Monday, November 28, 2011

Using DFX Audio Enhancer on Media Player Classic (ffdshow)

DFX Audio Enhancer has always been my favorite audio enhancer. It's easy, it's powerful, and it rocks. The current version is 9.3 and has been released separately for some most popular multimedia player out there. Unfortunately though, they didn't make the Media Player Classic (MPC) version, which has been my long time favorite player for Windows. Luckily, I stumbled upon a local web forum some time ago and found some workaround to use this nice little tools on my MPC.

Please take a note that this trick is not solely for MPC but can be used for any other player that using ffdshow as their audio decoder.
  1. First of all, get the DFX v7.502 for Winamp - the newest version of DFX (v9.x above) just can't be used. I show you the reason later on. Don't worry, there isn't big difference in the quality between this version and the newest version. The most noticeable drawback though, that this version doesn't fully support multichannel audio processing yet.
  2. You have to install Winamp v2 or above as it's required for our DFX.
  3. Install the DFX. If you already have the newer version of DFX for Winamp, you have to uninstall them first. But you can keep the newer version of DFX for other players ~such as DFX for Foobar~ intact. However, make sure not to install another newer DFX with the integrated enhancer for all players feature (DFX v9.xxx or newer) cause they will conflict with each other.
  4. Configure your ffdshow audio filter to use the DFX.
    •  For K-Lite users, go to your Start Menu - K-Lite Codec - Configuration - ffdshow audio decoder. The other way is just play your audio/video file on MPC and then double-click on ffdwhow audio filter icon on your tray icon.
    • On the configuration window you will find some available filters to use. Select the Winamp 2 and make sure to tick the box. Set your winamp folder and it will list your DFX there. The newer versions of DFX won't be displayed there, that's why they can't be used. You can configure your DFX from here. Just make sure to leave the multichannel audio processing unchecked. Please note that MPC and Winamp will share their DFX settings file, so any changes will affect both of them.
ffdshow audio decoder configuration window
    • All is done and you can enjoy watching movie on your MPC with nice audio enhancement on it.

Update info :
The new version now can enhance almost all of players (including MPC) using one single integrated DFX, so this tutorial kind of obsolete for any Windows 7 users. HOWEVER, this new version can't enhance MPC running on Windows XP (they works for some other players though), so Windows XP users have to resort on this trick. (Haven't tested it on Windows Vista cause I don't have any PC which uses Vista.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Prologue

Well, hello everyone. Welcome to my first blog.

Here, I will post anything that comes to my mind that I'd like to share with everyone.
Perhaps, you'll find so many random things here later on, from little rants, infos, guides, to some nice tips and tricks that I found.