Need help with VC-1 Playback in Win7

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drdeutsch

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 17, 2004
Messages
3,775
I've been testing my system and I've found that VC-1 WMV files are not playing well on my system.

1080p VC-1 .wmv
  • Refuses to play in WMP (Get error message)
  • Begins playing in MPC-HC (latest) but quickly lags/stutters out.
  • Plays fine in VLC Portable (latest) but has stuttering/blockiness when skipping forward or backward.

720p VC-1 .wmv
  • Plays audio but no video in WMP.
  • Plays in MPC-HC (latest) but lots of blockiness/discoloration.
  • Plays fine in VLC Portable (latest) but has stuttering/blockiness when skipping forward or backward.

1080p AVC .mkv
  • Doesn't play in WMP. (I think I've screwed something up messing around trying to get the VC-1 files to play)
  • Plays fine in MPC-HC (latest build) but with slight stuttering when skipping forward/back.
  • Plays fine in VLC Portable (latest) but has stuttering/blockiness when skipping forward or backward.

720p AVC .mkv
  • Doesn't play in WMP. (I think I've screwed something up messing around trying to get the VC-1 files to play)
  • Plays fine in MPC-HC (latest build).
  • Plays fine in VLC Portable (latest).

So I've been troubleshooting this. I've been playing with the MPC-HC settings, filters, been tweaking FFDShow DXVA Decoder settings. I just can't seem to get the VC-1 files to play smoothly.

Opening up mediainfo, it tells me my system doesn't support VC-1 playback. How can that not be? I thought Win7 or WMP12 would have it enabled by default.

I know for a fact that the .mkv files were playing fine in Windows Media Player, but I must have screwed something up these past few hours "tweaking" things. I'll do a system restore and it back to a working condition.

On to the nuts and bolts:
Athlon s393 X2 4400+
4gb DDR Ram
AMD 4890
Win 7 x64 Ultimate
MPC-HC (Latest from xvidvideo.ru)
FFDShow Tryouts (latest x86 and x64 builds from xvidvideo.ru)
Latest Haali Matroska Splitter.

Any tips on getting these VC-1 files to work?

EDIT: I should note, I normally use MPC-HC as my main player, so I'm mostly interested in getting them to work with that player. I only have VLC Portable around to test things when it doesn't work in MPC-HC. I will use WMP if I have to, but I'd prefer MPC-HC. Thanks.
 
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Make sure MPC-HC isn't using any external filters (should be nothing in External Filters section of MPC-HC options).

Try going to Internal Filters section of MPC-HC options and checking Matroska.
 
gtg465x said:
Make sure MPC-HC isn't using any external filters (should be nothing in External Filters section of MPC-HC options).
Click to expand...

Yep, nothing there. I had been playing around with it to get it to work, but nothing there now.

gtg465x said:
Try going to Internal Filters section of MPC-HC options and checking Matroska.
Click to expand...

How is enabling Matroska supposed to help me play VC-1 WMV files? Anyway, I did try checking it for shits and giggles, but it didn't help.
 
drdeutsch said:
How is enabling Matroska supposed to help me play VC-1 WMV files? Anyway, I did try checking it for shits and giggles, but it didn't help.
Click to expand...

Thought you had stuttering with your 1080p AVC .mkv files in MPC-HC. Must have skimmed over the "when skipping forward/back" part. My bad.

See if the 720p and 1080p VC-1 .wmv files on this site play alright in WMP and MPC-HC. If they do, maybe your .wmv files just aren't properly encoded or are damaged.
 
Highly unlikely that they will play if other VC-1 streams in WMV containers don't.
 
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Snowknight26 said:
Highly unlikely that they won't play if other VC-1 streams in WMV containers don't.
Click to expand...

Does not make sense. Canceling out the double negative, you said "Highly likely that they will play if other VC-1 streams in WMV containers don't."
 
Snowknight26 said:
Did you ever use this tool?
Click to expand...

Downloaded and played with it. By switching from ffdshow to microsoft, I can get the files to play in WMP fairly respectably, but with decent lag between skipping forward and back. It's doable, I guess.

gtg465x said:
Thought you had stuttering with your 1080p AVC .mkv files in MPC-HC. Must have skimmed over the "when skipping forward/back" part. My bad.

See if the 720p and 1080p VC-1 .wmv files on this site play alright in WMP and MPC-HC. If they do, maybe your .wmv files just aren't properly encoded or are damaged.
Click to expand...

I downloaded those files (1 720p file and 1 1080p file) and both play flawlessly. I opened up Mediainfo on them and found a difference though.

The files on that site are VC-1 (WMV3). The file I'm trying to play is VC-1 (WVC1), which is a more advanced, newer codec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1#Microsoft_codec_implementations

So... the WMV3 files play without problems in both MPC-HC and WMP. The WVC1 files lag and stutter and generally aren't watchable.

With that narrowed down, what can I do about these WVC1 files?
 
