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Old 28th October 2012, 12:48   #1  |  Link
Dogway
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Drawbacks of changing merit settings (ffdshow - LAVFilters)

I come from the point that some renown users advice to NEVER EVER touch the merit settings, but without giving founded reasons (I'm even being recommended to uninstall ffdshow over changing merits link1, link2), and that is what I would like to know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CoRoNe View Post
I'll say it again; there's absolutely no reason to mess with the merit settings or external filters in MPC-HC to play any audio or video file.
If I'm using it, it's only to block specific filters for testing purposes.

I already gave my reasons why ffdshow might be useful:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogway View Post
mix down audio, play strange video/audio codecs, post-process video with avs, or as you know preview avs files, etc. I thought it was a good fallback to have there because it's very powerful with its filter system
But it doesn't stop there! I also use ffdshow to encode FFV1 and to put an example just today nevcairiel gave another reason why relying solely on LAVFilters might not be enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nevcairiel View Post
LAV does not perform normalization. Don't confuse "Matrix normalization" with actual Normalization. Matrix normalization only normalizes the matrix coefficients, so that the sum of the coefficients for one channel never exceeds 1.0. If the audio is spiking over 1.0 before mixing, it will still do that after mixing.
So to sum it up, what's bad about ffdshow that people recommend me to uninstall it while I use other decoders, even over changing its merit settings?
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Old 28th October 2012, 15:16   #2  |  Link
Superb
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The average Joe won't ever touch any of the features you are talking about, and thus the general advice for users is "don't touch merits".
Of course, if you know what you do, there shouldn't be any real issue to changing merits the way you like.
I really don't see what's all the discussion is about...
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Old 28th October 2012, 15:39   #3  |  Link
Dogway
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Yes I also don't know what was all the fuss about, probably because I was considered "an average Joe"? :S
I don't know what's so critical about merits, you raise one over another to give it priority. I had been considering to do this because external filters in MPC-HC is sometimes bugged, when playing strange codec media, etc the external filters list sometimes gets emptied.
If I had to know anything else, please comment! This is the place.
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Old 28th October 2012, 16:46   #4  |  Link
clsid
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You first should start to read better. I never said it is forbidden to use the external filter settings. I just said there are better ways to do the configuration. Nobody said that you MUST uninstall ffdshow. It just was suggested that do so if you were not using it. We can't read your mind that you were also using it for processing and encoding and not just for decoding. You can do whatever works for you.

But now I am going to do a cool mind-reading trick. Are you storing settings to INI? I think you do. Turn that off, and your external filter settings should not disappear anymore. Plus MPC-HC will load/close faster too.
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Old 28th October 2012, 16:53   #5  |  Link
dansrfe
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Just my two cents but changing filter merits via the "External Filters" settings is what the average Joe would do if they "wanted some filter to beat out another filter". That's exactly the thought process. If you want to change filter merits and you want to do it the right way then change them directly in the registry. There are tools that parse the registry settings and make it much easier to create/read/update these settings.
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Old 28th October 2012, 17:18   #6  |  Link
clsid
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Or you could just use the format settings in ffdshow and LAV Filters...
Then you can prefer ffdshow for format X and lav for format Y. Much more flexible.
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Old 28th October 2012, 17:25   #7  |  Link
Dogway
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@clsid: Please don't assume I read wrong, maybe it's me who should encourage to read better. I never said you said the external settings to be forbidden. I was talking about merit settings, and in relation on CoRoNe's post.

The thing is I never asked whether FFDShow was worth or not, my questions always were; "how can I make LAVFilters work normally (as my default splitter-decoder) while having ffdshow installed as well?"
And answers all were in the tone of, don't touch merits, don't touch external filters, uninstall ffdshow...

And no, I don't store settings in ini, I never do. (I guess this is a proof of what Superb meant on being considered an average Joe...) : P


@dansrfe: No, I never considered changing merits inside MPC-HC, if ever I'd use graphstudio or the more recent recommendation DirectShowFilterManager. All I ever did inside MPC was to block or prefer filters.
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Old 28th October 2012, 17:32   #8  |  Link
Dogway
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Quote:
Originally Posted by clsid View Post
Or you could just use the format settings in ffdshow and LAV Filters...
Then you can prefer ffdshow for format X and lav for format Y. Much more flexible.
That would fine if there wasn't an easier method like changing ffdshow's merits.

Imagine this scenario; I want to filter a xvid encoded video, I'd need to open LAV-Video, uncheck xvid, open ffdshow video, check xvid, watch the video, and repeat the process inversely.

With merits, it's as easier as to have a .reg ready to be double clicked, when done, open (in notepad) the .reg, comment the line, uncomment the reverse reg line, save, and double click.

Now if you have another reason to don't use this method (or rather use your format settings method over the merit's) then I could understand.
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Old 28th October 2012, 17:53   #9  |  Link
clsid
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You are already picturing things more complex then they really are.
If you want to use LAV for Xvid, then it is enough to disable it in ffdshow. Want to use ffdshow again, then just re-enable it. No need to touch LAV settings at all.
And once things are set up like you like, why is there any need to change it frequently?

And you can also do this with a .reg, since the settings are stored in the Registry. And instead of editing a single .reg, use two.
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Last edited by clsid; 28th October 2012 at 17:56.
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Old 28th October 2012, 18:20   #10  |  Link
Dogway
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yes, that's true. Kind of having everything disabled, and only enable what I will use (since it will override LAV anyways).
It just was fishy that everything was suggested except merits modifications.

I can use one or two files, normally I use just one, I comment and uncomment with ctrl+q, do ctrl+s and I'm done.
For me it's easier this way because as you said I'm not going to change it much, but for me makes more sense to change priority than enable "bypass" through ffdshow.
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