G'bye 3rd Party ASP/AVC Filters in WMP/MCE on Win7?

[BetaBoy]

http://forum.corecodec.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=9675

As Damien one of the FFMPEG Devs has found out... it looks like MS has blocked third party filters for MP4 and AVC when using WMP or MCE on Windows 7.

Can someone please confirm this is the case?

[Sharktooth]

w00t? they still didnt get it? they CAN'T legally do that unless they remove WMP from the Windows installation.
the EU commision will have their work to do it this is true...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

As Damien one of the FFMPEG Devs has found out... it looks like MS has blocked third party filters for MP4 and AVC when using WMP or MCE on Windows 7.

As far as I understood, M$ is switching from DirectShow to MediaFoundation. Their new MP4 and AVC filters for Windows 7 are written as MediaFoundation filters, not DirectShow filters.

Hence WMP and MCE will look for a suitable MediaFoundation filter first, before they fall back to DirectShow.

Consequently any DirectShow filter (including third-party ones) will be "blocked" (if you want to call it like that) by Microsoft's MediaFoundation filters. And AFAIK this cannot be overwritten.

One would have to provide a MediaFoundation filter, I guess. There also was some discussion about that in the ffdshow thread recently...

w00t? they still didnt get it? they CAN'T legally do that unless they remove WMP from the Windows installation.

In Windows 7 you can uninstall WMP/MCE as well as IExplore. It was speculated that this is because they want to avoid trouble with the EU commision...

[BetaBoy]

Originally Posted by Sharktooth

w00t? they still didnt get it? they CAN'T legally do that unless they remove WMP from the Windows installation.
the EU commision will have their work to do it this is true...

Yeah... my JAW is still on the ground here if this is true. Also.... how would this effect Silverlight's newly added H.264 support on Windows 7? ie; is Silverlight using an integrated AVC decoder or the media foundation filter?

[albain]

Hi there,

if you want more details :

For any codecs with no equivalent in Media Foundation :
=> Our directShow codec (FFDShow) is loaded correctly and runs into the graph

For any codecs with equivalent in Media Foundation (mpeg4/h264)
=> Our directshow codec is loaded, the input pin is connected (the media type is accepted by FFDShow), then an output pin is looked after, found, and... the filter is unloaded. No querying about the output media type, nothing. It is replaced then by MS DMO decoder

Tests done on Windows 7 build 7057 32 bits with WMP 12 and Media Center

Second step : I have built a dummy Media Foundation filter that declares all H264/MPEG4 media types.
=> It is not even consulted

Last step : I have built a dummy Media Foundation filter that is not a decoder but a transform filter (this is a different category).
=> It is not consulted either.

Reason : Microsoft maintains a list of preferred codecs in the following registry key : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MediaFoundation\Transforms\Preferred
This key cannot be modified even in admin mode (this is a protected area, like system files).
So this list cannot be modified.

Conclusion : decoder is not overridable, even if one develops a Media Foundation filter

Two leads :
1/ Develop a DSP filter for Windows Media Player. This will only do postprocessing, no decoding.
2/ Make the source filter (Haali) autoload with a configurable option FFDShow or any other compatible filter.
Maybe Haali could reproduce the DirectShow filters enumeration according to their merit and take the highest one which is compatible with the media type.
This will work for MKV/MP4 containers, not AVI, unless the AVI container is overridable in Media Center/Media Player.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by albain

Reason : Microsoft maintains a list of preferred codecs in the following registry key : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MediaFoundation\Transforms\Preferred
This key cannot be modified even in admin mode (this is a protected area, like system files).
So this list cannot be modified.

Conclusion : decoder is not overridable, even if one develops a Media Foundation filter

This indeed is worse than I had expected

So there are even more reasons to NOT use WMP/MCE, but use MediaPlayerClassic and friends...

[clsid]

There is also a little bit of good news. Microsoft's H.264 decoder has DXVA support and it also works in combination with third party players.

Not being able to use third party filters is a pity. But what is even worse is the lack of subtitle support. VSFilter simply won't get loaded for external subtitle files. For embedded subtitles Haali's workaround still works, but only for Matroska files.

[Snowknight26]

Originally Posted by albain

For any codecs with equivalent in Media Foundation (mpeg4/h264)
=> Our directshow codec is loaded, the input pin is connected (the media type is accepted by FFDShow), then an output pin is looked after, found, and... the filter is unloaded. No querying about the output media type, nothing. It is replaced then by MS DMO decoder

Unregister the dll associated with the DMO filter?

