Problems with video preview

Hi,

video preview (.mpg) doesn't work for me very well.
I get no sound and the picture has some kind of waves.
No problems in WMP or VLC.

See this FAQ:
[ul][li]Enable/fix playback of various media formats in Opus[/li][/ul]

Also, if you're using 64-bit Windows, be aware that Opus uses the 64-bit video codecs installed on your system, not the 32-bit ones that Windows Media Player uses. (Unless you're using the 64-bit WMP, but that's very rare; the 32-bit one is usually used by default.) If you're on 64-bit Windows then chances are you need to install/update the 64-bit version of one of your codecs. (You can have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the same codecs installed.)

But I haven't those troubles with DO 9 :open_mouth:

The way Opus plays videos hasn't changed at all since Opus 9.

Hm, ... damned codec-crap. What about the VLC thing you mentioned in the FAQ ... did you quit it?

I never said I started it. :slight_smile: It's still just an idea for when time permits.

:smiley:

earlier today i had problems with video preview too. reason: i had installed the latest VLC media player (version 1.1.10), which must have caused some changes in the windowsxp registry. preview of *.AAC and others was dead too. was easy to fix: i deinstalled my (main) codec pack, rebooted the machine, re-installed the codec pack. No further reboot was necessary, now with the Movie Viewer Plugin i can preview even *.VOB-files (using ffdshow). Great!

I've added the new info to my coffeeshop post. hope this helps!

Not sure if it has been fixed but VLC at least used to do terrible things to the filetypes in the registry if you told it to take them over. As I remember, it completely replaces/diverts the filetypes to its own ones which effectively erases any settings on those types created by other things (or just the Windows defaults). (What it should really be doing is merging the changes it needs to make with what's there already.) Probably makes VLC work more reliably, but breaks a bunch of other things until you repair/re-install them.

I still use VLC but I'm very careful not to tell it to associate itself with any files when installing it. (Which also means the VLC installer may be much better now and what I just said may no longer apply. I don't know as I never risk 'testing' that aspect of it.)

uninstalling and reinstalling stuff often assures the overwriting of dirty :wink: registry entries..
(...)
back to the literal *.mpg-file extension topic: while it would feasible to publish a systematic "DO10 viewer pane test report" of the ~12,000 A/V media files (47.8GB) on the samples.mplayerhq.hu server (I've downloaded them all :smiling_imp: ), all we need to know if literal *.mpg's can be viewed with ffdshow with a single configurational setting, e.g. as found in the Movie Viewer Plugin.

as i found out, on a vinalla :laughing: WinXP, the Movie Viewer Plugin manages "to clear" a minor part of their *.MPG-files while most of their *.MPG's dont play in the viewer pane (Movie Viewer Plugin).

On the other hand, with the ActiveX Plugin (let's call it this way, although i leave the Generic ActiveX box deactivated on my system), i was able to clear up to ~80% of their *.MPG's. How? By using 4 different combinations of splitters/decoders. With a single combination (e.g. Haali splitter/PDVD10 codec) i could clear maybe up to 40% only. Which means that there is/was a 60% probability that the DO10 viewer pane would not preview the video, if i did not change the splitter/decoder combination to some other working combo.

leo, any details on which "combo" the internal DO10 viewer (player) uses? DO10 doesnt come with its own little splitter+codec pack, does it? :question:

Opus just uses the splitters/codecs installed on your system. It doesn't come with any itself.

Why are you wasting your time going through thousands of video files in formats you'll probably never need to play?

You will never, ever find a combination of codecs/splitters/tools that will play absolutely everything. Some of them only work with some files, others with others, and they conflict with each other. (And remember that some files are encoded with buggy encoder and thus may not be playable except with a decoder that has matching bugs and thus won't work with some other files.) Don't waste your time on such a project, especially not if you're doing it for purely academic reasons.

The way I deal with video codecs is I just install ffdshow and a couple of extra splitters for formats I know I use regularly. If something comes along that I can't play (or crashes or whatever), I might consider updating ffdshow and the splitters or looking for alternatives, but even then only if it's likely to be a problem more than once. If it's just a one-off file I'll try VLC and GOM as they have built-in codecs and usually one of ffdshow, VLC and GOM can play any file.

Was definitely for "academic reasons", i.e. for the sake of research and testing and gaining some knowledge which splitter/decoder combo works best "in most cases". I've reached my target (=Answer to the question "Which/How many file extensions can be played in DO10 viewer pane by the installation of a 1 single codec pack?"). So i wont waste more time on that particular question, i've anwered it: 84 different A/V file extensions (incl. *.TAK). This is a number close to what VLC supports (~100), which is pretty amazing.
And my research work was meant as contribution (of knowledge, e.g. the "84" is a unique piece of information which you (GPSoft) can use from now on in your posts and ads lol) to the forum community, since there are probably ~100(?) users who wonder why their audio or video file doesnt play or doesnt play anymore.

So if some forum user comes up with "I cant preview my MMF-audio nor my MPX-video files which i downloaded from filestube.com, plz heeelp!", the quick and final answer (after having referenced my coffeeshop post) would be "MMF and MPX hardly play in VLC, and they are definitely not supported by common codeck packs based on ffdshow. Gamer over here, sorry. Better download some less exotic media formats! ;=)"

In this thread, the author hasnt specified the system (Win7? WinVista?) nor do we know anything about the installed players or codec packs. Deinstalling codec pack, rebooting, and reinstalling codec pack should do the trick, though.

Furthermore, my post shows that you guys "dont need" to release a VLC plugin. i've shown that DO10 viewer pane plays 84 formats, and it's easy to set it up. No fiddling with ffdshow tryouts config (they are all disabled lol.). I agree that nobody will want to play more than 84 media formats.

That's why a VLC plugin (~100 file extensions) ... we can wait for it with full patience. :slight_smile:

The point of a VLC plugin isn't that it's impossible to play video without one; it's that it can saves people the hassle you've just been through finding the right combination of video codecs & splitters (which can be even more complicated if you already have other conflicting ones on your system).

VLC won't play everything but it's nicely 'self-contained' and (mostly) independent of whatever else you do or don't have installed.

That's also why I like ffdshow; it's a single thing that will play almost everything. Not as self-contained as VLC since it has to interact with the rest of your DirectShow components, but there's less potential for conflicts if you only have to install one extra codec instead of 20 different ones written by different people and not tested with each other.

I don't even know what those formats are :slight_smile: but even if there aren't good codecs now, there might be in the future. Or there might be ones you missed, or even ones you tried that didn't work due to a conflict with some other codec you also had installed.

As far as i can see, VLC is based on DLL's which reside in the program installation dir. Very self-contained and independent. I guess that 1 *.dll (e.g. for OGG) contains both splitter and decoder. No conflicts with other splitters then which could split OGG too! I agree that things could end up in hassle and mess when the user installs various ffdshow (DirectShow) based players and codec packs. These days i am on K-Lite Codec Pack (Full, not Mega) and i also checked DirectShow FilterPack, both based on ffdshow. Let's see, from now on, how often users on this forum complain about audio/video not working in the viewer pane. If that happens frequently although they've followed your guide and looked at my results (the coffeeshop post), then coding a VLC plugin for DO10 (or DO11) ..etc.. :wink:

I'd help testing the VLC plugin with my handy collection of exotic A/V file extensions! :sunglasses: