MPC-HC v1.9.22 | Hacker News Reader

MPC-HC v1.9.22

github.com

65 pointsscrlk29 comments

Well there's a name I hadn't seen in awhile. This brings back memories of searching for the latest K-Lite Codec Pack and making sure I had all the latest-greatest plugins for watching anime.

At some point I switched to VLC and was blown away by the fact that the standalone exe could play whatever I threw at it without having to grab additional plugins/codecs. But I still remember MPC. If memory serves, it was a bit speedier than VLC on some low-power Windows XP boxes I had been running it on.

MPC alone isn't necessary better but with madvr LAVfilter... is still unbeatable.

Yes, back then, MPC was just much more efficient on lower spec machines.

VLC wins ease-of-use but MPC-HC is still king of the roost when it comes to picture quality and customization.

Have you tried mpv?

https://mpv.io

I use mpv on Linux and I find it a lot less pleasant to use than MPC-HC on Windows. I do not like how the UI elements hover over the content when playing in a window. I do not like how minimal the UI is, with most settings hidden in a configuration file.

One example of a common interaction that bugs me is changing audio or subtitle tracks. With MPV, you can cycle through them by clicking somewhat ambiguous buttons that show the index of the selected track. With MPC-HC, the context menu has audio and subtitle track menus that list each track and present any available metadata on them (language, track title).

Where MPC-HC shines though is in its configurability. It has a ton of options for using different decoders, renderers, and applying post process effects, all exposed through relatively easy to use menus and the settings dialog.

Totally agree. But while I know mpv’s default setup is not quite what most people would like, where it truly shines is also configurability.

Out of the box, the picture quality is already better than basically any one-click install other than mpc + madVR, and the default subtitle rendering is great for anything that makes use of SSA subs, but if you’re the type that wants to customize everything and use custom shaders and stuff, you can tweak pretty much every little detail [1].

And you can write your own UI for it pretty easily with Lua or JavaScript. If you give “Custom mpv OSC” a search, you’ll probably be able to find something that suits you a bit more [2]. The scripting support in general is great too. There are loads of really useful third-party features that I wish things like Plex would support, like selecting subtitles based on filters [3].

Also worth looking into is “mpc-qt” if you’re a big fan of MPC and want something that feels a bit more like it out of the box. It’s a cross-platform mpv-based player that mimics a lot of the look and functionality of mpc [4]. The screenshots on the GitHub page are of the dark-mode feature, but it does have a near-on 1:1 replica of the classic mpc interface too.

[1]: https://kokomins.wordpress.com/2019/10/14/mpv-config-guide/

[2]: https://github.com/cyl0/MordenX

[3]: https://github.com/CogentRedTester/mpv-sub-select

[4]: https://mpc-qt.github.io

Still my preferred media player as a windows user, been using it for over a decade at this point. There was a time an MPC-HC setup required a lot of plugins (or bulky codec packs) but now all you need is MadVR, and a subtitle renderer (I like xy-subfilter) and you're good. Doesn't really have the utility of VLC or MPV but the playback quality is fantastic with MadVR.

What kind of playback quality differences do you notice between MPV and MPC-HC?

With 100 different streaming services asking for $15 / month for the one show/movie you watch per quarter, I can see a come back of video sharing and revival of video players.

Btw the state of video players today (bad support for hdr, Dolby vision, Dolby atmos etc) reminds me their state when divx and Dolby surround were firstly introduced. Lots of work needs to be done.

I don't think piracy needs to come back, it never died.

But I'm not expecting a significant revival of video players. Who wants to watch shows and movies on a computer nowadays? On most devices (TVs, set-top boxes, tablets, ... but also computers to a lesser extent) you're limited by the hardware codecs, a custom video player is typically not going to save you.

All of those little devices run some form of Linux.

Or iOS. But that's a bit moot. For instance my LG TV doesn't support Dolby Vision files outside a few very specific encoding profiles, there's no software fix for that.

Pretty much no media player supports Dolby Vision profile 7 as it is only used commercially on 4K Blu-Ray discs.

The newer Nvidia shield advertises support, but it is incomplete and does not suport the enhancement layer included on most Dolby Vision discs.

MakeMKV supports preserving all this metadata so I would love a solution that lets me watch my 4K Blu-Ray rips with Dolby Vision.

