High quality upscaling in next release
OK, I just adding software upscaling as a full-fledged feature for the next release. Both bicubic and lanczos upscaling is selectable, and you can enable it for SD content only, or if you’re feeling like making your CPU sweat, for all content (meaning 720p is upscaled to 1080p using the same algorithms, and — to my eyes, at least — little visual effect).
I think the next thing I want to look into on the quality front is ffmpeg’s ability to post-process. If you look at the bottom of this page, you’ll see what looks like a very impressive example of (I think) a deblocking filter. It even looks like the XBox XBMC code had preferences for post-processing (with mplayer), but they were lost in the port to Linux (which doesn’t use mplayer). If anyone out there has experience with ffmpeg and knows some good settings to use, please let me know.
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Happy Thanksgiving Elan and everyone celebrating it! I make a toast to all the things done..."
Looks good.
Some suggestions for future versions:
- REQ - fade to XBMC when starting (similar to Front Row)
- REQ - adding support for 5.1 AAC in videos
- BUG - I have some Nero Digital AVC videos which do not play properly (they go all squirly after a few seconds)
- REQ - a way to map the DVD drive under Video and to eject the disc from within XBMC (maybe this can be done already, but I can’t figure it out)
Keep up the awesome work! I’ve already bought a mini because of this project and am convincing all my friends and family to do so too.
@Matt: Please feel free to file bug/feature requests for these. I know 5.1 AAC support is already on there but your other requests would make great additions. Feel free to contact me on the Forums for help getting you requests setup.
Elan, fantastic work!!! Everytime you impress us with something amazing! I always think “Wow, Elan’s really done it this time! There is nothing else to add…” Well, I am saying that with every release now! I must say the upscaling sounds sooo awesome and I will be dreaming about post-processing… Great Work Again!!!
Is sw upscaling already implemented in XBMC for Linux & XBMC for Windows?
As you post-processing, it is up to you but you might want to hold of until “libavfilter” has become more mature in the FFmpeg SVN, as of right now the full version of libavfilter as not yet even been fully incorporated (the full version is still only available in the GSoC SVN, see bellow) nor has all of the MPlayer video post-processing filters been ported to libavfilter:
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Libavfilter
http://svn.mplayerhq.hu/soc/libavfilter/README?view=co
Well, lanczos won the wife upscaling bake-off. There are definitely some interesting horizontal line artifacts, but the overall quality seems to be the best. We haven’t tried a double-blind test, but hey, women know what they want, right?
This is getting better with every step:)
I have encountered a few problems so far which are little:
- I can’t play wma pro files. ( Got a WMV hd movie with WMA pro audio but the audio doesn’t play. )
- I can’t remove locations I made. It is getting a little bit messy.
For the rest:
Love OSXBMC:D
@Paul: WMA Pro files aren’t likely to play any time soon, unless ffmpeg or some other project releases support for them (or we implement .dll loading).
To remove locations, use the ‘C’ button to bring up a context menu.
Thanks
It worked:)
Have the current changes been reflected in the SVN/source so that we could try out some of the changes?
I got an error while trying to file a bug but XBMC hangs while trying to launch a video that was recorded with EyeTv 3.0. About 4.5GB and 40 minutes long. It sits there for about 3 minutes and is finally able to back out of it and return to normal. Looking forward to the next release!
Hi I got the next error on my Mac Mini:
Host Name: ***********************
Date/Time: 2008-04-07 14:35:12.779 -0500
OS Version: 10.4.11 (Build 8S2167)
Report Version: 4
Command: XBMC
Path: /Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/MacOS/XBMC
Parent: WindowServer [146]
Version: 0.4.0 (687)
PID: 744
Thread: Unknown
Link (dyld) error:
Library not loaded: /opt/local/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
Referenced from: /Applications/XBMC.app/Contents/MacOS/XBMC
Reason: Incompatible library version: XBMC requires version 7.0.0 or later, but libiconv.2.dylib provides version 5.0.0
Please read the FAQ. XBMC is currently only for 10.5.x (Leopard) on Intel.
Are you fixing 2.0 skins for next version? Aeon, xtv not working with current. : (
Elan,
Loving XBMC on my Mac Mini.
Excellent work. Are you contributing these upscaling-related features to the linux branch as well? Would love to see as many of your non-mac-specific enhancements end up in the Linux branch as well.
Looks like the libavfilter stuff mentioned by Gamester17 would be the most proper way to proceed but maybe a quicker “hack” that would yield results would be to take a look at the most commonly used ffdshow settings (avsforum’s HTPC section has plenty of good info) and just port those?
-Matthew