LAV crashing Sage for TV

[silkshadow]

So I have setup a Win 7 x86 client. I want to set LAV as my h264 decoder. However if I do, then Sage crashes every time I try and play a recorded TV file (or goto live TV). I am using a HDPVR. It plays fine for my imported videos. If I use lav to playback the same TS files in Zoomplayer, it plays fine.

If I switch to the MS decoder it plays ok, if I switch to the Arcsoft decoder I get tearing but it plays, if I use FFdshow it plays fine. Only LAV crashes. However, only LAV can playback some of my imported files and I prefer LAV overall.

I am trying to get the external apps plugin to work so I can launch Zoomplayer for those files only LAV plays back well, but I ran into a problem with that. I posted in that thread, if I can it to work, it would be an acceptable worst case workaround.

However I was wondering if there was another workaround? I would prefer not to have to use an external app, if possible. Its always a pain to switch back and forth.

Thanks!

[nyplayer]

What version of LAV are you using make sure you are using the latest as there was a fix to fix a problem with the SAGETVDEMUXER.

[TwistedMelon]

In my experience, dating back to 2004/5 and now again this past week, commercial video software is universally bad by design. Mind the gap in dates, but I've never been able to find a commercial decoder that comes even close to the quality of open source projects.

When it's not crashing, what's the performance and quality like with LAV?

The open source stuff needs to be able to handle everything. The commercial stuff needs only to handle commercial bitstreams or the proprietary ones that same company might create with their own encoders. There's no way any commercial entity is testing with the wide breadth of encoded video being created by enthusiasts using the multitude of tools available.

So back in 2004/5 I found that ffdshow handled everything while all commercial solutions failed miserably at most things. Just recently I tested out TMT5 and found its quality and performance abysmal. Not even close to Microsoft's own decoder in Windows 7. I'll try the newer "ffdshow tryout" soon, but only to verify a couple of issues that some particular encodes may be having with the MS decoders. Because otherwise, the stuff built into Windows seems to be miles ahead of commercial third-party tools.

[silkshadow]

Nyplayer, I'm on LAV .52. BTW, if you are in NY I hope everything is going well with you. My uncle in NJ just got power back on Monday, thankfully he has gas heating. Would've been tough on his 2 month old otherwise.

TwistedMelon, I'm with you. LAV works great on everything but my HDPVR files in Sage. I'm a big fan of LAV and I was a FFDshow user for a long time but LAV is more efficient and it supports hardware (CUDA/DVXA) acceleration. Sage does not recognize LAV as a decoder so you have to choose it from the "list all decoders" option.

Thanks guys!

[TwistedMelon]

I've tried LAV and ffdshow (separately of course) on my current e-350 system and they both have significant issues. One of them is that skipping around in the video seem to cause non 16:9 cropped video to fill the screen instead of preserving the original aspect ratio. There are some occasional pauses and smeared video as well. Have tried both with and without DXVA.

[silkshadow]

I set my aspect ratio to "fill", I've never liked the black bars . I will test it with AR set to source. I'm using a 5770 but have not experienced any artifacting. Sometimes skipping around causes a black screen for a second or so before the video appears. I am currently trying to get it working with FFdshow for RAW video configured to upscale non-1080 video. This is not working, but works fine in Zoomplayer.

[TwistedMelon]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

I set my aspect ratio to "fill",

I haven't touched Sage's AR settings in a few years, so I can't remember what Fill does. Does it crop the sides of the image or distort the aspect ratio to fill the screen?

Personally, I'd rather not watch something at all than watch it with an altered (distorted) aspect ratio. I watch the video and not the empty areas surrounding it, so as long as that area doesn't bother me by detracting from the video, it's all good. So black "letter boxing" is better than red or flashing pink neon if the display screen can't be itself adjusted for vertical height. If I *really* want to put video on every pixel of the screen, my video processor has percentage-based scaling/zooming.

[silkshadow]

I just tried source AR and I am not seeing an issue *yet*. I'll use it this way for a little while and see if I get the same AR issues.

Fill distorts the AR to fill the screen. Yeah, some people don't like it. I really don't like the black bars, it continually bothers me .

[TwistedMelon]

Well so far, except for SageTV recordings, I have not been able to match the video/audio quality nor performance of the HD200/HD300 with a PC-client, even using the Microsoft decoders.

