I'll speak to a couple of completely retarded points.

Quote :

"DOES win7 support .mkv natively? does it play .flv files in WMP, natively? it also plays 3gp/3g2 natively in WMP? i'm not being sarcastic, i'm just curious "

No. Nothing is ever going to broadly support mkv. Mkv is a perfect example or horribly shitty OSS. They completely ignored the rest of the industry, and created a container that doesn't work with any existing plug-in architecture. It has zero streaming capability, it has zero error correction capability (it relies solely on the codecs), it has no authoritative authoring process, it has no tooling support, and it's functionally entirely a subset of other non-OSS wrappers that have FULLY OPEN LICENSES.
OSS is great (linux, openoffice and thousands of other projects), but creating something as OS solely for that purpose is fucking stupid. WMV, Avi, Mov, Asf, all are open-licensed wrappers with documented implementations.

FLV is a proprietary, commercially licensed video container from Adobe. Microsoft (and no other OS) will ever provide native support for it, so long as it remains that way. It's the same reason that commercial video and audio codecs aren't bundled with Windows. Microsoft can't bundle what it can't license at an affordable price. FLV support is only legally available with Adobe and Adobe licensed 3rd party applications.

3GP is a mobile phone video format. Any authoring tool for the content should come with a directshow filter for it. This isn't even a mainstream format, so why would MS bundle (and then have to support) their own decoder for it?

Quote :

" 3.) why would you ever use wmp? i can understand old people or n00bs using it because they don't know any better, but what possible reason would you have for running that over mpc or vlc?"

Because it LOOKS good, it's simple as hell to use, and it "just works". I use VLC constantly, but it's ugly as sin, and it's a UX nightmare. MPC is just plain old looking and feeling.

Counter to what you THINK, people care a lot about how things look and feel, as well as how they work.

3/17/2009 8:16:00 PM

^ okay, THOSE are the kinds of points i was looking for...i have experience (not necessarily extensive, but more than your average computer geek, i think) in video editing, but since my video sources come in all kinds of formats and containers (which, granted, is annoying as hell), i don't have the luxury of refusing to support them

most of my output is .flv, .3gp, .wmv, and .mov...as noted, .mkv is an open-source wrapper supported largely by the pirate community, but i've NEVER had ANY trouble displaying it (or any other format/wrapper that i've come across) when k-lite is installed and updated...i've also never had a single conflict on a k-lite computer

Quote :

"Counter to what you THINK, people care a lot about how things look and feel, as well as how they work."

that's not counter to what i think at all...but i think (perhaps incorrectly) that most of the people who are advanced enough to know what a codec, and to be able to debate packs versus minimalist installs, don't care about pretty so much as basic functionality...i can't stand wmp because it's simply more crap than i want/need...i neither need nor want a media manager, and so i'd just as soon it go away

i get your points, though, and i appreciate the enlightenment

3/18/2009 11:31:24 AM

^ah, that explains a lot. Yeah, if you ever want to shoot yourself in the face, try authoring something for legitimate distribution using mkv.

All the formats you publish to have really good distribution, deployment and platform tooling to support them, in addition to commercially ready authoring tools. mkv has none of the above.

It's kind of a shame, because there is definitely opportunity for a good open-source wrapper to leapfrog wmv/mov/3gp, and possibly even replace flv. Have you messed with Expression encoder at all? Video authoring->output quality is probably the best thing Silverlight has going for it (especially with the new stuff announced at Mix09 today).

3/18/2009 2:24:42 PM

Noen, i opened WMP 11, the true 64-bit version to try and see if that solved some of my jumpy playback. However, when i play the standard avi videos i was playing through WMPx86 i get the missing codec error message. Is this because the divx codec is for the x86 and there is no true 64-bit codec supported?

