HD-DVD & Blu-Ray playback in Media Centre Classic

I have been playing around with MPC to play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray & I think I have finally got it sorted.
The filter list took some playing around with to get all the different combinations working.
You will need some way to decrypt your files first (I used AnyDVD HD, and you can play files straight off the original HD/Blu disk)

There appear to be 5 variations on the files
HD-DVD .evo files DTS, DD+
Blu-Ray .m2ts files, mpeg2, VC1, mpeg4 AVC

Codecs required
(I'm not telling you how to register filters on your PC)
Windows Media Player v11
cl264dec.ax (Video)(cyberlink H264/AVC Decoder from PowerDVD)*
splitter.ax (Haali media splitter (AR) from Haali Matroska splitter) (this version http://www.anymp4.com/download.php)
cinemaster audio.dll (Audio)(Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder v 4.3 from Cineplayer Codec Pack) **
ffdshow.ax (Audio)(ffdshow audio decoder from FFDshow)

Media Player Classic settings
select view/options/External filters/
Add filter ....... Haali Media Splitter (AR), set merit 00900000, set prefer
Add Filter ........ ffdshow audio decoder, set merit 00700000
Add filter ....... cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder, set merit 00900400
Add Filter ........ Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.3.0, set merit 00805000
Add Filter ........ ffdshow video decoder, set merit 00800000 (late fix to stop ffdshow taking over from cyberlink)
Add Filter ....... Sonic Cinemaster Video Decoder, set merit 00700000 (late fix to stop Cinemaster Video taking over from ffdshow video)
** Add Filter ........ Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (pdvd7), set merit "prefer" (try this for some hardware acceleration in XP)
** Add Filter ........ Nvidia Video Decoder, set merit "prefer" (block cyberlink) (try this for h/w accel in XP or Vista if you have Nvidia Purevideo)


select view/options/Internal filters
deselect anything mpeg , matroska from the source list
deselect anything AC3, mpeg from the transport filter list

select view/options/output
Select the options you like the look of (I used VMR9 renderless)

Here are some screen shots showing each combination of filters in action, just drag and drop the big files into MPC.

HD-DVD .evo (MPEG-4 AVC) Transformers
Same as the Blu-Ray filters BUT only Haali v 1.7.189.11 will play these

HD-DVD .evo (most common VC1 with DD+) 2 Fast 2 Furious **


HD-DVD .evo (VC1 with DTS-HD) Rambo First Blood


Blu-Ray .m2ts (most common MPEG-2) Planet of the Apes


Blu-Ray .m2ts (VC1) Starship Troopers


Blu-Ray .m2ts (MPEG-4 AVC) Pirates of the Caribbean *



"Print Screen" will give a desktop screen grab then paste into "Paint" to save at your set screen resolution.
"File / Save Image" in MPC will give a full 1080 grab

If any of your files don't work, take a look to see what filter you have different to mine. Ordering filters is dead easy really, you have to put them on the External list before you can move them up or down in priority.

Tested on Vista 32 and Windows XP and works perfectly but takes plenty of processor power.
This solves all the Nvidia/PowerDVD green screen problems too.

PS
I am assuming you have Windows Media Player installed (v11), HD-DVDs won't play without this installed.

Advantages of using MPC
You don't have to waste time with menus, trailers and adverts
Full resolution screen captures of the movie
You can zoom the movie to get rid of the black bars (numpad key 9)
You don't need an approved graphics card, almost any PCI-e card will work (Nvidia 7300 at 80% CPU)

Disadvantages of using MPC
Minimum processor Core2 Duo (any one will do clocked to 266FSB)
No Dolby TrueHD tracks available using Haali splitter
Not very good with AGP graphics cards

Alternative using Arcsoft filters
Install the free version of Arcsoft Totalmedia Extreme
Add filter ......... Arcsoft MPEG Demux ..... set to PREFER
Add filter ......... Arcsoft Video Decoder ........ set to PREFER
Add filter ........ Arcsoft Audio Decoder HD ..... set to PREFER
BLOCK any other splitter/demuxers you already have in your external filter list

Your playing filter list should look like this

Why would you want to play any of the other rubbish?
This just plays the movie, and you can select the sound track.

Yes it's the lack of "cinemaster audio decoder" that is stalling your playback.
I have not found any other codec that will play DD+
You should be able to play "Rambo First Blood", "Rambo II" or "Brotherhood of the wolf" as these have DTS-HD tracks and no DD+

You can play the .evo file in graphedit without any audio decoders, stalling on wrong filter is just a "feature" of most players (including Graphedit).

This just plays the movies & you can select the audio track
(no PC player will show Studio Canal subs ......... so far)

PS
The English subtitles for "Brotherhood of the wolf" are stored as .PNG files held within the "suben.aca" file package in the ADV_OBJ folder

I don't think anything can do True HD at the moment, but these movies always have a DD+ track as well.
(I tried V for Vendetta, and you can't even see the True HD track exists, English DD+, French DD+, 2 channel commentry)

The Cineplayer codec does not appear to be on sale to the general public.

to change sound track, right click on the "Matroska" tray icon and guess!



Or, right click in play window, filters, Haali media splitter, audio track

So try each track, Matroska can't tell what language each one is (it lies)

HD-DVD needs Cinemaster Audio at a higher merit than FFDshow audio else DD+ doesn't work. If you don't have FFDShow audio on the list how can you give Cineplayer a higher merit?

If you have installed all the filters and something is still not working, post a screen shot of the working filters (as I have done in my 1st post) with the movie and a description of the problem.


Cinemaster Audio Decoder v4.2 from Sonic Scenarist works equally well.
(I'm not entirely sure this is true)

I don't think there is a way for MPC to play a TrueHD audio track at the moment.
But at least none of the sound ever goes near a Cyberlink filter.

It's easier to control the filters in MPC, also I noticed ZP was downscaling the HD-DVD video in some PC configurations.

please discuss ZP on the other thread,
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=885764&page=2

this thread is for Media Player Classic

Added another fix as Cinemaster tried to take over from ffdshow video (then failed to play) on the HD-DVD "Reaping"

Add Filter ....... Sonic Cinemaster Video Decoder, set merit 00700000 (late fix to stop Cinemaster Video taking over from ffdshow video)