Advanced MPC-HC Setup Guide - with madVR (v1.2) (Read note on first post)

Niyawa said:

Hm... I don't know if it's related, it could be a lot of work, but would you upload a screenshot of this control panel then? If I have the image I might find something that could help.

Jrittmayer said:
Yeah, this slow start up problem is actually more annoying than I though. Having to wait for a video to start is quite annoying. Not only that but when I scroll forward there a delay for the audio to start back up (around 1 secondish)

Niyawa said:

Good thing you passed by, I'm still searching around a little, I believe this is a madVR issue, my delay also got from 2-3 seconds to 4-5. Not too much, but I noticed it. It seems like that came up with version 0.85.3. About the audio delay, that's explained in the FAQ. See section of Audio, last question.

Edit: Thumbnails huh... It's not impossible, but it's not something you should be asking for. For .mkv files you'll need a DivX Media Pack, which messes up with your registry and might cause some problems with your currently installed filters. Not to mention far as I know it's not for free.

Jrittmayer said:
Okay, so the problem lies with madVR, is there fix or workaround for this?

Niyawa said:

For now I don't think so, I'l going to get in touch with madshi and ask around a little. Meanwhile, you didn't enable/disable any option that's not included in the guide did you? Especially something like "delay playback start until render queue is full".

Niyawa said:
Strange, very strange.

I don't think you followed this guide step by step Corin. First you're using Haali for .m2ts when LAV is the one supposed to handle it. Fix that in the filters list and options for the splitter. Next, use imgur.com for your screenshots, Photobucket will always rezise, I almost can't read anything there. Now to the most important, you're getting a "mini dump" error, please check the memory usage of MPC-HC while playing those videos and report it here.

I have 2 theories regarding your problems:

1. Related to the .m2ts, I've finally found a sample that doesn't play properly here, seems like DTS Express is not compatible with this guide. I would appreciate a screenshot just like the one in "The Grey" with the file you can't hear the sound, but make sure you're using LAV Splitter or it will be useless.

2. The mini dump problem is usually caused by leak of memory, that's why I'm asking a report in this matter. Even if the memory levels are normal, I recommend you trying a new MPC-HC version from the link provided or a stable one, and see if anything changes.

I would also recommend you to re-do or just re-check the guide step by step, and make sure it's not a problem with your settings.

Jrittmayer said:
Where would delay playback start be located, just so I can double check?

Niyawa said:

Go to madVR options, it's under "rendering" > "general settings".

TheCorinthian said:
1. I rechecked the steps from the guide and I don't think I missed anything. In order to get LAV Splitter to do the job should I go to the LAV Splitter source properties in external filters and check every input format except for matroska? I tried that and it still uses Haali media source for m2ts files.

2. My cpu fluctuates between 40 and 60 with the m2ts files that currently don't have sound. When I skip forward the cpu increases to about 80%. I tried a 15GB mkv file to see the cpu activity. When I browse through scenes the cpu is higher and the audio makes weird screeching noises sometimes. Here is screenshot of this movie.

Jrittmayer said:
It's unchecked....hmm, this is puzzling. Can I install an older version of madVR or something or will that screw the whole setup up?

Also, audio started stuttering now...probably because of reclock....ugh, can I use a different audio decoder, which one would I use?

TheCorinthian said:
If I were to upgrade to a desktop what specs would be good enough to play 1080p movies with high bitrates and not down scaling them? I'm not familiar with the latest graphics cards so if you could suggest a few that would be great.

Jrittmayer said:
Wait, so does this process down scale higher bit rate video? And if so, is there a way to change that for increased quality?

Also does this method put more focus onto the CPU or GPU for video processing power? Playing a 19.5Mbps 17GB 1080p BD file I only seem to be using around 15-20% of my CPU at any given time.

Still haven't figured out how to speed up the opening of video files, been playing around a bit with madVR but no luck :C

Jrittmayer said:
EVR-CP? Where/how would I set that?

Niyawa said:

Open MPC-HC Options menu, Under "Output", instead of madVR select "Enhanced Video Renderer (custom presenter)". And block madVR in External Filters to make sure it's EVR-CP that will be used. Just undo these steps to use madVR again.

Jrittmayer said:
Tried this and still same results when opening files, it hangs for a good 5 seconds or more then finally loads up.

Niyawa said:

Now we can assume it's not a madVR problem, and not a decoder either. It must be MPC-HC or Haali/LAV Splitter. Since you already removed ReClock that is one less too.

You're using MPC-HC or MPC-BE/JanWillem32 build?

Jrittmayer said:
I'm using the x86 (32-bit) version of MPC-HC as per the download link in your description.

