FAQ

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常见问题よくある質問 Ответы на частые вопросы

Common questions

How to set up my favorite video player?

All instruction for supported video players are listed there.
If you see that some instruction is outdated feel free to contact us!

It doesn't work!

By design, SVP 4 should work fine out of the box, however there is always a possibility that something will go wrong because many complex software products are involved. Here's your to-do list to use in such case:

Don't panic!
Try to turn it off and then turn it on ;)
Make sure that both, SVP and video player, are NOT running with administrator privileges.
Read (or reread) the topic on configuring your video player and follow the exact steps from the topic.
Read all the answers below.
Search through our forums, there's a good chance (up to 99% ;)) that your problem has already been solved.
Contact our support service, preferably via Information -> Send problem report window.
Start a new forum thread.

Is SVP 4 any better than SVP 3?

Yes it is! :)

SVP 4 is a way more "modern", it's like Windows 10 while SVP 3 is more like Windows XP :D
it supports 64-bit video players,
it supports mpv, Plex and VLC,
it has transcoding and streaming extensions,
and more...

Can I watch live video with SVP?

Yes, if your video player can play it; however, SVP won’t work with protected content like on the Netflix website.

We even developed an extension module for SVP 4 Pro (see SVPtube) based on youtube_dl to simplify extraction of video streams.

How to remove strange blurry bars from both sides of video?

This feature is called "outer lighting", and we love it! If you don't - feel free to turn it off via main menu -> Outer lighting -> Disabled.

How to watch Blu-ray discs?

All video players supported by SVP can only show unprotected content.

This means you must decrypt the disc before opening it in MPC-HC or any other player.

I installed K-Lite/CCCP/Kawai/... codec pack and SVP can't find any video, why?

DO NOT install "codec packs", they are almost useless now because all major video players already contain all the required codecs (mostly via LAV Filters).

I've a 120 Hz monitor and SVP doesn't work for native 60 fps videos

Interpolating a video with high frame rate can be a very CPU consuming task, because 60->120 fps conversion requires twice as much resource as a 30->120 conversion.

Because of this, SVP has a built-in limiter for the source frame rate to be processed. You can override it:

Switch to Ignore HFR sources profile on the Video profiles page and set the desired frame rate limit value.
SVP before 4.3.192: by using the All settings window, see frc.target.max value.

SVP doesn't work for interlaced video

SVP can't handle interlaced video. To process interlaced video with SVP you must de-interlace it first i.e. convert the source to progressive video stream with, depending on the de-interlacing method, either source or doubled frame rate.

Let's take a look at LAV Video decoder options as an example: Show picture

You can choose between:

25p/30p (Film) mode - in this case you need to uncheck Assume double frame rate for interlaced videos in SVP's Application settings;
50p/60p (Video) mode - you'll get "native" 60 fps video that do not need to be processed by SVP.

SVP doesn't work for movies I ripped from DVD

As DVDs often contains interlaced video - see the previous answer.

Administrative privileges issue

In Windows SVP is able to detect a video playback only if both SVP Manager and the video player was started by the same user account. Particularly, you should not run SVP Manager "as administrator". The following line at the very beginning of SVP's Events log should give you a hint that something is wrong:

18:15:42.553 [I]: Main: running as Administrator

What about HDR?

HDR topic is so complicated we had create a separate page to describe all aspects: see 4K/HDR with SVP. The short version: MPC-HC + Avisynth Filter (AVSF) + madVR is the best choice for HDR playback.

How make SVP ignore specific type of videos?

For example, SVP could activate for FLAC files with embedded cover, which is not needed. The simple solution is using [video profiles]: create new video profile, disable "Increase frame rate" and additionally press the red "Disable SVP completely" button, add profile condition like "Video codec" = "mjpeg", or "File extension" = "flac", or something like that.

Where is ffdshow?

DO NOT USE ffdshow filters anymore! They're bad and old. Replace ffdshow with Avisynth Filter or Vapoursynth Filter immediately!

Performance issues

What are system requirements?

System requirements depend on which videos you'll watch. For SD-size videos (for instance, DVDs), a low-end system (like Core2 Duo) is good enough; however, for FullHD 3D video, you probably need Core i7.

