Want to use ffdshow for all video files I have, but how?

Hello there folks,
am bit tired of all the codecs updating and stuff and someone recommended FFDShow + MPC Home Cinema. Sadly I didn't get any more instructions besides those.

Right now I have Divx, Xvid, AC3 Filter and Quicktime installed. I want to have Windows Media Player associated with video files, but have MPC as well and I want them both to use FFSShow for decoding both video and audio. Is that possible? And if yes how?

I installed FFDShow but I don't see the little icon by the clock telling me FFD is doing its job and there are a few files I still can't view (just hearing audio) so I'm doing something wrong

I have latest -64 FFDShow and MPC version installed on Vista -64 Ultimate.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you for your time!

Have you tried VLC player?

If you want to use WMP instead, then use "media player codec pack v3.4.0", it has everything you will ever need.

Uninstall Divx, Xvid and Quicktime... leave AC3 Filter. Probably should reinstall FFDshow too, just to be sure it's set up right. You should have options in setup for what formats you want it to decode, and all of the ones you want might not be selected by default. Also make sure you get one of the tryout builds rather than the outdated official version.

I strongly recommend against using that "media player codec pack"... codec packs are generally problematic anyway, and that particular one appears to be adware supported. If you're going to use a pack, CCCP is probably the best one, but ffdshow on its own should be able to do what you want.

I used that pack for some time and its not problematic or has any adware. It comes with an option to install a search bar, but you can opt out of it. Just like many todays free software.
Its all in one pack that supports most todays media formats audio and video. Thus you dont have to download different packs and then configure one by one. You install it and forget about it. It works on XP, Vista 32/64bit flawlessly.

http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-Codec-Pack/3000-13632_4-10749065.html



Or you can use VLC instead, thus no need for any additional codecs.

Its all in one pack that supports most todays media formats audio and video. Thus you dont have to download different packs and then configure one by one. You install it and forget about it. It works on XP, Vista 32/64bit flawlessly.

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If it works for you, great, but I'm still going to recommend that others avoid it. It's always better to install and configure one by one, that way you don't get a bunch of stuff you don't need clogging things up and causing conflicts. (And there is a lot of cruft in that codec pack.) Video playback in Windows is generally a bit flaky anyway, so it's best to keep it as simple as possible.

As for VLC, that simply won't do what he wants to do. It's also not very good with h.264 playback, multiple audio tracks, seeking, or subtitles... it's certainly improved in recent versions but it's not quite there yet.

What I use, personally, is an ffdshow tryout and CoreAVC, run through MPC. I'd been using MPC-HC, but I found it to be rather troublesome, and not particularly needing the DXVA support, I just went back to one of the guliverkli builds of the regular MPC. Both ffdshow and CoreAVC should work in WMP as well, but I don't have WMP so I've never tried it.

Should I go for -64 versions of FFDShow and MPC?

CoreAVC costs money, you have to pay for it. Does he even have Nvidia card to run CoreAVC?? Melhisedek do you have Nvidia card that supports Cuda??



I use that pack at home on two laptops and two desktops, and it works. if it didnt work for you, tough luck, you dont even use WMP in the first place.

Yes VLC can have tearing with large files 4Gb and up, like MKV when you are fast forwarding.

I just tried CoreAVC professional, that lets me use my Video card to decode videos and or improve performance.

Heres one main issue that i have found right away VS using my pack. When fast forwarding a video in WMP, video takes almost a second to get to the point to which you fast forwarded to, plus there is a this anomaly, where a video plays at high speed for one second, then it resumes to normal speed.

Yeah I do have Nvidia card... 8800GTS 512 MB. I think I'll try it with just ffdshow and nothing else, I remember having some pack installed back in the Oblivion days and it crashed all the time because of some codec conflict :/

if it didnt work for you, tough luck, you dont even use WMP in the first place.

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I'm hoping that comment was just poorly worded... otherwise you should work on your attitude. Either way though, the OP doesn't need that codec pack, simple as that.

Melhisedek, I'm not necessarily suggesting you use CoreAVC, I was just pointing out what I use. FFDshow, CoreAVC and a player, nothing else, and it works perfectly with any video I throw at it. FFDshow + MPC/WMP should be a similar experience for you, just with slower h264 performance. If you want to play MKV files, though, you will need the Haali splitter. I'd forgotten about that part, since it's bundled with CoreAVC. If you don't need MKV support, don't worry about it.