The UI looks amazing (full 1080) and is very very fast, but at the end of the day I may just abandon this PC-client experiment if the quality isn't there. It's already bothersome that the output resolution can't be altered using a PC client, so no more native resolution switching.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by TwistedMelon

Well so far, except for SageTV recordings, I have not been able to match the video/audio quality nor performance of the HD200/HD300 with a PC-client, even using the Microsoft decoders.

The UI looks amazing (full 1080) and is very very fast, but at the end of the day I may just abandon this PC-client experiment if the quality isn't there. It's already bothersome that the output resolution can't be altered using a PC client, so no more native resolution switching.

I don't do native resolution switching, but I do switch between 1080p60 and 1080p24 with a button press on my remote. You CAN do full native resolution switching with ReClock and 12noon display switcher - I just never found a need to send 720p video to my tv to be scaled to it's native 1080p there, instead of just scaling it my gpu.

[TwistedMelon]

I've got an external video processor I'd prefer to have handle scaling duties, but the frame rate change is the most important. I'll look into the solutions you mentioned when I'm satisfied everything is working as well as possible.

Just did a new/clean Win7 install - only installed the bare essential drivers, left some hardware that I don't need in a disabled state and will now install only SageTV.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by TwistedMelon

I've got an external video processor I'd prefer to have handle scaling duties, but the frame rate change is the most important. I'll look into the solutions you mentioned when I'm satisfied everything is working as well as possible.

Just did a new/clean Win7 install - only installed the bare essential drivers, left some hardware that I don't need in a disabled state and will now install only SageTV.

I use MPC-HC as an external player for BD's and it is much better than sage as far as video quality goes. Switches refresh on the fly with no issues. My e-450 (same as your e-350) isn't powerful enough for madvr, but evr-cp works just fine with mpc and the LAV filters. I launch it with fuzzy's external player plugin. Pretty easy solution.

[TwistedMelon]

Can MPC be launched completely seamlessly when a video is selected from Sage's video library? If it has to be triggered manually by pressing a button or selecting it from a menu then it's not going to work for me.

For reference, I don't have any interest in playing actual BD or discs of any kind, and none of my rips will ever preserve the menus of the original discs.

If I can't get at least the same quality video from this PC-client as I do from an HD200 and HD300, along with close/similar ease of day to day use, then I won't be installing it as a permanent solution. I'm willing to spend some time up front on setup and investigation, but once it's deployed it has to be self-contained and "just work." This ease of use and seamlessness means I also take extra time to hide any audible/visual evidence that this system is running windows or for that matter on a computer. That means hiding all BIOS/uEFI details, hiding Windows logos/animations/screens and skipping Explorer to start SageTV as the OS's shell. Boot time is very quick at the moment using a spare 2.5" HD so I'm confident it will be completely acceptable once I swap in a spare SSD.

EDIT: Updated testing with clean Win7 installation and up to date LAN and ATI drivers indicate that the e-350 just isn't up to the task. Output quality on a pixel level is quite good, but video decode and rendering speed just are not there. Using only Windows defaults, EVR and DVD-DTV decoders, you can see some incomplete frame updates (mild tearing) on some very fast action scenes and every now and then you may see a dropped frame or two, or a brief split-second pause. Even if that happens twice in a 2 hour movie, it's twice too many times IMO. Testing files are h.264 with DTS (passthrough), video with High(4.1) level complexity and around 8000-11000 Kbps.

Maybe an i3 or i5 would be able to handle this content, but this little system most definitely cannot. At the moment I don't see an extender replacement being possible for under $500 or so. Not without dedicated silicon for video decoding.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by TwistedMelon

Can MPC be launched completely seamlessly when a video is selected from Sage's video library? If it has to be triggered manually by pressing a button or selecting it from a menu then it's not going to work for me.

For reference, I don't have any interest in playing actual BD or discs of any kind, and none of my rips will ever preserve the menus of the original discs.

If I can't get at least the same quality video from this PC-client as I do from an HD200 and HD300, along with close/similar ease of day to day use, then I won't be installing it as a permanent solution. I'm willing to spend some time up front on setup and investigation, but once it's deployed it has to be self-contained and "just work." This ease of use and seamlessness means I also take extra time to hide any audible/visual evidence that this system is running windows or for that matter on a computer. That means hiding all BIOS/uEFI details, hiding Windows logos/animations/screens and skipping Explorer to start SageTV as the OS's shell. Boot time is very quick at the moment using a spare 2.5" HD so I'm confident it will be completely acceptable once I swap in a spare SSD.

