Setting up MPC-HC for Video Playback in XBMC

Configure MPC-HC

Out of the box, MPC-HC is a capable player.  Like we said though, we are after an enhanced experience.  To take it up a notch, we are going to install a handful of items:

• madVR – Make sure you install the 32-bit version.
• xySubFilter – Make sure you are downloading xySubFilter and not VSFilter

Many tutorials on the net that feature madVR also specify that ReClock will help to keep audio and video in sync.  Since the release of madVR 0.86.0 and the introduction of smooth motion, there isn’t really a need for ReClock.  Smooth motion does require some decent CPU processing power and it does have its drawbacks, like higher GPU usage and some loss of sharpness (23-25fps –> 60Hz: minimal sharpness loss, nearly invisible 24fps –> 24Hz: visible sharpness loss 60fps –> 24Hz: very noticeable sharpness loss).

Note: See more about the release here

Once you have all of them downloaded, start installing them one by one.  Let’s start with madVR.

madVR isn’t a difficult install, but it isn’t as straight forward as your typical windows installer.  You just need to download the zip file, unzip it, move it to the root of C:\, and run the install.bat file.  Um… its installed, not configured though.  That part comes in again within MPC-HC.  Just make sure you do not delete the folder once you are done… it is required.

Now that everything is installed, let’s tell MPC-HC.  To get started, open MPC-HC, use the View menu to find Options, or just press O.

Navigate to Playback, Output to change the DirectShow Video render to madVR and hit apply.

Now to configure XySubFilter, navigate to Playback and uncheck Use the built-in subtitle renderer and hit apply

To configure the internal filters, navigate to Internal Filters on the left pane and choose the button at the bottom of the screen for Video Decoder

The general rule of thumb here is to configure the hardware decoder, under the Hardware Acceleration heading, to best match your video card.  For instance, if you are using Intel graphics, select Intel QuickSync as your hardware decoder.  For NVIDIA cards, use NVIDIA CUVID, and for AMD use DXVA2 (native). The rest of the options can remain untouched for now… your mileage may vary.

Apply, Ok.

For Audio configuration, click the Audio Decoder button located directly adjacent to the Video Decoder Button.

You need to configure the Audio Decoder for BitStreaming to match your Receiver’s configuration (if you are using one).  In my setup, my Denon Receiver (a bit aged) in my basement supports the following.  Dolby and DTS, but not DTS-HD.  Make a note of the Mixing tab at the top here, if you experience some low volumes when playing back a movie or video you can adjust the settings here to assist.

In order for MPC-HC to support DTS-HD Decoding, even if your receiver supports it, you need to find and download dtsdecoderdll.dll.  DTS-HD is a family of proprietary audio codecs and is unavailable for download through most legal channels.  There are ways for you to get it, however, the best and safest (legally) way is to purchase software that comes with it.  Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre is one of those software packages and a free trial is available to you to try before you bye.  Yes, the dll is supplied in the free trial.  Once you have purchased the software, just navigate to the folder it is installed in by right clicking on the desktop icon and choosing open file location.  Navigate to the Codec folder, copy dtsdecoderdll.dll and paste it in the MPC-HC\LAVFilters folder.  In my case, I am running Windows 7 64-bit, my MPC-HC folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\MPC-HC\LAVFilters