SVCD + XP +WMP = Pile Of Shite!

[oddball]

For some reason Windows XP has really buggered up the MPEG2 stuff. On talking to others on this subject it would seem that most of the MPEG2 codecs/DirectShow filters etc will not allow you to playback an SVCD directly from the CD. You have to convert it to a standard MPG file using something like VCDGear onto your hard disk and playback from there. The only exception to this is the Elecard filter which does read directly from an SVCD CD. From what I have gathered WinDVD and PowerDVD are able to playback SVCD's directly from the CD because they have a SVCD file header parser built in. However when used seperately in WMP this does not come into effect and WMP refuses to open the AVSEQ01.MPG file.
As I said the Elecard plugin for WMP will play it but the quality is not so good as WinDVD or PowerDVD. What is even stranger is that the Intervideo DVD Xpack for WMP also does not appear to allow playback of SVCD's directly from the CD in WMP.

Others have said they have no problems playing back SVCD's directly from say Windows 98 or ME.

You may ask why I do not just use WinDVD or PowerDVD to playback SVCD's from the CD. Well the short answer is I need to have access to the DirectShow filters you can get at using WMP 6.4. You cannot access any filters from within WinDVD or PowerDVD. I use a 3rd party utility called DiVXg400 for my Matrox card so I can crop black boarders on the fly and do other neat treats to send to my widescreen TV.

Has anyone else experience of this problem of not being able to playback SVCD's directly from the CD using WMP in XP (Excluding the Elecard filter that is)?

Thanks.

[oddball]

P.S. I have installed every damn filter/player/codec under the sun.

WinDVD XP
PowerDVD XP
Intervideo DVD Xpack
Cinemaster2000
Matrox DVD player (Same as Cinemaster 2000)
Elecard
MainConcept DV Codec
Nimo's Codec pack
Manually regsvr32 /s the various .ax filters

I have also tried on a fresh install of XP with no success.

I am at a loss :P

[Bugs Bunny]

Hooh still are at it I see..

Hmm if the problem isn't present when not reading direct from CD, then why not just extract the MPEG2 file to HD before playing? If you are taking the trouble to crop borders, etc, it certainly takes less than that (about 2 minutes) to extract from the CD. Count this dead time as offset by the fact that then you won't have to do CD switching in the middle of the movie. (BTW, VCDGear works poorly on SVCD extraction; try CDMage.)

Secondly, it's impressive that you've got all the codecs installed, but as they all act on the same format, how do you know which one is activated? Win9x have a priority level you can change per codec; you've done so with XP, I assume?

[oddball]

Would like top know how to do that :)

Thanks for the tip about CDMage though.

[Bugs Bunny]

>Would like top know how to do that :)


So would I.. hahah oops I can't find any such setting for vid, never had to.. I did it for audio, and assumed that such would be the case for vid, but ain't no such thing, at least on this Win98SE box. Somebody who knows how to modify priority levels for vid codecs, feel free to clue us in.

Another question I have (but can't answer, since I'm not running XP) is that with NTFS, does file association work by extension, or by another file attribute embedded in the FS?

Anyway, only one codec can act on a format at a time, so if you haven't done so already, may be good to disable the rest and try one at a time.

[ChristianHJW]

I have Win2k at home and i cant read directly from S-VCD, only with PowerDVD . VCD works fine, dont know what the differences are ( mode 2 form 2 ? ) .

Will test the elecard filter because this is something i would like to have since long. If you want to check a movie briefly its no good idea to use VCDgear or similar first to extract the MPEG stream to HDD ( takes too much time). It would be much more convenient if we could read the S-VCD directly from disc without using PowerDVD or WinDVD.

[oddball]

If I could only get either PowerDVD or WinDVD playback of SVCD's from the CD using WMP. The codecs are much smoother and less buggy than the Elecard plugin. However at least the Elecard codec is free.

I tested and without Elecard registered through regsvr32 and just using either WinDVD or PowerDVD as a codec in WMP you can playback MPEG2 from the hard disk but not the SVCD itself. I heard this is to do with the file header parser in WinDVD and PowerDVD players but in WMP there is no file header parser so it does not know what to do with the form 2 info?

Anyhow it's a pain either way.

[Kb_cruncher]

you can find XP's video codecs in control panel>system>device manager.I'm not too sure how to set the priority on them though.

I don,t think the priority matters too much when you can call any filter at will.
If you have both "ZoomPlayer" http://www.inmatrix.com/
and "GraphEdit" you can build custom DSfilter combinations then save the filter graph with "graphedit" then convert it to a XML file then convert it to a file that "zoomplayer" can read and implement.

"zoomplayer" is also designed for optimum T.V playback.and allows you access to any filter being used.Iit also has a DVD mode.