EDIT: Updated testing with clean Win7 installation and up to date LAN and ATI drivers indicate that the e-350 just isn't up to the task. Output quality on a pixel level is quite good, but video decode and rendering speed just are not there. Using only Windows defaults, EVR and DVD-DTV decoders, you can see some incomplete frame updates (mild tearing) on some very fast action scenes and every now and then you may see a dropped frame or two, or a brief split-second pause. Even if that happens twice in a 2 hour movie, it's twice too many times IMO. Testing files are h.264 with DTS (passthrough), video with High(4.1) level complexity and around 8000-11000 Kbps.

Maybe an i3 or i5 would be able to handle this content, but this little system most definitely cannot. At the moment I don't see an extender replacement being possible for under $500 or so. Not without dedicated silicon for video decoding.

MPC can be launched when choosing a video, and the only way anyone would know that another player is launched is because the mpc-hc logo appears for a second before the video plays. When I press stop, or the file reaches the end, it exits and goes back to the sage screen. Totally seamless.

I have no issues with dropped frames (IIRC) in MPC on my e450 with the 12.8 drivers, 12.10 didn't quite act right for me. I'll tell you right now that you should be able to get close to the same video quality as the HD300 out of this box, it's all a matter of settings. Firstly, turn of any and all video and color processing in the CCC. That will help with dropped frames considerably. Enable smooth video as well. I'll send you a screen shot of mine if you want.

EDIT: I will say that the e450 is great, but I still say my PQ is much better with my HT client. That's the one I'm the most picky about. The a3700 (e450) is for other tv's. I'd spend the extra cash on something with the HD4000 graphics from intel if PQ is that important.

[TwistedMelon]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

MPC ... Totally seamless.

That sounds totally workable. However what about UI elements and input? Checking Info for instance, jumping to Sage menus while video is playing, and skip forward/back as within Sage?

Also, what PQ issues precisely do you find you're solving with MPC versus using Sage?

I noticed that your Win7 image (which I have not tried) includes a lot of extra codecs/filters. So far the MS DVD-DTV have given me by far the best results on this system, though I have't gone to too much trouble trying to figure out why by playing with all the settings in the others like LAV and ffdshow.

with the 12.8 drivers, 12.10 didn't quite act right for me.

I've used 12.1 and 12.10 - I suppose I might as well try 12.8 since I've already spent so much time on this. A little more isn't going to kill me. The funny thing is that hardware aside, I've probably spent at least $1000 worth of time on playing around with this system in the past few days.

turn of any and all video and color processing in the CCC. That will help with dropped frames considerably. Enable smooth video as well. I'll send you a screen shot of mine if you want.

I found that smooth video setting didn't seem to make a difference. But I'll turn it back on. Everything else that can be turned off is off. The only thing that cannot be turned off is de-interlacing. Which again is a little bit of a PITA. When interlaced content is played I'd like the output mode to change to 1080i - but I'll worry about solving that issue later.

EDIT: I will say that the e450 is great, but I still say my PQ is much better with my HT client.

Can you be specific as to why/what the differences are for you with regard to those two platforms? For me, the color and pixel aspects are all decent and I can fine tune with my video processor once I'm satisfied with the decode performance.

The reason I even started looking at a PC-client was to improve Gemstone. And sure enough, it's a much better experience than on the HD200 for the most part. Running the UI at 1080 looks fantastic and performs much quicker than the HD200 at 1024x576.

I'd spend the extra cash on something with the HD4000 graphics from intel if PQ is that important.

Unfortunately that means a completely new system. This Zotac Zbox Nano wasn't bought for this purpose and I'm more than happy to put it to its original use when I can find the time to build that out (portable and self-contained Squeezebox Server, mainly for use in-car).

[TwistedMelon]

So I just tried LAV on this system again. The only settings I changed were to enable passthrough on the Audio and then for video to use the stream AR instead of container (because that didn't work last time) and to use DXVA (software only is unusable).

