FFdshow novice - help please!

[Placebo2]

Hey guys!

Finally took the plunge and installed FFdshow over the weekend and to my delight have a fantastic picture!

My question is with regards to the sizeing option within FFdshow - how do I set this up? idiots guide please! If my screen is running 1024x768 do I double this to get the right setting? I've tried and it just maxs out the image and becomes blurring - I'm dumb I know

Current set-up:
AMD 3200+
1024DDR PC4000
6600GT
Pioneer 433MXE plasma (running at 1024x768, anyone running the same plasma, settings would be appriecated!)
TT 2.6

Cheers,
John

 

[KraGorn]

While some people do scale to double native resolution most will not (I scale to 1.5), my experience is that sometimes it helps, mostly not. Generally the best PQ comes when you set desktop resolution to that of the display (1:1 mapping) and use FFDSHOW to scale to that size.

By definition scaling will soften (blur) the image, you need to apply judicious use of sharpening to couter that, I find using Lanczos 2 with an amount of Luma Sharpening to be the best for me, but softness/sharpness is a personal tase, increased sharpening has side-effects such as ringing which can be equally or more annoying that softness.

Out of interset what sort of connection are you running, DVI, component, VGA?

 

[Placebo2]

Hi Robin,

I'm using DVI from my 6600GT to my 433MXE plasma. My screen res is set at 1024x768, so thats what I should set the FFdshow at??

Cheers,
John

 

[KraGorn]

That's the best starting point. With this you're getting the best quality scaler you have in your system (FFDSHOW) to up-scale SD DVD (ie. 720x480 or 720x576) to that of the size of the display's panel .. bypassing any such scaling in the graphics card and the plasma.

General consensus is that the Lanczos scaler is the best and my personal experience borne out by others and theory is to set 'Parameter' to 2, no higher in spite of what you may read on AVS .. theory demonstrates why higher settings are in fact detrimental to picture quality and on my 1280x720 92" screen I can't see any improvement in scaling quality but increased ringing and green push is definitely detectable.

Once you've set this you can try experimenting using 1:1 as a benchmark.

Note that I'm assuming your plasma can accept 1:1 from a PC .. some can't apparently.

 

[Steve Bate]

That's the best starting point. With this you're getting the best quality scaler you have in your system (FFDSHOW) to up-scale SD DVD (ie. 720x480 or 720x576) to that of the size of the display's panel .. bypassing any such scaling in the graphics card and the plasma.

General consensus is that the Lanczos scaler is the best and my personal experience borne out by others and theory is to set 'Parameter' to 2, no higher in spite of what you may read on AVS .. theory demonstrates why higher settings are in fact detrimental to picture quality and on my 1280x720 92" screen I can't see any improvement in scaling quality but increased ringing and green push is definitely detectable.

Once you've set this you can try experimenting using 1:1 as a benchmark.

Note that I'm assuming your plasma can accept 1:1 from a PC .. some can't apparently.

Robin,

What other settings do you use and in what order other than Lanczos 2?

 

[KraGorn]

Generally I only use Resize. I used to use Sharpen after Resize but dropped that when I found Luma gave me sufficient and over-sampling pretty much eliminated ringing.

Occasionally I'll use Blur/Denoise before Rezise using Gradual to around 25 or so, mainly on very grainy movies such as the 'Dollars' trilogy for example.

This is feeding an H77 projecting on to a 92" screen, the H77 is a great projector but its' strength is also its' weakness in that it preserves great image detail, and in doing so preserves artifacts as well. The over-sampling by FFDSHOW followed by down-scaling by the graphics cards helps eliminate them, Denoise further reduces the more extreme cases.

 

[Placebo2]

Nice one Robin, I'll give your suggestions a go tonight!

 

[KraGorn]

Once you've tried 1:1 use FFDSHOW to scale to 1.5 times output size (even 2x if you have the processor power), when the graphics card down-scales to desktop (which should remain at 1:1) some of the softening will be lost due to pixel elimination .. this is sometimes called over-sampling.

 

[mrm3]

Sorry to gate crash this thread but can I confirm a few things as it is on the same subject.

FFDShow is not compatible with PowerDVD (my current player) so I need another compatible software dvd player like the recommended Theatertek. Is this right?
Theatertek though is better suited to Nvidia cards but i have ATI? Any thoughts and suggestions?

 

[Supersonic]

I have tried FFDSHOW with Theatertek and got a fantastic picture from my Radeon 9800 pro out via DVI into Sanyo Z3 HDMI. Desktop is set to 1280x720, FFDSHOW set to re-size to the same.

My settings (having read the various threads on this forum) were also resize with Lanczos set to 2. I've played with other settings but couldn't see much change using Blur settings. I haven't had time to try the over-scaling thing - but the picture is way way better than WinDVD 4 and noticeable clearer - 'better'? - than Theatertek default settings. Now I've got versions of Theatertek (2.06) and FFDSHOW (200410??) that work together - lots of re-starting of Theatertek - and I've found the upper limits of my processor (AMD Athlon 2600+) power, I've got a really good set-up. It's just a question of when upgrade-itis sets in. In short, I'd recommend the two programs together.

 

[thegeby]

I would recommend ZoomPlayer Pro(www.inmatrix.com), 20$, plus Dscaler5 DVD filters (www.dscaler.org), free. Zoomplayer includes ffdshow, although you might prefer a later build. Dscaler works well will ffdshow. It has to be admitted that ZP can seem a bit intimidating at first, but think of it as Lego for AV.

 

[KraGorn]

If you want to use the DScaler codec you'll need something to remove CSS protection such as the freebie DVD43 (if it works on your system) or else the usual suspects of AnyDVD or DVD Region Free.

IMX DSCaler is not yet up to the standards of the nVidia codecs, being noisier and less clear, but since it's free it doesn't do any harm to try it. Note that ZoomPlayer Pro is needed to play DVDs, this costs $20 IIRC, but will work with the Cyberlink codecs .. which are NOT what PowerDVD itself uses.

 

[Placebo2]

Well chuffed!! Can you tell!

Installed TT 2.1 last night along with FFdshow, did the resizing dance and can honestly say I've never seen a better picture coming out of my plasma!!
Originally used SW:E2 to check for picture quality, then some other DVD's I know well, ie Ronin etc, all were noticeably better.

Nice one Robin!

 

[KraGorn]

It's quite stunning isn't it compared to hardware-only playback, which itself is often better then stand-alone players.

Now, the thing NOT to do is go down the "what if I just tweak this .. " road.

And I promise not to mention Reclock.

 

[Placebo2]

Er, Reclock?
Powerstrip?