The performance depends almost linearly on the video frame size: 1080p FullHD frame is 4 times heavier than 720p, and 720p is 4 times heavier than DVD. Note, that a proper video card could improve performance significantly, but for high quality 1080p interpolation you still need a powerful CPU with 4 cores at 3 GHz as a good start.

However, because of great SVP's flexibility, you can expect good enough results with FullHD video even on slower hardware like modern Intel i3/Pentium CPUs.

In any case, a dedicated / modern integrated video card is a must-have SVP’s assistant for hardware video decoding, high quality rendering, and computing. The minimal acceptable performance level for GPU is 4th gen. Intel Core "Haswell".

What are the best settings?

Most likely SVP 4 already choose the "best settings" based on your hardware's performance level. If the CPU load is above 70% you may adjust "quality-performance" slider manually.

Do not try to max-out blindly all the manual options in Pro version unless you know what every value means. If you attempt to do so you'll end with very high system load plus high level of artifacts and low video fluidity.

Can't use SVP on my laptop

Modern laptops are thin and beautiful, that's why they cannot cope with continuous high system load, especially when both CPU and GPU are loaded. The main problem is CPU/GPU overheating resulting in thermal throttling.

You can monitor the CPU’s temperature and real-time CPU frequency while playing a video. SVP shows actual frequency in Windows 8+ and macOS; if you prefer, you can use any other monitoring tool, for instance, Intel Power Gadget. If you see that temperature is rising and CPU frequency is not stable or just too low — then, you got a problem.

Another issue is Intel's IGP performance, which is LOW, although Intel's IGP is always in use for video rendering even if laptop has a dedicated graphics card.

To address this issue, try the following steps:

Plug in AC power.
Disable all the video enhancement features in video driver's control panel: Intel HD Graphics Control Panel

If the laptop has a dedicated graphics card, switch to the integrated one via Main menu -> Application settings -> GPU acceleration.
Switch to more basic video renderer in the video player (e.g. from madVR to EVR).
Don't use Bicubic resizer in the EVR-CP settings; instead, return to using the Bilinear option.
Drag the handle of the "performance - quality" slider in SVP to the left to reduce CPU usage.
As a last resort, completely turn off GPU acceleration.

How to lower settings or disable SVP while on battery?

You need a Pro (or Mac, Linux) version to do this. Show picture

Add new video profile,
Add profile condition: "Is on battery" = "Yes",
Turn off "Do frame rate conversion" button.

Video lagging and stuttering on 120+ Hz monitor

If you have NVIDIA video card: switch to NVIDIA CUVID video decoder in LAV Video Decoder properties.
Switch to madVR video renderer, the default "Enchanced video renderer" (EVR-CP) often can't render more than 110 frame per second.

Licensing

Why the Trial mode is not available?

If you don't see a trial mode button in the registration dialog then probably you're running under virtual machine or with a Hyper-V enabled. For security reasons, trial functionality is not available under VM.

Still you're free to use our 15-days money-back policy ;)

I've lost OR not received my license key OR download link

Use the License Manager to restore the key, after that log into the Manager and get all the download links.

I can't activate SVP after OS re-installation or update

Use the License Manager to delete the previous activation first and then try again.

Linux version

It doesn't work in Linux PUT-YOUR-DISTRO-NAME-HERE

We build and test SVP 4 Linux using Ubuntu 18.04, because of this SVP 4 Linux works best in Ubuntu.

As we can't guarantee it'll work on any other of the 100s existing distros, in many cases your should figure out the installation and run-time problems by yourself. Of cause you're very welcome on our forums ;)

After all, SVP 4 Linux provides all the "Pro" features for free.

Error message - Unable to find mpv's pid

SVP 4.1 and later uses lsof utility to find which mpv instance is on the other end of the local socket, so ensure that lsof is installed.

SVPtube 1/2

Legacy SVPtube is not working

Sorry but we can't keep it updated forever. Consider switching to "youtube-dl"-based SVPtube 2, which is always up to date with recent YouTube site changes.

SVPtube 2 doesn't work on SOME-WEB-SITE

Yes, it can happen, because websites change their design / layout / etc. rather often. After that, youtube-dl won't work until the extractor for the site will be fixed. And after that, we still need some time to update our SVPtube package.

Check that the site is in youtube-dl's list
Ensure you don't forget to enter authentication data in case it's essential for the site
Check known issues in the GitHub repo, there's a good chance that the problem was already described and even solved. In the latter case SVPtube 2 will be updated soon enough.

