CoreAVC 1.9.5 released

I didn’t intend to write about CoreAVC anymore, since VDPAU from NVIDIA is doing its job more than excellently for me. Major parts of this Blog are actually about it. Nevertheless I’ve read through the changelog of the release of 1.9.5. And what must I see? They’ve fixed the Canon HF100 seeking issues. This is their changelog like they’ve posted in their forum. Continue reading “CoreAVC 1.9.5 released”

CoreAVC 1.9.0 for Linux (howto for Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10)

I stated here, I won’t touch CoreAVC for Linux anymore, because VDPAU is performing so well, but since so many visitors were attracted by my last short article about CoreAVC 1.9.0, I decided to look a bit closer at it.
I’ve compiled two versions of mplayer and they worked more or less good for me (read below): Continue reading “CoreAVC 1.9.0 for Linux (howto for Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10)”

Linux – AVCHD (H.264) – hardware acceleration

[UPDATE] Read here about the latest development, regarding hardware acceleration on Linux: http://blog.mymediasystem.net/?tag=vdpau

The truth about Linux’ capability of playing back AVCHD content

NEWS! It’s getting tense! Read this post from the NVIDIA Manager Andy Ritger: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2008-November/040279.html

This section is going to be about my experiences with Linux and HD television. It covers topics like VDR und h264 support. Playing back mpeg transport stream (mts/m2ts) footage from camcorders like Canon’s HF100 or Panasonic’s HDC-SD100. Both cams record in the AVCHD format, aka mpeg4/AVC. This page will also describe my progresses playing back this AVCHD footage. No – I’m not there yet 😉 Continue reading “Linux – AVCHD (H.264) – hardware acceleration”

Playback Problem of AVCHD (.mts) with CoreAVC 1.8.5.0

Like in older versions, such as 1.7.0 and 1.8.0, CoreAVC version 1.8.5 has still problems playing back AVCHD. The affected camcorder models I know of are:

  • Canon HF10
  • Canon HF100
  • Panasonic HDC-SD1
  • Panasonic HDC-SD5
  • Panasonic HDC-SD9
  • Panasonic HDC-SD100

The playback still jitter a lot if used without a deinterlacer, and I’ve got about 10 frames a second (estimated). Seeking within the footage works now, wheres regarding the existing problems it’s a really cold comfort.
A workaround, for playing back AVCHD footage is described here at several places. Just use latest mplayer and a decent CPU.
If anybody likes to extend the list of affected camcorder models, please post them here, I’ll update the list above and will keep tracking this issue.

HDTV (DVB-S2) with VDR 1.7.0 and a SkyStar HD on Ubuntu 8.10 x86_64 and CoreAVC (Intrepid Ibex)

First of all, there are good installation HOWTOs for Linux out there, which describe the set up of a HDTV capable VDR.
I used this installation HOWTO and a satellite dish with the appropriate feeds. (look for HDTV channels here).
I’ve played with VDR more than a half a year ago, and all was fine, but I’ve been on 32-bit environment (Ubuntu 7.10). Now I’ve tried to realize the same with Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) few days ago and basically failed, because no matter what I’ve tried, only one core of my four CPU cores have been used by xine. Ergo the the rate of the dropped frames was quite high. My CPU btw is: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz Continue reading “HDTV (DVB-S2) with VDR 1.7.0 and a SkyStar HD on Ubuntu 8.10 x86_64 and CoreAVC (Intrepid Ibex)”

Playback Problem with Canon HF100 AVCHD (.mts) and CoreAVC 1.8.5.0 (Linux)

I try to play back footage from Canon’s HF100 camcorder, which records with up to 17MBit/s. Here for I’m using CoreCodec’s latest CoreAVC decoder on Linux with coreavc-for-linux. Version 1.8.5.0 has been released on 17th of October 2008, and I was awaiting this version eagerly, since I had the expectation, AVCHD (.mts) is going to work with the new version. I’ve also started this little page to collect affected AVCHD camcorders in a list, where you see what is known not to work atm for CoreAVC Decoder. Help appreciated.
The day they’ve published their new decoder, they wrote into their changelog: Continue reading “Playback Problem with Canon HF100 AVCHD (.mts) and CoreAVC 1.8.5.0 (Linux)”

CoreAVC 1.8.5 on Ubuntu 8.10 x86_64 (Intrepid Ibex) HOWTO

This is small HOWTO about running the CoreAVC decoder (dshowserver) on a 64Bit Unbuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)
This should work for other 64bit Linux-Distros, like Debian, Fedora, SuSE, Gentoo, etc… also. With the CoreAVC decoder for Linux you should be able to play back H.264 content in FullHD (1920x1080p, VC1 is not supported). In comparison to the the native mplayer H.264 playback, only CoreAVC is able to utilize all cores of your CPU simultaneously at the moment. Please consider, NVIDIA has published a Beta driver (180.06, 180.08, 180.11), which allows already now a rudimentary hardware acceleration support for HD content (including VC1). Feedback welcome. Continue reading “CoreAVC 1.8.5 on Ubuntu 8.10 x86_64 (Intrepid Ibex) HOWTO”

List of affected AVCHD CamCorders

This is a list of AVCHD Camcorders, which do not work with CoreAVC decoder version > 1.7.0.

Like in older versions, such as 1.7.0 and 1.8.0, CoreAVC version 1.8.5 has still problems playing back AVCHD. The affected camcorder models I know of are:

  • Canon HF10
  • Canon HF100
  • Panasonic HDC-SD1
  • Panasonic HDC-SD5
  • Panasonic HDC-SD9
  • Panasonic HDC-SD100


The playback still jitter a lot if used without a deinterlacer, and I’ve got only about 10 frames a second (estimated). Seeking within the footage works now (was broken in version 1.8.0), wheres regarding the existing problems it’s a really cold comfort.
A workaround, for playing back AVCHD footage is described here at several places. Just use latest mplayer and a decent CPU.
If anybody likes to extend the list of affected camcorder models, please post them here, I’ll update the list above and will keep tracking this issue.
I’m using CoreAVC-for-Linux. If you are using Windows, please post this information as well as the version of CoreAVC you are using. Thanks.

[UPDATE] I’ve posted a question at CoreCodec’s forum, where I ask, whether AVCHD content supposed to work at all. I’m not very confident in the meantime, but let’s try it anyway.