But, just for future reference, CoreAVC doesn't need an Nvidia card... the CUDA thing is just an optional feature and it's apparently broken in the current version anyhow. There also aren't any problems with fast forwarding with it, on any of the machines I've tried. It could be a bug in the newest version (I'm still using 1.8.0) or it might be some anomaly with that particular system.

Thanks dad... ill work on my attitude. Would you like a hug?


OP does need the codec pack, simple as that... and he will be able to play MKV files or almost anything else for that matter. 17MB pack with all the codecs he will ever need.

You say tomatoe, i say tomato.

Hmmm i just tried out Ubuntu, witch is a free version of the Linux OS and the mediaplayer they have automatically finds the codecs to play everything!!!(.avi .wmp .flv .mpg ext..) I was happy as a pig in crap lol!! not to mention all the other programs you can get for it are (free) of at least XP quality and easily downloaded from the add/remove program in the menu.....
Ubuntu can also be installed coexisting with Windows in on a drive allowing you to boot to either. Another program offered with Linux is Wine witch you can run most Windows programs though...

UglyChild said:

Thanks dad... ill work on my attitude. Would you like a hug?


OP does need the codec pack, simple as that... and he will be able to play MKV files or almost anything else for that matter. 17MB pack with all the codecs he will ever need.

You say tomatoe, i say tomato.

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There is ALWAYS another way,, think outside tho box!

There is ALWAYS another way,, think outside tho box!

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I'm starting to wonder if he has a vested interest in that codec pack or something...

Eh, whatever.

As far as thinking outside the box, yeah, installing a dual-boot OS is certainly a creative way of doing it. That might be a little... extreme, though, when compared to getting FFDshow working.

Trying to push a software that you have to pay for, and its also broken, one might think that person has vested interest in it as well. Why pay for something thats broken, when you can use something thats free and it works.

im just wondering, why do you want to use ffdshow, if you download CCCP and MPC-HC you can just use DXVA for your videos since you have an 8 series card.

CCCP basically is ffdshow and MPC-HC... there are a few little extras, but nothing that's really necessary. A choice between Zoomplayer or MPC, a different FLV splitter and different Mpeg2 decoder (both to replace the ones in MPC), a subtitle filter, and, for whatever reason, Wavepack audio support. There's not really any harm in using CCCP, since it's pretty barebones (I wouldn't even exactly really call it a codec pack, it's more ffdshow+extras), but there's not much advantage to it either, unless you have the rare FLV or DVD that won't play right or you're one of the three people who use Wavepack.

I've tried the DXVA in MPC-HC, and when it works, it's great. Unfortunately, I ran into quite a few video files that didn't work right, and for some reason it won't always fall back to software decoding properly, so I found myself frequently stuck with distorted video until I went in and manually disabled the acceleration. YMMV, it is worth a try at least.

I also noticed I'd missed a post above: As for whether to use the 32 or 64 bit versions, I'd stick with the 32 bit, provided you have a 32-bit version of WMP available. (I think Windows includes both 32 and 64 versions, but I'm not sure.) The 64-bit version offer no real advantages, and 32-bit has better compatibility if you find yourself needing to add another codec or wanting to try a different player, or anything like that.

To the OP, to use ffdshow/mpc-hc for all video files, you need to first go to mpc-hc and do the file association, you can simply click video and it'll select all relevant files. Once that is done go to Internal Filters and disable all the mpc-hc codecs that are built in. Then, go to External Filters and click add then select ffdshow video decoder and ffdshow audio decoder.

On top of doing that you'll want to make sure that the codec type is selected in the ffdshow options. For example, to use ffdshow to play wmv files instead of the microsoft codecs, you'll want to go to codecs in the ffdshow configurations options and scroll down until you see WMV 1/7, WMV 2/8, and WMV 3/9 and change those from disabled to libavcodec.

I agree CCCP is ffdshow, it's a bundle that has ffdshow as a primary decoder. I think the only other things it adds is that it comes bundled with mpc-hc and haali media splitter for mkv files both of which I'd rather go down myself since I also like getting the nightly builds of ffdshow.