Whirligig, HEVC and SVP

[Kael13]

I've set up Whirligig so that it passes its video stream to the LAV splitter, which then uses Ffdshow to play the video and interpolate at 90Hz with SVP. This works with anything that ffdshow can play.

Now I know that, unfortunately, ffdshow doesn't support h265 or HEVC. So this means that the LAV splitter uses the LAV video decoder. However, I can't then get SVP to detect anything playing and enable its profile. I can use MPC-HC to work with SVP and HEVC video; it seems to decode the video into a raw stream and then feed that to ffdshow for SVP to work its magic. But I don't know how to do this outside of that video player and translate it to Whirligig or other VR players.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Shizumauru]

Hi, it doesn't work for me, but maybe its just a configuration issue? When playing AVC Videos, I only hear sound and see a green screen. The reason could be that the AVC decoder isn't found, but this was working with older betas. When loading a HEVC Video it plays fine but the SVP tray icon says "no active playback". I have a FFDShow tray Icon too which says "ffdshow video decoder raw: Input YV12 Output NV12" So it seems to call FFDShow, but SVP seems not to recognize it. (or isn't configured correct) Maybe you could make this new directshow behaviour as a seperate option in whirligig under paths? directshow normal and directshow with ffdshow? If you have any idea what I could try or change in my configuration tell me, I will try it out and report to you! Many thanks!

[Shizumauru]

Update: I solved the AVC problem by setting H264 in Codec Tweak tool to ffdshow. But both, H264 and H265 are not recognized by SVP during playback. I have everything set as described in the manual for Whirligig on the SVP website. When playing the same H264 Video in MPC HC, SVP recognizes it (but no H265 content)

[Shizumauru]

Update2: SVP support helped me, it was because I was running SVP as administrator. its working now, awesome, many thanks!

[Whirligig]

That was a roller coaster of emotions :) Glad it's working. If you have any problems let me know.

[Shizumauru]

Yes, indeed, I didn't think you would find a solution for this, thanks alot!

[offall]

Hi @Phil, thanks very much for implementing this, i have tested a couple of video on my own and here is my finding (i have index headset and set frame rate at fix 120fps to match):

First of all, It was such a great news that the H265 file worked for the first time with SVP (using Directshow video path), i made setting as per SVP guideline (set H.264 codec as ffdshow, no ffdshow codec to set for HEVC so keep it as is with code tweaktools), H264 file always worked in older version so i am mainly testing H265, and i found all 25fps and 30fps files worked and converted to 120fps.


But For file of 60fps HEVC, it will not work though, it remains at 60fps not change it to 120fps, for example, use following
https://4kmedia.org/the-world-in-hdr-uhd-4k-demo/



A couple of bugs:
1. first of all, the new version of whirligig beta has same problem a while ago, that when playing 2D video, the back ground glow is in front of video instead of behind, so you cannot see anything on the video unless disable it
2. The control interface in this version is very tiny and the recenter function seem not working

[Whirligig]

Thanks for the bug reports. I'll look into them this week. They sound like they are one's that I'll be able to recreate so hopefully they won't be too difficult to fix. Regarding the HEVC issue. I'm not sure why this would be but I think this is a ffdshow and SVP issue rather than a Whirligig issue now that ffdshow has been made the priority filter.

If you find any other bugs or can think of any reason making ffdshow a priority filter would be a problem for people let me know.

All the best

Phil

[offall]

thanks Phil, i will bring the 60fps issue to the SVP developer and let you know if there are more bugs.

[Shizumauru]

Hi, the 60fps "issue" is a SVP thing, it's described here: https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/FAQ#I.27ve_a_120_Hz_monitor_and_SVP_doesn.27t_work_for_native_60_fps_videos
I solved it by setting frc.target.max to 60. But there the real problem begins. It seems like 60 to 90fps frame interpolation is extremely CPU heavy, I cannot get near any watchable framerate with my CPU (i5 6x4,48GHZ no HT) This is a real disappointment, it seems like GPU utilization is not much for SVP the CPU has to carry all the load.

Phil, I noticed part two of offall's post too, recenter doesn't work anymore and the ui is sometimes off screen or somewhere on the ground.

An additional question: Is there a way to make the font of the progress bar better visible when its on top of a white video? Maybe a font shadow in black? Currently the font is pure white and cannot be seen sometimes...

[Whirligig]

Hi all

A couple of bugs were reported in here including the reset. I've uploaded a new version with a couple of fixes so hopefully that reset position will be working again now. That's for SteamVR headsets.

I've also added support for the Oculus Quest with the link cable. If anyone was going it try it with that :)

If you have any problems let me know.

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Is there a chance that DirectShow Raw Video Filter can be added as a frontend in a future update. I use Smooth Video Project 4 with Whirligig and when I just use DirectShow Video Decoder it only allows some of my movies to run at a high frame rate. DirectShow Raw Video Filter allows me to use SVP4 on ALL video files.

The same happens if I use the DirectShow Video Decoder in MPC-HC instead of the Directshow Raw Video filter, the same videos that don't interpolate in Whirligig then don't interpolate in MPC-HC, but when I use the DirectShow Raw video filter these videos interpolate in MPC-HC, so in theory if the DirectShow Raw Video filter is implemented in Whirligig it should interpolate all videos in Whirligig.

Maybe the DirectShow Video Decoder isn't always communicating with AVISynth causing some videos to not interpolate?

[Shizumauru]

Sorry for the late answer, reset position works fine now!

[Whirligig]

@Shizumauru Thanks for letting me know :)

@Lon Wolfe I'll contact the people who make SVP and see if I can work something out :)

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Whirligig a écrit :

@Shizumauru Thanks for letting me know :)

@Lon Wolfe I'll contact the people who make SVP and see if I can work something out :)

Thanks

[Shizumauru]

Hmmm, just thinking, whouldn't Raw Video Filter make it possible to use MadVR additionally? MadVR für upscaling (the quality should be better than upscaling/supersampling all together (video and UI) in steamvr or whirligig itself?) And then SVP for Frame interpolation... Especially on high resolution HMD the video quality could be improved by advanced upscaling algorithms. Currently, I use 300% SS in SteamVR, thats ok, but MadVR can be marvellous when upscaling low resolution files to a high resolution display...