Niyawa said:

I don't want to sound pessimist, but I'm running out of options... Could you try to use MPC-BE and MPC-HC stable instead of the current one? If it's the same in both players, then means it's not a MPC issue either. Which leaves Haali and LAV Splitter.

Jrittmayer said:
Will tinker with it tomorrow and report back. Thanks for the help though :)

Niyawa said:
so unless you make a genuine attempt to explain why you believe something will not work, I don't know how I can believe you, since it works here.

Jrittmayer said:


I actually fiddled a bit more with reclock before giving up on it and the audio works now with no stutter or delay.

I'm using the x86 (32-bit) version of MPC-HC as per the download link in your description.

katsucats said:
LAV 0.54.1 (or a version in between) apparently solved that problem, so it's no longer an issue.

My setup would hang for about 4 seconds too unless "Use GDI or PowerStrip for faster refresh rate detection" was checked in ReClock Video Settings. You might try that if you haven't already (or ignore me, whatever).

katsucats said:
My setup would hang for about 4 seconds too unless "Use GDI or PowerStrip for faster refresh rate detection" was checked in ReClock Video Settings. You might try that if you haven't already (or ignore me, whatever).

Jrittmayer said:
Most files open within 1 second or so now! Some still hang a bit but that issue is mainly with larger files.

I'm going to test it a bit more later but for now it seems that changing that has fixed 80% of the problem :D

Niyawa said:

I wonder why I didn't noticed that earlier when I checked it, I'm retarded. It's the same for me.


What are the 20% left? Oh yeah, you can update to madVR 0.85.3 now.

Jrittmayer said:
The files that are several Gb large, they used to open almost as fast as smaller files when I used CCCP+Shark 007 Codecs but they didn't seem to get much sped up from changing the option. Still hang for 4-6 seconds :/ hmmmm...

Niyawa said:

CCCP dithers everything, so it's much faster to open and decode files (too bad it's outdated and come with shitty options). Also, using 2 codec packs at the same time is not a good idea Jritt. madVR uses P010 for output (the best high quality out there for 10-bit) and that takes time. If you try with EVR-CP again I believe the time will go down to 2-3 seconds at least.

That's just my assumption though. You seem to have hardware of quality, so I can only give suggestions to such extent.

Jrittmayer said:


I suspect it might have something to do with playing files off of secondary HDD's. My OS boots off an SSD but the majority of my files are located on 3 seperate HDD's.

I'll play around with it somemore and report my findings ;)

katsucats said:
This might be a shot in the dark, but are you using external drives, and are they the power saving 5700rpm "green" drives or the normal 7200rpm? Some drives will automatically spin down quickly to save power and take a couple seconds to come back online.

Then again, I have a file server on a separate computer connected through the router, and it only takes me 1-2 seconds to open 45GB files (uncompressed blu-rays), so I don't think it merely being on separate HDDs mean anything.

Edit: Another shot in the dark, if you have anti-virus software like Norton running, try disabling them.

Jrittmayer said:
They're all internal 7200RPM SATA drives, two 1 TB and one 2 TB drive. Most of the anime runs off the 2 TB drive. I don't believe they're power saving type drives, since their access time is pretty good good.

I don't have any anti-virus running aside from Windows Defender. Not sure if WD causes problems?

Niyawa said:


First, I don't recommend the use of Bishoujou Project guide. Not just because their guide sucks (don't let me get started with most issues), but because it recommends things that you will never need like madFlac and the useless CoreAVC. They also don't recommend the use of xy-VSFilter that is the best subtitle renderer to date (because of minor issues with Desktop resolution which only people who upscale can sometimes notice). Oh yeah, with this guide like Hakuro said, you won't need hardware acceleration or anything of sort. madVR is GPU oriented so it will use the potential of the CPU and GPU altogether.

Basically, they're trying to put in your throat everything that is out there either you'll need it or not. Completely pointless.

The Bishoujo Project said:
Ever since a relatively-recent-but-I’m-too-lazy-to-look-up-exactly-which version of madVR… support for MPC-HC’s internal subtitle engine has been added. This means we don’t have to rely on something (very) shitty like directvodsub. Something unique about the internal subtitle engine is an architectural difference in that it imposes subtitles essentially after all other rendering work has been done. This was brought to light to me by a commenter “CV” and an encoder at Afternoon Naps Empire. This is good in theory, but not in practice because of some scaling issues that mess with typesetting, an issue with anamorphic video scaling because the internal subtitle engine imposes subtitles after the video is re-sized to display resolution, and some bugs with color-space conversion because SD content and HD content use two different color-matrices and if the subtitles are not rendered with the video then a slight difference can occur depending on how the subtitles were typesetted.

