CoreAVC binary DLL codec under XBMC's DVDPlayer?

Can XBMC be made to support the CoreAVC binary DLL codec?

Most of the in 1080p (1920x1080) native resolution high-definition video content that I watch are 4,5GB or 8.5GB h.264 encoded rips of Blu-Ray or HD DVD movie discs. These high-queslity rips are currently extremely popular downloads on usenet and on private torrent sits, so I would say that they today represent the baseline benchmark of 1080p. In my personal computer I now have an Intel Core2 Duo E6300 CPU which I overclocked from 1.86GHz up to 2.8GHz. I am on Microsoft Windows XP so far but maybe I should also try to put Linux or OSx86 (Mac OS X 10.5) on the same hardware to find out for sure if the operating-system makes a difference. My experience is other third-party video-player softwares like VLC, MPC, and MPlayer (or FFdshow under Windows Media Player) which all uses FFmpeg simply shows that FFmpeg currenty cannot playback 1080p h.264 files without drastic stuttering due to loads of frames being dropped, nor does any FFmpeg-based video-player seem to be able to handle those huge 1080i files if they are encoded with a h.264 codec. So I am skeptical that a 1.8GHz or 2.0Ghz laptop processor in say a Apple Mac Mini can handle the 1080p resolution h.264 standard.

My concern is the naked prejudice in the open source community against CoreAVC. Why does almost all open source developers demonize and fight aganest this codec?, is it simply evil because it costs $8 ro what? Are they just jealous because it is practially twice as fast as any open source h.264 decodec? Yeah, they say that any day now FFmpeg will magically double in performance or any day now Apple will release a Mac Mini with a 3GHz CPU, but I am tired of this what to me sounds like FUD. Anyway, the Linux version of MPlayer have made some accomodation for compiling in a way to load the closed-source CoreAVC DLL codec files for Microsoft Windows. I think that should allow these older Mac Minis to playback native 1080p videos.

I urge that CoreAVC support be integrated into XBMC, (the users of XBMC should then simply have the option to buy the CoreAVC codec then put it in the right folder under XBMC and XBMC video-player should automaticly detect and use it instead of FFmpeg for h264 encoded videos).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreAVC "An open source project hosted at Google Code CoreAVC-For-Linux, patches the dshow loader code in mplayer and allows it to connect to the win32 CoreAVC DirectShow filter. It does not include CoreAVC, but simply allows mplayer to make use of it.

http://code.google.com/p/coreavc-for-linux/ "CoreAVC is a proprietary Windows codec for H.264 video decoding. It is much faster than any currently available open-source codecs. Being multi-threaded, and able to play PAFF streams, it can handle HD H.264/AVC streams that no freely available codecs can. Amen brother! And the multi threads will leverage the 2 cores.

i second that...

I think that this is why we have Grumpy Bastard Developers.

BigJim,

Feel free to download the latest SVN and code a plugin module for XBMC/ffmpeg that uses coreAVC.

If you want xbmc to use it then you'll probably have to patch it yourself...
I for one wouldn't dream of spending my time on something like this.
What's next? we have to pay 8$ for videodrivers aswell, and another 12$ for the audiodrivers...

I don't understand the resistance on this one (except for the fact that it would take me quite some time to get this integrated). I for one would gladly pay $8 for a component that would make my 1080p video play smoother. Not that I have all that much trouble with the current state of affairs

There is nothing wrong with for-pay components that add value.

-elan

elan Wrote:(except for the fact that it would take me quite some time to get this integrated).

Yeah my last message was a bit short.

The the problem I found with the OP, we don't even have DVD support working and we're expected to drop everything and code for this. I do agree, if there was a cost involved to get flawless video playing I would be happy to pony up for it.

I'll even pitch in $8 bucks so Top can get a copy

I would think you apple boys/girls would be resistant to anything pretending its windows to load it on your mac

That aside from what I hear coreavc does these things at expense of a little quality anyway

Well I only have 720p screen so I have little problem with framedrops but I'd rather see energy be put into making a viable solution that is free, ie using the GPU by shaders and such. Then again there might be a day when I'd have use for it

iordonez Wrote:The the problem I found with the OP, we don't even have DVD support working and we're expected to drop everything and code for this.

Yes, completely agreed in terms of prioritization! Just because it's a good idea, doesn't mean it's an idea that should be worked on RIGHT NOW

-elan