TotalMedia Theatre 5 - Page 8

As a software developer I can tell you that merging incurs cost, usually paid in lost scope. You get to choose when you merge, if there is a hard date and a set of higher priority features that need to make it in before lock down something has to go.

The only thing it means is that the feature didn't make it because of a date; personally I'd rather have the product now, in its current state, then wait for a "finished" version. Those who this is a critical feature are no worse off because the rest of us can play, and we benefit.

I know what you mean but just to clarify, if you're launching ISOs from within MM3 the MC autoplay feature handles playback and this calls "playerloader.mcl". When the uMCEplayer is launched this way it is always full screen. The windowed bug only happens if uMCEplayer is launched directly (as is the case when you use the ExternalPlayers.xml method).

I'm sure you know that. Just posting in case others stumble across this thread.

Hope I get more time to test tonight. A wayward SBS 2003 server has kept me away from any serious testing over the past day or so

Wo0zy

Maybe. Or it might have simply been overlooked. As for merging, I'm in the middle of a HUGE merging project right now at work, so, it's a sore subject with me. I know it's time consuming and a pain, but, that's the price you pay for creating new versions of code.

Guys, I have a question about blu-ray video quality.

I understand from this thread that TMT5 improves the DVD upscaling but the blu-ray quality is more a function of the hardware. I can confirm that as I did a quick video comparison between PDVD7 (I use this old version for HDDVD compatibility, AnyDVD keeps it current for blu-ray!) and could see no difference in quality and was hoping for an improvement when upgrading to TMT5.

But if I was looking for an improvement in blu-ray video quality, I assume I have to upgrade my graphics card? I use an older ATI 8600GTS. Has someone done a comparison of the latest video cards to see which is the champ for blu-ray HD rendering on Windows 7? Or has the hardware got so good lately that there are no differences anymore. What about using a software rendered like MadVR - would it make a difference? Are there any tweaks that can be done to maximize the video quality with TMT5?

On a related question, for maximum audio resolution when using analog outputs, does the trick with using reclock to fool the audio renderer that it is using a PAP compliant output work with TMT5? I can't use this reclock feature with my older 8600GTS so if I upgraded to a later card to improve the video quality I was hoping to use reclock to get full audio resolution using my Lynx 2B analog audio card.

I can touch on some of that. BD really is a function of your hardware when using hardware acceleration. There is little to no difference in quality between PDVD and TMT regardless of the version. However, if you use software decoding and apply filtering or use something like madVR, then yes, you can affect quality and in theory improve upon it. TMT5 gives me absolutely breathtaking quality in DVD and BD, so, I have zero complaints there.

As for the ReClock trick, I don't know if that still works. I never had a system where I could try it. ReClock itself still works and we'll hopefully get an updated version from James that installs it correctly for TMT5.

Has anyone been able to tune a MadVR setup to improve the BD quality over the standard Windows/hardware renderers or is this still just theory?

Is my assertion that the video quality between video cards pretty much the same now days? I recall in the "old days" of HTPC the video card & driver did make a difference.

Also does TMT5 use the old overlay renderer or EVR on Windows 7? With hardware acceleration the renderer used shouldn't matter as its all controlled by the graphics card anyway.

With MKV playback, I've definitely seen an improvement using madVR and software decoding. It probably depends a lot on what you're using for software and hardware would by my guess. But it's a noticeable improvement on MKV's on my machine. Still, that being said, TMT5 gives exceptional PQ. Enough that I don't mind using it as my sole player now. As for what renderer it's using, I couldn't tell you. But modern hardware and drivers (on any given day, that is) generally are damn good with PQ on BD's.

I think that TMT5 uses a custom renderer for disk playback and the EVR for file playback. The renderer implementation is one area where players can differentiate themselves on the same hardware.

Thanks SamuriHL & babgvant for the feedback. I agree the TMT5 video quality is pretty decent, but the quest with this hobby is always for better

I will probably change video cards anyway for the ability to get better than 16/44 audio quality with reclock.

SamuriHL

Do you have a link for directions on how to install and configure madVR? It's mentioned all over this forum, but you seem to know how to properly set it up.

