Which HD **** would be sufficient for MadVR - Page 2

Only if your display is throwing away resolution or otherwise filtering chroma. The improved chroma upscaling in MadVR should definitely be noticeable.

Same goes for the 16-bit YCC > RGB conversion process which should eliminate any banding not in the source. Many players don't use enough precision when converting to RGB and can introduce banding.

But many displays (particularly Plasma or DLP) introduce banding, so you don't see the benefit of it.
The benefits can be easily shown and measured. It's anything but placebo.

But if you are less discerning, or your display is not capable of showing the improvements it makes, then it might not be worthwhile. Or you may see the differences and not care.
Admittedly if you are not upscaling above 1080p, you may not notice the difference with Blu-ray. It's very obvious in my setup though.

MadVR 1080p chroma
Other 1080p chroma

Check the smoothness of the letters and brightness of thin areas. Text in MadVR is sharper with smoother diagonals and has a uniform brightness.

MadVR gradation
Other gradation

Gradation is much smoother in MadVR.


Downscaling HD or upscaling DVDs is a huge improvement over any other player and very easy to show.
I don't have any 720p footage as I only use my Blu-rays and DVDs with it, but the difference should be easy to tell.
The other improvements of MadVR are difficult to show off in screenshots rather than in motion.
Edited by Chronoptimist - 12/3/12 at 11:14pm

Little to no benefit - particularly in shelling out extra cash to achieve what you've attempted to show in your screenshots, frankly couldn't care less about measurements - real time viewing is what I'm interested in and nothing I have seen so far from madVR makes a difference. Believe me I am as discerning as the next user, but I just don't see the benefit - happy to stick with my viewpoint - placebo.

Happy to bow out the discussion to let you guys knock yourselves out with magnifying glasses and measurements

It must be your display if you can't see the aliasing and banding in the images without MadVR.

Using a Panasonic 65vt30 plasma screen and a jvc DLA-X35 projector - both professionally calibrated - believe me if I could see improvements I would tell you. I have no axe to grind - just don't think it is worthy of the adulation afforded to it on here. Seems there is almost a mythical property about it, which I'm sorry I just don't see - with you on that one Assassin.. I'll let others make there own mind up though - because its free and easily tested.

I too am using a calibrated Panasonic Viera 65VT30 and I can see the difference with MadVR.

Maybe, but the practical implications are different. I have a calibrated Pioneer KRP-500m, which still might be the best TV ever made, and the difference between MadVR, Plex, and XBMC under normal conditions was almost non-existent. Sure yeah, if I put some text on the screen and look really closely at it, I could probably see a difference. But under normal conditions, just watching a movie in motion from an 8-10 foot difference, it's going to be very difficult notice any difference at all.

Well said

for most ppl using windows, if they aren't attached to a player that doesn't support madvr, there is literally no reason not to use madvr.
It's free, it is the best video renderer for windows.
If you are using linux for example, yea, I can see why installing an entire windows operating system for this one thing might be unreasonable.
For the most part, you shouldn't be asking why should I be using this, rather, why shouldn't I be using this?
I think you will find that hardware is not an issue as much as it was implied in this thread.
It can be configured to be faster for slow gpus. I'm using it on a netbook with an amd e350 atm. dxva image scaling, bilinear chroma.

That's the big problem. This is an HTPC forum, and the only front end that supports MadVR is Jriver Media Center, which isn't very popular for a number of reasons (mainly cost and limited UI customization). Some people launch MPC-HC from Media Browser and XBMC, but from my experience that's neither elegant nor extremely reliable. If XBMC supported MadVR, then why the heck not.

I can see the difference usnig MadVR. It is not a placebo for me. That said, I do not use XBMC. What sort of renderer does XBMC use?

And I find MPC-HC to be a very fine player, except for >> and << having to be taken care of by 10 second skips when using a remote. To what other issues are you refering?

Never had a problem launching MPC-HC from Media Browser - seems elegant and very reliable for me.

@sammy those can be customised to any interval you want - certainly not restricted to 10 second skips.

I know. I have it set that way. It is all good. I am just saying that this is about the only thing I don't like about MPC-HC.

Same here. Elegant and reliable. I did have an issue a while back though launching it from MB. Updating MB made that go away.

The Kuros have very poor gradation, add a ton of dithering noise, and only process the image in 4:2:2, throwing away any of MadVR's good gradation and chroma upsampling benefits. So it's no wonder that you don't see a difference with 1080p content that doesn't need upscaled.
Plasmas in general are not very good for showing this sort of thing.

Here's a clearer example I found in the official MadVR topic:



If your hardware is capable of using the better upscaling algorithms such as Lanczos anti-ring, or Jinc anti-ring, there should be a very noticeable improvement when upscaling DVD or other content.

Another benefit that MadVR has which most other players do not support, is correctly IVTC'd DVD playback at 24p.

Why have I not heard that before? It seems like an important thing to mention in the whole MadVR picture quality argument considering the large number of people with plasma televisions. Are you saying that the difference is noticeable on a large LCD television? This seems strange considering that MadVR is aimed towards videophiles, and no self-respecting videophile would choose an LCD over a plasma...

