VC/DC 0.2 released.

[OneThirty8]

VC/DC has long been overdue for an update. Get VC/DC 0.2 from the VC/DC page at storm-studios.net.

From the VC/DC page:

THIS PLAYER PLAYS:
(S)VCD (real discs or bin/cue files produced with the GNU VCDImager suite)
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 program streams (*.mpg, *.mpeg)
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 elementary video streams (*.m1v, *.m2v)
MPEG elementary audio streams (*.mp1, *.mp2, *.mp3 with support for ID3 tags)
Dreamcast Sofdec movies (*.sfd, untested and won't play audio)
Playstation2 pss movies (*.pss, barely tested and won't play audio--this may change)

New in VC/DC 0.2:
-Better audio/video synchronization.
-Support for most of the commonly-used features of VideoCD 2.0.
-Support for bin files created by the GNU VCDImager.
-Uses a theme template similar to that used by DCDivX.

[Stryfe]

Sounds interesting, but I don't feel like tossing a disc into the trash if I don't have to.

So..., anyone know if this will play ".m2v" with audio?

[OneThirty8]

Sounds interesting, but I don't feel like tossing a disc into the trash if I don't have to.

So..., anyone know if this will play ".m2v" with audio?

".m2v" typically indicates an MPEG-2 elementary video stream with no audio. It will play MPEG-2 video with audio, but it won't play really high-quality stuff well. The goal was always to make a player that will play standards-compliant VCD, and it should do that fairly well. It will also play SVCD, but probably not very well.

One new feature that I forgot to mention above--it should automatically detect the correct aspect ratio and display widescreen movies correctly.

[Juan]

Good news my man

[Nico0020]

nice release. Though i stopped watching videos on my dreamcast after I modded my original xbox. Then i stopped watching movies on my original xbox when I got a 360. Good to see a live video project though.

[Christuserloeser]

I will try it as soon as time permits and give you some feedback.

[Maturion]

This is great! I'll try it asap!

Posted on SEGA-DC.DE, too.

[sYk0]

Excellent, nice to see a new release on DC.

[Christuserloeser]

Tested three files: an MP3 @ 320kbps which worked perfectly, an MPG of 352x288 @ 1400kbps which worked great with only minor hickups in audio playback and an M1V of 640x480 @ 700kbps which worked surpringly well, but a bit slower than it should.

mympeg1.mpg - Stats:
General
Format : MPEG-1 Program
Format/Family : MPEG-1
File size : 63.7 MiB
PlayTime : 6mn 18s
Bit rate : 1413 Kbps
Video #E0
Codec : MPEG-1 Video
Codec settings/Matrix : Standard
PlayTime : 6mn 18s
Bit rate : 1140 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Width : 352 pixels
Height : 288 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.450
Audio #C0
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio layer 2
PlayTime : 6mn 18s
Bit rate : 224 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Video0 delay : 9ms
Writing library : Xing (new)

This is pretty promising. I definitely will see if I can determine the max bitrate for flawless playback later.


mympeg1.m1v - Stats:
Codec : MPEG-1 Video
Codec settings/Matrix : Standard
PlayTime : 32mn 14s
Bit rate : 694 Kbps
Bit rate mode : VBR
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.094
Writing library : encoded by TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress Version. 3.0.4.24

I encoded this file using the KVCD notch quantization matrix that came with one of Override's DcVD toolkits if I remember correctly. I will do some more experiments with KVCD and high resolutions (above 320x240) later.

The new themeable and DCDivX compatible GUI is perfect! - As for feature requests: Maybe you could add a filter that displays only compatible file types to clean up the browser from unsopported files. In addition it would be really great to have an option to skip the GUI and autoplay a video (and then reset the Dreamcast). This might come in handy for DreamInducer compilations too.

[OneThirty8]

Thanks for the tests! The KVCD notch quanization matrix with a standard VCD resolution should work great. A 640x480 vid is probably going to be an issue even at low bitrates because it's still a lot more pixels to draw, convert to uyvy, and copy to the PVR than the resolution you'll find on a standard VCD. This is also why I don't expect SVCD to play back very well.

I will think about your feature suggestions. They're both good suggestions.

[JayDeeDee]

Good job You are the man! Thanks!

