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MT / Avisynth instability issues

 
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perisoft




Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2920
Location: Ithaca, NY


PostLink    Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 2:28 am    Post subject: MT / Avisynth instability issues Reply with quote


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So, I've finally got an HTPC capable of running LSF upscaling to 1440x960 (it's utterly gorgeous). My only problem is that Zoom Player / FFDShow / Avisynth is insanely unstable with this setup. It appears to have to do with mt(), but I'm not sure. The failure manifests as ZPlayer going down in flames and popping a GraphEdt error.

Anybody have experience running avisynth / mt? I think I've got the latest stable builds, but I'm not 100% sure. If anyone's running it successfully, can you give me your version numbers? I've seen the problems on several different computers, so I don't think it's the other setup.

Any help appreciated!

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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
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Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:55 am    Post subject: Re: MT / Avisynth instability issues Reply with quote

perisoft wrote:
So, I've finally got an HTPC capable of running LSF upscaling to 1440x960 (it's utterly gorgeous). My only problem is that Zoom Player / FFDShow / Avisynth is insanely unstable with this setup. It appears to have to do with mt(), but I'm not sure. The failure manifests as ZPlayer going down in flames and popping a GraphEdt error.

Anybody have experience running avisynth / mt? I think I've got the latest stable builds, but I'm not 100% sure. If anyone's running it successfully, can you give me your version numbers? I've seen the problems on several different computers, so I don't think it's the other setup.

Any help appreciated!


I don't run any of those programs but just a general sugestion. Try going back a version number and see if that's stable.

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Phil Smith




Joined: 08 Mar 2006
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PostLink    Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I run LSF with TheaterTek and FFDShow. Works great for me.

I'm glad to see someone other than me that's a fan of LSF. I've been using it for years.
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perisoft




Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2920
Location: Ithaca, NY


PostLink    Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Phil Smith wrote:
I run LSF with TheaterTek and FFDShow. Works great for me.

I'm glad to see someone other than me that's a fan of LSF. I've been using it for years.


I only just got a box that can successfully run it recently. I can't imagine why people aren't implementing it more broadly, given the results... I guess at this point DVD upscaling is kind of passe.

For the moment, I'm running LSF on the original image, using LSF to upscale to 1440x480, lanszcos scaling to 1440x960, and putting a little bit of unsharp mask on the result. Seems to do a pretty good job, when it isn't constantly crashing. Smile


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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the second screen shot it looks like you are getting a little ringing.
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perisoft




Joined: 29 Aug 2007
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PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 3:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
In the second screen shot it looks like you are getting a little ringing.


I think that's probably an enhancement of the ringing pre-extant in the source - it seems to happen a lot with DVDs. LimitedSharpen doesn't cause halo'ing or ringing - that's the point of it - and the small amount of unsharp on the top shouldn't be enough to create much of it.

In original-topic related news, I've narrowed the problem down to mt (the multi-threading avisynth mod). At least, everything is stable if I don't mt() the LSF call, and everything goes down in flames if I do. So the next step is to try to find a different version of mt.dll and the modified avisynth.dll, I guess. Will update more as I find out...

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perisoft




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PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 4:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welp, no love. It's crashing reliably whenever I use MT, and I'm using the latest version - .7. Dropping back to .6 makes no difference.

Basically, if I disable and re-enable avisynth in ffdshow, Zplayer will crash about 30% of the time. It will often play fine once it starts going - but some movies just refuse to play at all ("Lars and the Real Girl", for one...). This is really getting infuriating... Sad I can't find any references to people having this problem, but there are tons of references to people using MT! And this happens on every machine I try it on!

Aaagh...

Phil, what versions are you using? Have you tried with ZPlayer?

I've considered using Theatertek, but its file handling and UI is pretty obnoxious... for instance, I can't figure out how to get it to view a ripped DVD directory as a playable entity, like ZPlayer, which is a huge pain in the ass.

I'm not sure that Theatertek would work either, but I suppose at this point it's worth trying... I've finally got a setup that absolutely kicks ass for upscaling, is silky smooth... and it won't work! Evil or Very Mad

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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 4:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

perisoft wrote:
Welp, no love. It's crashing reliably whenever I use MT, and I'm using the latest version - .7. Dropping back to .6 makes no difference.

Basically, if I disable and re-enable avisynth in ffdshow, Zplayer will crash about 30% of the time. It will often play fine once it starts going - but some movies just refuse to play at all ("Lars and the Real Girl", for one...). This is really getting infuriating... Sad I can't find any references to people having this problem, but there are tons of references to people using MT! And this happens on every machine I try it on!

Aaagh...

Phil, what versions are you using? Have you tried with ZPlayer?

I've considered using Theatertek, but its file handling and UI is pretty obnoxious... for instance, I can't figure out how to get it to view a ripped DVD directory as a playable entity, like ZPlayer, which is a huge pain in the ass.

I'm not sure that Theatertek would work either, but I suppose at this point it's worth trying... I've finally got a setup that absolutely kicks ass for upscaling, is silky smooth... and it won't work! Evil or Very Mad


Typical of the HTPC world no? I have ONE box, that just refuses to play nice most of the time. IT's the lattest one with BLuray and HDDVD in it.

The 3 before it go and go and go. My first HTPC was a Win95 box with a Real Magic card and IR remote. It use to boot up, you would put the disk in, close the drawer and sit and watch a movie. I actually wore out the IBM 2x DVD-ROM in that box and had to replace it.

My point is, sometimes the HTPC, with it's multitude of components works smoochly other times it's an uphill struggle on an 80deg icy slope with greased feet.

Have you tried grabbing the software from a different download site? Maybe it's got a bad block in it? Since you have tried it on a bunch of PC's and obviously when it comes to the hardware you know a little of what you are doing ( Very Happy ). Are all the PC's INTEL based of AMD or is a mix of the two?

perisoft wrote:


It's crashing reliably


That's a great quote BTW

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perisoft




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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I may have licked it - I switched to the Avisynth 2.6 alpha, and I can turn it on and off, while using LFS/MT, with abandon. I haven't done extensive tests, but it was crashing so reliably (that's for you, AR) that I think I've got it now. Phewwww!
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AnalogRocks
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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 3:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

perisoft wrote:
Well, I may have licked it - I switched to the Avisynth 2.6 alpha, and I can turn it on and off, while using LFS/MT, with abandon. I haven't done extensive tests, but it was crashing so reliably (that's for you, AR) that I think I've got it now. Phewwww!


Guess it's time for me to put the snow tires on and break out the Joy dishwashing liquid and attack my Green Machine ( again ). I'm going to try a motherboard swap and an add in PCI card for SATA,USB2 and firewire. I hope the build in SATA on the 'new' motherboard work but if not then I hope the add in card does the trick.

Most of my problems seem to stem from the SAT to USB 2.0 cord and the USB2.0 ports on the current motherboard. SOme combination there of the above should work maybe, possibly, could even fail reliably.

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perisoft




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PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 3:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anything remotely modern should be able to handle LSF - my Athlon X2 5400 is about the worst thing you can get these days. Oddly, even my Core2Quad at work doesn't seem to like running LSF on a full 1440x960 image (I'm upscaling to 1440x480 before I do LSF right now).
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