Samuri's *UN*Official SlyPlayer(tm) Thread

[andy o]

Blasphemy!

You will be able to tell the difference when you try 7.1 content. Anyway, if you can't tell the difference, then what's the difference?

 

[fuzz!]

Blasphemy!

You will be able to tell the difference when you try 7.1 content. Anyway, if you can't tell the difference, then what's the difference?

Ahh so standard DTS doesn't support 7.1? I suppose they could still fudge it.. just channel duplicate the rears

I'm just saying it'd be funny if SlyPlayer said it decoded MA but really just pretended it did.

 

[zicoz]

Presumably, to be a HDDVD/BD player it will have MPEG2, H264 and VC1 support, but it will avoid DirectShow so my guess is no you won't be able to use them in external software without specific support for them. A more useful question might be - will it decode DTS-HD Master Audio because its difficult? Or will it simply decode the DTS core and say it does, relying on the fact that people won't be able to tell the difference?

Ok thanks, guess I'll just have to wait and see if MPC starts working on my TV-signals then.

 

[mercury_22]

Let's not forget a major one : EXTERNAL SUBTITLES :agree:

 

[coldhand]

Let's not forget a major one : EXTERNAL SUBTITLES :agree:

Yesssss and why not external audio track

 

[ondratel]

what OS's do you plan to support for SlyPlayer?

 

[sotti]

what OS's do you plan to support for SlyPlayer?

XP in full software mode
Vista/7 in hardware mode

no linux/mac support.

 

[dfwjr1973]

How about direct .iso support for both DVD and blu-ray disks? And then a setting like "Full disk emulation" or "Main movie only" so when you pick .iso files, it will automatically mount and play either the DVD/BD as if it was installed into a physical drive (i.e. full menus, etc.) if "Full disk emulation" is selected, or just the main movie if the other is selected.

And if AnyDVD or AnyDVD HD is found on the system, obviously, use it if the .iso has protection.
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[SamuriHL]

No need. They'll use VCD integration for that. Whether you'll be able to jump to the movie or ot remains to be seen but I think that's really the feature you're looking for. Of course, I could see an option where you pick an ISO to open and it automounts it in VCD for you. That would be a neat feature.

 

[dfwjr1973]

Yeah...I mean I have a DVD .iso drive and a BD .iso drive and I would love to take out all the intermediate steps and just rips the backups as I do now and have the player just work with the .iso's with all the audio and video glory (yet have the nice ability to just jump right to the movie immediately without the what I call the "Blu-Ray anticipation build delay" when starting...
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[SamuriHL]

I wouldn't bet on it for the first release but it could probably be added by them later. Seems like a good idea.

 

[dfwjr1973]

I thought of another thing that might be nice when I was laying in bed last night... Sorry if this was mentioned before since I only yesterday saw this thread and it seems there was a lot of previous discussion...

- Audio selection preference ranking - So since it seems like DVD's and BD's always have like multiple audio tracks in different formats (DTS-HD, THX, TrueHD, ACS, etc...) it might be cool to have all the available decodable codecs listed with ranking boxes next to them and the user can rank them from 1 to 10, for example if there are 10 codecs supported. Then, the player will always analyze the audio on the disk of file being played and used the highest ranked format available. So, the user can really tell the program "Hey...if TrueHD is available use that. If not and DTS-HD is, use that. If not, use..."
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[fuzz!]

I thought of another thing that might be nice when I was laying in bed last night... Sorry if this was mentioned before since I only yesterday saw this thread and it seems there was a lot of previous discussion...

- Audio selection preference ranking - So since it seems like DVD's and BD's always have like multiple audio tracks in different formats (DTS-HD, THX, TrueHD, ACS, etc...) it might be cool to have all the available decodable codecs listed with ranking boxes next to them and the user can rank them from 1 to 10, for example if there are 10 codecs supported. Then, the player will always analyze the audio on the disk of file being played and used the highest ranked format available. So, the user can really tell the program "Hey...if TrueHD is available use that. If not and DTS-HD is, use that. If not, use..."

If implemented this should be automatic - not user definable. Why go to the trouble of creating a ranking configuration screen when there is really only one ranking system - from 'most lossless' to 'most lossy'.

 

[jbrisbin]

If implemented this should be automatic - not user definable. Why go to the trouble of creating a ranking configuration screen when there is really only one ranking system - from 'most lossless' to 'most lossy'.

