Page 1 of 1

Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:51 am
by Stoik
MadVR is an amazing codec,
but I somehow am not able to get a portable player
that can use the MadVR features to the full.

E.g. Zoom Player claims to deliver PixelShaders with MadVR,
but fails to deliver that on my PC.

Also, MadVR offers high quality algorithms for scaling, sharpening, debanding, dithering etc.
I would like to see a player that directly exploits that, saves settings, etc;
in other words, I would like to do that via GUI rather than via difficult command-lines.

Any ideas ?

Re: Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 6:08 pm
by Userfriendly
Use it with MPC-HC. It fully supports it, its portable and you can kinda make it more portable together without having to register madvr to your system. Manually add madvr to MPC-HC external filters and adjust path to madvr.ax in mpc-hc.ini to something like Path=madVR\madVR.ax. After tweaking any setting in madvr a file called settings.bin will be created in its folder. After which you can just delete [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\madshi\madVR]. It will still keep creating a blank key, but as long as you keep that settings.bin then you will still have your madvr tweaks intact.

If you decide to install madvr with the install.bat it comes with then of course you can just choose the renderer in the mpc-hc output settings.

Re: Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:22 am
by Stoik
Userfriendly,

What You just described is fantastic !
Basically it is about making MadVR portable
and easily transferable to another PC (with customized settings).

Can You do the same with FFDshow ?
I have been trying unsuccessfully for a long time to find or make FFDshow portable.
If You know how to do it, would You please provide us with detailed instructions.

Looking at Your little picture in this post, the Japanese or Asian-like anime-style logo,
it reminds me of a similarly themed MPC-HC variation, something like "Kai Media Player" or similar.
That developer, I think, figured out how to portabilize some of these codecs.
But now I do not remember the exact name, or how to find this.
If You are that developer, of if You know of this, can You please provide a link.

Thanks a lot !

Re: Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:42 am
by Userfriendly
I'm just an anime enthusiast. The fansub scene just led me to know more about media players and codecs over the years.

Not sure what Kai Media Player is but theres KMPlayer and PotPlayer which I think as far as random bits of info out there use stolen MPC-HC code. There's also Light Alloy http://light-alloy.verona.im/ which seems different but some of the codec settings page is very similar to MPC-HC which makes me think it uses some of the same code. It also supports MadVR.

FFDshow is not portable since it saves settings in registry. You can still do the same thing with it like with MadVR. Add it to external filters so it doesn't require system registration. Just add FFDshow.ax to the external filters list. I think it has to be before MadVR in the order of the list to make it work. Then what I do for the settings is to just export the registry settings to a .REG file and then make a another .REG file to delete the registry settings. You can probably just make a custom YAPortablizer launcher for it.

Re: Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 11:52 am
by Stoik
Thanks, Userfriendly !

Now, for the sake of a good discussion, permit me to play the devil's advocate ...
FFDshow is not portable since it saves settings in the registry
I see that statement often when I search this topic on the web.
So what of it, if it writes to the registry ? Almost all of these programs can be "portabilized".
John Haller's collection is almost all programs that write to the registry.
You can probably just make a custom YAPortablizer launcher for it
Why has it not been done by now (as far as we know).
There are portable media players that carry their own codecs with them, but not FFDshow.
Would someone like to give it a try ?
And include the excellent MadVR (as Userfriendly suggested), while You are at it.
What a powerfull portable package that would be: MPC-HC or MPC-BE, packed with MadVR and FFDshow.
Take it with You on a USB stick wherever You want !

P.S. By the way, I a not sure what I am messing up with these quotes,
I am using the prescribed syntax quoted below (except that, instead of the round brackets below, I am using the prescribed square brackets) :
(quote)(b)FFDshow is not portable since it saves settings in the registry(/b)(/quote)

Re: Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:12 pm
by Userfriendly
Well FFDshow isn't a standalone program. Portablizing it doesn't really make sense since it needs other media players to be useful. Also development on it has been abandoned and no one uses it for its decoding feature anymore since its extremely outdated and is used mostly just for its post-processing features. Most media players already surpass FFDshow in the decoding part since most of them already use an updated version of FFMPEG. The image quality post-processing stuff can already be done better with MadVR. The only thing I use FFDshow for now is using it for Avisynth processing for use with SVP interpolation https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/Main_Page

Someone already has the good stuff packaged together called LAV Filters Megamix, though he removed ffdshow because it was only used for debanding which was instead replaced with a pixel shader script http://wp.me/PrgSo-b1

MPC-HC already works pretty good portably out of the box by itself. Most people don't need more than that. Thats why nobody makes all those things you mentioned portable together. Hardcore nerds who want it will make it for themselves since its a niche thing.

TBH I dont really need MadVR, I can see the slight increase in quality in scaling videos but not that much for me to be constantly tweaking it. I just settled with EVR custom for my renderer, lanczos upscale/downscale and called it a day.

Re: Best Player for MadVR Codec

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 7:14 pm
by Specular
I use PotPlayer portably with MadVR set as the video renderer, for times when I want to use MadVR's HDR to SDR tone mapping.