. I have denoise3D and Lanczos resize running, but the latter seems to cause zplayer and windows explorer to crash. Does anyone else experience this?

What video codecs are you using? What are you resizing to? What do you have for your colorspace output? More info...

These are regular divx/xvid encoded clips. I'm resizing to 1600x1200. Tried 1024x768 with the same result. I didn't mess with the colorspace so they're whatever's default.

WOOOWW

ok iam a bit new to all this and have read about 15 of the first pages
and 20 of the last well its a FAQ section but what i miss is a kind of real FAQ list.

i even still dont know if i did the basics right?

- ok i have ZP i have fddshow
- i did the registry key
- so far only played with the resize settings ( for a start)

BUT already there i come to my limits as far as i understood there should be
a qulity increase when you do the resize but i dont see anything.

desktop resolution of my 42"Hitachi Plasma is 1028x640

so i f i set the resize resolution in ffdshow at anything higher than 1024x640 i get a stuttering ???? is that normal

I really could ask at least 30 questions now like what codecs do i need why dont i get a soround sound using ZP etc. etc.

But maybe someone could post some basics letting me start in the correct way and than dive more into the topic.

Can I use ffdshow for TV viewing with a pvr250 card?


//Lasse

In certain PVR apps, such as SageTV. BeyondTV does not support it right now. Not sure about others.

Originally posted by thomass
WOOOWW

ok iam a bit new to all this and have read about 15 of the first pages
and 20 of the last well its a FAQ section but what i miss is a kind of real FAQ list.

i even still dont know if i did the basics right?

- ok i have ZP i have fddshow
- i did the registry key
- so far only played with the resize settings ( for a start)

BUT already there i come to my limits as far as i understood there should be
a qulity increase when you do the resize but i dont see anything.

desktop resolution of my 42"Hitachi Plasma is 1028x640

so i f i set the resize resolution in ffdshow at anything higher than 1024x640 i get a stuttering ???? is that normal

I really could ask at least 30 questions now like what codecs do i need why dont i get a soround sound using ZP etc. etc.

But maybe someone could post some basics letting me start in the correct way and than dive more into the topic.


You shouldn't get stuttering unless you have a really slow system. You can turn on the ffdshow OSD to confirm that ffdshow is running.

What kind of computer/graphics card do you have, and what codecs are you using? What version of ffdshow do you have?

You should also be using a basic audio out through SPDIF (if that's what you have), without processing the audio on your computer. It should just pass it out digitally and let your receiver process it.

hey thanks for your reply,


i do have he lates version dont remember the no. i just dl that one which had the newest release date.

- regarding the soundi cant do that like you said a my receiver is just dts prepared but its not a dts one just dolby suround 5.1 so i use 4 r 6 speaker output but iwill fix this problem aim sure.

- stuttering well this more of my interest as i see the reason to use ffdshow
is to improve the quality when i use osd i see ffdshow is working
but as i sid i cant go heher than desktop resolution??????

system used
p4 3,0ghz @3,5ghz
1 gig ram
fx5900 @ 440/930

Originally posted by JoeFigueiredo
In certain PVR apps, such as SageTV. BeyondTV does not support it right now. Not sure about others.

Thanks, but what I ment was

-"Does ffdshow support mpeg2 now. Saw that it was broken in the latest release and was wondering if somebody here uses ffdshow with a pvr250 card watching tv?"

//Lasse

You should be able to get a very high resize and mroe with that (you have a faster/better system than I do).


You should still use Dolby Digital 5.1 output, without doing any processing with the computer. At least for now (to try and narrow down the problem). Make sure you use a basic audio codec that lets you just output it that way.


Inside the advanced DVD settings in Zoom Player, what do you have set up for the video and audio codecs? Bad/incompatible codecs, or trying to use Overlay/VMR9 (when it won't work) may be your problem.

