1080P Playback not so good...

[Sobek]

Hey guys, having some issues with playing a 1080P .MOV trailer.

I downloaded the HD trailer for '300' (awesome movie by the way, must go see it), it's roughly 175mb. In WMP 11, it plays fine, but the audio is pretty dull (large amounts of bass come out as garbled near-static mess) and video quality is slightly degraded (looks a little blurry, acceleration/quality options at max in Options). However on MPC, playback is slow, the video stutters and chugs along. The audio stays in sync, but for the life of me nothing I do can get it to play smoothly.

I checked Task Manager, and WMP uses about 30-40% of my CPU (4600+ Dual Core at 2.88ghz) while MPC uses a constant 50% of both cores. Yet playback is still terrible. I use MPC and FFDSHOW (latest). Am I missing anything? Is there anything I can do to get decent steady playback in MPC (No, I will not use VLC in case anyone's wondering ).

I don't know if it's some kind of codec issue or what, but I would have figured an x1900 and 4600+ DC at 2.88ghz would be enough for smooth playback. I also have the latest Quicktime Alternative installed.

 

[satein]

I view the trailer of 300 on Apple website with QTime player without any problem. Playing smoothly here on my laptop (Core 2 Duo T7400, 2GB Ram with ATi Mobility FireGL V5200).

 

[Zaphod]

I use MPC and FFDSHOW (latest).

If by 'latest' you mean the October 12, 2004 'official' FFDShow, then get a recent development build (or CoreAVC) which should have much improved x.264 decoding capabilities.

 

[davepermen]

for media player classic, try renaming the file to .hdmov or .hqmov ... i don't remember which one, but the playback is then much better due to a better decoder.



i checked. my files have a .hdmov at the end.

 

[Sobek]

Thanks guys, i'll give your suggestions a shot soon.

Zaphod, the version of FFDSHOW I (was) using was 2006-12-09, so it was a pretty recent build, just downloaded the 2006-12-22 version though (I always try and keep it up to date). I have also tried CoreAVC, but it made absolutely no difference...to be honest, I couldn't even tell if it was being used. I disabled H.264 control from within FFDSHOW, and installed CoreAVC, but it made diddly squat difference. It's not AVI exclusive or something, is it?

I just did some Googling on renaming to .hdmov, i'll give that a go, looks promising :smile:

 

[Zaphod]

I just did some Googling on renaming to .hdmov, i'll give that a go, looks promising

Just renaming won't really do anything. The 'trick' is just to bypass the Apple media splitter and other dog slow things that aren't really required to play back H.264 + AAC encoded clips (even when they're in a QuickTime container).

My guess is that you have something a bit messed up with our DirectShow codecs. Try GraphEdit to track the filter chain and make sure that the codecs you think you're using are actually being used. Then get rid of/unregister whatever you don't need that is interfering.

 

[Moloch]

might wanna use the new new nero 7 build that supports hardware h.264 decoding.

 

[Sobek]

Well what do you know, changing the extension to .HDMOV fixed it. Playback through MPC is now totally smooth, no stuttering video whatsoever, completely smooth.

Guess the extension can make a difference... I now get the 'Filters' menu when I right-click the video while it's playing, so it looks like FFDSHOW has taken over. Fantastic, thanks for the help :smile: