High quality settings

Hi,

Suggesting the following:

Implement an option, not necesary during the instalation, but maybe preferably after the instalation to make it less confusing for most ppl.

The option to choose between the following:

+ Recommended setting (suitable for most)
(+ Maybe intermediate)
+ High quality setting (High end pc required)

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Background story:

I was playing with some settings to determine what was best and was looking for information on websites. I found for example the following:

http://www.ezoden.com/684/tutorial-htpc

I dont agree with all of it and it might be a bit outdated, and following it all will cause performance issues on most pc's, although my pc is already 7 years old.

For example the following adjustments could be of interest for allot of ppl.

Setting output format in ffds audio to 32 bit, or selecting all output formats since I read in that case it will select the best automatically for each file.

Setting output video in MPC to madVR (some settings in madVR realy take allot CPU recourses so be carefull with that on slower pc's)

There won't be such generic options. Instead more and more settings will be optimized automatically based on the systems OS and hardware.

Automatically is fine as well. But after years K light use, I was suprised to find that a few simple steps made it possible to improve the quality.

I dont think most users are aware of this. And its not that easily visible on the main website or during the current installation either.

32bit audio is already enabled by default in LAV Audio decoder (on Windows Vista and newer). Same will be done with ffdshow.

On Windows XP, output is deliberately restricted to 16bit by default because other outputs often cause problems due to bad drivers.

32 vs 24 bit (Not sure if I can ask these questions in here or in this forum)

I was looking more into this, most sound cards seem to be 24 bit at this point, I got the impression that there are hardly any 32 bit sound cards, does putting the settings on 32 bit have benefits in those cases?

For example I read the following here http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/FFDShow_reference :
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Supported Output Sample Formats:
.
16/24/32/32float: These are normal PCM output, with different levels of bitdepth. The 'normal' rate for almost all audio streams encountered is 16bit (used in CDs, DVDs, most HDVDs/BDs), but using larger bitdepths can be advantageous in some settings. If you are using any audio filters it can help to increase bitdepth to produce more accurate 'rounding'. There are two important caveats when increasing the bitdepth here:

Converting between different audio bitdepths is a lossy conversion, and it will not increase the audio quality above the original. There is no point in outputting a 16bit CD as 32bit, you won't find there to be any better sound.

Many sound cards do not correctly support bitdepths other than 16bit. In particular, many creative cards will resample 24/32/32float output back to 16bit before sending it out to the speakers, which means you will end up just running your audio through multiple destructive processes for no gain.
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So besides that ppl might not even notice any differences, one advantage to putting 32 bit vs 24 bit is that "If you are using any audio filters it can help to increase bitdepth to produce more accurate 'rounding'."
While 16 bit sounds might get worse due to reproccessing from 16 bit to 32 bit and back to 24 bit (although if any ppl most likely dont hear any differences?)?

There are two reasons why 32-bit output is better than 24-bit:
1) More accurate end result, regardless of the precision of the sound hardware
2) 32-bit (4 bytes) is more efficient than 24-bit (3 bytes). Copying data and doing calculations is faster with 32-bit values.

The actual quality difference between 16-bit and higher values is small. With cheap speakers, bad ears, or just low quality music, most people are incapable of noticing any difference.