In ffdshow, you should have Raw Video set to ALL. Then try these settings:
Sharpen - unsharpen mask - strength 1 (to convert colorspace to YV12 for resize)
Resize - 2x DVD resolution, no AR correction
Bicubic - default settings, no sharpening, etc.
Output - check only YV12


I suspect your problem is your codecs and configuration, so that's what you should work on first. These settings should be no problem on your system, so you'll need to try and get it working with these, then once your problem is fixed, tweak from there.

ok will try your suggestion for ZP i cant enter the advanced dvd section
i have a shareware version or something like that

mmm its getting better put still a bit stuttering
i think to uncheck everything than in the output than yv12
helped but well at 1440x960 its still a bit stuttering and shall
i tell you something iam not impresses by the qulity
i thing to adjust sharpen to 1 is a bad idea..... and now?

Anyone notice that the audio portion of ffdshow 082804 supports ac3 ENCODING? Sounds a little crisper than ac3filter too. Get it here http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/

In the Zoom Player settings, there should be Normal/Regular and Advanced settings. Changing it to Advanced will let you select the codecs, etc. you wish to use. I think this is how you have to turn on ffdshow, so if you are running it, it means you should have already set it up.

You can get Zoom Player Pro 4.03 now - you should be using this, or another version of Pro (shareware - has a 3-second wait screen when you start it up).

I don't get it. I thought this was the site for the guy making the software:
http://ffdshow.leffe.dnsalias.com/andy2222/
And now there's a newer version here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/
I know there are two people working on it (one main programmer, one optimizer), but why can't there be one place that always has the newest ones, instead of it being scattered around so we have to go to a brand new site every time there's an update?

mmmm i dont have the advanced dvd section in ZP
but i have filter adjustments for video and ausio what should i choose there

It should just be a tab in the DVD sections that lets you choose DVD options - the Advanced (I think) setting lets you pick the codecs you want to use (option to right of Advanced is Graph).


On this page, what options do you have available for audio and video? What are you using for your codecs, audio output, etc.?

The codecs should be something like WinDVD, Sonic, PowerDVD, etc. - these are what the DVD player software programs use (you can use the codec without using the actual software program).


It's all explained here:
http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_1
Go through this and get familiar with the programs.

as i said dvd-option = nahhhhh nothing only available in pro version

what i learn until now is that ffdshow + zp is something which needs time
too many adjustments and trouble iam willing to learn for sure but all the results i got so far also with 1024x640 scaling look much worse than what i see in power dvd5 - so i hope testing out will give a nice result later on maybe after 4 6 8 weeks i dunno tooooo many things to take care
iam almost dieing when i open ffsdhow

Originally posted by cyberbri
I don't get it. I thought this was the site for the guy making the software:
http://ffdshow.leffe.dnsalias.com/andy2222/
And now there's a newer version here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/
I know there are two people working on it (one main programmer, one optimizer), but why can't there be one place that always has the newest ones, instead of it being scattered around so we have to go to a brand new site every time there's an update?

Because it's open source software, and different people are doing different things with it.

It's all explained here:
http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_1
Go through this and get familiar with the programs.

Originally posted by cyberbri
I don't get it. I thought this was the site for the guy making the software:
http://ffdshow.leffe.dnsalias.com/andy2222/
And now there's a newer version here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/
I know there are two people working on it (one main programmer, one optimizer), but why can't there be one place that always has the newest ones, instead of it being scattered around so we have to go to a brand new site every time there's an update?

There will be one place in the future (i already have full access to the cvs but i dont want upload a unstable release), so the next none preview version will be avaible there.

sorry but atm if u dont know much about ffdshow or this forum i strongly recommend the normal none preview version's (this might save a lot of trouble atm)

Originally posted by AndyIEG
There will be one place in the future (i already have full access to the cvs but i dont want upload a unstable release), so the next none preview version will be avaible there.



Cool, thank you.

Hi There. Would anybody know how to setup just the WinDVD 6 codecs without installing the whole program. I want to use ZP for playback. I have the codec files I think they're IVIVIDEO.ax and IVIaudio.ax, how can these be registered without installing the player?

