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Tatsujin

oh Gainax-chan

From: Cedar Falls, IA

Registered: 2007-08-16

Posts: 328

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Guide: Getting the most out of High Definition Anime

If you haven't noticed, a lot of anime is being aired in HD in Japan now, and a lot of fansub groups have the technology to release the broadcasts in HD as well.  Here is a short guide on how to get the most from High Definition Anime

You will need:
A computer that has at least a dual-core processor (e.g. Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon)
Any of these operating systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 Beta
A standalone copy of Media Player Classic Home Cinema
(optional) The of the following Video Cards: ATI Radeon HD 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx, nVidia GeForce 8xxx/9xxx/2xx

Step 0. If you have any codec packs such as CCCP or kLite on your computer, uninstall them and restart your computer.

Step 1. Download a copy of Media Player Classic Home Cinema, which can be found here.  If your OS is 64-bit, grab the 64-bit version.  Since this is a standalone .exe file.  I would recommend placing it somewhere and putting a shortcut on your desktop.

Step 2. Open MPC-HC.  Go to View -> Options.  Under Player -> Formats, you can make MPC-HC the default for all video files, audio files, both, or specific file types.  In Windows 7 you will need to click on the modify button to change options in this screen.  Then, under Playback, make sure that under 'Open Settings' that the 'Auto-load subtitles' box is checked.  Finally, go to Playback -> Output.  If you are using Windows XP, set the radio button under 'DirectShow Video' to 'VMR9 (renderless)'.  If you are using Vista/7, set it to 'EVR Custom Pres.'.  Under both 'RealMedia Video' and 'Quicktime Video', set them to use 'DirectX 9'.

Step 3. Grab a High Definition anime video file.  You can tell it is in HD if it uses a .mp4 or .mkv file extension and the fansub group indicates that it is HD by mentioning it somewhere in the filename (they'll usually put [HD] or [720p] in there).  The anime club's downloads page should have some you can easily grab. 

Step 4. Open the video file in MPC-HC and verify that soft subtitles are loading correctly.  You should be able to right-click on the video and see that 'subtitles' is not grayed out.

Using DXVA
Remember how I mentioned video cards being optional here?  MPC-HC supports a form of video hardware accleration for HD video called DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA).  Basically, what this does is hands off the process of decoding HD video to the Video Card, lowering the strain on the processor so you can perform other tasks while the video is playing.  This is very helpful as most anime is encoded heavily due to the nature of Japanese animation where backgrounds and character movements are more static and controlled than in movies.  'Encoded' video means that the video is compressed in a manner where only the key frames and the changes between key frames are kept, and the decoding process uses this information to recreate the entire frames as the video plays.  As long as you have one of the video cards listed, and you followed the instructions above, you should be able to use DXVA on any HD video file that was encoded in H.264 correctly.I say correctly, as there are a couple cases where fansubbers might not encode the file properly to use DXVA.  How can you verify DXVA is working?  While a video file is playing, right click on the video and go to Filters -> MPC Video Decoder.  On the next screen, look under DXVA settings.  As long as you see something other than "Not using DXVA" under DXVA Mode, you're good.

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Don't believe in yourself!  Believe in me, who believes in you!
NIAA Technical Advisor - troubleshootin' equipment since 1985