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[park]

Help appreciated:

1) No matter what I do, I cant get MC to use the directshow filters. When i right click on an mp4 file, and "set display" it just shows that it's using quicktime.

I dont know much about directshow settings. I have CCCP installed. I am trying to play mp4 files. I have MC's directshow filters set to use haali media splitter for the source filter and use ffdshow video decoder and haali media splitter for the other filters. I have tried all of the video renderers: legacy, VMR 7, and VMR 9. None make any difference.

This is a major problem for me, as my old sony laptop wont playback the files with quicktime. I guess it's processor power related. It just shows random frames and hangs all the time. On my other newer vista sony vaio TP1, it still only plays using the quicktime engine, but plays smoothly.

EDIT:
I should note that Zoomplayer can play the files with no problem whatsoever. It uses overlay to play them, but they played fine with VMR 7 and 9 too. It loaded up haali and ffdshow video filters into the tray during playback. MC doesnt do this for me.

2) On a related note, I noticed that you can set directvobsub to load in the "other filters" section. This isnt working for me (I guess for the same reason as no.1). I'd like to try this though as it might solve the problems I've been having trying to get the right language subtitles to appear when using the subtitles settings using ffdshow's settings. Maybe the directshow will work better.

3) Finally, I noticed that recently we can choose the audio and subtitle stream for mkv files. Is there any technical reason why this wasnt applied to all video types?

Thanks.
Bri

[JimH]

Someone reported this exact problem a month or two ago.  Was that you?

What happens if you uninstall QT?

Are they protected MP4 files?

Are you using the same filters as for Zoom?

[Yaobing]

Help appreciated:

1) No matter what I do, I cant get MC to use the directshow filters. When i right click on an mp4 file, and "set display" it just shows that it's using quicktime.

I dont know much about directshow settings. I have CCCP installed. I am trying to play mp4 files. I have MC's directshow filters set to use haali media splitter for the source filter and use ffdshow video decoder and haali media splitter for the other filters. I have tried all of the video renderers: legacy, VMR 7, and VMR 9. None make any difference.

This is a major problem for me, as my old sony laptop wont playback the files with quicktime. I guess it's processor power related. It just shows random frames and hangs all the time. On my other newer vista sony vaio TP1, it still only plays using the quicktime engine, but plays smoothly.

EDIT:
I should note that Zoomplayer can play the files with no problem whatsoever. It uses overlay to play them, but they played fine with VMR 7 and 9 too. It loaded up haali and ffdshow video filters into the tray during playback. MC doesnt do this for me.

2) On a related note, I noticed that you can set directvobsub to load in the "other filters" section. This isnt working for me (I guess for the same reason as no.1). I'd like to try this though as it might solve the problems I've been having trying to get the right language subtitles to appear when using the subtitles settings using ffdshow's settings. Maybe the directshow will work better.

3) Finally, I noticed that recently we can choose the audio and subtitle stream for mkv files. Is there any technical reason why this wasnt applied to all video types?

Thanks.
Bri

Choose Haali Media Splitter in "Source Filter", and do not do the same in "Other filters". Choose FFDShow in "Other filters".

Make sure the check box next to mp4 is checked.

Is the mp4 on a slow network driveor streamed from the Internet?  In these situations, MC may time-out when testing playability in DirectShow, and decide to play it with Quicktime.

[park]

Thanks for the advice.

Jim, it wasnt me. Though I did post about not being able to change subttitle streams.

Yaobing, I will try unticking haali in the other filters tonight. But I have tried all kinds of variations including that one I think, and it didnt make a difference.

The mp4 box is ticked.

The videos are on a gigabit wired network. They play fine in Zoomplayer. From what I can see, zoomplayer is loading both haali and ffdshow.

[Yaobing]

The videos are on a gigabit wired network. They play fine in Zoomplayer. From what I can see, zoomplayer is loading both haali and ffdshow.

This should not be the issue if the network is fast. Just in case, when you load it in Zoomplayer, does it take a long time to load (more than 10 seconds)?

[bbrip]

Thanks for the advice.

Jim, it wasnt me. Though I did post about not being able to change subttitle streams.

Yaobing, I will try unticking haali in the other filters tonight. But I have tried all kinds of variations including that one I think, and it didnt make a difference.

The mp4 box is ticked.

The videos are on a gigabit wired network. They play fine in Zoomplayer. From what I can see, zoomplayer is loading both haali and ffdshow.

It was actually me reporting this some months ago. I still have that problem but found a workaround:

Try changing the "filetype" tag from "mp4" to "mp2" and MC12 starts using the directshow filters and recognized the files correctly as mp4 files. God knows why...

Important: Dont change the file extensions as such, only the "filetype" !!

Good luck!

One day, mp4 playback and directshow may work for all of us 


BBrip

[fitbrit]

It was actually me reporting this some months ago. I still have that problem but found a workaround:

Try changing the "filetype" tag from "mp4" to "mp2" and MC12 starts using the directshow filters and recognized the files correctly as mp4 files. God knows why...

Important: Dont change the file extensions as such, only the "filetype" !!

Good luck!