Edit: Found the info I was looking for. Go to Start, run, type cmd, at the dos prompt type "regsvr32 ivivideo.ax" for video codec and "regsvr32 iviaudio.ax" for the audio codecs.

Thanks

VC

Go into ZP and select them from the list of codecs. I don't know if you can do it without installing the program, though. I installed it (WinDVD6), never used it, and the trial period is up - still use the codecs, though. If there is a way to do it, you'll probably need to copy those files to a certain folder for ZP to find them

The codecs have to be registered either by installing WinDVD or using regsvr32.

However, many different codecs will check to see that you have a legal install to allow unlimited use. Many people have reported things like "The video quits after 5 minutes" which was the direct result of having the trial version of the DVD player on the system. Or it works for x weeks, now it doesn't work anymore. Or any one of a number of other strange happenings.

YMMV.

Vern

My WinDVD 6 codecs have worked fine, so far, even though the trial expired 2-3 weeks ago or so. Now that you mention that, I'm hoping they'll stay fine.

I might try VidCan's reg fix there just to be on the safe side.

After some playing around I found out that my crashing was due to these factors:
1) Chroma Sharpen set to 1.0(0.8 and below worked)
2) Lanczos selected
3) Lanczos parameter left to "default"

If any of these were changed it wouldn't crash. I'm now running Luma Sharpen 1.0 with Lanczos parameter 4 just fine.

Weird that it should crash though.

I am amazed, as just for a lark I recently changed to resizing all the way up to 1920x1080 with Lanczos and using denoise3d (fast) and this is stable with just a 2.5 gig p4 dell special.

Brian

I'm surprised there's been no love for ffdshow-audio's ac3-encoding capabilities, since i mentioned it....work's great.

Originally posted by usabrian
I am amazed, as just for a lark I recently changed to resizing all the way up to 1920x1080 with Lanczos and using denoise3d (fast) and this is stable with just a 2.5 gig p4 dell special.

Brian

Brian
I tried 1920/1080 as well for interlaced 1080 on my Marquee.
Used Lanczos 4, some unmask sharp, before resize then denoise3d (fast) on my 2.6 P4 HT and it is stable even with VMR.
Are you running overlay or VMR?

So what is the 08/28 version.

My 08/01 SSE2 preview works great, so I'm hesitant to switch.

llamameat, can you describe what you did to get it working? I tried and it failed.

llamameat, can you describe what you did to get it working? I tried and it failed.

well....you can either set the audiodecoder to decode mp3s (or whatever codec you are decoding), or allow it to decode ANY uncompressed streams (much like enabling raw video for the video side).

I set the "Mixer" section to 5.1 speakers. Also, I stuck the LFE filter BEFORE the mixer filter.

In the "Output" section. You can tell it to only output AC3. You can even specify the bit-rate (why set it to anything less than highest though). If it's in the graph, it'll take whatever it recieves (16bit, 32bit) and encode it to 5.1 channel AC3.

Note that if you are inputting 44100hz, you may need to resample the stream to 48000hz depending on your sound card. In my opinion it sounds even better than ac3filter's encoding.

hello cyberbri,

i now have the ZP pro version and did everything explained in the link which you gave me
and wonder wonder

STUTTERING

well what shall i say iam lost dunno what to do
........
also stuttering at 1024x640
there must be any adjustment which is wrong but which???

furthermore NO dolby suround sound
which i have when i play the same file with power dvd
well kind of anoying that nothing works with ffdshow+zp

For audio, check: DVD Audio codec (settings should be at straight output, not conversion - try same audio codec as the video), plus audio output device (should be straight output).


The only thing I can think of that it could be is:
- Make sure you are using a good/recent version of ffdshow:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm
- The video codecs --> try WinDVD6 codecs --> download trial, install, and change ZP codec settings to WinDVD 6 --> http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Product_Download.jsp?p=WinDVD6


Then do this:
Add DMO_V Abstract filter to "Additional Filters" in Zoom Player, and place in line before ffdshow (same window, bottom middle).
RUN "regedit" and change:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\InterVideo\DVD5\Pasteurizati
on --> Intensity value, set to 0.