Because making that ranking is anything but obvious. The property of lossless-ness is difficult to measure objectively. When dealing with perceptual encodings, there is plenty of room for debate in which is 'better' at the same bit rates.

Even if you were to conclude that DTS Master was intrinsically better than Dolby TrueHD, down stream decoding and processing issues may make Dolby the better choice.

More than that, the quality, not to say the bugs, associated with real implementations of codecs make it impossible to create a 'fixed' ordering that would be 'correct' for more than a fraction of the users.

Its fine to make a list approximating best to worst, but don't expect users to be satisfied with your list. In return, I won't order for you in a restaurant, should the occasion arise.

If there is such a hierarchy of audio preferences, it needs to be modifiable by the user.

 

[fuzz!]

Because making that ranking is anything but obvious. The property of lossless-ness is difficult to measure objectively. When dealing with perceptual encodings, there is plenty of room for debate in which is 'better' at the same bit rates.

Generally you won't have more than 1 lossless or 1 lossy track anyway so really it's a 'use lossless if you've got it' decision.

Whether the audio of that format sounds like arse is not something the software can determine - you will have to make a manual selection if DD sounds better than TrueHD. (In the case of DTS-HD MA with core - the lossless will always be the same edit due to the nature of the format)

So.. if in the odd case that the DD core sounds better than the TrueHD, or the DD sounds better than the included PCM track, the user would switch manually.

Even if you were to conclude that DTS Master was intrinsically better than Dolby TrueHD, down stream decoding and processing issues may make Dolby the better choice.

More than that, the quality, not to say the bugs, associated with real implementations of codecs make it impossible to create a 'fixed' ordering that would be 'correct' for more than a fraction of the users.

The developers will also know if their decoding is buggy and whether or not it should be preferred. Again, the 'correct' choice can be automatically determined if, for example, the SlyPlayer DTS-HD MA decoder isn't complete.

I'm not saying that the user shouldn't have the ability to choose soundtrack (presumably they will).. I'm saying it's just not worth configuring your own global audio format preferences.

 

[sotti]

If there is such a hierarchy of audio preferences, it needs to be modifiable by the user.

Is there really?
It's basically lossless track or lossy track.

Hi End:
DTS HD-MA = DD TrueHD = LPCM, not to mention it's a rare rare title that has more than 1 of these.

Low End:
DTS>DD

Middle of the road:
DTS-HD HR ~= DD+
This is the only one where i think an argument exists.

Standard DTS is clearly better than DD
DTS-HD MA, LPCM and TrueHD are all the same. TrueHD supports dynamic compression if you're into that sort of thing, DTS-HD carries a DTS core. But if created a trueHD and DTS-HD tracks from LPCM, they would decode to exactly the original LPCM.

Now I don't know too much about how DD+ and DTS-HD HR compare, but almost no BDs use either, so I'm not overly concerned about it.

 

[jbrisbin]

When you write software for a living, you quickly discover that the assumption that your preferences and configuration represent everyone elses is your worst enemy.

To assume that developers will, a priori, know whether their decoder is buggy or not on a vast range of configurations flies in the face of all experience with software in the last 50 years.

If you assume everything is working right, the choices are pretty easy.

But, may I remind you, we are talking about PCs running Windows with software written by mere mortals?

 

[SamuriHL]

Let me chime in on this audio discussion. It's like an engineer seeing how complex they can make something for the sake of being "user friendly". :bang: It misses the point. The audio will be selectable by the user. Why should the program try to determine what audio is "best"?? That's the user's job. What you should be asking for is a better interface to cycle through the audio tracks to make it easier to pick the right one. This isn't rocket science....stop trying to turn it into that.

 

[sotti]

Let me chime in on this audio discussion. It's like an engineer seeing how complex they can make something for the sake of being "user friendly". :bang: It misses the point. The audio will be selectable by the user. Why should the program try to determine what audio is "best"?? That's the user's job. What you should be asking for is a better interface to cycle through the audio tracks to make it easier to pick the right one. This isn't rocket science....stop trying to turn it into that.

Also the discs themselves currently designate a default track.
My opinion is to respect that and then open it up for user selection.

 

[SamuriHL]

Also the discs themselves currently designate a default track.
My opinion is to respect that and then open it up for user selection.

Correct. And if done correctly, the player takes into account what output type you're using. If, for example, you're using S/PDIF, it's not going to try to shove an HD audio stream down it. However, if you're rockin' an HDMI connection, it makes sense to try to use the HD audio track. This is common sense.