[dream devil]

Good job man. I hope you work more on the Fast-forward, rewind etc options...

[OVERRiDE_DC]

What up Guys-
First off, thank you OneThirty8 for your time programming for Dreamcast.
Ive always wanted to see a full-speed video player on DC.

I am impressed with Mpeg-2 playback. Its not 100% speed yet, but still much better than anything else.
The main slow-downs seem to be when the camera 'pans'(all pixels are re-drawn at a high rate), other than that its pretty rock-solid.

At first, my videos would all end up out of sync, but I found what encoder setting could fix the problem:
DONT use MP3 audio: It will fall out of sync eventually
DO use MP2 audio: It will play fine and in sync.
Also worth mentioning that audio playback is much better when encoded as mono, than it does in stereo.

If anyone is interested, I could upload some MPEG-2 templates for TMPGEnc that work well with this player.

I think, if you plan to develop this further, make 2 things a current priority:
1.) SD Adapter support. I shouldnt need to explain this. Do it allready. Neoblast is here if you need the libraries.
2.) Playback Speed. Get it to 100% on VCD material.

Dont worry about other fancy features, widgets, GUI changes, controls, etc. Just focus on getting playback speed better.

Thanks again.

[Christuserloeser]

If anyone is interested, I could upload some MPEG-2 templates for TMPGEnc that work well with this player.

I certainly would be interested!

[OVERRiDE_DC]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AR6AEYAF

==================================================================
VCDC 2.0 TMPGEnc 4.0 Mpeg-2 Templates by OVERRiDE
==================================================================

WS/FS - Widescreen/Fullscreen source material.
CBR - Constant Bit Rate
VBR - Variable Bit Rate

Because this player does not accurately handle true widescreen,
output will be 4:3 letterboxed. Therefore, WS is simply higher
resolution, assuming less *active pixels.

VCDC_FS-CBR is the most stable and will also work for WS material.

==================================================================

Also, a BUG I found in the player, file name can not have spaces in them!
If your video is named "Family Guy.mpg" It WILL NOT WORK
rename your video to "FamilyGuy.mpg" before burning to cd.

Also, keep your eyes out for SWAT to release Dreamshell4 beta3, it will include vfdc2.0 with SD support.
After testing DS3.8 vfdc1.0 with mpeg-2, I believe it has potential to be a very solid player.

OneThirty8 - Have you had a chance to test vfdc on Dreamshell? Its quite solid. Im suprised you didnt consider using vfdc in your player, as its allready written!?!
Maybe you would consider porting a ffmpeg module to Dreamshell?

[OneThirty8]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AR6AEYAF

==================================================================
VCDC 2.0 TMPGEnc 4.0 Mpeg-2 Templates by OVERRiDE
==================================================================

WS/FS - Widescreen/Fullscreen source material.
CBR - Constant Bit Rate
VBR - Variable Bit Rate

Because this player does not accurately handle true widescreen,
output will be 4:3 letterboxed. Therefore, WS is simply higher
resolution, assuming less *active pixels.

VCDC_FS-CBR is the most stable and will also work for WS material.

==================================================================

Also, a BUG I found in the player, file name can not have spaces in them!
If your video is named "Family Guy.mpg" It WILL NOT WORK
rename your video to "FamilyGuy.mpg" before burning to cd.

Also, keep your eyes out for SWAT to release Dreamshell4 beta3, it will include vfdc2.0 with SD support.
After testing DS3.8 vfdc1.0 with mpeg-2, I believe it has potential to be a very solid player.

OneThirty8 - Have you had a chance to test vfdc on Dreamshell? Its quite solid. Im suprised you didnt consider using vfdc in your player, as its allready written!?!
Maybe you would consider porting a ffmpeg module to Dreamshell?

The filenames with spaces thing is not a bug, per se... the player just doesn't support filenames with spaces in them. I used the menu system from GhettoPlay, so it's not just my player. I imagine that DCDivX also has the same limitation.

Widescreen videos should work. I only had one or two to test, but if the video is encoded correctly, it should automatically switch to display in 16:9. This assumes that the proper information is encoded in the sequence headers in the files--it's possible that some encoders don't do this.

