NextPVR Forums

Not sure if this is just luck, but I have been playing with a number of H264 Decoders, and trying to change from one ch. to another using the miniguide. I've been reading there is not much difference in quality of H264/AVC decoders, but they really behave different in channel changes .. any idea why?

How would I to try to get better channel changes with the ones that seem to give a good pic?

V-Video, A-Audio

1. CoreAVC - V&A on 1st Chan, but seeing about 1/8 of screen like the Video would be really big. Craps out with fuzzy lines when changing to the 2nd Chan.
   
2. Cyberlink - V&A works on both Chan, slick channel changes, but top and sometimes bottom of screen "wobbles".
   
3. ffdshow- V&A works on 1st Chan, GREAT pic, but channel change results ONLY in Audio from Chan 2, not the Video (which stays on a still from Ch 1)???. Exiting and going back in again to Ch2 works fine.
   
4. LAV Video Decoder - No Video (black Screen) but AUDIO is fine. Mini-guide does not appear. (oddly I see the tray icon for CoreAVC pop up briefly).
   
5. DivX H264 Video Decoder - No Video (black Screen) but AUDIO is fine. Mini-guide does not appear. No tray icon.
   
6. ATI MPEG Video Decoder - No Video OR Audio.
   

I also tried registering MPCVideoDec.ax from MPC-HC standalone filters. No go, same as 6.

I would use (3) IF it change channels better. Any suggestions to make it do this??
If all these decoders are supposed to be similar, why do some show Video, and some neither, and some change channels better?

k.

Good questions. Only thought I can offer is that ffdshow has a million settings and there may be something in there that can improve how it handles switching from one stream to another. However, I have no idea of what that setting might be or even what it might look like.

This assumes that live TV is indeed handled within NPVR, rather than handed off to DirectShow like anything other than a .ts file.

jksmurf Wrote:Cyberlink - V&A works on both Chan, slick channel changes, but top and sometimes bottom of screen "wobbles".

Could UIZoom on Settings--> General be used to make the wobbles go away.

Personally for the H.264 I use either the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder or the ArcSoft decoder. These both do a pretty good job.

Some decoders (like CoreAVC) were really designed for playback of files, like mkv files with H.264 etc, and just don't handle DVB usage well (where the stream characteristics change dynamically when the user changes channels). Some decoders (like LAV I think) will only work with a demultiplexer that does NALU decoding, which the Microsoft Demultiplexer does not do.

The Cyberlink H.264/AVC is an old decoder, try the newer PDVD12.

sub Wrote:Personally for the H.264 I use either the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder or the ArcSoft decoder. These both do a pretty good job.

As per the decoders pic above I do not have the Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder, but I found updated dll's as per attached.
Can I install and register the new ones in /system32 or does this fall under the "really bad idea" department?

k.

I don't know. I've never tried to do that.

sub Wrote:I don't know. I've never tried to do that.

I tried - doesn't work ... :-)

jksmurf Wrote:I tried - doesn't work ... :-)

Didn't you try PDVD12? Download the trial version of PowerDVD 12, copy the folder VideoDecoder found under the Powerdvd tree in Program files to a safe location and register the .ax files in it. The decoder will work even after the trial period is expired.

Reddwarf Wrote:Didn't you try PDVD12? Download the trial version of PowerDVD 12, copy the folder VideoDecoder found under the Powerdvd tree in Program files to a safe location and register the .ax files in it. The decoder will work even after the trial period is expired.

I do have it now - I installed SAF6 and have PDVD12 via that.