3/18/2009 6:29:39 PM

i'll be interested to see what Noen has to say, but that shouldn't make any difference whatsoever...i don't think there exists many (if any) 64-bit codecs because of the nature of the codecs themselves

IIRC, ffdshow has a 64-bit version, and it decodes divx/xvid/h.264/etc, so even if you're anti-pack, downloading the 64-bit version of ffdshow by itself might be worth a try

did you even try the players mentioned? vlc or mpc? or are you bent on using wmp only? not that it should really matter, as the problems you're describing are likely tied to something other than the player (and i'm betting it's not the codec, either)...sounds like some hardware acceleration/driver crap

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 6:47 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2009 6:46:15 PM

yeah, like i stated earlier I have the divx player and have vlc currently as well. Both have perfect playback and i'm totally fine using either one over wmp. I guess i'm more curious to see why wmp seems to be the only struggling rather than bent on actually using it. And because it's a brand new machine, 2.4 processor, 4gb of ddr3 memory, so it has to be something within wmp...which is why i brought it up to Noen, since he knew about some of the wmp 64/32 issues.

3/18/2009 7:05:35 PM

an op in #warez told me to install a codec pack he had put together called wmcodec.exe and now he tells me what i can watch and when

i enjoy it very much















lol no, but i use CCCP with a 64bit machine and mpc and WMP handle all my x264 stuff just fine
i have a 3.16ghz dual core proc tho and 8gb of RAM.

3/18/2009 7:30:08 PM

bah, i have an E6750 (2.66), 4gb RAM, and a 512mb radeon 3850 on a 64-bit vista box using k-lite mega and it plays 1080p content without any problems whatsoever...i don't think it takes a powerful machine to play HD video

that's why i'm leaning towards a setting/driver issue...what kind of video hardware are you using, Jeepin4x4? if it's one of those integrated dealios, that might be your problem as they're (generally) low-performing...but even then...

*shrug*

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 7:56 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2009 7:55:01 PM

I don't know why ANY of you are running Vista64 in the first place. Actually, I do, for ePenis needs. Maybe quagmire has a use in NLDV editing, but I digress.

If I had to pick a culprit, it's the video card driver. And unfortunately, the only things you can really do is to try and find newer beta drivers, or downgrade to older drivers, get a new video card, or go back to a 32bit OS that has good drivers for your card.

Video decoding, media players, and codecs aren't going to have ANY difference in performance going from 32 to 64bit. Zero, zilch, nada. WOW64 is a ridiculously good 32bit emulation stepper, especially on Intel/AMD 64 systems.

Try this: in WMP, go to the Options dialog, performance tab, and turn on drop frames, turn off video smoothing, and change the setting for DirectX video acceleration (if its off, turn it on. if its on, turn it off). Reboot the system, try your video again.

The issue here is DirectShow filters, versus direct decoding. VLC and MPC both use a different decoding pipeline, which bypasses directX. This offloads work from the video card to the CPU. So if you have skipping in WMP, and not in VLC, it's usually a good indicator of either a crappy video card, or a crappy driver for that video card.

Your amount of ram doesn't matter, and the processor doesn't really either. My 1.6ghz ULV ultralight notebook plays back hd video just fine in VLC, but WMP chokes because of the shittastic Intel 945 video card.

3/18/2009 9:01:58 PM

^^quag, i'm running an ATI Radeon 3670 512mb


^i'll give those a shot


Update: Noen I did what you said in WMP. Yes to drop Frames, No to video Smoothing, No to DirectX. After a restart that seems to have taken care of it.

What exactly did this do? nm, bypass direct x


Also..before i did those i took a look at my ATI control panel, specifically the video->interlacing tab. That seemed to be what i was experiencing.

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 9:32 PM. Reason : yes i know i am a pretty noobish at this stuff, so i appreciate the help.]

[Edited on March 18, 2009 at 9:35 PM. Reason : 2]

3/18/2009 9:12:33 PM

^^ yeah, i use vista64 for two reasons - better performance in video editing and photoshop...i know that if i REALLY cared, i'd be running 8gb, since photoshop shows pretty significant improvement from 4 to 8

i agree, though, that with the /3gb switch for 32-bit systems, 64-bit is very limited in its usefulness

3/19/2009 7:46:15 AM

^^no problem.

If that fixed it, you can go back and progressively turn things back on, until you isolate it fully. If it IS the directX enabling, then go fiddle in the ATI control panel and see if you can't fix it up there.

3/19/2009 5:00:16 PM

why dont you think we should be running vista 64 bit?
and what the hell else would we be running?

3/19/2009 5:38:55 PM

Well it seems the jumpy playback is back in wmp. like i said, i use the divx player and vlc which both play perfectly so im more curious as why than desperate to use wmp.

so i went through and defaulted everything and tried the options that were suggested above to no avail this go round.


I think it has something to do with deinterlacing. What jumps the most seems to be text (actors names in credits especially white letters, and the divx watermark).

I fooled around with ATi control panel, by default deinterlacing is set to automatic. The jumpy playback seems to be relieved when i turn off automatic and set it to either vector adaptive or motion adaptive.

3/19/2009 6:55:19 PM

^^ i think his point is that there's really no MAJOR improvement in performance 64-bit windows at the moment...and that the CHANCE of running into problems due to a 64-bit environment isn't worth the negligible performance increase of its biggest advantage - more RAM

that said, even if i didn't see the advantage in my photo/video editing, i'd still use 64-bit...i've run nothing but vista64 and it's handled all of my 32-bit apps flawlessly, from games to utilities to regular apps...if i can find a mATX motherboard with 4 slots in my price range, i plan on upping the memory to 8gb, since it's all dirt cheap these days

3/20/2009 8:31:27 AM

^Unless you run an app SPECIFICALLY enhanced for 64bit processors, you get zero benefit from running Vista64. You get all kinds of potential screwups with drivers though, because none of the 3rd party drivers are really very good for it.

3/21/2009 5:29:14 AM

photoshop cs4 64bit ftw

3/21/2009 9:36:58 AM

^ my single biggest reason for running vista64

so much, in fact, that i just picked up a new mobo and 8gb of ram to replace my current one (4gb max) so that i could run it at max performance

3/21/2009 10:01:13 AM

Quote :

"^Unless you run an app SPECIFICALLY enhanced for 64bit processors, you get zero benefit from running Vista64. You get all kinds of potential screwups with drivers though, because none of the 3rd party drivers are really very good for it."

But what about the ram limit? You get the benefit of being able to address more ram.

I have 8 gigs of ram and use both photoshop CS4 64 bit, AND Solidworks 2008 64 bit. Both of which i see an improvement in over 32 bit. Plus i've never run into any trouble running 64 bit compared to 32 bit. Not with games, programs, drivers, or codecs.

Plus gigantic assemblies in solidworks (multiple gigs) work much better in the 64 bit version with 8 gigs of ram than running 32 bit vista. Big difference. I guess HDDs play a big role too. SSD would be the best for opening an assembly of that size.

[Edited on March 24, 2009 at 5:33 PM. Reason : I've also used autocad 64 bit. seemed like an improvement with larger files. ]

3/24/2009 5:25:19 PM

Quote :

"Plus gigantic assemblies in solidworks (multiple gigs) work much better in the 64 bit version with 8 gigs of ram than running 32 bit vista."

Durr, then you meet the specific need. C'mon dude, use a little common sense.

3/24/2009 7:47:46 PM

Yeah that was kind of obvious. But don't you think there are people out there who run enough 32 bit applications who could use the additional ram allowed through a 64 bit OS? There's been times when i've been running a game in addition to other applications and feel constrained by 3.5 gigs.

3/24/2009 9:12:41 PM

No. You are a .05% power user. The overwhelming majority of PC users don't even need 2gb of ram, much less 4. And 8 is still absurd.

That should tell you about what the average consumer does with their computers.

3/25/2009 12:16:15 AM

my 8gb arrives today...fuck a page file!

*squee*

3/25/2009 8:53:39 AM

^^True. I guess i have 8 because i got it for $40 after MIR.

^How much for 8?

3/25/2009 1:00:00 PM

$15/pair of 2gb corsair DDR2-800, so $30AR total

http://shop2.frys.com/product/5611731

[Edited on March 25, 2009 at 2:45 PM. Reason : .]

3/25/2009 2:36:40 PM

while we're here,

have they started making video converters that can use 64 bit procs? i'd imagine it'd be useful
only thing i see is some MKV to WMV converter and betas of ffdshow and matroska codecs that use 64bit

3/25/2009 2:43:38 PM

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CC41218D-7E37-4546-BF0B-1276959EE3EF&displaylang=en

3/25/2009 2:44:55 PM