[Spyderturbo007]

I'm building my HTPC tonight and wanted to inquire about installing MPC-HC so I can bitstream the HD audio to my Denon receiver. I read the Wiki, but I've also seen around the forums that some of it hasn't been updated. Then I stumbled across this Guide that is a little more recent.

Can someone look at my steps below and make sure I'm going about this the right way? This is for a Windows Ultimate x64 installation

• Download MPC-HC from this website.
  
• Download Direct X Runtime 9.0c from here.
  
• Install Direct X Runtime
  
• Install MPC-HC
  
• Create Playercorefactory.xml file and drop into the "Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\" directory.
  

If that's correct, I was going to use this as my playercorefactory.xml file. I only want it to play BD rip files (.m2ts). Everything else will be played by the native XBMC player.

Is this right?

Code:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
   <player name="MPC-HC" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
     <filename>C:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe</filename>
     <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
     <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
     <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
     <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
   </player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
   <rule filetypes="m2ts" player="MPC-HC">
   </rule>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>

[jhsrennie]

You shouldn't need to install DirectX, and the playercorefactory.xml goes into C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\userdata, but apart from that it looks fine. Give it a try and post here is it doesn't work.

JR

[Spyderturbo007]

Excellent. I do have one other question. Does this line of code mean that the MPC player won't be handling the audio? I just want to make sure the HD audio is bitstreamed to my receiver.

Code:

<player name="MPC-HC" type="ExternalPlayer" [b]audio="false"[/b] video="true">

Do I need to change that to "true"?

[Spyderturbo007]

I must have done something wrong, because it doesn't seem to be working. I navigate to the movie, right click, choose Play With MPC-HC (Default Player) and nothing happens. Here is the log file I created.

Log Report

[spartan711]

you forgot some steps with mpc-hc. Specifically, check AVSforums, or doom9. For MPC-HC, Use MadVR/LAV CUVID decoder/LAV Splitters/Arcsoft HD Audio Decoder. That is the ideal setup (assuming you have an nvidia gpu). If not, all you need are LAV splitters/ Arcsoft HD audio decoder. I advise you to run mpc-hc from a folder so its easy to tweak settings.

[jhsrennie]

I must have done something wrong, because it doesn't seem to be working. I navigate to the movie, right click, choose Play With MPC-HC (Default Player) and nothing happens. Here is the log file I created.

Log Report

The relevant bits of the log are:

Code:

NOTICE: CExternalPlayer::ExecuteAppW32: C:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe "C:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe" "\\DISKSTATION\NAS Shares\Media\iTunes\Movies\Couples Retreat\Couples Retreat.M2TS" /fullscreen /close
NOTICE: CExternalPlayer::ExecuteAppW32 - Failure: 3

Error 3 means the file "C:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe" wasn't found. To test this open a command prompt and type:

"C:\Program Files\MPC HomeCinema\mpc-hc.exe"

(including the quotes) and see if MPC-HC starts. You can check the program name by right clicking the MPC-HC icon created by the MPC-HC installation and selecting Properties. The program name is in the field labelled "Target".

JR

[Spyderturbo007]

Your suggestion worked perfectly. Running that from the command prompt told me that the destination was unavailable. I grabbed the target from the shortcut and plugged it in the Playercorefactory.xml file and it seems to be working. Is there anyway to verify that it is indeed using MPC to play as opposed to the built in player?


Here is what my code became after following your instructions:

Code:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
   <player name="MPC-HC" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
     [b]<filename>C:\Program Files\Media Player Classic - Home Cinema\mpc-hc64.exe>[/b]
     <args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
     <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
     <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
     <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
   </player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
   <rule filetypes="m2ts" player="MPC-HC">
   </rule>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>

Thanks again for your help!

[jhsrennie]

Is there anyway to verify that it is indeed using MPC to play as opposed to the built in player?

Press m and see if the on screen display appears.

JR

[stabu]

Press m and see if the on screen display appears.

JR

screen display appear means its using or not using mpc?

[Spyderturbo007]

Here is what I got when I pressed "m" one time. But I don't think it's working since I'm not getting DTS-HD. My receiver just shows DTS Surround.

[stabu]

i cant even get my reciver to show dts-ma just using mcp-hc.

[Spyderturbo007]

I can't either. I'm sure jhsrennie will be able to help us out when time allows.

[jhsrennie]

Ah I didn't realise press M did anything in MPC-HC. Still, that doesn't look like XBMC, because pressing M in XBMC looks like this:



I don't know anything about MPC-HC I'm afraid. I'd try one of their forums. If you run MPC-HC manually and load your film does it show DTS then?

JR

[steelman1991]

Pressing 'm' in mpc-hc doesn't - I'm assuming that what we are seeing is the OSD from another skin other than Confluence and of course that would mean that mpc-hc hasn't launched - another debug would probably be required given that changes had presumably been made to the previous playercorefactory file to point to the correct location of mpc-hc.

To you both - mpc-hc on its own as far as I am aware won't play HD Audio - further filters are required - try downloading and installing LAV Splitter (configuring both the splitter and audio decoder), then setting them up as external filters in mpc-hc\view\ options, as preferred splitter/decoder at the same time uncheck ALL internal filters.

All this is, is of course on the assumption that you both have equipment capable of bitstreaming HD Audio?

[Spyderturbo007]

My equipment is capable of HD audio, both DTS-HD and DD TrueHD.

Attached is the log file from the most recent time I played a file with DTS-HD. I'm also posting up the information on the particular file I was playing in case that helps.

Log File

Code:

General
ID                               : 1
Complete name                    : Z:\Media\iTunes\Movies\Battle Los Angeles\Battle Los Angeles.m2ts
Format                           : BDAV
Format/Info                      : Blu-ray Video
File size                        : 21.1 GiB
Duration                         : 1h 56mn
Overall bit rate                 : 26.0 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate         : 35.5 Mbps

Video
ID                               : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID                          : 1 (0x1)
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 2 frames
Duration                         : 1h 56mn
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Resolution                       : 8 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive

Audio
ID                               : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID                          : 1 (0x1)
Format                           : DTS
Format/Info                      : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile                   : MA
Muxing mode                      : Stream extension
Duration                         : 1h 56mn
Bit rate mode                    : Variable
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Resolution                       : 16 bits
Language                         : English