Setup Your FFDShow

I was reading the previous tutorial from decoding videos by ag0n and I thought the tool he had made doesnt't fit to my image of adjustable or good decoder. Also others decoding 'tutorials' in crossfire has been quite narrow peaks to setting your PC up to hardcore video watching. That's why I decided to share my modest knowledge about FFDShow and video watching.

FFDShow is a tool for encoding or decoding many video and audio formats, including divx/xvid movies using libavcodec or other opensource libraries. It also has a very rich set of postprosessing filters in which I take up to in this tutorial.

This tutorial is based on my personal experience and the settings I use or I've used on my own PC with FFDShow. Some settings I've been testing for some time and others are just recommendations from other users which have proved to be good. Also you have to remember that everyone of you like different things and these settings are just ment to be directional. Other likes more blurrier picture than another and ofcourse every monitor is different.

I know that many of you doesn't setup your decoders at all and most of you just run videos on default settings. It's a shame especially when we are speaking about so magnificent piece of tool such as FFDShow.

I'm going to split the settings in two parts: 1st for more powerfull computers and 2nd for less powerfull ones. Many of the following settings need much of processor power but run fine on my PC (specs in the profile), but althought it's the year 2008 there are still enemies out there who can't play sw_goldrush_te becouse some of their members have 20 FPS.


First the settings for both configurations:

Codecs tab:

- Every decoder on libavcodec except MPEG and the ones which are 'broken' or 'incomplite'.
- Raw video -> all supported


Output tab:

- Set color technic to YV12, everything else off. This is a confirmation for using the fastest techique. Althought FFDShow should use it by default as long as it's marked as far as I know.


Decoder options tab:

- Set IDCT to 'auto' becouse the default value (Libmpeg2) causes tearing in some cases.
- If you have a dual/quad core processor, set the right amount of decoding threads.


First setup for more powerfull computers:

Postprosessing:

- Preset selection and the slider all the way to right.
- Check Automatic quality control.
- Processing method: mplayer but don't use Accurate deblocking since it's broken in newer versions of FFDShow.

- SPP deblocking is very good postprosesser, but it's god damn heavy to use. You can use it with very low quality video clips but you maybe have to slide the slider to the center.


Resize & Aspect:

- Check Resize and main setting 'Multiply by' and value 3 if your PC can handle that, 2 if doesn't.
- Check rezise always.
- Set Luma method to Lanczos from the Settings tab, set Number of taps 1-2 and Luma sharpen 0.5-1. Check also Accurate rounding.

- The idea is to resize the video way over the watching resolution and then use the graphics card to scale it back to watching resolution. Resizing is also better sharpening method than separate sharpening settings.


Deinterlacing:

- Set to Framerate doubler. Search effort 'No motion estimation' becouse it's the only effort which doesn't cause artifacts to the picture.

This is also really heavy filter for higher resolutions. If you notice that your video doesn't run smoohtly, set framerate doubler off or drop Multiply by value.

I personally don't use framerate doubler becouse it's too heavy for my PC but othervise I use these settings for powerfull computers.


Blur & NR

- Blur & noise reduction on.
- Check only denoise3d and HQ, set the values to luma: 0, chroma: 1, time: 4.


Set these tabs to the list from up to down in following order:

1 Postprosessing
2 Blur & NR
3 Resize & Aspect
4 Deinterlacing



Second setup for less powerfull computers:
Althought if you can't run with the previous settings, I really recommend you to buy some new hardware.

Postprosessing:

- Preset selection and the slider almost to the right margin.
- Check Automatic quality control.
- Processing method: mplayer but don't use Accurate deblocking since it's broken in newer versions of FFDShow.


Resize & Aspect:

- Check Resize and main setting 'Multiply by' and set the value to 2.
- Check rezise always.
- Set Luma method to Lanczos from the Settings tab, set Number of taps 1-2 and Luma sharpen 0.5-1. Check also Accurate rounding.

- The idea is to resize the video way over the watching resolution and then use the graphics card to scale it back to watching resolution. Resizing is the most important setting in whole FFDShow, althought it's very heavy I do not recommend to turn it off unless it's the only choise.


Set these tabs to the list from up to down in following order:

1st Postprosessing
2nd Resize & Aspect


Notice:

If you do use substitles tab, the right place for it is before framerate doubler. There's a problem that the substitles stay in the picture and doesn't fade out before the next substitle line comes to the picture.


You can find the newest FFDShow from here. It is also included in many codec packs such as K-Lite codec Pack.

I'll add pictures from the settings if I'm enough interested in tomorrow.