I haven't messed with DreamShell at all, but vfdc is L@Cible's video player library, correct? I did refer to his code quite a bit when I was working on the initial version of VC/DC, and libvfdc is listed in the credits in the ReadMe. His code is based on an older version of libmpeg2 and did not support mpeg audio, but I did base my libvo driver loosely on his. The version I had only supported 320x240 and 640x480 and just drew directly to the framebuffer. My video driver uses the pvr to scale the video to fit the screen. As for ffmpeg and DreamShell, I don't know if/when I'll find time to take on such a project but it would be interesting to see somebody do it.

Thanks for making those TMPGEnc templates available! That's something that I had been meaning to do but I never got around to actually doing it.

[OVERRiDE_DC]

The filenames with spaces thing is not a bug, per se... the player just doesn't support filenames with spaces in them. I used the menu system from GhettoPlay, so it's not just my player. I imagine that DCDivX also has the same limitation.

Okay, not a bug but a Limitation for sure. Just thought others should know, as I wasted a few discs figuring that out.

Widescreen videos should work. I only had one or two to test, but if the video is encoded correctly, it should automatically switch to display in 16:9. This assumes that the proper information is encoded in the sequence headers in the files--it's possible that some encoders don't do this.

There are 3 ways to encode Aspect Ratio: Pixel 1:1, WS 16:9, and FS 4:3.
Pixel 1:1 ratio ends up streched to an innacurate AR.
WS 16:9 does indeed work, but with a huge sacrifice in playback speed.
FS 4:3 as in my templates, will "letterbox" ws material, with no playback sacrifice, and seems the optimal setting currently for this player.

For the 16:9 that is supported, the video appears stretched a bit also. Looking at your source:

Code: Select all

/* Screen offsets for top/bottom edges of our video.  Will be 1 and 480 for full-screen,
				and 60 and 420 for widescreen. */

And if that means what I think it does, your using 640x420 for widescreen output? That is not 16:9?
16/9 = 640/360

I haven't messed with DreamShell at all, but vfdc is L@Cible's video player library, correct? I did refer to his code quite a bit when I was working on the initial version of VC/DC, and libvfdc is listed in the credits in the ReadMe. His code is based on an older version of libmpeg2 and did not support mpeg audio, but I did base my libvo driver loosely on his. The version I had only supported 320x240 and 640x480 and just drew directly to the framebuffer. My video driver uses the pvr to scale the video to fit the screen. As for ffmpeg and DreamShell, I don't know if/when I'll find time to take on such a project but it would be interesting to see somebody do it.

Thanks for making those TMPGEnc templates available! That's something that I had been meaning to do but I never got around to actually doing it.

Okay well thanks again for this player, and I hope you continue working on it and make it even better. SD adapter support BTW:-)
And np I simply hope the templates will be usefull for some.
-OVERRiDE

[OneThirty8]

There are 3 ways to encode Aspect Ratio: Pixel 1:1, WS 16:9, and FS 4:3.
Pixel 1:1 ratio ends up streched to an innacurate AR.

Pixel 1:1 ratio probably is inaccurate, now that I think about it. If I recall correctly, I had the player check for 16:9 and default to 4:3 otherwise.

WS 16:9 does indeed work, but with a huge sacrifice in playback speed.
FS 4:3 as in my templates, will "letterbox" ws material, with no playback sacrifice, and seems the optimal setting currently for this player.

I'm not sure why that would be--if all else is equal but the display aspect ratio is 16:9, the only difference in the rendering should be the y value of the four vertices used to position and stretch the video on the screen. It is possible that video files encoded in a widescreen aspect ratio are more likely to also have a higher bitrate and a higher resolution. But either way, it's cool to provide a template that does give you a matted widescreen picture for those who want it. This would allow for widescreen VCD--I don't believe that you can encode a compliant VCD that isn't 4:3. SVCD, if I recall correctly, does allow the video to be encoded with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

For the 16:9 that is supported, the video appears stretched a bit also. Looking at your source:

Code: Select all

/* Screen offsets for top/bottom edges of our video.  Will be 1 and 480 for full-screen,
				and 60 and 420 for widescreen. */

And if that means what I think it does, your using 640x420 for widescreen output? That is not 16:9?
16/9 = 640/360

No, I have the right number. The 420 is correct for the bottom edge and the top edge is 60, so the picture is displayed at 360 pixels tall.