Unless what we're really talking about is LCD/DLP projectors, in which case I could believe the differences in PQ would be more noticeable.

The Digital DLP and LCD might show more on the projector.

LCD tend to have slower response and some motion blur making them less ideal for sports and gaming. Wonder if this is improved more with madvr or if it's made worse.

I have no idea. Just thinking out loud....

My LN40650A Samsung has a fantastic picture for sports.

no one said it didn't. But fast action can leave a trail on some LCD... Just a limit of the technology. It's mostly better on high end modern displays but it was a major issue in the early days.

I have no trails or motion blur. This thing cost $1500 in 2008.. Now I could be getting 60" which is 225% larger for a little less money..

MadVR and my GT-430 produce a fantastic picture on it.

I fully believe you. Not saying otherwise. I was just wondering if it helped or hurt in a situation where the refresh of LCD was below the fast motion across the screen. 99% of TV watching isn't an issue. It's more video games and stuff with really fast motion. You might have a great TV too. Who knows...

I know back in the day people tried to remove the motion blur with video processors... so wondering how MADVR does with something like that.

It couldn't be any more elegant or reliable to launch MPC-HC with madVR from XBMC. I've got MPC-HC set up so that all the normal XBMC playback functions work perfectly within MPC-HC. The only thing I miss is the ability to see media info such as plot or cast while I'm viewing. No big deal. Every time I try to force myself to use XBMC, even getting past the issue of the latest stable build not supporting HD audio, I can pretty plainly see the difference in video quality on my 115" screen. Maybe I got lucky with my setup, but it is nearly perfect in terms of usability and reliability as well as performance.

When testing Media Browser and MPC-HC, I found that if you hit play and then jammed certain buttons on the remote immediately afterward (like if you changed your mind and wanted to go back), it would bring you back to media browser but the video would be playing in the background with no way to stop it. I managed to avoid this, but somehow my girlfriend managed to trigger it from time to time. This was the first version of Media Browser 2.6, and it's possible it's been fixed.

There were also slight UI issues, and there was no way to have the video playing and visible while navigating the WMC interface (like with live TV). I personally find those sort of discrepancies very bothersome.

Honestly I was super impressed with JRiver, but I wish they would work on the 10 foot UI. There are also some odd quirks with acquiring metadata and artwork. JRiver definitely feels like a desktop application with a 10-foot UI tacked on.

You mean with external player ?

Huh? I was talking about using MPC-HC as an external player for Media Browser. JRiver has MadVR built-in.

I never jammed a bunch of random keys but I have MPC-HC set up to exit back to MB when I hit the stop button on my remote. I set this up in the Keys menu (and set up my H-900 to issue the correct command I think but it has been a while). This works fluidly. There is the occasional hiccup in this set up where it does what you are saying or some other similar thing. I grab my little wireless keyboard off the coffee table and hit Alt Tab to tab through to the desktop, whereupon I can kill MPC-HC and MB and then reload WMC. This happens rarely but I can quickly recover from it. If all else fails there's Cntl Alt Del on that keyboard too (Actually Function Enter does it with this keyboard). to get to the task manager and kill the tasks.

I want to watch the video without navigating the WMC interface at the same time because I am watching the movie. Doing that seems a bit like A.D.D. to me!!

I understand what you are saying but MB has that information before the movie starts and if I absolutely need to see this data I have the IMDb app on my phone.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about, and it makes external players a non-starter for me. Even if it happens rarely, it's so frustrating and clumsy, and other people in my house use the HTPC. Having to teach everyone in the house how do deal with these situations is just ridiculous.

For me at least, my HTPCs must be just as easy to use and fool proof my Xbox 360s. The only way I've been able to achieve this is using OpenELEC, and honestly I don't think I'll ever return to Windows or any other full operating system for my HTPCs.

It isn't that big of a deal. Hitting the reset button works too and it is harmless to he HTPC which reboots in 45 seconds into WMC. It is faster than the STB it replaced actually.

Some odd responses in this thread. For instance, nowhere do I see an army of MadVR supporters being offended or singing it's praises and condemning the non believers. All I see is some people mentioning they can see the difference, others mentioning they can't (with this latter group putting down the former as being susceptible to placebo). Also, as mentioned, madVR has many degrees of customisability that allows it to work on a variety of integrated graphics.

Personally, I'm in the camp of, it's free to try and if you are using MPC-HC or jRiver for instance, then it doesn't kill to see for oneself if there is any value in pursuing it. For instance, I don't use it on my HTPCs presently (but I do use it on my workstations) but that mostly comes down to me preferring a simple solution for everyone else in the family to use. Because nobody else in my family notices the differences, there is no point in my complicating things just to satisfy myself.

If jRiver made a windows 8 app that used madVR for instance and that it was very slick and followed the windows 8 design language, then I'd be keen to give that a try, but until then, I'm fine using media browser.

Another point to add to the discussion: I find the differences much clearer when watching anime for instance, anybody else experience the same? The combination of crisp outlines, smooth gradations and clear subtitles is a prime candidate I believe.