Advanced MPC-HC Setup Guide - Page 14

I set everything as shown in that diagram and reclock reports:

Renderers Info
Video: madVideoRenderer
Audio: WASAPI excl. (bit exact)

So everything's OK...but the reclock tray icon is red? What am I missing?

Red means that ReClock didn't found the frame rate, or clock correction has been disabled. As "media adaptation" is disabled, this is normal.

OK thanks. But after some testing I'm getting various pops and clicks in the audio with wasapi exclusive - if I set PCM to Direct Sound, the reclock property page reports "DSound (bit exact)" and I get no artifacts. Is this a known problem? Perhaps the fault is in the realtek driver. But if reclock is reporting bit exact with DSound, should I just use that and be happy ?

"bit exact" means that ReClock does not resamples audio. "DSound" means Windows Audio Engine resamples audio.

I would try "Audio: WASAPI excl." (no "bit exact").

the problem seems to be that I have 5.1 speakers, and the files that exhibit the problem all have 7 or 8 channel sound. Movies with 5.1 sound don't get the background popping and clicking at all.

I tried turning off "convert output to standard layouts" in lav audio, tried "set matching speaker configuration" in reclock, and even tried setting my speakers to 7.1 in the realtek sound manager and disabling the two side speakers. No luck.

8 channel sound is becoming more common, so I wonder if this problem will soon start showing up for other people.

Oops, it also happens on baraka, 96khz. Must be the driver. But I tried removing it and the MS one is even worse ??

mbordas, i want to clarify bitexact streaming btw.

If you have 7.1 source files you have to get 7.1 speakers if you want to listen bitexact streaming.

1) You must have a splitter which is able to split video and audio as is and give the right pin information to audio SW decoder.

2) You must use a SW audio decoder which is able to select right sample rate, right bitrate and it mustn't downmix to 5.1 in your case (or downmix to 2 channel from 5.1). Any downsamle or upsample or downmix, upmix means your original audio has been molested or touched and lost its originality. (Lav audio decoder can select the right bitdept automatically. Just leave the default config as is.)

3) Renderer must have "wasapi exclusive" capability like ReClock.
Right configured ReClock renders bitexact audio without sending it to Window's mixer.


As for your previous question:

If you have 5.1 speakers and AVR please check with my sample pcm mkv which i gave on my previous post whether ReClock passing audio on Wasapi shared mode or Wasapi exlcusive mode.

Here you may misunderstand ReClock really passing bitexact over DirectSound; NO.
ReClock says "yea, you configured me to bitexact mode and i get the audio and render it without touching its timings, i just render what it is but i can send it to Windows' mixer or directly to your AVR, it's up tou you. Please select "wasapi exclusive " mode if you want to get rid of Windows's mixer."


How can i understand if it's Wasapi shared or Wasapi exclusive????

Open the sample file with lav filters (lav splitter > lav audio > reclock) and open system sounds and while mkv is playing please tick on any Windows Sound.
If you hear that sound besides the playing audio, it means it is on Wasapi Shared mode and Windows's mixer is interfering to your original audio.







For further test:

Configure Window's mixer to worst quality:



Open sample mkv (96_24),


If you see on your AVR's info display (in my case menu > info > audio input signal)i it means WASAPI SHARED MODE:






If you see this (assuming you leave the mixer config same as above), it means you are listening bitexact streaming; WASAPI EXCLUSIVE:






And finally i explained again on doom9:





****

rica after all these tests...

I am wondering if there is any difference in Audio Quality between using ReClock
with wasapi exclusive - slave reference clock to audio - media adaptation: original (bitexact)
and media adaptation with resampling.

And one last question.

Pcm is unpacked high resolution audio.
What happens with the HD audio codecs?
As long as there is no way to play DTSHD/DTR without using a decoder , its impossible to send bitperfect?

OK, but then where is the downmixing taking place if neither lav audio or reclock is doing it?



I tried this test with both of your sample files. Both play badly - constant pops and clicks and stuttering. The windows system sound does not play so it must be using wasapi exclusive. Also, they are both 6 channel sound, so downmixing can't be the real problem. I found some comments around the web that reclock's pre buffer should be set as low as possible, but that didn't help either.

As I said, I'm inclined to blame the realtek hd driver, but I wonder if that makes sense in that dsound plays fine, and isn't the point of wasapi that it requires *less* processing? As wikipedia says:

"Exclusive mode is useful for applications that demand the least amount of intermediate processing of the audio data"

I tried some of the registry settings mentioned here but I don't think it's a problem with priority - the cpu isn't busy during any of the tests I've run.

Looks like I might be resigned to dsound for now, but as tony asked, is there really much difference? Is there any way to tell what the windows audio engine is doing?

I should state there are two ways:

1) Bitstreaming over HDMI for HD or SD compliant audio/or SPDIF for SD compliant audio only (official lossless or lossy formats):
In this case bitstreaming capable decoders like lavaudio or ffdshow only pass the audio to any renderer without decoding to pcm. So ReClock is useless in this case; you can not adjust inline config since Wasapi is nonsense anymore cuz Windows' mixer can not interfare compressed formats.
Audio is transferred directly to AVR's internal decoder.

2 ) Bitexact passthrough (Over HDMI or analog outputs): Decoding occurs inside PC's SW decoder. (Or you may have an unpacked PCM.)
If you have a lossless DTSHD-MA, THD or FLAC, you can decode them as is over LavAudio decoder or MadFlac decoder (ie, if your audio is DTSHD-MA, just untick dts and dtshdma options on LavAudio properties window. It will unpack to pcm as is; bit-for-bit identical to the source audio.)
And this case Windows' mixer will want to interfere to the decoded pcm. So as to prevent audio to be down-upsampled by mixer, you should select ReClock with its right config to bypass the mixer. This case it means you are sending bitperfect streaming. (or bitexact passthrough.)