Go into the ffdshow video decoder config, click on codecs in the very top left, and then scroll down to VC-1 and set it to disabled in the decoder column. If that clears things up with the WVC1 files, I would just disable ffdshow video decoding altogether. In my opinion, both WMP12 and MPC-HC codecs are better than ffdshow.
 
Snowknight26 said:
The MPC-HC ones and ffdshow are built off the same code.
Click to expand...

Bah, a Lexus and Toyota might be built from the same frame and basic parts, but the Lexus is probably hella nicer.

The point is, there's a good chance the OP will get a different result by switching between the two, helping him to narrow down his problem.
 
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Ok, then how about this: It's the same code. It's ffmpeg (libavcodec) doing all the work, you just get different frontends for it.
 
gtg465x said:
Go into the ffdshow video decoder config, click on codecs in the very top left, and then scroll down to VC-1 and set it to disabled in the decoder column. If that clears things up with the WVC1 files, I would just disable ffdshow video decoding altogether. In my opinion, both WMP12 and MPC-HC codecs are better than ffdshow.
Click to expand...

Tried this. Still the same. The 1080p VC-1 (WVC1) video won't play in MPC-HC, it will play (with severe lag) in WMP, and will play in VLC (but VLC has no DXVA decoding so it's unwatchable).

Pretty odd, eh? I might try the file on my laptop. It's also running Win7 but my home computer is sort of a "test" machine, so I may have installed something and screwed it up at one point.
 
Snowknight26 said:
Ok, then how about this: It's the same code. It's ffmpeg (libavcodec) doing all the work, you just get different frontends for it.
Click to expand...

Are you retarded? So they both use ffmpeg, but that doesn't necessarily mean he shouldn't try both. Have you ever considered that his MPC-HC install may use a newer or older version of ffmpeg than his ffdshow install? Or that they could be configured differently? We're trying to figure out exactly where the problem is here genius. Not to mention, frontends make a pretty big ass difference. Example: MPC-HC supports video acceleration (DXVA), ffdshow does not last I checked. Jesus H. Christ.
 
Way to resort to namecalling. Just so you know, ffdshow does support DXVA. And once again, you clearly stated that the codecs that come with MPC-HC are 'better' than ffdshow, when that clearly isn't the case, as, for the most part, they're the same thing.

gtg465x said:
Have you ever considered that his MPC-HC install may use a newer or older version of ffmpeg than his ffdshow install? Or that they could be configured differently?.
Click to expand...

Same applies for older versions of MPC-HC compared to newer ones, or older versions of ffdshow compared to newer ones.
 
gtg465x said:
Are you retarded? So they both use ffmpeg, but that doesn't necessarily mean he shouldn't try both. Have you ever considered that his MPC-HC install may use a newer or older version of ffmpeg than his ffdshow install? Or that they could be configured differently? We're trying to figure out exactly where the problem is here genius. Not to mention, frontends make a pretty big ass difference. Example: MPC-HC supports video acceleration (DXVA), ffdshow does not last I checked. Jesus H. Christ.
Click to expand...

Stop being a jackass, this could be just as simple as the OP not having a properly setup system which is the case 90% of the time. Either way, the codecs included in MPC aren't "the best" when compared to CoreAVC/Cuda. FFDShow supports hardware acceleration as of last October so you might want to get a clue. :rolleyes:

Updated drivers? Updated software?

Snowknight26 said:
Way to resort to namecalling. Just so you know, ffdshow does support DXVA. And once again, you clearly stated that the codecs that come with MPC-HC are 'better' than ffdshow, when that clearly isn't the case, as, for the most part, they're the same thing.

Same applies for older versions of MPC-HC compared to newer ones, or older versions of ffdshow compared to newer ones.
Click to expand...
He does a slight point, the codec bundled with MPC might be an older/outdated version or he might be using an older version of FFDShow. You're right that it is the same code used but it's entirely possible that one of them is outdated.


First thing I'd suggest is to stop using VLC for "test." You can't test anything with VLC since it's garbage software, it doesn't even support hardware acceleration for H264 content so there's no point in doing anything with it.

This was posted in another thread and it's a pretty good run through of how to properly setup MPC.
http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/
 
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CrimandEvil said:
Updated drivers? Updated software?
Click to expand...

I did indeed update tot he latest Catalyst drivers and they did seem to help.

CrimandEvil said:
First thing I'd suggest is to stop using VLC for "test." You can't test anything with VLC since it's garbage software, it doesn't even support hardware acceleration for H264 content so there's no point in doing anything with it.
Click to expand...

Duly noted.

CrimandEvil said:
This was posted in another thread and it's a pretty good run through of how to properly setup MPC.
http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/
Click to expand...
[/QUOTE]

I think this was helpful. Somewhere between this guide, the newest Catalyst drivers, and tweaking settings, I finally got it to work.

There is still a few seconds of lag when skipping forward or back, but it's probably expected with an older system like mine. It's definitely still watchable.

Oh, and it's only playable with MPC-HC (latest build) internal filters. FFDShow is completely disabled.

Thanks for all the help and feedback in this thread! I appreciate it!
 
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