JRVR - JRiver Video Renderer

JRVR, or JRiver Video Renderer, is our new in-house video renderer, designed from the ground up to be cross-platform and offer high-quality video playback on all devices.

JRVR is being developed for Media Center 28, and is available on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Philosophy

JRVR was designed around the following key concepts

• Cross-Platform

  A cross-platform renderer allows us to offer a consistent video experience on all supported platforms, on Windows, Linux and Mac

• High-Quality Video

  High-Quality processing and presentation of the videos is the primary goal of JRVR. Including full support for HDR and other modern video technologies.

• Ease of Use ("It just works!")

  The experience should be good out of the box, and only get better with a bit of configuration, and not require hours of research to tune hundreds of options

• Efficiency/Scalability

  Low-end machines can still play video just fine. And we want to enable them to do so in high-quality. At the same time, faster machines can use more advanced features to get even more out of the videos.

In summary, the goal is for JRVR to offer a high-quality video experience for everyone, without requiring expensive hardware, or extensive knowledge and configuration.
While there will always be a niche for more advanced features in madVR and others, JRVR aims to cover 99% of everything else.

Design

JRVR is designed on a flexible framework, supporting the Vulkan graphics API, D3D11 on Windows, as well as OpenGL, depending on what is available on your system.
This design allows JRVR to run on any system, from a high-end Windows desktop, down to a Raspberry Pi, with almost the same features.

On Linux and Mac, you should immediately see improved performance and higher quality, in comparison to the old legacy video renderer.

Features

All the features listed below are available and usable right now in MC28.
Unless noted otherwise, all features are available on all platforms, and we're working to bring as many to the missing platforms as possible.

• High Quality Upscaling/Downscaling
  • Various scaling algorithms can be selected through the settings
  • Linear Light or Sigmoidal Light scaling for the highest quality
  • Advanced Scaling filters (image doubling)
  • SuperRes enhancement (post-processing to remove the artifacts from upscaling)
• Accurate color processing
• HDR to SDR tonemapping, for HDR10 and HLG
• HDR Passthrough (Windows only)
• High bitdepth processing, and dithering to the final output bitdepth
• Subtitle support, with color correction
• DVD and Blu-ray Menu support (Windows only)
• Hardware Decoding integration (Windows only)

JRVR is still in development and more features are being added almost every week. Check Status and Plans below for any live updates.

How to Use?

On Windows, you can opt-into using JRVR in Options -> Video -> Video Mode: Red October JRVR
JRVR is the default renderer on Linux and Mac, you can confirm it is enabled in Options -> Video -> Video Renderer

Configuration

We have a work-in-progress documentation of the JRVR options here:
JRVR_-_JRiver_Video_Renderer/Configuration

Status and Plans

JRVR is still in active development. For the current status and future plans, check our dedicated topic:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,131214.0.html