One day, mp4 playback and directshow may work for all of us 

Thanks for the tip. I was going to say that it was me who reported a similar problem a week or two ago, but I guess it wasn't me after all!
I'll try this too as I have a certain mp4 file that's being very stubborn. MPC and Zoom see it fine, but MC 12 will not use the filters I ask it to. I specify CoreAAC as an audio filter as I know this gives me smooth playback in MPC. However, MC 12 goes ahead and uses Cyberlink (!) Audio Decoder, resulting in the most choppy slideshow of a movie playback imaginable. It is now finally correctly using CoreAVC to decode the video.

[bbrip]

Ya, that's what I experienced. I could play mp4 files with any player in the world - except MC12.
Hope that little trick with changing filetype works for you as well....

[glynor]

If I remember, your problem (bbrip) was only when the files were on a network drive.  Yaobing reported in your other thread that he finally figured out what it was (the slow network playback failure issue)...  I'm not sure what is being done to address this.

I should say that with my Gigabit network, I've never seen similar issues.  I do, however, frequently get MKV and MP4 files that end up classified as Data files rather than Video, and I wonder if this is also related to the slow playback response?

Perhaps the simplest solution would be to add a "Delay Playback Timeout (helps with Network Files)" option in the DirectShow Playback Options (or perhaps a slider control) which would extend the failure timeout counter?

[Yaobing]

I am in the process of adding an option (for mp4 and a few other types) for the user to tell MC explicitly that it should skip testing for playability in DirectShow and just trust the user's selected filters. This would be good for users who have figured out DirectShow and confirmed the file can play in DirectShow.

This option should be out today or tomorrow on the beta board.

[fitbrit]

I am in the process of adding an option (for mp4 and a few other types) for the user to tell MC explicitly that it should skip testing for playability in DirectShow and just trust the user's selected filters. This would be good for users who have figured out DirectShow and confirmed the file can play in DirectShow.

This option should be out today or tomorrow on the beta board.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is why I love MC.

[bbrip]

Great work!! 

[park]

Yaobing, I think the time thing is an issue. I dont know about 10 seconds, but there is a noticable delay before zoomplayer starts to play the files.

Will that tickbox mean that the vobsub filters will definitely be loaded as well, if they are ticked in the "other filters" section?

[Yaobing]

The new option has nothing to do with vobsub or any other specific filters. If you choose a specific filter, DirectShow will try to accommodate it, but there is no guarantee. If a user selected filter will not connect during the graph-building process, it will be removed.

[glynor]

Yaobing... 389 is looking good in this regard, except for one thing.  No love for MKV?  I'd guess if it's happening with MP4 that it could happen with MKV as well.

Also, I'm wondering if this might help with the "misidentification" of MP4 and MKV files as Data Media Type.  I just did a pretty big MKV and MP4 import, and it "misidentified" almost 1/2 of them... (Most of them were on network drives or were perhaps "in-use" at the time of import due to a bug in MC which I'll report on elsewhere.)

[park]

Files are playing back very smoothly now, with the new tickbox checked, and i can see that the filters i ticked are being loaded.
I suggest the the tickbox be ticked by default for mp4 files, since this issue has affected so many people.

Vobsub is also loading, and though i cant change subtitle language using the osd in MC, or turn them on or off in MC, it's easy to change in the vobsub options when i right click on its icon in the taskbar.

Looks like I can start using MC to watch movies again. Thanks.

[Yaobing]

Yaobing... 389 is looking good in this regard, except for one thing.  No love for MKV?  I'd guess if it's happening with MP4 that it could happen with MKV as well.

Also, I'm wondering if this might help with the "misidentification" of MP4 and MKV files as Data Media Type.  I just did a pretty big MKV and MP4 import, and it "misidentified" almost 1/2 of them... (Most of them were on network drives or were perhaps "in-use" at the time of import due to a bug in MC which I'll report on elsewhere.)

mkv was not in a group of types that would be tested before played, because it essentially has no alternative playback engines (as compared to Quicktime types and Real types). Therefore the change I made yesterday would not have any effect on mkv.

The issue with importing is related but different, and would not be solved with yesterday's change either. In a nutshell, importing is done by going directly to DirectShow (without testing), and if that fails, by falling back to an alternative engine.

[glynor]

mkv was not in a group of types that would be tested before played, because it essentially has no alternative playback engines (as compared to Quicktime types and Real types). Therefore the change I made yesterday would not have any effect on mkv.

That makes sense.  My mistake.

As far as the importing thing.... It really does seem to have gotten worse somehow.  My CCCP build hasn't changed since July, but I'd say for sure that I wasn't getting anywhere near the "failure rate" on importing those files back then. 

I don't know what to say other than that, but x264 MKV (and MP4s to a slightly lesser degree) are only going to become more and more common (if you check on that site -- with the patched eye that shall remain nameless -- most of the new HD TV Show encodes coming out are all 720p x264 MKV rips now), so now is probably the time to try to address it before people start to say "it doesn't work with these files I got from..."

It is also how I'm encoding all of my rips (which I don't leak onto those sites, thank you very much).  I have gobs of test files I can provide (perhaps via DVD-R in the mail if needed), and I'm happy to do any testing you suggest.