As for the first question of yours: No i don't think you can distinguish the difference unless you forget Windows' mixer's config at 44.1 khz.


I don't want to occupy MlNDBOMB's thread which is not related with the main topic, i may open a new thread here or somewhere else on the details of bitf**ng streaming.


_ _ _ _

@mbordas

I don't really understand what your real problem is?
But i'm sure my sample file is working very well in any cases.

BTW i don't remember i did say lavaudio is able to downmix; just try with ac3 filter.

I don't know your HW but i guess you are using an Ati card.
Just get rid of those nonsense Realtek drivers and install Ati drivers.

I can not help you more, sorry.

it`s too early.

renethex said that madVR 0.78 supports only BoB deinterlacing 25i-->25fps


i tried also with my own videos but i couldn not achieve 50fps

Rica, thanks for the feedback. Turns out it resulted from enabling cuvid in lav video - I disabled it for h.264 and the audio plays fine. I posted a message over on doom9, nev is pretty responsive to comments there, so I should be able to find out whether the problem's in lav video or something buggy in cuvid.

Uninstall Reltek drivers and reinstall nVidia 285.62 drivers. (Do not foget to uninstall previous nVidia drivers before.)
I guess it will recognize your analog outputs too. (nVidia High Definition Audio 1.2.24.0)
I don't think your issue is related with CUVID or LAV.

I just updated to the 285.79 drivers, and still the same problem. If I turn off cuvid, the stuttering goes away with both your samples. Interestingly, the gpu shows 60-70% utilization even with cuvid off (I have a gt 440 gddr5).

Adjust refresh rate to 59 and give it a go again. (1/60000 Hz)

Thanks for this great thread, my setup is mpc-hc,lav,madvr on a gt560.
Video performance is great...

I have a 2.35 constant height setup via a projector and a 2.35 screen and a fixed anamorphic horizontal stretch lens.

Rather than use the vertical stretch function in the PJ I would like to use the htpc to vertical stretch the image ( which is approx 1920x810) within the 1080p picture), what's the best way of doing this so I can flip the stretch function on and off during playing.

Thanks I tried that once and missed the elegance of the mpc solution..however I (eventually) worked out that the custom pan and scan save dialogue allow for picture zoom and picture offset for BOTH x and y - that wasn't immediately obvious as the boxes are unnamed...does this method of doing custom zoom now use the madvr upscaling settings/filters

Another question....My main quality interest is blu ray 1080p material
My PJ is hdmi 1.3 and accepts deep colour and my gtx560 graphics card can output deep colour, however the 10 bit output options grey with madvr...is madvr still the best quality option or would I obtain better results with a faster CPU and using another renderer?

You can try 10 bit output in EVR CP (D3D mode only). madVR only supports 8 bit output yet.

Should be supported according to nVidia specs on the Geforce GTX 560
HDMI 1.4a Support5
Support for HDMI 1.4a including GPU accelerated Blu-ray 3D support, x.v.Color, HDMI Deep Color, and 7.1 digital surround sound
(after much head scratching and worry about fan noise power and heat in my HTPC, I bought a GTX 560 phantom 2 - my feedback is that it is near silent for anyone considering this card)

Hoping madVR will execute a vertical stretch well, though BluRay is only 8 bit , perhaps the color depth would aid scaling...I'll try out EVR CP 3D3, but my CPU is an E6750 so it might not me fast enough ?

Also the PJ is connected via my denon AVP-A1HD, so need to check that passes deep color through OK as well.

Update: Enabled EVR CP, but the Surface & D3D9 render device drop down boxes are grayed out and when I enable the "10 bit RGB" setting I get an "Error D3D9 failed"...sounds like more research needed for this puppy!

i would give MAdVR another try.

madvr is outputting 8bit with dithering.

that means that you `ll have less banding than normal 8bit output ,maybe even better than 10bit rounded (i.e. lumagen VP)

Late news, but with madVR 0.79 deinterlacing works fine.

I have a stupid question. I'm using XBMC/MPC HC/madVR on two computers. I love the way madVR handles my refresh rates with every format and the smooth playback.

Here's my question. With 720p material, TV shows for example, even though madVR is running perfectly (by my estimation at least), with MPC HC view set to "Normal" the video is still displayed at 720p resolution with black borders all the way around. The only way I can get it to the proper size is to set it to Touch Window from Inside.

Is that normal or am I missing a step in my setup? Thanks.

I'm using MPC-HC 32bit, MadVR, and LAV without no additional interlacing. It's all running on Win7 64bit.

I get occassional playback problems on HD files. The video will freeze for a second or 2 although the audio continues. The video will then start up again in the right place. On most HD files I have no problems what so ever. On others it happens at most once or twice an hour.

I am suspecting it my CPU which is only a Core2Duo E4500 at 2.2Ghz. Does this seem a likely cause to you all or should I try to troubleshoot something else? Is there anyway to confirm it's the CPU?

Start playback, check queues stats and post results here.
If decoder queue reaches 0, CPU power is not enough (or CPU is just busy with some other processes). You may want to try GPU HW acceleration.

I'll check stats when I get home after work. Is GPU HW acceleration possible with MadVR/LAV? I've an ATI 5570.

I have same issue. Glad I found this thread.

GPU HW acceleration with ATI card and madVR only possible with Cyberlink 10(11) video decoder in HAM mode.