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[rjm]

I came across some MP4 video files that consistently crashed MC (as well as other players like BSPlayer and WMP).

After much experimenting I found a simple solution. I uninstalled my ffdshow codec pack and then installed the CCCP codec pack from http://www.cccp-project.net

MP4 playback now works with all my players including MC.

[Yaobing]

Thanks for sharing the solution.

glynor has been advocating the use of CCCP for a while. This adds some more weight to his case.

[rjm]

yes I should have given credit to glynor

I finally got the courage to try out his cccp recommendation. Works great!

And as a bonus, the latest version of cccp claims Vista compatibility.

[JimH]

More on CCCP here:

Directshow step by step instructions by Yaobing:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39509.0

[Magic_Randy]

I came across some MP4 video files that consistently crashed MC (as well as other players like BSPlayer and WMP).

After much experimenting I found a simple solution. I uninstalled my ffdshow codec pack and then installed the CCCP codec pack from http://www.cccp-project.net

MP4 playback now works with all my players including MC.

I had playback problems with mp4 files as well.  They did not crash MC or the PC, but the playback was not good.  There was stuttering (stop go - stop go) in the playback.

I too installed the CCCP codec pack and all of the mp4 problems went away. In addition to fixing the mp4 playback, it also improved the DVD playback. I can now use VMR9.

[lalittle]

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong here.  I too installed the CCCP pack, and mp4 playback is still really poor.  Problems range from jerky playback to not playing video at all.  I didn't change any settings, and I confirmed that the CCCP settings are set to play back mp4 files.

Are there some settings that I'm not aware of?  It seems like getting good mp4 playback is just too complicated to mess with -- I've been fighting with it on and off for months, trying countless combinations of settings in MC, and it continues to give me an array of problems.  Codec packs, settings in MC for "Source Filters," "Other Filters," and "Video renderer," settings for the CCCP pack, settings for the Haali Splitter, FFDShow Video Decoder Configuration -- it just seems to go on and on with no solution in sight.  I hate to say it, but I've pretty much given up on MC for video playback these days -- it's just too complicated.

The latest thing I noticed, ironically, is that playback on this system is MUCH better with the CCCP pack NOT installed.  On my MUCH slower system (a P3), which does not have the CCCP pack installed, playback of the same mp4 files seems fine today.  Unfortunately, I need the CCCP pack installed on my P4 system so that I can play certain OTHER files, putting me in a catch 22.

Larry

[Magic_Randy]

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong here.  I too installed the CCCP pack, and mp4 playback is still really poor.  Problems range from jerky playback to not playing video at all.  I didn't change any settings, and I confirmed that the CCCP settings are set to play back mp4 files.

Larry

Larry,

I'll tell you the settings I use.

Under Options-->DirectShow playback settings-->File Types-->mp4 is checked
I also have Use WMV Acceleration if available checked.

Right click on mp4 files (or click the Select Filters button) - I have no Source Filters selected. I have no Other Filters selected. I Have VMR9 selected for Video Renderer. Click the Configure button.  I have everything checked (Use YUV Mixing Mode, Dynamic Decimation, Dynamic Switch to BOB).

Let me know if you want me to check something else.

Randy

[rjm]

Larry,

I am not an expert on this matter but two questions:

1) Did you first uninstall ffdshow (and any other codec packs you installed except Xvid and DivX) and then reboot? This seems to be a key step according to the cccp doc.

2) Did you install the latest cccp? It is fairly recent (mid-February 2007 I believe).

No doubt glynor the guru will jump in here, but I believe your poor quality MP4 is caused by the player defaulting to Quicktime mp4 codecs which don't work very well. I had this problem 6 months ago which was solved by installing ffdshow. I then came across a new variant of mp4 (which I cannot diagnose since GSpot does not report on mp4 properties) that crashed MC even with the ffdshow codecs. The solution as I said was to uninstall ffdshow and install the latest cccp.

Regards, Rob

[lalittle]

1) Did you first uninstall ffdshow (and any other codec packs you installed except Xvid and DivX) and then reboot? This seems to be a key step according to the cccp doc.

FFDShow was not installed prior to the CCCP pack.  I also checked using the CCCP "Insurgent" program just to verify that there were no other programs that might interfere with CCCP.