If that setup doesn't work for you, I don't know what it could be...

i did evything exceptthe regedit beacuse there isno dvd5 onl win dvd4

and its still stuttering nd acually iam pissed off now i appeciate your help
but all tis is just anying when you try and try and its always thesame unpleasant result........

I had WinDVD 4, and had similar problems. The video would freeze every 5-10 minutes, and I would have to drag the slider back a little and start again.

Then I upgraded to WinDVD 6 (downloaded trial, just using codecs), and did the Abstract filter + pasteurization to 0, and it works great now. For some reason, you need the DMO_V Abstract (change to intensity 0) for the WinDVD codecs to work properly. Maybe if you tried that (just go to "RUN" and type in "regedit" - find the location listed, and change the value to 0), it might work.

i have zoomplayer, sonic dvd decoder and ffdshow installed

it's all "working" together thanks to this thread and the guide over on the htpcforum

i'm having some problems though, so i'm going to ask for some advice

my current setup is a

P4/1.5GHz
640mb
ati aiw 9700 radeon
X1 dlp projector via vga cable

first of all, am i wasting my time to trying to do resizing with this projector? i followed directions on the htpcforum guide but my processor was pegging and my fps were horrible. i'm guessing that it's because of my machine specs.

i'm just trying to get the very best image possible, but if i'm wasting my time trying to resize, then maybe someone could tell me to forget about it and i'll move on.

or maybe there are some very subtle options within ffdshow i can use that won't peg my proc.

any help is greatly appreciated-

Which version of ffdshow are you using? There are some highly-optimized versions that may allow you to do a reasonable resize.

And if you are using Lanscoz, you might try bicubic, which should give you less CPU usage. See if you can just try a 2x resize with nothing else checked (unless you need a filter to convert to YV12, something to change input/output colors/levels, etc.)


If you are outputting at your desktop's resolution anyway, it is already being "resized." The advantage of doing it with ffdshow is you get better scaling. If you can't seem to get a good resize even with a new, optimized ffdshow, you might just forget resize and play around with sharpening, dscaler, denoise, noise, etc. filters. (I just resize and add a little noise with the Noise filter - don't like denoise on my setup)

thanks for the reply

i will try bicubic and also a 2X resize with nothing else checked

if my projector is resizing my image already, what sizes should i play around with that would work in a perfect world?

do i need to mess with the settings sub-menu under resize at all? any suggestions on minimum, but visible settings?

is there anything i could have missed that would cause the 100% cpu utilization? i have noise/blur as far up the chain as it will go with resize right underneath it

i went through all the steps several times, i'm just not sure what resize settings to use...

hey cyberbri,

i did dl the windvd version from your link i guess that was windvd4 but anyway when i check the registry there is no pasteurization??

there is another thing what might be a problem when i check my resize
with OSD it alway says the same input and output resolution
for example

input 1024x768
output 1024x768

could this be a issue beacuse i though when you do the resize there should be a difference between input and output?

Yes, the input should be something like 720x480 or whatever the DVD resolution is, with output being the resize size. I'm not sure what's going on there...


And if you can turn on the DMO_V Abstract filter in ZP (put before ffdshow in Additional Filters), then it should be in your registry. Perhaps you were looking in the wrong spot? If you turn on the filter but don't turn the value to 0, then you get a really strange ('abstract') picture.

hey cyberbri,

iam glad you are now lets get this thing running iam tired of all that

I WANT IT WORKING NOW lol

ok for a first start i found the registry key
"intensity" is set to hexadezimal 64

shall i change to 0?


by the way do you have icq or msn messenger?

Yes, pasteurization value should be set to 0. If you don't change it to 0, and the filter is loaded, your DVDs will look very weird.


