Best video player and codec for watching 1080p movies?

[TheRyuu]

Thanks mate, will do that, and you are right, it shouldn't do that change by default, I just love the MPC's default controls.

Are there any other settings need to be changed in madVR as well? I mean there are too many of them :hmm:

You bring up a good point about madvr in that it's configuration is confusing. A lot of the discussion about various options is buried in the doom9 thread.

There's a guide[1] which gives some explanation about some of the options. There's also this picture[2] floating about which gives a rough guide for the scaling options that madvr has although I'm not sure how much I agree with some of it.

I'm not sure I would really bother with any of the monitor stuff other than playing with the bit depth of the monitor. I use 7 for that despite having a 6-bit monitor because each reduction in bit depth increasing the amount of dithering by an order of magnitude so it was too extreme. I'm also not a fan of the smooth motion stuff, perhaps it's more relevant if you have a 60hz monitor?

As with all A/V stuff I'm sure there's lots of bullshit surrounding the topic so take some stuff with a grain of salt.

[1] http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/MadVR_Expert_Guide
[2] https://i.imgur.com/HLv1qmj.png

 

[phucheneh]

VLC works fine, but is crap compared to MPC-HC.

I used MadVR and whatnot for a while, but IMO its overkill and the plethora of configurations available gives increasing headaches for little true benefit.

So now I use MPC-HC with the built-in Enhanced Video Render. The only extra filter I use is LAV, which is pretty simple.

...for video purposes. If I was outputting to some kinda hifi surround system, I might have to do more for the audio, but I really have no idea about that stuff. I say start simple: install MPC-HC, set up LAV splitter and LAV video/audio, and see if you think it's leaving anything to be desired.

Changing things on the theory of 'maybe I can make it better' rather than 'this needs to be fixed' will only lead to pissing away lots of time for no good reason.

 

[ithehappy]

You bring up a good point about madvr in that it's configuration is confusing. A lot of the discussion about various options is buried in the doom9 thread.

There's a guide[1] which gives some explanation about some of the options. There's also this picture[2] floating about which gives a rough guide for the scaling options that madvr has although I'm not sure how much I agree with some of it.

I'm not sure I would really bother with any of the monitor stuff other than playing with the bit depth of the monitor. I use 7 for that despite having a 6-bit monitor because each reduction in bit depth increasing the amount of dithering by an order of magnitude so it was too extreme. I'm also not a fan of the smooth motion stuff, perhaps it's more relevant if you have a 60hz monitor?

As with all A/V stuff I'm sure there's lots of bullshit surrounding the topic so take some stuff with a grain of salt.

[1] http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/MadVR_Expert_Guide
[2] https://i.imgur.com/HLv1qmj.png

Thanks for the link. Don't know whether I will follow it or not but bookmarked it nevertheless.

60 Hz monitor? I mean I am an idiot but aren't all monitors 60 Hz? I mean I don't know (I am not counting the monitors which are over 6-7 years old)! I thought mine is 60 Hz, and I think!

 

[Auric]

Yeah, VLC is a fine all-in-one player that won't mess up the system (like a codec pack) but its focus has been streaming rather than quality or universality like MPC-HC.

The benefits of madVR are least when the source is unaltered 1080p to match the display. But it does include a visual guide to the scaling options -which demand more resources as you go down the list with diminishing or even negative returns. With a modern GPU though, a good starting point at least (if not perfectly fine) is choosing DXVA2 scaling where possible and Lanczos 3-taps with anti-ringing filter otherwise (chroma).

As for audio, perhaps that K-Lite included a decoder/filter and settings which applied dynamic range compression for increased loudness (particularly of dialogue). That is an option in LAV Audio Filter but is not applied by default.

 

[Berryracer]

60 Hz monitor? I mean I am an idiot but aren't all monitors 60 Hz? I mean I don't know (I am not counting the monitors which are over 6-7 years old)! I thought mine is 60 Hz, and I think!

ughh....noooo!

a 3D screen is @ 100 to 120 Hz and my IPS screen is @ 75 Hz by default

 

[silicon]

Another thumbs up for VLC. Been using it for years and it plays 99.9% of all videos. No need to fiddle with codecs either.