Feral HTPC: A Community Windows HTPC client

Playground Hacks
#81

I had chance to watch a complete recorded show on a 77" HDTV tonight using the 1.0.1-beta in full screen mode, and I have a few observations. Overall, the Feral HTPC experience was impressive and so much better than using the server UI in a browser.

I allowed the recording to play to the end. After the recording ended, the window closed on its own and did not return to the TV Shows panel. There was no window on the screen and nothing in the taskbar. However, task manager showed that the program was still running. I killed the program from task manager.

In full screen mode, the mouse would never auto-hide. However, it was easy enough to move it off the screen.

Closed captions are a little big on 77" TV. It would be cool if there was an option to change the size of the captions.

Most of the commercial skips were perfect, but a few had hiccups and almost seemed to jump back a tenth of a second a few times before completing the commercial skip. I did not need to do anything for the commercial skips to complete.

Finally, I wanted to see if I could get AC-3 passthrough to work by unchecking Force AAC Audio Transcoding. My PC is running Windows 11 and is connected to an AVR. I also have Windows Media Center installed. With Windows Media Center, I need to have the PC configured for 2 channel sound to get passthrough to work. The Force AAC Audio Transcoding seemed to have no effect either way. With the W11 configured for 2 channel the AVR showed 2 channel PCM and with W11 configured for 5.1 channel the AVR showed 5.1 channel PCM, with the option both unchecked and checked. However, 5.1 sounded great.

I really appreciate everything you have done. Feral PC is a great program.

#82

I use AC3 Filter to recode non bitstream audio to fix that problem with windows.

#83

Thanks. I'll try that when I get a chance. It's been ages since I used AC3 Filter.

#84

This issue is specific to HDHR channels and not other channels, correct? I have another attempt at a fix , but I still need to test it when I get home from work this afternoon. What model HDHR are you using?

#85

I will try to address these issues in the next release, 1.0.3.

#86

yes, HDHR. its a Flex4K. none of them are ATSC3

bear in mind this is only with transcode on. When off, they all have sound and just 25.1 has the audio anomaly.

I will enable TVE, and my Ceton MOCUR tuner when i get home from work and see if those transcode correctly.

#87

I'm making some changes/improvements in how the transcoding works as well as AC-3 passthrough audio and adding an HLS option for OTA channels. I think one of the changes should fix it.

#88

New update available

[1.0.3-beta]

New Features & Improvements

  • True Hardware Audio Passthrough (Bitstreaming): Added native support for sending raw 5.1 Dolby Digital (AC-3) surround sound directly to Audio/Video Receivers. The core engine now utilizes Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) and SPDIF flags to bypass the Windows audio mixer for authentic home theater sound.
  • Advanced OTA Signal Resiliency: Completely overhauled how Feral HTPC handles severely corrupted OTA broadcasts (such as local affiliates broadcasting broken timestamps). The player now utilizes aggressive LibVLC clock-sync overrides (ts-trust-pcr=0, massive clock jitter buffers, and live audio up-sampling) to maintain perfect playback on direct TS streams without dropping audio or requiring an HLS transcode.
  • Smart Stereo Downmixing: The local FFmpeg proxy now actively detects 5.1 surround sound tracks (often used by major networks like CBS, ABC, and NBC) and safely downmixes them into 2.0 stereo when "Force AAC" is enabled, preventing silent audio failures.
  • Optimized Closed Captions: Adjusted the default relative font size for subtitles so they render at a much more comfortable, cinematic scale on large 4K and 77" displays.

Bug Fixes

  • Movie Playback Ghost Process: Fixed an issue where finishing a recorded movie while the main application was set to "Minimize on Play" would cause the application to remain invisibly running in the background. The main window now reliably restores and focuses itself when the video player closes.
  • Proxy Initialization: Resolved an internal variable scoping issue that could prevent the local FFmpeg proxy from successfully receiving the target audio codec logic.
3 Likes
#89

mostly skimmed the thread, so sorry if it's been covered. just installed the latest (up 3min :wink: )
the tv show filter for newest added is filtering for newest show added, not latest episode. also went looking for something similar to a recording list, or up next.

otherwise, at first pass Feral looks very tame.. lol no very polished! good work!

#90

I did some work on how the OTA channels are handled in passthrough audio, FFmpeg transcoding and AAC audio transcoding. Try with AAC unchecked and just passthrough audio. If that does not work, keep the AAC unchecked and try the FFmpeg transcoding. If all that fails, then try the AAC transcoding as a last resort. I really think the changes to passthrough audio will work for you.

#91

Hopefully this latest release has addressed these issues.

#92

AAC recode on/off, FFmpeg recode off - full sound on all channels, Same anomaly on 25.1

AAC recode on/off, FFmpeg recode on - full sound on all channels, no anomaly on 25.1

I'm getting interlaced artifacts on screen transitions with the FFmpeg recode on.

AAC recode doesn't seem to do anything.

Let me know if you want any debugs, and which ones..

I'm going to try MOCUR (cable card) and TVE and see how that works for live next.

Im curious if that FOX issue is present on the cable rebroadcast. i should have thought of that yesterday.

#93

CPU/GPU are you using on the PC? The best I can tell is 25.1 is broadcasting a corrupted audio timeline from the tower. I don't know that for a fact, but that is what it appears to be. Without having the same issue on my end, finding a solution is a shot in the dark. I will continue checking on a better solution though.

#94

Full specs:

AMD 9800X3D, AMD RX9060 16GB.
Corsair Vengeance (non RGB) 32GB DDR5 kit (16GBx2)
Onboard sound, 2.1 (Steelseries Nahimic)
Samsung G50SF (QD-OLED 180mhz, DP 1.4) running in 10 bit HDR desktop mode - most likely why the color space errors were popping up.

#95

Thank you.. So the channel will play audio with FFmpeg transcoding, but the video is giving issues with FFmpeg transcode but not with FFmpeg transcode off? What artifacts are you seeing?

#96

its deinterlacing artifacts.

on fast screen transitions, like news graphics, you can see the interlace lines...

ill see if its doing that with the ffmpeg recode off and let you know..

#97

Thank you..

#98

looks like its not doing it with the recode off...

Its basically anything moving quickly.

peoples hands, cars, etc.

Could be post processing artifacts from FFMpeg, but its definitely interlaced scan lines..

#99

got a screen grab for you

2026-04-06 19_13_02-LibVLCSharp.WPF
2026-04-06 19_13_02-LibVLCSharp.WPF1507×668 50.4 KB

1 Like
#100

Heres another ones that's no so noisy

2026-04-06 19_18_05-LibVLCSharp.WPF
2026-04-06 19_18_05-LibVLCSharp.WPF1535×704 60.8 KB