Will send a PM to you about Messenger

Update on my latest use of FFDshow.
I hate to say it, but, since I upgraded video cards from my Radeon 9200se to a Radeon 9600 I can not tell the differance between using FFDshow and not.
I just turned off FFDshow and forget about it. THe image quality with my new Radeon 9600 looks just as smooth and clean as it did when I was using my 9200se with FFDshow using Denoise3D. Setting INput and Output levels is a waste of time that I tried. Found out that my crt projector does not need adjustments like that. Below is what my settings USED to be before I quit FFDshow. Looks like the only way I can really enjoy FFDshow is if I upgrade my AMD1800 to a P4 2.8ghz CPU.

Display type: Marquee 8500 crt projector
Video Cable: RGB to "Extron 120p" to 5BNC cable 15'
DVD Software: Theater Tek
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9600
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: AMD 1800
Screen Res: 1280x720@72hz

FFDshow version: 04272004
--Resize: None
--Filters: Denoise3D 0, 1, 5, HQ
--Input: 0/255
--Output: 16/235 YV12

Originally posted by stylinlp
Update on my latest use of FFDshow.
I hate to say it, but, since I upgraded video cards from my Radeon 9200se to a Radeon 9600 I can not tell the differance between using FFDshow and not.
I just turned off FFDshow and forget about it. THe image quality with my new Radeon 9600 looks just as smooth and clean as it did when I was using my 9200se with FFDshow using Denoise3D. Setting INput and Output levels is a waste of time that I tried. Found out that my crt projector does not need adjustments like that. Below is what my settings USED to be before I quit FFDshow. Looks like the only way I can really enjoy FFDshow is if I upgrade my AMD1800 to a P4 2.8ghz CPU.

Display type: Marquee 8500 crt projector
Video Cable: RGB to "Extron 120p" to 5BNC cable 15'
DVD Software: Theater Tek
Codex: Sonic
Video Card: Radeon 9600
Driver: Catalyst 4.7
CPU: AMD 1800
Screen Res: 1280x720@72hz

FFDshow version: 04272004
--Resize: None
--Filters: Denoise3D 0, 1, 5, HQ
--Input: 0/255
--Output: 16/235 YV12

Stylinlp,

Most people use ffdshow to sharpen the picture via the scaling feature and various sharpen options. I notice that you use neither of these and only use the denoise3d. If that is the case, I can see why you don't need to use ffdshow anymore but I would urge you to try and sharpen your image or at the very least to try ffdshow resize to your 1280x720 resolution (vs using the vid card for this purpose).

Regards,
Mark

Well, one thing I left out is that when I was using the Radeon 9200se card there was a smoother cleaner picture using FFDshow with TT. But since the Radeon 9600 is cleaner with its use of DirectX 9 and 10bit video DAC's its about equal to what I was seeing with FFDshow and 9200se. Basically FFDshow was cleaning up the image with Denoise3D. I was also using FFDshow for Output of 16/235 but found that was not needed since I have a CRT Projector with 25,000:1 contrast ratio.

Alot of people do not use the Sharpen filters with FFDshow because it produces an unatural picture and induces artifacts.

I am going to get Theater Tek 2 then maybe upgrade my video card to a newer nVidia 6600 card if a few users on here do a favorable review.

I have a AMD1800 cpu. Its not capable of doing Resize greater than 720x480. I know, I tried millions of times with mine and other poeples HTPC's with over clocking even. One was a AMD2200 which I could push to get 1280x720 resize with lancoz

stylinp, get the P4.

The SSE2 version with resize using Lanczos4 is MUCH better than any of the other filters in terms of effect.

jvincent. I know that FFDshow with a P4 looks great using Resize. But the question is that does Theater Tek 2 (nVidia Forceware codex) with a new nVidia 6600 card looks just as good.

Originally posted by stylinlp
jvincent. I know that FFDshow with a P4 looks great using Resize. But the question is that does Theater Tek 2 (nVidia Forceware codex) with a new nVidia 6600 card looks just as good.

The answer is quite simple - it does not. In fact it is not even close. As far as P4 and FFDShow, it looks like P4s are still better on $/resize pixel basis, but after SSE2 optimizations Athlons 64 are definitively closer than before.

As far as resize, I agree it is a must-have-in-your-setup tweak. For 1280x720 resolution (same as mine, except I have DLP) and VMR renderers , I'd say you should get the best overall results between 1920x1080 and 2160x1440 resize using Lanczos4, Spline, or equivalent Bicubic with some sharpen (some 0.7 up to 1.0) within resize algorithm, not resize chroma or luma sharpen. If you overclock 2.8 P4 to 3.2+ you will easily be in this range.

Vlad how do you know this? Did you get an advanced copy of Theater Tek 2 and used it in PPU and DVXA mode with a nVidia 6800?
Or test a nVidia 6800 with the new nVidia Forceware codexs? Have you done that comparision? If not could you please explain specifically why the old standard of SSE2 optimized FFDshow with a P4 full resize is still better.

He has the FWMM 4 codec (he's an official tester). Search for his other thread on 6800 image quality and his posts in the FWMM thread.

I need some help

I just upgraded to a p4 3.2gig processor that I have running at 3.6 gig with a new Geforce Ultra 5700 (I just wanted to try something different).

I cannot run vmr9 with sonic and ffdshow no matter what. If I take out ffdshow it will run fine. If I run vmr7 it will run fine with ffdshow. Anyone know what coud be the problem?

I cannot run windvd with vmr9 because of the macrovision that I cannot get rid of. Tried Anydvd and my computer freezes when this program starts up.

Brian

Originally posted by usabrian
I need some help

I just upgraded to a p4 3.2gig processor that I have running at 3.6 gig with a new Geforce Ultra 5700 (I just wanted to try something different).

I cannot run vmr9 with sonic and ffdshow no matter what. If I take out ffdshow it will run fine. If I run vmr7 it will run fine with ffdshow. Anyone know what coud be the problem?

I cannot run windvd with vmr9 because of the macrovision that I cannot get rid of. Tried Anydvd and my computer freezes when this program starts up.

Brian

For experimenting you could try ripping a DVD to disk using DVDShrink or something simillar that will strip Macrovision.

-Pat

I'm having a problems always getting my playback on my extended desktop - using ZoomPlayer, ffdshow, WinDVD6 and files from DVDShrink. I have experimented with VMR9, and this does not want to display anything on the extended desktop except for the player itself - movies play on my primary desktop. VMR7 is slightly better, in that movies mostly play on the ectended desktop - but now and again, they start playback on the primary. Stopping, closing and restarting ZoomPlayer fixes things!!!

Any help would be appreciated, this is driving me nuts!
Thanks.

Originally posted by vpopovic
The answer is quite simple - it does not. In fact it is not even close. As far as P4 and FFDShow, it looks like P4s are still better on $/resize pixel basis, but after SSE2 optimizations Athlons 64 are definitively closer than before.

As far as resize, I agree it is a must-have-in-your-setup tweak. For 1280x720 resolution (same as mine, except I have DLP) and VMR renderers , I'd say you should get the best overall results between 1920x1080 and 2160x1440 resize using Lanczos4, Spline, or equivalent Bicubic with some sharpen (some 0.7 up to 1.0) within resize algorithm, not resize chroma or luma sharpen. If you overclock 2.8 P4 to 3.2+ you will easily be in this range.

vpopovic,

What is your set up these days for FFDShow and video drivers w/ your Samsung DLP?

New User........yes I read all 138 pages.......my mind is mush. Anyway, I just tried SSE version 7_09 and after a couple hours of tweeking I can say it really makes a difference. Here is my setup so far but still need to play with more and give better details later. Below I have a question on how to implement/use AVISynth.........I've read the posts but not sure I completely understand.