2) Did you install the latest cccp? It is fairly recent (mid-February 2007 I believe).

Yes -- the version I used is the current version.

No doubt glynor the guru will jump in here, but I believe your poor quality MP4 is caused by the player defaulting to Quicktime mp4 codecs which don't work very well.

That's the really strange part -- the system that DOES play back the mp4 files without problem IS using the QT engine and codec.

CCCP solved my problems with m4a playback, but it does not play back mp4 files very well.

Thanks,

Larry

[lalittle]

Larry,

I'll tell you the settings I use.

Under Options-->DirectShow playback settings-->File Types-->mp4 is checked
I also have Use WMV Acceleration if available checked.

Right click on mp4 files (or click the Select Filters button) - I have no Source Filters selected. I have no Other Filters selected. I Have VMR9 selected for Video Renderer. Click the Configure button.  I have everything checked (Use YUV Mixing Mode, Dynamic Decimation, Dynamic Switch to BOB).

Let me know if you want me to check something else.

Randy

Those are all the same settings I use.

I have no idea what other settings to ask about.

Thanks,

Larry

[lalittle]

Just to update this, I notice that with some files, instead of video I was seeing a basic "info" screen for the file -- I would see this while the audio for the file played.  The info showed the file type, the artist a genre tags, and made a reference to the "Orban" plugin (which I need for AAC streams.)  It appears that in some cases (but NOT all), the Orban codec is trying to play the file.

I need the Orban plugin for playing AAC streams (the CCCP pack is apparently unable to do this) but I uninstalled the Orban plugin just to see what would happen.  I no longer got the "info" screen referring to this plugin, but the playback problems were still there -- i.e. jerky playback that appeared to be skipping a lot of frames.

Once again, these same files play back fine on my other system here, which is using QT.

Larry

[glynor]

I've been baffled before with your playback difficulties, Larry.  All I can say is that for all of the machines that I use MC on (I'm now up to 6 that I use fairly regularly), with a wide variety of hardware specs, CCCP works very well for MP4 playback on all of them.

A few things I wonder about...

MP4 is really just a container format, no different than an AVI or MKV.  Saying it doesn't handle MP4 playback well doesn't really mean anything, because there can be about a million different types of MP4 files (unless the problem is with Haali at the splitting stage, but I doubt this -- it generally just wouldn't work at all if the problem was there).  The important information is how the streams inside the MP4 file are compressed and formatted, and what filters are decoding that compression.

Is there a place where I could download to test one of these problem MP4 files?  Where did they come from?

Assuming I can't get one of them to look at myself, could you analyze one of them using G-Spot for me?  (Oh, and RJM, the new G-Spot v2.70a handles MP4 files almost the same as it handles AVIs -- we're just waiting on full MKV support).  Simply run the full analysis (open the file and then hit the MS A/V button #1 at the bottom) and then take a screen shot and post it.  If you're getting stuttering and other playback issues, and the machine isn't ancient, I'd guess that either 1) the MP4 files are weird somehow, or 2) some other filter or codec is getting in the way.

The nice thing about using the Quicktime engine is that it works reliably with a variety of different types of MP4 files and the install is easy.  However, I can give you plenty of example MP4 files that look beautiful, but wouldn't play back at all using the Quicktime engine.  For example, Quicktime does not fully support the MPEG-4 AVC specification, and coughs up its lung when you throw anything using High Profile at it.  Plus, if you compare quality of playback side by side, with most source media (except those specifically encoded to work well with Quicktime) FFDSHOW will have vastly superior playback quality.

Short of that, I'd ask a few other things...

Do the files play fine in other players?  Most importantly:

1. Media Player Classic (installed as part of CCCP)?
2. ZoomPlayer (ditto)?
3. WiMP?
4. Quicktime Player?

What other media applications are installed on the machine?  Do you have anything by Real on there?  Is Nero 7 installed?

Last, but certainly not least, I'd visit the CCCP Troubleshooting page here and, if it doesn't help, the CCCP Forums are full of people who'll be happy to help you.  If you go there though, make sure to follow the instructions on asking for help in this thread: http://www.cccp-project.net/smf/index.php?board=1.0