recurr
05-24-2007, 09:25 AM
I had a stuttering, frame dropping problem with Vista Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. The problem was the default Microsoft (MPEG-2) Video Decoder. This was quickly fixed by installing NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder Platinum 30 day Trial (http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder_1.02-223-trial.html) and modifying the registry.
If you don't want to pay for PureVideo and your computer or video card came with DVD player software, you may be able to use the Video Decoder that came with it. I found out (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000784.html) that the Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en) works with Vista. I ran the utility and it found CyberLink Video/SP Decoder. When I set it as preferred, it did not write to the correct Registry key.
It saved the decoder to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Media Center\Service\Video
which apparently isn't the correct key in Vista, so I made a copy of PreferredMPEG2VideoDecoderCLSID {3484F78F-F8CE-4CF3-914F-10F1A76F0D5} in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Media Center\Decoder
and now Media Center doesn't stutter like it did before.
If you don't want to pay for PureVideo and your computer or video card came with DVD player software, you may be able to use the Video Decoder that came with it. I found out (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000784.html) that the Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en) works with Vista. I ran the utility and it found CyberLink Video/SP Decoder. When I set it as preferred, it did not write to the correct Registry key.
It saved the decoder to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Media Center\Service\Video
which apparently isn't the correct key in Vista, so I made a copy of PreferredMPEG2VideoDecoderCLSID {3484F78F-F8CE-4CF3-914F-10F1A76F0D5} in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Media Center\Decoder
and now Media Center doesn't stutter like it did before.