I couldn't get audio to work at all. Edited sage properties to include LAV, changed decoder merit, nothing. Sage would just pop an exception related to audio. Had to go back to using AC3Filter for audio.

LAV for video seemed to be working well enough for the MPEG2 captures from my ATSC card. And for SD and lower bandwidth/complexity 720p encodes. But for 1080p at level 4.1 forget it. Skipping produced smearing and blocky areas. A lot of scenes just couldn't be handled by the decoder at all, with color data corruption, blocking and frequent pausing.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by TwistedMelon

That sounds totally workable. However what about UI elements and input? Checking Info for instance, jumping to Sage menus while video is playing, and skip forward/back as within Sage?

I only use MPC for blu-ray and have no need to check info or anything else you listed, so no you can't do that. Sage is in the background when MPC is playing

Also, what PQ issues precisely do you find you're solving with MPC versus using Sage?

With MPC-HC I change the refresh rate on the fly where sage is unable to accomplish this. I only do it with blu-ray's so everything else is watched through sage. MadVR seems to be a much better renderer. A detailed explanation can be found here.

I noticed that your Win7 image (which I have not tried) includes a lot of extra codecs/filters. So far the MS DVD-DTV have given me by far the best results on this system, though I have't gone to too much trouble trying to figure out why by playing with all the settings in the others like LAV and ffdshow.

I never got sage to play nice with LAV. I haven't tried the newer version yet though. I use the Arcsoft TMT 5 decoder and the ATI decoder for mpeg2.

I found that smooth video setting didn't seem to make a difference. But I'll turn it back on. Everything else that can be turned off is off. The only thing that cannot be turned off is de-interlacing. Which again is a little bit of a PITA. When interlaced content is played I'd like the output mode to change to 1080i - but I'll worry about solving that issue later.

Keep deinterlacing at motion adaptive (IIRC that is the highest available with this gpu) and everything off like you have it. Smooth video is supposed to keep the frame rate correct by bypassing video processing, essentially what happens is it disables video processing. Turing everything off has the same effect.

Can you be specific as to why/what the differences are for you with regard to those two platforms? For me, the color and pixel aspects are all decent and I can fine tune with my video processor once I'm satisfied with the decode performance.

I see a difference just because the video card I have is more powerful and can deinterlace much better than the e450. Basically, I use it to "process" the video instead of using an external processor like you are. MadVR doesn't work with the e450 either because it isn't a powerful enough GPU. You have to stick with EVR (which looks great for everything but my projector, not that EVR isn't good).

[silkshadow]

Ok here's what I am doing. I've run into other problems with LAV in Sage over the past couple of days. I believe Sage and LAV just don't seem to work together with, obviously, no fix coming. So I am using JREkiwi's External Apps to launch Zoomplayer or TMT for BRD menus (using the MCE front end) and leaving MS' decoder in Sage for cable TV recordings. I posted in that thread so, besides that small issue, this is relatively seamless.

As for parts, I am not familiar with the e450 but I am using discarded parts put into a SFF chassis being a Q6600, 4gb of DDR2 (lol), a 5770 and an Asus Xonar card. I have a 7950 I was selling, but the Steam 10 foot beta is working well and I am probably going to swap out the 5770. This hardware spec is working really well with LAV.

One thing to add. J River Media Center exposes their video decoder. I played with this a tiny bit and its not bad in Sage from the limited testing I did. Just another option. I wish I could get J River to handle music inside Sage but cncb's plugin is good enough and JREkiwi's app works to get me into theater view party mode without too much fuss.

My only issue is I have a clunky workaround for switching refresh rates. I have to use girder and a macro recorder as I cannot get catalyst hotkey working as I think it should. Honestly I would just stick it at 60 and be done if it wasn't for 3D and gaming. Otherwise I am done, going to have to use it for a few weeks to know if its perfect but its good so far.

[Fuzzy]

I still recommend you look into ReClock. It is an audio renderer replacement, originally designed to match playback to video refresh rate, however, it has a scripting system as well, which gives it the capability to provide on the fly refresh switching based on the media.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I still recommend you look into ReClock. It is an audio renderer replacement, originally designed to match playback to video refresh rate, however, it has a scripting system as well, which gives it the capability to provide on the fly refresh switching based on the media.

I've searched everywhere for this and haven't been able to find out how to do it. Care to point a guy in the right direction?