Tips to nuke codecs

[Karkas]

I would like to remove redundant/useless codecs from my rig since everyone says they cause playback issues.

I've downloaded a ton of different utilites & programs because I am playing with different ones trying to learn their ins/outs, pros & cons.

So I ran codecsniper to see what Ive got on my rig and the list was massive(230). I'm afraid I'll screw up my rig if I just start nuking everything.

I attached the list...

Any tips?

Thanks in advance!

[Inspector.Gadget]

I cleared out a PC in the following way:
1. Uninstall all codec packs, DVD playback software, etc.
1. Download Zoomplayer and use some option buried in the menus to unregister all codecs, then use an option in the same menu to re-register only the base Windows codecs.
3. Delete manually any remaining non-Windows filters that are now unregistered.
4. Download and install latest Haali's splitter and latest ffdshow-tryouts and (optionally) QT Lite for playing back the odd old Quicktime files that don't work well with Directshow.
5. Test playback of DVDs and some common filetypes with MPC-HC, make sure playback filter chains are what I expected.
6. Uninstall Zoomplayer unless I intend to use it as a frontend.

I've had no playback or encoding problems since.

[Karkas]

Thanks, I'll give that a try later.

I've seen peeps suggesting uninstalling all windows codecs. Is that a bad idea?

How do I keep utilities/playback software that have built in codecs from installing themselves or to use the ones I already have instead? I'm worried I'll quickly get back to a jumbled codec mess in no time.

Thanks

[Inspector.Gadget]

You don't want to unregister the codecs that come with Windows - they're essential for some apps, and can easily be set to "Block" in MPC/MPC-HC if you really want to use something else. This is why you unregister all and then re-register the Windows codecs.

The simple solution to avoiding codec hell is to avoid installing garbage. Once you've got Haali/ffdshow, a front-end you like, and whatever minor supplements (CoreAVC, etc.) you're set. If you want to use PowerDVD or similar to watch Blu-ray discs, you can block the Cyberlink codecs in the front-end. Don't install "all in one" apps, with the exception of VLC and MPlayer and other apps that don't use external codecs.

[BigDid]

...
How do I keep utilities/playback software that have built in codecs from installing themselves or to use the ones I already have instead? I'm worried I'll quickly get back to a jumbled codec mess in no time...
Hi,

I could not. So I made a new partition (40Gb), installed XP-SP3 mini for my usual encoding apps/codecs/tools + Portable apps and that's all. It is very speedy.

To do testing, installs new apps etc... I will not touch my new XP-SP3 mini parition but instead use my usual boot partition with Xp-SP3 standard install. It can get crowded for sure but I don't really care ;)

Did

[clsid]

Did you actually have a problem? If you don't have any problems, then don't start messing around, you are likely to break something.

Having lots of codecs installed does not automatically mean here will be any bad effects. Whoever told you otherwise is a moron. Most codecs and DirectShow filters are completely harmless. Even redundant filters are usually not a problem.

There is a small number of 'bad' filters which are extremely buggy and should be avoided at all cost. For example Morgan Stream Swither and Voxware Metasound. In my experience, MPEG related filters can also be troublemakers, so avoided having multiple of those.

I took a quick look at your list. You could remove the following filters. They were installed by some crappy video conversion program. They are outdated and/or you don't need them.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\AVCDX.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\DiracSplitter.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\MatroskaDX.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLAPEDec.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLOgg.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLVorbisDec.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RealMediaDX.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\aac_parser.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\flvDX.dll
C:\WINDOWS\system32\CoreAAC.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLMPCDec.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ac3DX.ax

[Betsy25]

There are still a bunch of tools around which have nothing to do with encoding, but find themselves so interesting to install
their own bunch of codecs, such as SnagIt (A screen capture program btw!!), and lots of others.

Also, testing out trials of giant company tools (Adobe, Corel, etc...) will make your system a codec nightmare too.

[Karkas]

Did you actually have a problem? If you don't have any problems, then don't start messing around, you are likely to break something.

Having lots of codecs installed does not automatically mean here will be any bad effects. Whoever told you otherwise is a moron. Most codecs and DirectShow filters are completely harmless. Even redundant filters are usually not a problem.

There is a small number of 'bad' filters which are extremely buggy and should be avoided at all cost. For example Morgan Stream Swither and Voxware Metasound. In my experience, MPEG related filters can also be troublemakers, so avoided having multiple of those.

I took a quick look at your list. You could remove the following filters. They were installed by some crappy video conversion program. They are outdated and/or you don't need them.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\AVCDX.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\DiracSplitter.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\MatroskaDX.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLAPEDec.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLOgg.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLVorbisDec.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RealMediaDX.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\aac_parser.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\flvDX.dll
C:\WINDOWS\system32\CoreAAC.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RLMPCDec.ax
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ac3DX.ax

At the time I wrote the question I wasn't having any issues, however since then I have been having studdering problems. I removed most of the ones you listed and that seems to have cleared it up, though I've only been able to cozy up to my rig for about 15 minutes in the last few days so I can't be certain.

Thanks a lot though, its so nice to see a list of known bad codecs :goodpost:

[JonE]

I wouldn't worry too much about having lots of codecs installed, as for the most part they behave themselves.

Something worth trying is to use a DirectShow graph tool. One comes with the Microsoft SDK's ("GraphEdt") but this is way surpassed by Monogram GraphStudio (http://blog.monogram.sk/janos/).

Although really meant for developing DirectShow stuff, you can just drag a video file into the program and it will build a "graph" that should play the file. It might help you because it shows exactly what components Windows (and hence many apps) would choose and hence work out which ones to nuke as and when you encounter a problem.

Also look into RadLight Filter Manager. When there are multiple components that windows can use to do the same job, windows uses a "merit" value for each component, a value you can modify to favour a particular component. This can be better than removing a component; for example, Nero's AVI splitter knackers up DV file seeks (amongst other things :mad:) yet if removed that'd no doubt affect the Nero product. Similarly, when I installed a DVD player my Media Center (gargle-spit-ding) would no longer seek during playback, soon remidied by setting the merit of the DVD player's own MPEG2 splitter and decoder to much lower values.

Finally, use Radlight to save a list of DirectShow components so that if later your system breaks due to garbage installed by other apps you can quickly isolate what components have changed.

TTFN,
Jon

[lych_necross]

Back in the day, i used fdisk to remove unneeded files ;)
Now, if everything is working fine, I leave it alone.