VLC / KMPlayer / MediaPlayer Classic... h264 Decoding

[triptych]

Hey guys, I'm trying to educate myself a bit better, perhaps someone can help with some misc questions. Bare with me:

(1) First of all, please correct me if this is wrong.. from what I understand: VLC player comes bundled with all it's video/audio codecs already. KMPlayer is the same (pls confirm). MediaPlayer Classic is different, it uses codecs installed on your system, ie from a codec package you download seperately, ie the K-Lite Codec package.... am I correct so far?

(2) I was mentioning to someone I have trouble playing back high bit rate 1080p H264 stuff on my computer.. I use an older GeForce 7800 GTX graphic card which apparently doesn't do h264 decoding like the newer cards. I can play 720p stuff without problem. The person suggested I try using CoreAVC or DivX H.264 Decoder for 1080p... Now the question... how do I get MediaPlayer Classic (or KMPlayer as 2nd choice) to use one of these for h264. When I play a video with MediaPlayer it launches the ffdshow video/audio decoders which I see in my system tray. From there I see that H264 decoding is being handled by "libavcodec". I have the option to disable it or change it to "ffmpeg-mt". How would I get it using CoreAVC?

As you can see I understand a bit about what's going on but I'm also a bit confused... If anyone could nudge me in the right direction, and more importantly help me understand better how this all works (video players using internal vs external decoders, tips for better h264 playback.. etc)..... that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[Baldrick]

Set the h264 to disable in ffdshow and then try mpc. If that wont help you can set coreavc as prefered codec in mpc, under view->options->external filtes and add the coreavc and set it to prefer.

You can also try MPC-HC.

But an AMD X2 4200 should be able to handle 1080p using ffdshow. My similiar setup does it(x2 3800). What ffdshow version are you using? I use clsid icl10 builds like http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/files/SVN%20builds%20by%20clsid/ffdshow...lsid_icl10.exe and haali media splitter.

[jagabo]

Be sure to get CoreAVC Pro. It is multithreaded. The standard version is single threaded and can not decode as fast. There is also a newer release of ffdshow with a multithreaded h.264 decoder (ffmpeg-mt). That's almost as fast as CoreAVC Pro.

[triptych]

Thanks for the replies!

The ffdshow I am using is rev 2732 from Feb26/09, I'll check for updates thanks for the reminder.

I got CoreAVC Pro installed, then I went in to ffdshow video settings and disabled h264 - and set CoreAVC as prefered in MPC. Now when I'm using MPC is there a way to check/confirm which decoder it is actively using? MPC have an OSD like this?
Also, any suggestions on how could I do a few benchmarks on my system and test CoreAVC vs ffdshow-mt vs libavcodec? What would you base the benchmark on? CPU usage? Tearing/studdering? Frames Skipped? Other then just using the naked eye, I'd like to see numbers.... thoughts?

[jagabo]

Now when I'm using MPC is there a way to check/confirm which decoder it is actively using? MPC have an OSD like this?

Right click on the video while playing, select Filters. That will show a list of filters being used. If CoreAVC is being used you will see it in the list. Select it to configure its options.

Also, any suggestions on how could I do a few benchmarks on my system and test CoreAVC vs ffdshow-mt vs libavcodec? What would you base the benchmark on? CPU usage? Tearing/studdering? Frames Skipped? Other then just using the naked eye, I'd like to see numbers.... thoughts?

You can use Task Manager to see CPU usage (Alt+Ctrl+Del). View -> Statistics, or View -> Display Stats will display dropped frames (MPCHC only I think), frame rate, bitrate, etc. There is a built in tearing test via View -> Tearing Test. Some of these only work if you are using the VMR video renderers. View -> Options -> Playback -> Output.

[Squash]

Also, Graphstudio has a decoder speed comparison tool in it. Drag the file into graphstudio's window, click View...Decoder performance. You'd want to look at each decoder using whatever renderer you'll be using in your player.

Haali's timeCodec will do a speed comparison as well (look at the dfps value), and a lot of people quote its figures, but some think it's not as useful as graphstudio: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1243349#post1243349

When I tried both, they agreed pretty well with one another, as I remember.

timecodec is at: http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/timeCodec.exe

But CPU usage is very important, too, as jagabo pointed out. You might need that extra cpu capacity for other things like filtering, multitasking, etc, besides keeping your computer cooler.

[jagabo]

Also, Graphstudio has a decoder speed comparison tool in it.

Nice! Never noticed this.

By the way, I hear Divx 7 has the fastest h.264 decoder.

[Squash]

The Divx7 h.264 is what I settled on for my laptop, which is a Pentium Dual T2330 @ 1.6 GHz with crappy integrated Intel 965 graphics. My desktop is a Q6600 with a recent Nvidia card, so on it I use MPCHC's decoder for the DXVA support.

Testing the decoders on my laptop, using the 1080p Watchmen trailer from DivX showcase [ http://www.divx.com/en/downloads/divx-7-showcase ], I get 45.6 fps using DivX 7's decoder, 40.7 using ffdshow/ffmpeg-mt, and 30.4 using ffdshow/libavcodec. I don't have CoreAVC Pro.

Those numbers are from graphstudio. Running the same test with Haali's timecodec, I get 54.1, 45.4, and 36.9 respectively. All tests were run using VMR7.

There's some other test results, including CoreAVC, over at: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144258

And, triptych, I was wrong about dragging the file into graphstudio. Just open graphstudio, click "View...Decoder Performance", then select your file in the "Source file" box. And use a small clip, because it will play through the whole thing when testing, and the default is set to 3 passes, but you can change that. It could get very time consuming, if you let it.