Not getting what I want from a player

[graveflower426]

I watch a lot of bluray ripped files, 1080p x264 .mkv. I have been using MPC-HC as my main player and I have tried to set it up the best I can using its internal settings and I have also followed several guides that use madVR to render it in hopes of finding the best visual quality possible. These settings have helped get me above the standard out of the box quality of any player I have used but I still don't get anywhere near as close to what I can get from an actual bluray player when I play the exact same file via usb stick. What I would like to know is, am I using the best player for this? Will any software ever be able to match the quality from a standalone bluray player.

I hope someone can steer me in the right direction.

[Ennio]

...bluray ripped files, 1080p x264...

I don't think files directly ripped from BD contain x264 encoded video. I am assuming you mean re-encoded rips from BD's.
Visual quality is in the eye of the beholder; it's not an absolute criterium. Bluray players and MPC-HC settings can perform with better or less quality, for that matter.

Are you comparing these qualities by viewing on the same screen?

[graveflower426]

I have compared them on the same screen, yes. The sony bluray player still seems to outshine any configuration I can find for MPC-HC. Yes the files I have are re-encodes of bluray files that are stored in .mkv's

[Ennio]

I remember from the past having good picture quality with MPC-HC without having too much tinkering with the settings...

Maybe you can tell something more about how you experience these quality differences.

I first would check if there are hardware related issues. You're sure it has nothing to do with framerate conversion or different picture settings on your tv/screen for maybe two different inputs you're using?
For example, overscan settings on a tv can be disastrous for pc input.

[graveflower426]

It seems to be more of a color issue. Frame rate conversion is being handled by reclock. When connected to my TV it's through hdmi. What is overscan?

[Bernix]

Probably wrong BT601,709 etc. conversion. If colors are wrong, or wrong colorspace? YUV vs RGB and so on. Could it be?
You can post text form of mediainfo of version you are playing in sw player. Just video part information, no name of file needed.

Bernix

[Bernix]

And also what is your output format from sw player to monitor. What colorspace YUV, RGB, RGB24 or I420 or any of many others, range you have YCbCr full range 0-255 or just partial range 16-235 and many more factors that colors depends.

Bernix

[Ennio]

It seems to be more of a color issue. Frame rate conversion is being handled by reclock. When connected to my TV it's through hdmi. What is overscan?

Did you check if the two hdmi inputs have the same picture settings? There are a lot of presets in nowadays tv's that have different saturation, lightness, contrast, hue, digital enhancers, etc etc. See if the inputs share exactly the same configuration.

Overscan is where the tv "zooms in" slightly and not displaying the full picture, just to be safe. It's something that comes from analog tv. With nowadays digital media it's not necessary and more important, not wanted.
Look for a setting called "overscan" (disable this) or "1 : 1 pixelmapping" (this you want to enable). It's also possible that your tv has a special input for pc.

You can also try to reset MPC-HC to it's defaults. IIRC I didn't even have reclock, MadVR and LAV filters installed, but I can be wrong here. Certain about reclock though. A lot of video is made for tv so when a pc is hooked up to a tv, framerate often is no issue (here in Europe) because of the hdmi handshake.

Edit: Bernix beat me to it

I was just about to say I forgot about colorrange diferences between tv and pc...

[graveflower426]

Media info:
Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames : 4 frames
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 52 min 32 s
Bit rate : 13.4 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.269
Stream size : 4.81 GiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 119 r2106 07efeb4
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=13389 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

using full color range 0-255

[jagabo]

DVD and Blu-ray are always limited range YUV. If you play it as full rang you won't get full blacks (washed out darks) or full whites (dull whites). It is normally converted to full range RGB (usually by the TV) at playback.

[Ennio]

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
using full color range 0-255

Ah, as jagabo said, the picture is encoded with so-called "tv-range". Try if you can change that.
If this is the cause, I do wonder if there can be a hdmi handshake issue between your pc and the screen.

[flashandpan007]

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
using full color range 0-255

Ah, as jagabo said, the picture is encoded with so-called "tv-range". Try if you can change that.
If this is the cause, I do wonder if there can be a hdmi handshake issue between your pc and the screen.

The video is like jagabo said in limited YUV, which is ok. Don't change the file.
What graphics do you use? What driver version? What color space do you set the driver to? -> RGB / YCBCR of any subsampling like 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0
TV manufacturer and model?

[Ennio]

Don't change the file.

I did not mean to make him change the file. I meant to change the colorrange settings output from his pc to "limited".

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

[graveflower426]

You are right about color range. I reset it from PC to TV and it looks much better. Only when I full screen it, it just goes black and nothing shows. I'll try later plugging directly into the TV instead of through the receiver.

[LMotlow]

Have you calibrated your TV and monitor? How? I used i1 Pro for the monitor and the i1 and HCFR for the TV.

You should ditch that SONY player. SONY always looks like crap in my estimation, and they're not very smart as media players. Try something that can play your DVD's and BluRays as-is without all the destructive re-encoding and other crap. An OPPO, maybe.

[graveflower426]

Where are you getting sony from? I am talking about playing with MPC-HC through a laptop onto the tv. As for calibration I have got all my settings from scouring the forums on what the settings should be.

[LMotlow]

Where are you getting sony from?

Oh gosh geewhiz, sorry, sparkie. Someone else must be signing in with your login:

The sony bluray player still seems to outshine any configuration I can find for MPC-HC.

Seems they own a SONY, too, and sign in as graveflower426. I'd contact the moderator about that ASAP.

And what was your reply to the question about calibration? Or was I addressing the different graveflower426?

[graveflower426]

No you're right I missed that point. But I am completely satisfied with the performance and the way it looks. I'm also not re-encoding anything for the Blu-ray player or mac-he. I also went right through the Blu-ray player menu and turned off all its "effects" and "enhancements"