I’m paying for some services and yet I still find myself torrenting the same medias available on these platform.

Because of the fact that video compression is so terrible (especially with Netflix, even on highest plan) that at times it’s unwatchable.

I thought MPC-BE was the spiritual successor of HC. Good to see it's still alive.

They both are really. Have both, use both.

The difference between the two is that they both have the same foundation (original mpc-hc) which means they both have similar interface navigation and have the same dependencies on directshow, etc.

The mpc-be team wrote their own audio & video renderer and they also wrote their own decoder. The great thing about the open nature of the original foundation is that even with BE you can continue using other video renderers, decoders, etc. if you want to. This matters because renderers like madvr, etc. are no longer actively developed so diversity of choice is important. Not every renderer does everything the same way or as well, so there are edge cases where one will work better than another at a specific task. They cross-pollinate each other too, mpc-hc bundled in the mpc audio renderer from be which gave people more choice out of the box.

mpc-hc is an odd one. It is maintained, mostly bug fixes. Once in a long while something will creep in. clsid is not receptive to suggestions or requests that are not bug fixes. In practice, this isn't really an issue since the program is already mature.

This has always been part of my portable apps must haves. If windows has one thing going for it above Linux it's portable, no install applications. That and Autohotkey.

You can have a 'portable' app on any *nix distro with a static compilation.

But as a person who had for an almost a decade a bunch of apps neatly stored in a folder which just worked...

I'm aware its possible but it's way easier on Windows. Download and run. With the likes of the portableapps platform and similar you're always up-to-date as well, something you wouldn't get with static compilation without a lot of hassle.

I still envy windows users for the easiness of downloading a single and being able to install a news software with a few clicks.

When I started using linux, my mind was blown away by how much better apt-get seemed. This continued until packages stopped being updated or when what I needed to install simply wasn't in my repos. This led to inclusion of "shady" repositories or compiling software myself which sometimes required compilation of dependencies which sometimes broke the system or even apt-get itself. In a few months installing new software and maintaining the system was more working the installing an updated version of my distro.

Today I try to use LTS distros and use flatpaks/snaps/AppImages as much as I can. I keep my system stable and my software up to date without one compromising another. My envy for how easier it is to install software on windows is much smaller today.

and in now-days, it's much more easy-peasy:

  PS C:\Users\coolcold> winget search mpc-hc
  Name       Id            Version  Match       Source
  ----------------------------------------------------
  MPC-HC     clsid2.mpc-hc 1.9.22               winget
  Pure Codec Dio.PureCodec 20220601 Tag: mpc-hc winget
  
  PS C:\Users\coolcold> winget install clsid2.mpc-hc
  Found MPC-HC [clsid2.mpc-hc] Version 1.9.22
  This application is licensed to you by its owner.
  Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
  Downloading https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases/download/1.9.22/MPC-HC.1.9.22.x64.exe

clsid has continued to maintain MPC-HC after the original development team stopped due to a lack of interest back in 2017 (v1.7.13 being the last release).

See: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=175209

Wow, I had no idea this project was picked up by someone! I mean, I don't see any problems with it - and I've been using it daily for many years now - but it's good news!

Not sure why the mpc-hc.org website hasn't been handed over to the new maintainer. That would resolve the discoverability issue with the clsid releases.

In terms of improvements over v1.7.13 - off the top of my head - dark mode UI, youtube-dl support and HDR video playback.

I've been using this for several years. If you need a fast video player for your machine, this is it. Unlike VLC, it can also automatically play the next file in a folder (if you flip that option in the settings). It also has a reasonably nice looking dark theme.

Loving it

It is basically the only media player which can easily go frame by frame backwards and forwards

I have got a single complain and that's that wherever you open a file and you have got another one open it does not add it to the playlist

But yeah, exceedingly happy to see it getting support

I used to use MPC before switching to mpv, glad to see it's still updated after the lack of interest in development 5 years ago. I like MadVR but I found it doesn't work as well as glsl filters in mpv like Anime4k and Nvidia Image Scaling.

clsid's MPC-HC is truly great software.

If you haven't tried it in the last decade, you don't need to install any extra codec packs of anything.

It is already bundled with a recent ffdshow, and it comes with an exe installer (or portable zip if you want), so it's as easy as VLC to install and configure, and in some cases more performant than mpv (which uses plain ffmpeg libraries)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com