Playing HD-DVD VC-1 encoded .ts files
From Catholicpenguin
Contents |
Overview
HD videos, often in 1080p, ripped from HD-DVD's are becoming available on many torrents. These torrents often take the form of the HD-DVD rip, with a few .EVO files for the menus and information, and the raw data in .ts files. Many of these rips are encoded using the VC-1 codec, one of three mandated by the HD-DVD spec. This .ts container stream is similar to that used by older MPEG-2 encoded DVD's. However, since it does not contain the same video codec, most players do not know how to handle it, and either crash or display no video (VLC, any DirectShow player, etc).
Here's how to play these files. Note that this is just what worked for me after a fair amount of trial and error. I'm sure it's not the only way, and probably not the best way either. That said, it worked for me.
Windows
The VC-1 codec is in fact a Microsoft WMV9 codec, chosen as one of the standard codecs for HD-DVD. Therefore, Windows has great support. You just need a few more utilities to deal with the new .ts files.
Splitter
To enable DirectShow players (Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, etc) to parse the .ts streams, you need a splitter. Despite the name, MatroskaSplitter also handles .ts streams and seems to work well for me.
NOTE: Ensure you get the latest version from their website, and not the one bundled with CCCP or other sources, as these did not work properly for me.
VC-1 Codec
Windows 7 and Vista
If you are using Windows 7 (and probably Vista), you are all set. Skip to the Both section.
Windows XP
The VC-1 codec is part of the Windows Media 9 Codecs, and it is more or less installed with Windows Media Player 9 and up which is included in XP. However, it appears the version installed recognizes the codec only inside a WMV container. To enable it to work with video streams in other containers (such as .ts streams), this worked for me:
- Install Windows Media Player 11 (via Windows Update or Googling)
- Install the Windows Media Format 11 SDK
Both
For HD-DVD streams encoded with VC-1, this is ALL you need; you don't need FinalCodec, the NVIDIA MPEG-2 decoder, WinDVD, HDTV Pump or anything else. The .ts streams should now play in any DirectShow player. You may need to right click on the .ts files from Explorer and tell it to Open With a specific player, but it will work.
Windows Media Player works fine. On Windows XP, you may prefer Media Player Classic. On Windows 7 and Vista, Windows Media Player utilizes the Multimedia Class Scheduler Service to help provide skip-free video playback, so I would stick with it. If the players crash when trying to play the video, or don't show any video, I would recommend uninstalling any extra splitters and codecs, and start fresh with just the above.
Also, this is very CPU intensive codec at the bitrates typically seen in HD-DVDs, and you'll need at least a Core2 Duo class machine. You may also achieve better performance by copying the .ts files to a local SATA or Firewire hard drive instead of streaming them off an external USB drive, as moving large amounts of data off of USB drives takes a fair amount of CPU power, and every little bit helps here.
Mac OS X
Update: It would appear that Flip4MAC adds WMV9, including VC1 support to QuickTime. I haven't tried it, but give it a try. If you're using Snow Leopard, you'll need to install QuickTime 7 first from the install CD. Also, VLC contains VC1 support, as far as I can tell from the same library (libavcodec) as MPlayer. It was not fast enough to decode HD-DVD rate VC1 files on my Intel MBP, and so was not a viable option for me. You may have better luck.
Support is not good currently on OS X (May 25, 2007). The only option appears to be SVN releases of MPlayer. That being said, it does work, although on my MacBook Pro, at about half the speed of on Windows on the same machine, and it's often not fast enough to play 1080p properly.
MPlayer
Note: I have not checked MPlayer recently; binaries for OS X may now work fine.
You'll need to grab the latest version of MPlayer from SVN and compile it.
- Ensure you have the required Apple whatnots installed to be able to compile things.
- Install SVN. It's not in DarwinPorts, so either use Fink or this binary build. Note the binary build puts the file sin /usr/local/bin, which probably isn't in your path, so you'll need to refer to it directly or modify the executable search path in Terminal.
- Grab the MPlayer source as via the MPlayer README. You don't need the binary codecs for this, as linking to the WMV9 DLL doesn't work at the moment anyway; we have to use libavcodec.
- Compile and install. Default instructions (./configure, make, sudo make install) worked ok for me. Googling gives sites that specify custom X11 libraries in the configure script, but I'm not sure you need them anymore.
- Run mplayer on the .ts or .evo files, ensuring you specify the codec on the command line, like this:
- mplayer -vc ffvc1 thefiletoplay.ts
- While the movie is playing, pressing the key 'f' toggles fullscreen.
- For more info, see the HD-DVD on Linux guide at UbuntuForums.
