======================================================================== HAX264 Release Notes and Readme ======================================================================== HAX264 is a DirectShow Video Transform Filter for decoding H264(AVC) video. This filter wraps the libavcodec protion of the FFMpeg project, located at: http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ Only the H264 codec from ffmpeg is exposed, and only the decoder is enabled. This is by design for patent liability reasons. ======================================================================== Changes in v2.1.0.8 ======================================================================== This release represents a complete revison to the filter. The output pin has been modified to correctly represent the aspect ratio. The only exception here is for 1440x1080 videos, which the filter assumes to be compressed 1920x1080 and therefore to reflect an aspect ratio of 16:9. This change allowed all scaling functions to be removed from the filter (and eventually will the swscale code to be removed from our libavcodec as well. All scaling is now handled by the downstream renderer - if it can't handle it, it won't. This change makes it possible to render HD video much more efficiently, and on somewhat slower systems. The VFW codec has been reworked to reflect the same changes and the installer has been changed to install it - this was required for use with VirtualDub and some programs that grab thumbnails and screen shots using VfW technologies. ======================================================================== Changes in v2.0.0.7 ======================================================================== Scaling has been improved, but the "Always Rescale" function is still, unfortunately, operational. Speed has been improved, especially with AVI video with less than 1 keyframe per second. VFW codec is no longer installed by default. A registry file has been provided for this in the install directory. The underlying libavcodec library is now correctly aligned. ======================================================================== Changes in v2.0.0.3 ======================================================================== Scaling is now implemented for image display in both the DS filter and the VFW codec. One pecularity is exposed: most camcorders store 1080p images as 1440 x 1080, which is the incorrect aspect ration (4:3) for HD video. The real width should be 1920, and the DirectShow filter will ALWAYS render a 1440x1080 bitmap as 1920x1080, as it can detect the image size on the way in. The VFW decoder is not so cut and dried - the system lies and says the incoming is 1920 pixels wide, when it's not! This caused some problems (and confusion) to say the least. The only solution is the assume that tany incoming bitmap that says it's 1920 is really 1440 and act accordingly. If the decoder gets ahold of a real 1920 pixel wide bitmap, this will cause a crash! So there's a new config variable - Always Rescale. And I'll still be looking for a better solution. The installer now supports 64 bit systems. ======================================================================== See our website at http://hax264.sourceforge.net/ for instructions on building hax264 and for access to our SVN repositiory. ========================================================================