xy-vsfilter, a more recent fork of vsfilter, fixes most of these issues however it should be noted that because vsfilter applies subtitles before display resolution resizing occurs the subtitles will have a lower resolution to compared to the internal subtitle engine — this is why this guide has been updated to use JanWillem32′s builds of MPC-HC AND NOT XY-VSFILTER (I’m reiterating this here because people not familiar with the internal subtitle engine were misinterpreting this explanation as instructions to use xy-vsfilter. It’s only mentioned because I’m debunking the idea that it’s the best solution.) which fixes, in my opinion, the worst of these issues with the internal subtitle engine in default builds while retaining crisp high-resolution subtitles.

Tyestor said:
They don't actually recommend CoreAVC. They say to use LAV Filters unless you absolutely need/want to use CoreAVC. MadFLAC is not useless, it is very good at what it does. You're only saying it's useless because you personally have no use for it. I honestly don't see why you wouldn't use it anyway? What possible drawbacks are there to having MadFLAC handle FLAC? Answer: None.

Tyestor said:
As for the xy-vsfilter argument, to each their own.

Tyestor said:
Nonetheless, thank you for putting your time into making this guide. The more people we can get away from using CCCP, K-Lite and VLC, the better. Please look over all the comments in this thread, the bishoujo guide and the comments on that article to improve your guide. Yours and the bishoujo guides are the best I have seen so far. Consolidating all the information should make for one beastly end-all-be-all guide.

Niyawa said:

I don't necessarily want to argue about the use of madFlac, unless of course, you give me a solid reason to do so. What are it's vantages and disadvantages? Would it really be worth putting one more thing to download and deal with? Far as I know, the only thing it does better than LAV decoder is metadata handling (that's also something that was mentioned in Bishoujo guide and I confirmed after a search) and I don't see how that could be enough reason to recommend using it instead of LAV's one.

I admit the word "useless" is bit too far, but I don't see it as a "requirement" neither "necessity" when something else already included does a perfect job with it.

Niyawa said:
No worries, I've been doing that all the time, the most recent update was thanks to katsu suggestion to Jritt in a ReClock's option that can speed up loading/seeking of video. I'll redo a reading on Bishoujo's guide for your sake and the guide's one as well. I can't refuse after that thanks, haha.

Tyestor said:
Well, the MadFLAC folder is literally less than 1mb in filesize and it takes 2 clicks to install it and not much extra work to get it working (stop flac from being decoded by LAV audio decoder, add it to the external filters list). Pretty much it. Although you may see it as not worth the effort for something as small as metadata support but I like to have the absolute best that I can get and so does Bishoujo (it's kind of their motto, lol). Maybe add it in as optional? (speaking of optional, why is Haali optional? The majority of anime nowadays is MKV. IIRC Lav Splitter doesn't support ordered chapters for MKV).

Tyestor said:
I don't currently use ReClock in my setup, I think I might do some experimenting with it. Reason hasn't updated the main article since October but he still comments fairly regularly in the comment section. Thanks for your hard work ^^

Tyestor said:
EDIT: Having never used ReClock before, does it normally mute audio for a split second after unpausing? It's not much of a deal but it's going to get really annoying really fast.

Niyawa said:

For CPU, any quad-core of at least 3 Ghz is a safe bet. My personal recommendation would be a Core i5 3570K that's around $200~220. Basically the same price of 2500K, that was considered the best for mid-ranges until some time ago.

As for GPU, you don't seem like the gamer type, so a GTX 650 that's around $100 will do. You can also get a 650 Ti which is about $40 more but with 50% more performance, it's your pick.

TheCorinthian said:
GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB or maybe another graphics with SLI?

TheCorinthian said:
Was looking at an Asus without any onboard video graphics, can't seem to find one without it on New Egg for less than $200

TheCorinthian said:
Sorry for hijacking the thread so much but can you take a look at this motherboard? It seems like it is similar to the one you linked me to without going over $200.

iShiney said:
Works great! Just wondering, what should I set the madVR scaling algorithms to, with 4 GB of RAM, integrated Intel graphics, and dual core 2.50 GHz? Do they make any difference?

Hakuromatsu said:

There's no overwhelmingly strong consensus about what algorithm is the best, so when you have graphics as mediocre as an Intel IGP you should just throw the most intensive video possible at it and see if it drops any frames (Ctrl+J while watching a video will show you how many frames you've dropped). Just play around and find out what your setup is capable of without dropping any frames.

Also, you should turn off desktop composition in madVR. It does makes a [small] difference.