[leeperry]

something tells me a lot ppl(including me) will stick to XP SP3 until the end of days

at least, if they would let us disable Cleartype...I hate blurry fonts

[clsid]

Reason : Microsoft maintains a list of preferred codecs in the following registry key : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MediaFoundation\Transforms\Preferred
This key cannot be modified even in admin mode (this is a protected area, like system files).
So this list cannot be modified.

You can edit this key after adjusting its security permissions. First change the ownership from TrustedInstaller to Admin group. You can do that in the Advanced settings. Then you can give Admin group full access.

[Brazil2]

Originally Posted by albain

Reason : Microsoft maintains a list of preferred codecs in the following registry key : HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MediaFoundation\Transforms\Preferred
This key cannot be modified even in admin mode (this is a protected area, like system files).
So this list cannot be modified.

How lame is that.
When will they understand that it is MY computer and not Microsoft's computer so I decide what to use on MY computer. No wonder why more and more people are switching to Linux.

Not to mention, as said already, the possible legal issues with this behaviour forcing the use some specific codecs.

Originally Posted by leeperry

something tells me a lot ppl(including me) will stick to XP SP3 until the end of days

at least, if they would let us disable Cleartype...I hate blurry fonts

Yep, same here, still on XP and will be for a long time I think.
The Clearype thingy is just another example of this madness thinking that the OS knows better than us what to do and what to use.

Anyway, I'm already on a XP-Debian dual boot for months. Enough is enough.

[Dark Eiri]

I posted some time ago about this. Since 7 Beta I can't use any external codecs or filters on WMP and MediaCenter.
The only way to use CoreAVC was to use MKV container, since WMP didn't have internal splitters for it, it went for Haali and then CoreAVC. MP4 and everything else was internal decoders only. New builds seem to already have internal MKV splitters, so... g'bye for good.

[squid_80]

Originally Posted by Dark Eiri

New builds seem to already have internal MKV splitters, so... g'bye for good.

Wait, are you saying Windows 7 has built-in support for Matroska?

[RunningSkittle]

i can confirm that build 7000 and 7048 do not have native matroska support.

[CruNcher]

Originally Posted by clsid

You can edit this key after adjusting its security permissions. First change the ownership from TrustedInstaller to Admin group. You can do that in the Advanced settings. Then you can give Admin group full access.

So virtually that fixes the problem now i wonder if that is Microsofts preferred (MSDN) way of 3rd Parties to do it or more like Register your filter @ Microsoft for usage in our Products first
They not dumb they for sure didn't oversaw this problem so it suggests that they want you to call them for being able to use your filter in their framework maybe it's something that has to do with their new Security in Mind credo
It also would fit to the 64 bit Kernel Protection Strategy would make 32 Bit also a little more secure, though of course the whole Open Source way is threatened by this, and im not sure if taking Security as a Shield to force these Practices further and further into their OS will hide the real intention (JailDows) i mean the normal user can't really see what's going on but we power user feel more and more restrictions and me being a over 10 year Windows user slowly get's tired of it.
Every year it's like we lose more and more control of our own machines and that's a steady ongoing thing and is being forced to the next level "Hardware" slowly and Software gets more and more prepared for it (.NET) and that all in the name of Security ? and in the same time Politics try to decimate knowledge about Security related stuff, it feels scary somehow really scary.

[squid_80]

Originally Posted by RunningSkittle

i can confirm that build 7000 and 7048 do not have native matroska support.

That's what I figured. Let's save the "Windows supports MKV!" statements for April Fools.

[albain]

Well with build 7057 Haali's splitter is used for MKV but the H264 decoder that is selected is the MS DMO one.

This is the reason why I asked Haali to implement an option to force a given decoder or even better to reproduce the decoder selection like old time : enumerating codecs according to the media type and their merit.

[albain]

Originally Posted by clsid

You can edit this key after adjusting its security permissions. First change the ownership from TrustedInstaller to Admin group. You can do that in the Advanced settings. Then you can give Admin group full access.

You're right, but this is a hack and it won't work in an installer

[djloewen]

Originally Posted by albain

Well with build 7057 Haali's splitter is used for MKV but the H264 decoder that is selected is the MS DMO one.

Would this allow a person to add .mkv files to the Windows Media Player library, and organize them using metadata? 'Cause you sure can't on Vista...

[clsid]

Originally Posted by albain

You're right, but this is a hack and it won't work in an installer

With SetACL it is possible to take ownership of files and registry keys