Also, FYI to TheaterTek users........as one of the early posts stated you MUST uncheck DVXA in TT config or video is choppy. Also, another trick is you need to "uncheck"/save in TT Config Aspect Ratio the "Lock Aspect Ratio" box for each AR flag else the resizing in FFDShow produces funny results.

System: P4/2.6Ghz w/1GB RAM
Front End: myHTPC going to Meedio
Player: TheaterTek
Projector: Sony VPLHS20 set to 1368x768 via PowerStrip via DVI port/cable
Graphics: ATI Radeon 9600 XT
Secondary Display: 1280x1024 LCD with onboard RGB convertor card connected via ATI RGB port. This in only used for PC debug/programming.
Audio: CL Audigy 2ZS, using SPDIF passthrough to Yamaha 7:1 RX-V650
Screen: 110" White Mat
FFDShow: SSE 7_09 version
Blur & NR: Gradual Denoise & Denoise 3D with HQ (more details later)
Sharpen: unmask (more details later)
Resize: 1440x960, No Aspect Ratio checked, Lancoz 4-tap

Questions
1) Dumb one, how do you see CPU usage on say Task Manager when TT is running full screen with FFDShow ?
2) I have a ATI 9600 XT card and have read the posts on the green color issue and Carsten2004's BT601toBT709 dll solution. I see how to put the dll in the AVISynth screen in FFDSHow and have the download. However, there is no AVISynth plugin directory on my PC. Also, I have never done a AVISynth script. Can someone (Carsten ?) baby-step me thru the steps ?
3) Can someone explain the inputs and output formats ? I have Codec section set under Raw Video to YUY2 & Overlay to YV12. From my reading this seems correct but can someone explain the order ? It doesn't seem the inputs & outputs are in right order (I'm confused). Example, HDD DVD/Cinemaster Codec/TheaterTek/FFDshow/Radeon 9600/LCD Projector to Screen......just want to get a better grasp of order and what the colorspaces mean.

Thanks !!!

Originally posted by pbpatel98
vpopovic,

What is your set up these days for FFDShow and video drivers w/ your Samsung DLP?

I still run 1920x1440 Lanczos4 resize and July built of FFDShow SSE2. I have a new card, PNY Geforce 6800 (non-ultra, 12 pipelines) and now use VMR9 as the card seems to work better with VMR9 than with VMR7 (while Quadro FX 1100 was working better with VMR7), and there is no extra CPU usage. As far as drivers, I use new official Quadro FX 4000 drivers 65.90, but they need a little help to get installed (described in thread Image quality of 6800 series cards). These produce a bit better image quality than any other 6x.xx series drivers I tried, including latest official 65.xx (I believe it is 65.76) and the latest 66.00 beta (which would be my second choice).

I am experimenting with lowering the resize to 1440x960 and using Lanczos10 algorithm, but have not made any conclusions. Something funny is going on with the colors in this setup with July SSE2 built, but this might not be FFDShow issue. I believe it is driver issue. The image gets the same colors as in DXVA mode, which makes them a bit more intense, but at the end of the day DVE shows better color rendering with 1920x1440 Lanczos4. When I have some time I'll dig in and figure it out.

Originally posted by thekochs
I have a ATI 9600 XT card and have read the posts on the green color issue and Carsten2004's BT601toBT709 dll solution. I see how to put the dll in the AVISynth screen in FFDSHow and have the download. However, there is no AVISynth plugin directory on my PC. Also, I have never done a AVISynth script. Can someone (Carsten ?) baby-step me thru the steps ? Please see my post here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4214394&highlight=avisynth#post4214394) a ways back on how I made mine work.

Hi,

After trying all the ffdshow Resize options I found the AVISynth Lanczos4 resize gives the BEST picture quality. The only problem is many times item selection in DVD menu don't work!

I'm using VMR7/9. Sometimes I need to disable AVISynth during DVD menu selection and start AVISynth (stop and play) during actual movie playback. That is quite annoying!

