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[benn600]

1. What can I install on a fresh XP installation that will give MC full, fast DVD playback capability, including digital audio?  Is there a free option?  I use PowerDVD and it's okay but feels bloated and I don't want a player, too, I just want the codec.

2. Can a keyboard shortcut be added for the DVD Menu?  In theater view it seems that the only way to get to the DVD Menu is by right clicking and clicking DVD Menu.

[jmone]

On 1. You can use a range of different filters, many which are free or may already be on your PC (eg Nero) - Glynor's guide is a great starting point http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/DirectShow_Playback_Guide:DVD_and_MPEG-2
Thanks
Nathan

[benn600]

I just installed CCCP.  Installed fine and I chose no players.  (I only want VLC + MC)  Then, in the DVD playback settings in MC, I selected the ffdshow and ffdshow raw filters for video.  Neither would work.  I also tried MPV.

Doesn't CCCP include the ability to play DVDs?  What do I need to select?  I kept getting the MC error that it can't play DVDs--which is new to me.

Addition: is there any hope for using the VLC DVD codec in MC?  I can't live without VLC installed on all my machines so it's not going anywhere.  I would gladly give up PowerDVD, DivX, etc. for a simpler install process.  What doesn't VLC have that would allow MC to use it?  It seems like VLC will play just about anything you throw at it (including DivX?)

[bob]

I just tried this on a clean XP box without trouble.

What version of windows are you using??

[benn600]

XP Pro.

I had other stuff installed.  I'll be freshly installing soon enough and will try just MC and CCCP first (nothing else) and see if it will work then.

[glynor]

It should.  If you aren't getting it, it's because some filters are on there that are messing things up.

CCCP's included MPEG-2 decoder works pretty well.  I do suggest re-routing the video through FFDSHOW (which is possible in MC's options) in order to handle De-Interlacing properly, assuming you are playing the video on a progressive-scan device like a HDTV or computer monitor.  I'm not 100% clear on the proper settings for this though (AVS Forum has a very nice FFDSHOW optimization guide).

Up until recently, I'd been using Nero's decoders myself (which handle this automatically fairly well).   However, I've recently switched back to my ATI/Cyberlink or Nvidia PureVideo filters for DVD playback (depending on the hardware) which with the new versions handle de-interlacing extremely well and also let you enable the hardware acceleration in the GPU (dropping CPU load a slight bit).  I found that Nero wouldn't save the settings I'd set, and I wasn't sure if it was actually doing any post-processing or not when played via MC.  This may be different with newer versions of the Nero Digital filters (I'm still back on v6) but it didn't seem to be working on my system...

For effectively ALL other MPEG-4 video types (DivX, XviD, 3vix, etc, etc, etc) you just need CCCP to handle playback.  You don't need, and don't want to install, the "real" codec for any of those types.  The only time when you need to install a "real" codec is when you want to use it to MAKE video, as opposed for playback.  In that case, make sure to only install the newest versions and be careful of what you install.

So many of the codec packs out there install a bunch of crud that no one needs (like the old DivX 3.1 filters which are terrible hacked junk that breaks all kinds of stuff)...  There is no reason to have those old codecs installed.  FFDSHOW handles those formats just fine.

[benn600]

Excellent!  Thank you all for the help.  CCCP works great now.  I just started with a fresh installation (No PowerDVD) and it works flawlessly!  Not only does it seem much faster and doesn't have some issues I was having, it is simple to install and doesn't require a long, annoying setup process and de-associating like powerdvd does.

One request, though: can I hide the tray icons that keep showing up when I'm playing video?  I like as few tray icons as I can get.  I selected to hide them in the settings page but they still show up.

Just another step toward simplifying my recurring format 'n install procedure for our family computers.