My system is Windows 10 x64. My media software environment simply consists of these few programs that were freshly installed last month:
Nvidia Studio Drivers
Lav Filters
Media Player Classic BE x64
Generally speaking, I have no problems with video playback on my system. But within Directory Opus (with the 'Movies' plugin) selecting a video will result in the the viewer pane showing a black or blank screen.
Here's the funny thing...when the 'Movies' plugin has to generate thumbnails, I can see it calling up a combination of LAV Splitter+Audio+Video. There's no problem here & the thumbnails are generated properly.
But when the 'Movies' plugin has to play a video, it only calls up the LAV Splitter & Audio components. It's not able to call up the Video component. Hence the black screen result.
In the viewer pane I navigated to 'Use Plugins > Active X'.
So this plugin is able to play every video file in the viewer pane.
Now the next problem...
I really like how the Movies plugin generates seemingly meaningful thumbnails with those movie reel borders. I don't want to lose that.
When I used the 'Use Plugin' option to enable ActiveX playback, I noticed the Movies plugin still worked and was generating new video thumbnails. This is an ideal outcome!
But once I exit Directory Opus, it resets back to the Movies plugin being the primary playback (which again, isn't currently working). And then I have to manually navigate to 'Use Plugin' to get ActiveX playback again.
In the link you referenced, it mentions disabling the Movies plugin altogether. But then you lose lots of features (and in my case, the thumbnail generation).
So...is there a way to set the Movies plugin for thumbnails & ActiveX for video playback?
Not currently, no, but some things which should make this situation better are on our to-do list, along with a new Movie plugin that works better with the codecs that come with Windows these days. (At some point during Windows 10's development, Microsoft seemed to drop support for the playback method we use, or at least stopped installing the type of codecs we need by default.)
Definitely looking forward to that new Movies plugin.
But one last thing...is there a button I could create that executes the manual 'Use Plugin > Active X' option?
EDIT: Or some script that activates it when Opus runs? I remember you shared a script with me recently that kept the check box enabled at Opus startup. Something like that would be amazing.