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[Guide] Installing MPC-HC with madVR, LAVFilters, XySubFilter, and Icaros


Koby

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Since both common MPC-HC codec packs, Kawaii Codec Pack (KCP) and Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP), seem to be dead in the water and haven't seen an update in years... I figured it was time to write a guide to help people ditch them and keep their playback solutions up to date. So here this is. I'll go through the steps of installing Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, madVR, LAVFilters (tmod edition), XySubFilter, and Icaros.

 

Now, a lot of people will likely suggest mpv, and that is also a viable alternative. However this guide is for those who'd like to stick with the MPC-HC video player but keep it updated with the best settings.

 

First we'll start of with:

 

MPC-HC

Download the latest installer, preferably the 64-bit edition, from here: https://mpc-hc.org/downloads/

Then simply go through the motions of installing it.

 

LAVFilters [tmod]

Download the latest "full offline installer" from here: http://tmod.nmm-hd.org/LAVFilters/

Do a 'Full' installation.

 

On the LAV Video Property Settings update the settings to reflect this:

7EMaAnd.png

Obviously your hardware device to use will be different than mine, but make sure it's set to use your main graphics card; and that the rest of the options are pretty much the same.

 

XySubFilter

Go here and grab the 64-bit version of XySubFilter (unless you've been rolling with the 32-bit editions of everything earlier):

https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=168282

Be sure you're grabbing XySubFilter and not xy-VSFilter by mistake since they're on the same page.

 

Extract it, then move the folder to your Programs folder. Right click on "Install_XySubFilter.bat" and select "Run as admin".

 

madVR

Download the latest version here: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228

Unzip the folder and move it to your Programs folder. Right click on "install.bat" and select "Run as admin".

 

Now you're ready to setup everything. Open up MPC-HC. Hit the "O" on your keyboard or right click and go to "Options".

Find the Playback -> Output tab as seen in the image below. Change your settings to match the image.

Essentially you're setting DirectShow Video to madVR and Subtitle Renderer to XySubFilter.

 

DIdQoVb.png

 

Then click on the External Filters tab. From there click "Add Filter". Add "LAV Splitter", "LAV Audio Decoder", and "LAV Video Decoder".

And click the button for "prefer" on each of them. As seen on the image below:

8HzSOkg.png

Last, click "Apply" then "Okay" and you're done.

 

With "CTRL + J" you can see what your current settings are and how many frames are lost. It should normally be 0 or as close to it as possible. If you see rapid increases, you'll need to turn down or adjust various settings.

 

Icaros

This is totally optional, but it creates thumbnails of your video files and such, even for 10-bit video; and will even put the MPC-HC icon in the bottom right similar to what CCCP use to do.

Otherwise without this, you don't get thumbnails and you don't get the icon.

 

You can download Icaros from: https://www.videohelp.com/software/Icaros

Then you just install it, run it and configure it how you want. Be sure to turn Thumbnailing on so that it actually does it's job, lol.

You can also setup a cache so that folder renderering is faster.

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I like the idea of a guide, but buried in a forum thread might get lost over time and become more annoying to update. Perhaps a dedicated page on one of the project blogs?

 

either way I'll probably be linking to this in the near future, I'm going to be adding an FAQ/playback section to my index.

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Thanks for the guide, perfect timing. What about the scaling algorithms in madVR?

 

I like the idea of adding this to Sigs, but adding this to the template would be better? At the very end, after Enjoy Don't forget to say thanks. have a Playback issues? part that links to this thread? Also if you do edit the template, the colon after 'File Hosts' needs to be fixed too, its been bugging me.

 

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There is a lot that can still be edited in madVR to improve what you are watching. Would be good to have that as a "Part 2" of this guide I think. @(AC) and I were playing around with a few of the settings the other day.

These are the current settings I have:

(Feedback and criticism is welcome)



I5uv1hU.png

 

iTB1ZUU.png

 

F6fTfeF.png

 

MOjXSRa.png

 

aNQHyxP.png

Edited by Moodkiller
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1 hour ago, Moodkiller said:

There is a lot that can still be edited in madVR to improve what you are watching. Would be good to have that as a "Part 2" of this guide I think. @(AC) and I were playing around with a few of the settings the other day.

These are the current settings I have:

(Feedback and criticism is welcome)

 

  Hide contents

 

 


I5uv1hU.png

 

iTB1ZUU.png

 

F6fTfeF.png

 

MOjXSRa.png

 

aNQHyxP.png
 

 

 

Might want to drop super res to 2 or just go all out to 4 if you can. Forgot to tell you this Mood but try playing a 1080p file to check there is no frame drop for chroma. Won't affect 720p files so if you don't play a 1080p one you won't know if your pc can handle it or not.

 

 

Main thing for 720p users is image upscaling. Those are the settings you want to have as high as possible if you only go for 720 (Puts way more pressure on pc than simply playing a 1080p file as you are upscaling)

 

A way out out this if you don't want to upscale to 1080p is to change your screen res to 720p so you can use higher settings if your pc can't handle them when upscaling to 1080 which can be set to change automatically in madvr for you.

Edited by (AC)
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@Moodkiller I like the releases I download to be high enough quality and debanded that I don't have to rely on a video player to apply filters after-the-fact. If you're having to apply filters on your player then the releases you're watching are terrible and not worth diskspace on my drives, imo. \o/ And it's hard to judge what is a source/encode defect and what is your player fucking around with things if you setup your player to fuck around with things by default.

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17 minutes ago, Koby said:

@Moodkiller I like the releases I download to be high enough quality and debanded that I don't have to rely on a video player to apply filters after-the-fact. If you're having to apply filters on your player then the releases you're watching are terrible and not worth diskspace on my drives, imo. \o/ And it's hard to judge what is a source/encode defect and what is your player fucking around with things if you setup your player to fuck around with things by default.

I understand that ^

 

But From multiple tests on many different releases I found visual quality superior with utilising madvr (within my pc capabilities I could only go so far which Is why I was trying some things with moodkiller).

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3 minutes ago, (AC) said:

I understand that ^

 

But From multiple tests on many different releases I found visual quality superior with utilising madvr (within my pc capabilities I could only go so far which Is why I was trying some things with moodkiller).

Utilizing madvr yes, but moodkiller was asking me to add a guide with screenshots showing setup for debanding and antiringing filters n shit, if you looked at what he posted.

All of which can be destructive towards fine details and downgrades quality and is unneeded provided you have a decent video encode to begin with.

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10 minutes ago, Koby said:

Utilizing madvr yes, but moodkiller was asking me to add a guide with screenshots showing setup for debanding and antiringing filters n shit, if you looked at what he posted.

All of which can be destructive towards fine details and downgrades quality and is unneeded provided you have a decent video encode to begin with.

 

My bad, should of explained that better. I was meaning utilizing madvr as in all the settings within it i.e - debanding, anti ringing, scaling ectt..

 

But in the end it comes down to personal preference. I found series to look better with higher settings and changing certain options for example - here

 

@Moodkiller  madvr has a newer version though not much will have changed.

Edited by (AC)
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I agree with @Koby on this one - quality releases (like the ones distributed/endorsed by Kametsu) should not require any noteworthy post processing. Filtering that looks good for one video can create unwanted side effects for others and this could even happen in scene by scene basis. I don't know about others, but I don't like to fiddle with players settings every time I want to watch a video.

Only exception I could think of would be scaling, as that would end up being used regardless (unless player is set to only use source resolution) and therefore could be useful addition to the guide.

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16 minutes ago, Hark0n said:

I agree with @Koby on this one - quality releases (like the ones distributed/endorsed by Kametsu) should not require any noteworthy post processing. Filtering that looks good for one video can create unwanted side effects for others and this could even happen in scene by scene basis. I don't know about others, but I don't like to fiddle with players settings every time I want to watch a video.

Only exception I could think of would be scaling, as that would end up being used regardless (unless player is set to only use source resolution) and therefore could be useful addition to the guide.

'Only exception I could think of would be scaling, as that would end up being used regardless' 

 

Yeh, I only watch 1080p mainly tbh and haven't had a single problem with side affects for any series. Even shows like FSN UBW/Tales looked far better with higher end settings. Which is to do mainly with the scaling options (depending on witch you use) + super res (if you can handle using this).

 

The other settings are just smaller things that most wont notice any difference with depending on your monitor.

though I would suggest to uncheck all these - https://kametsu.com/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=http://i.imgur.com/aNQHyxP.png&key=6e60593d3fb8d2c19e31b5c59f974a4d45a3f90cd5d9c6457ff623461cda009a

Edited by (AC)
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  • 2 weeks later...

I would like to add that monitor/screen quality & calibration is also very important.I have seen people trying all sorts of things without even trying to calibrate their lcd tv/screen first or using madvr high quality settings on a laptop with decent processor & graphics card but with a typical bad quality 6bit TN LED panel screen(it's rare to find a windows laptop with good 8bit IPS screen without budget going through the roof) which won't make much noticeable difference.

 

as @Koby said,it is recommended to get best quality encode.Although,in my opinion,some series are quite fine at even 720p resolutions with the typical 32"/40" LED TV many people have because on those screens the difference between 720p & 1080p is not noticeable enough from the usual viewing distance.

 

P.S. Can somebody tell me from which anime the current forum background image is from?

Edited by whitestar999
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Hmm after reading all various comments and points of views, I'm reluctant on what setup to use now. I can understand from the adjusting of the original quality point of view, but also having seen the changes, it does make it look better. Would I be correct in saying that even the default madVR settings would still adjust the quality?

 

On a side note, here are results of AoT s2 screenshotted from @Koby's setup vs mine/AC's (after some tweaking so that the playback could actually play back)

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209803

 

On 2017-5-14 at 6:17 AM, (AC) said:

@Moodkiller  madvr has a newer version though not much will have changed.

@(AC) - thank you. I shall go and upgrade sometime soon :) 

 

On 2017-5-26 at 4:20 PM, whitestar999 said:

P.S. Can somebody tell me from which anime the current forum background image is from?

 

If we are talking about the Brave Titan theme, then it's from the Fate series 

 

 


fsnubwedit.jpg.554b16d02f05e89b5f3656a3e
 

 

 

 

Edited by Moodkiller
Fixed and added something
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  • 2 weeks later...

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