SVPtube doesn't work on Funimation or Crunchyroll

... or other anime sites.

Provide authentication via cookies as described in the user manual.

Error message - youtube_dl module import failed

In Windows, this usually happens because of Python versions conflict. If you have Python 3.8 32-bit installed, make sure it's at version 3.8.2 or newer.

SVPtube doesn't work on Windows 7

Error message in the log: "ImportError - DLL load failed while importing _ctypes".

Ensure you have KB2533623 installed.

How to disable SVPtube's window auto-hiding?

In Application settings -> All settings window search for "autohide" and set this value (tube.ui.autohide) to zero (default behavior is auto-hide after 5 secs).

Troubleshooting

Download error while installing SVP

It usually throws an error like this: "Could not download archive %NAME%: Connection closed".

To address this issue, try the following steps:

Try again a little bit later.
Re-run the installation, on the first "welcome" screen press Settings button and choose System proxy settings.

Error message - SVP process was modified by some 3rd-party software

The following error messages are a part of our DRM protection:

SVP process was modified by some 3rd-party software.
Please refer to the FAQ on SVP-Team.com web site.

OR

File corrupted! This program has been manipulated and maybe
it's infected by a Virus or cracked. This file won't work anymore.

It usually means that some 3rd-party application tries to interfere with SVP process in memory, such as:

Microsoft Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET)
F-Secure anti virus with the DeepGuard option turned on - see more details
IObit Advanced SystemCare

SVP Manager doesn't start

Check the log file (%APPDATA%\SVP4\logs\active.log). In case the last line is

Video: reading OpenCL info...

then the problem is in corrupted graphics drivers installation. Remove them completely using Display Driver Uninstaller and then re-install. In case of NVIDIA clean re-installation may also work (w/o DDU).

It's also known that the following products may break OpenCL subsystem, not allowing SVPManager to run:

Microsoft OpenCL, OpenGL, and Vulkan Compatibility Pack
Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit

Error message - SVSmoothFps unable to init GPU-based renderer

This is a common error especially in Windows 10. For example, it may occur after some huge update (18H2, 19H1, etc) You can fix it as follows:

Re-install graphics drivers.
If simple reinstalling did not help, clean graphics drivers with Display Driver Uninstaller.

Error message - AVS - System exception - Access Violation

The error is usually caused by graphics drivers too. First thing to do is to re-install as described above.

Error message - 32 or 64-bit SVP engine is not installed

This means you're running 32-/64-bit video player while the corresponding 32-/64-bit SVPflow component isn't installed. Go to "Utilities" -> "Add. programs and features" and install the missing one.

Error message - Unable to locate Avisynth

(Re-)install Avisynth+ manually
(Re-)install the latest VC++ redistributables manually

Error message - Legacy Avisynth 2.5 is not supported

Starting from SVP ver.4.0.0.72 legacy Avisynth 2.5 interface is not supported any more. To check which Avisynth library is in use go to "Information" -> "Events log" and find out the path of the wrong avisynth.dll. The most common case is when you also have SVP 3 installed and you're using MPC-HC bundled with SVP 3:

23:25:20.415 [i]: Avisynth: 2.5.8.6, AvisynthMT 2.5, C:\Program Files (x86)\SVP\MPC-HC\avisynth.dll
23:25:20.415 [E]: VideoPlayer: Avisynth 2.5 isn't supported

Now you've three choices:

delete this 'avisynth.dll' and use the system-wide one from C:\Windows\SysWOW64
replace this .dll it with any other version you like
stop using MPC-HC installed into SVP 3 folder (or just use exclusively with SVP 3)

The player crashes on seek

It always shows "SVP: disabled" message

Most likely you still have ffdshow filter enabled. Replace ffdshow with Avisynth Filter or Vapoursynth Filter immediately!

Error message - Cannot load a 32 bit DLL in 64 bit Avisynth

This means you have some mess in your Avisynth installation, for example some 32-bit plugins in 64-bit autoload directories. Latest Avisynth+ builds throw an error in this case, so you need to delete all such files.

Doesn't work on Windows 7/8 - no active playback

Older Windows 7/8 running without updates may not have updated root certificates from DigiCert, thus the digital signature on SVPManager.exe is invalid.

Check digital signature (file properties via right-click menu), install updated certificates if needed: root, intermediate.

FAQ

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