FFDShow version is 20040709_SSE and AVISynth 2.55. Any hint? Thanks in advance.

regards,

Li On

My Avisynth 2.5.5. Jun or July built does not work at all with FFDShow SSE2 July built. I don't even think it has anything to do with the codec.

Anyway, as I got the new video card (6800 GT), I am playing with new settings. For the time being, it looks like higher resize is still better. I tried 1440x960 with Lanczos10 (max CPU can take), but it turned out that 1920x1920 Lanczos4 works the best in my system (max that card will take in VMR9 mode without freezing the system, CPU could probably take some more as it tops at 90%). I do need to add quite a bit of sharpness at this resize as the card's default rendering is quite soft, but fair enough Nvidia's sharpness in the drivers works like a charm, even better than on my display (I was never a fan of any software sharpness algorithms). With 4xAA and 16xAF and 65.90 Nvidia drivers (thank you Nvidia), image is better than ever before. Don't ask me how it tests with DVE. I just decided not to test with DVE for a while. It seems that I like the oposite of what DVE shows at this point (Quadro FX 1100 still tests slightly better in all aspects than 6800 GT, but I just love the real movie action on 6800 GT better).

I think I got my money's worth for this upgrade. Excelent card al par with Quadro in all image quality aspects (DVE testing aside, and with some minor tweaks), increase in resize power of 1 megapixel without any other hardware upgrade, and not even a slightest trace of tearing, micro tearing or any other sort of tearing.

I'll try to make Avisynth work again to give it a try though.

Carey P,

I saw your post but I think I'm a few steps behind this. I don't know what AVISynth is........it appears from reading it is a script language to adjust things. When I look for example on my system there is no AVISynth Plugin directory or anything. Is this something that needs to be installed before using the DLL adjustment ? I have Radeon 9600 XT that have driver updates from March of this year. Kinda don't won't to update again since I have PowerStrip working fine with my projector.........finally 1:1 mapping on Sony VPLHS20 @ 1368x768.........took forever to figure out.

Need some baby-step instructions on how to setup and implement AVISynth.

Regards.

thekochs,

Please look hard at that post again. The link under Carsten2004 takes you to the post where you can download his attachment. This is the stuff you need to put in a folder somewhere and point to the dll, using the appropriate path, in the first line of the script. That should be all there is to it.

PStrip lets you save the 1368x768@56 to the ATI driver registry, so you don't need to run it anymore to use this res. Unless you need it for switching resolutions on the fly which ATI won't let you do easily.

Carey P,

Sorry for being so dense........I guess my issue is "the script". Do mean the screen in FFDShow that points to the DLL ? See, I've never generated a AVISynth script. Looking at the posts he says to put in ~ "C\Progam\AVISynth 2.4 Plugins". I figured this wasn't an example but more a detailed folder where I should be seeing this plugin directory on my PC. If it is not, then I could put in My Documents under \AVISynth DLL\ ? If so, then my only sticking point of confusion/clarity is the script versus the screen in FFSShow for AVISynth.

Thanks..........sorry I'm so thick on this one.

thekochs,

Yes that big blank white space in FFDShow when you have avisynth selected. Just try the same two lines I use, but with a path that points to wherever you put the DLL. I don't think it matters what folder you put it in.

BTW, I never wrote avisynth scripts either. I was just following what it said in the readme file that comes in that zip. I did download and install avisynth 2.54, but I'm not sure if that was necessary or not, as I don't run it as far as I know. Though I probably did put the dll in the plugins folder, like it said. But I found I only needed to put the LoadPlugin line and that last line in the script space in FFDShow. The middle line (Avisource...), as shown in the readme file, was not needed.

If things still don't work, you probably need to actually install Avisynth like I did, as well. You can get it here (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AviSynth.htm). To test whether it works, you can check and uncheck the avisynth box in FFDShow while a movie is running to see the color change. Just make sure you have some other filter turned on that produces YV12 space before the Resize/sharpen, or the screen will turn green. Good luck.