Thanks

Are you saying that playing a BR from the physical disc -vrs- a folder (not ISO) on the harddrive could give different qualities?

I followed this:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228

Remember that it's 32 bit only. I installed it in MPC-HC 32 bit. You'll need to configure ffdshow properly to give madVR what it needs. I don't have that configuration handy right now, but, get madVR installed and see what you think.

No, he's saying that a BD structure will use one renderer and FILE playback (i.e. MKV, m2ts, mpg, etc) will use a different renderer. That's entirely possible and he's FAR more knowledgeable on that subject than I am. I'd trust what he's saying.

Thanks,

So if I'm running MPC-HC 64x then I'm SOL? Which I am (64x).

I am running MPC-HC 32 bit on win7 x64 OS no problems.

Hi guys,
just installed TMT 5 and it integrated into my Media Center 7 quite nicely. I have one problem though - i am using a Harmony 700 remote via iMon and only some buttons work when i play a blu-ray. For example, "next chapter" works, but not pause/stop. the remote is setup as a MCE remote in iMON and it works perfectly otherwise. Any hints?

cheers,

Ok, great. wasn't aware I could use the 32 bit on a 64 bit system.

I'll give it a go.

+100

The only time I have ever been prevented from playing a Blu Ray was when Avatar was released and my "legal" system wouldn't play it for a few days because the new copy protection couldn't be played by TMT3 (not a dig at Arcsoft, because many with stand alone players had to wait for firmware upgrades also). The movie worked with AnyDVD before it worked in TMT3.

All of my rips are of movies I own, (my 7 and 3 year old like to use discs as frisbees, coasters, etc.) and I would like to protect my movies.

SamuriHL, isn't MKV just a container for a video file? If so, how can MKV make a difference to video quality? Or is it that using MKV files is the only way to use madVR in TMT5?

[Edit] I'm not sure this makes sense. As posted by babgvant, TMT5 uses either a custom renderer or EVR, so I guess SamuriHL is talking about using MKV with another player.

Generally user mode software compiled for 32 bit should run fine on 64 bit systems. Managed applications can be an exception that that (either platform independent or targeted) because of how they interoperate with the underlying system.

Drivers on the other hand are incompatible and need to be specifically designed and compiled for the respective platform.

Yes. It might be possible to trick TMT5 into loading an alternate video renderer (similar to how Reclock works at the audio level), but MPC-HC is a much easier way to get it working and because it has better support for MKV/M2TS generally preferable.

Definitely been there

Up until TMT5, I've been using MPC-HC 32 bit with madVR to play MKV's and the quality is really good. TMT5's MKV support is also quite good from my experience, although not quite as crisp as madVR in MPC-HC. So yes, I was referring to another player.

I've never tried. MPC-HC is much easier to work with madVR. In 64 bit mode I use 32 bit RGB which is also quite nice. In both cases I do NOT use DXVA on my main HTPC with MPC-HC. The PQ is noticeably better than DXVA.

They *FINALLY* put through my request for Araxis. We're a month behind now because they forced us to try to use kdiff. Idiots. Maybe that's the problem...ArcSoft might not have a good merge tool.

http://www.arcsoft.com/forum/forum_p...-50180-updated

Guys and gals, the hotfix was updated today.

Any other performance improvements or is this exclusively for MCE users?

Exclusively for MCE and folder rips.

Interesting. I might give MPC-HC a try to see if there is a quality difference. Can MPC-HC play a blu-ray straight from disk (assuming BD menus are not supported) and decode the HD audio codecs? I checked into this a year back and it seems the open source players were a long way from being "insert disk and play" ready.

I still have one remaining question (sorry for the pestering ), if I have a video card that is 3 years old, will the newer video cards give a better picture when using hardware rendering?

Argh! Why do you keep sending me back there? Their forum takes > 60secs to load a page on IE9. It's not ArcSoft's problem but it looks like the IE6 htc bug is back in IE9. It's being tripped by the png fix behavior that is run for every tag on the page.

Anyway...

The hotfix worked for me. It would be nice if we could get it back ported for TMT3.