Can you get HDR on windows 7 4K UHD MKV playback ?

[annisman]

Hi everyone,

I have a Win7 HTPC that I have used for a few years to playback ripped BD (via MakeMKV) using EMBY as my media manager, and WMC as my player.

I recently purchased a 'UHD friendly' optical drive to try ripping some of my 4K UHD. Will I need to upgrade to Win 10 to get HDR capability for my ripped UHD playback ?

I have a GTX 1060 3GB card, 8GB RAM, core i3 3220 with many TB of storage (USB 3.0 HDD enclosure).

LG B6 OLED < Yamaha 673 receiver

[d00zah]

I don't believe WMC will play these rips natively, but I've read elsewhere that MPC-BE/MadVR has no problem. Just configure EMC to use this combo as an external player.

I've used the Shark007 Std codec pack & his custom MPC-BE/MadVR (Tools page) download as an external player w/ Emby for years. Easy enough to try.

[annisman]

Thanks Doozah I will try it, can I use LAV instead of the Shark007 codecs ?

[d00zah]

That would be a personal preference. Shark's version is pre-configured for his codecs, but I imagine some tinkering would overcome that.

I use 'em 'cuz the defaults have always been fairly idjit-proof for everything I play.

[annisman]

If I use the Shark codecs (advanced I imagine ?) How will I know what settings to use ? Which boxes to check and uncheck so to speak, it sounds easy to install Shark and then MPC-BE but certainly there is more to it than that. Will I have to modify everything to my specific hardware setup ? If so, I really have no idea what I'm doing unfortunately.

[d00zah]

IF you got the version that includes madVR, just make sure it's selected as the renderer in the MPC-BE video options...

MPC-BE_madVR (Small).jpg

madVR settings should have a start menu shortcut after install.

Other than that, herr Shark contends it's preconfigured. I suggest wandering thru config options. Google recommended MPC-BE/madVR settings,etc. That's how I started years ago.

Can't recall if it was in these fora, but a user who goes by @gereral1 (makes youtube instructional videos) posted his recommended settings for madVR UHD playback. IF he doesn't respond here, you might check 'the competition's forum?

EDIT: Found these on his youtube channel...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGYRN7BiWhE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em_8-OSKFd8

[annisman]

Thanks dooz, you've been a ton of help. Have you yourself been able to play 4K UHD MKV using the method you are suggesting or is this a best guess to get it working ?

[d00zah]

Not willing to pop for the necessary NAS space ATM, so aside from getting 'my ducks in a row' & reading everything I can find, UHD remains a thought experiment at present.

See video links I amended above...

[annisman]

Loaded up the HTPC last night, and tried both methods described the in videos you posted with mixed results. The good news is that I WAS able to force my television into HDR mode - so that answers my question on if it is possible in Win 7. The bad news is that it was either extremely laggy and/or my TV would go into HDR mode yet would display horrible purple and green colors and distort my desktop.

I checked my cpu/gpu usage during playback and my CPU was spiking to 100% on all 4 cores (two are virtual cores) My gpu never went much higher than 35%, this is confusing to me as I thought my GTX 1060 would be doing the brunt of the work during playback. Going into LAV and trying the various rendering modes seemed to have no effect on my outcome, it was always laggy and my Gfx card was never utilized much.

The video I am using to test is 'The World in HDR' MKV downloaded from here: (#15) https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples

Any thoughts ??

[annisman]

Here is another guide I found, so far three guides and they all use quite different settings and approaches, it's hard to know which ones will work for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5rmXHymmnk

[d00zah]

Sorry for not having any 1st-hand experience but others have gone through this. Here are some sample results I found. Apparently, getting HW acceleration configured helps (CUVID for Nvidia GPUs). Wish I could provide a 1-stop shop...

https://www.google.com/search?q=shark00 ... 8&oe=utf-8

http://shark007.net/forum/Thread-Setup-and-usage

http://shark007.net/forum/archive/index ... 206-2.html

"I played around with playback of that demo in MPC-Home Cinema. I was seeing playback issues and 100% CPU usage as well (i7-4970k) with the default settings. Once I went in and changed the video decoder to use hardware acceleration on HEVC & UHD from my NVidia GPU (CUVID), it played back perfectly with just 4% CPU usage. I don't have Shark007 installed on this PC so I'm not sure offhand exactly where the settings are but I recall they're in there somewhere (I think it's build into LAV Video decoder settings config). You might want to see if you can track them down and enable them."

Hope this helps.

[d00zah]

Poked around in the Shark007 64-bit settings app (in my case)...

- Navigate to the 'H264/5' tab & select 'Use LAV H264/5' & the 'Configuration' radio
button.

- Select 'NVIDIA CUVID' from the Hardware Acceleration pull-down & check all the relevant boxes.

- Retest.

[annisman]

Thank you for trying to work through this with me doozah, it's very much appreciated. I also have been scouring the internet for answers and I will look at the links you posted. I think the main issue is that nobody's setup is exactly the same, whether it be the display they are trying to use, the video card, and the many different pieces of software that are involved. I'm gonna keep trying until it works !

[annisman]

One thing I have yet to try is the SHARK codecs so I will do that tonight.

[annisman]

I got it working !!! Shark codecs> recommended settings > DXVA2- copy back > auto change to full screen in MPC-BE> 24hz refresh rate on desktop resolution. That did the trick. I have found that I can handle 24fps content like a dream however 60fps HDR content is choppy. Still I'm happy with the results and cant wait to start ripping some UHDs to my drives. Thx Doozy