Tool for changing preferred DirectShow filters in Windows 7

[turbojet]

Originally Posted by RadioactiveMan

I am using Windows 7 RC Build 7100 64bit German

Oh maybe it's some issue with non-english versions.

If you open regedit and browse to that key does it exist?
If not, is it named something else like 'Directshow' or 'Preferred' in german?

[RadioactiveMan]

Originally Posted by turbojet

If you open regedit and browse to that key does it exist?
If not, is it named something else like 'Directshow' or 'Preferred' in german?

I have already taken a look at it. The key is there.

[clsid]

Oh maybe it's some issue with non-english versions.

Translations only apply to the Windows GUI and a few folder names, not to stuff in the Registry.
Perhaps it is an issue with UAC. Completely disabling UAC can cause problems for applications (like this tool) that need to run with Administrator privileges.

I have already taken a look at it. The key is there.

Which group is set as the owner of the key? Originally it is TrustedInstaller. The tool changes it to the Administrators group. After that it sets full access permissions on the key for Administrators.

A few more things I thought of:
- check for missing filters that are still registered (cyberlink and arcsoft TMT2 are notorious for leaving these)

I am not planning to add that at this moment. There are other tools that can scan for such issues. If a preferred filter can not be loaded, then DirectShow will simply fall back to using a different filter.

- function to completely remove the preferred folder (too hazardous for this tool? or is there some other way to load in graphs without this folder)

Those who want different alternatives than given by the tool can either request an addition or mess with the Registry themselves. I am not going to offer the possibility to delete the whole key.

Do you think the exit now question is needed when you hit apply?
Also is the exit now question needed when you hit close without any changes done?

The prompt can't be easily removed. I am not wasting my time on it.

[RadioactiveMan]

Originally Posted by clsid

Translations only apply to the Windows GUI and a few folder names, not to stuff in the Registry.
Perhaps it is an issue with UAC. Completely disabling UAC can cause problems for applications (like this tool) that need to run with Administrator privileges.

Which group is set as the owner of the key? Originally it is TrustedInstaller. The tool changes it to the Administrators group. After that it sets full access permissions on the key for Administrators.
.

i will try to disable uac as soon as the current encoding job is done. that will be in about twelve hours.

regarding the owner of the key: it was trustedinstaller. i have already changed it to administrators and have given the administrator an the users full rights. unfortunately it didn't work.

[Atak_Snajpera]

Completely disabling UAC can cause problems for applications (like this tool) that need to run with Administrator privileges.

i will try to disable uac as soon as the current encoding job is done.

Did you understand what he said?

[RadioactiveMan]

Originally Posted by Atak_Snajpera

Did you understand what he said?

now, when reading it a second time i do. but it also didn't work with uac being activated.

[clsid]

Perhaps you have some kind of security application (firewall, virusscanner) installed that is blocking the tool.

[battles]

CLSID,

I know that you've been barraged with requests for adding more decoder options to your very helpful bit of software; here's another. Would you mind adding MPCVidDec.ax to your list of decoder options? Because it enables hardware acceleration, it has been my experience that it is a very good video decoder.

Many thanks on behalf of the HTPC enthusiast community,

Battles

[clsid]

I'll put it on the todo list for next version.

The Microsoft decoder also has hardware acceleration and is probably has better compatibility than MPC's decoder (which is still buggy).

[battles]

Thanks CSLID,

This may not be the appropriate thread for this, but I'd appreciate your view on the best video decoders (by file type encoding...VC-1, .264, mpeg, etc.) that employ hardware acceleration. One problem I was having, in particular, when using the media foundation decoders in Win7, was with regard to the playback of .m2ts files encoded in VC-1 (got audio but no video when playing back through MCE/WMP12). I have since solved the problem by disabling the Media Foundation wrapper (msds.dll) and the WMV decoder (wmvdecod.dll). Now WMP/MCE plays back all of my video files; however, in the process, I feel as though I have lost some of the hardware acceleration for .m2ts AVC/.264 encoded files I was experiencing before disabling the aforementioned files (CPU load used to by 10% now around 60%) when using Microsoft's DTV/DVD Video decoder.

Your recommendations would be very helpful.

Best, Battles

[clsid]

Report your problems at the Microsoft Technet forums, preferably with a sample file. Then they might be able to solve those problems before Windows 7 goes RTM.

I don't play any VC1 content, so I can't make any recommendations for it.

[zachdms]

VC1 in M2TS won't be supported for RTM. It's a feature request that'll be looked at for the future. =\

battles: yeah, disabling aspects of playback would result in different and potentially bad results. That seems like it would be expected... ?

[battles]

Thanks. But, I'd rather have MCE playback .m2ts VC-1 than not, even with some slight degradation to CPU efficiency. Considering MS developed VC-1, I'm surprised that MS' support of VC-1 .m2ts will not be in the RTM. I'm sure there is a reason, but if you look at the number of blu-ray titles being released which were encoded in VC-1, it sure would be nice if MS supported this natively. Please feel free to enlighten me on this.

[zachdms]

Priorities. You have N people capable of doing X work at Y quality level.

You're making a Feature Request. The right people are aware of it, but it is not going to make the cut for this release, sorry. If they did go off and do that non-trivial work, it's a trade-off with 'other feature' that was deemed of more general value. Trying to be everything to everyone at once doesn't work well in practice.

[battles]

Thanks. I'm glad to hear that this is on the MCE project team's radar screen -- as it seems support for VC-1 playback is no less important than .264. Hopefully it will be addressed in a service pack or update post release. As you know, there's a community of enthusiasts who spend countless hours poring over chat rooms, forums etc, trying to get their MCE completely dialed in. I'm hopeful that those heading up the MCE project team for win7 fit this profile. A lot of us don't necessarily love the MCE product out of the box, but love its potential, and certainly appreciate what the MCE community on the web has done to optimize the MCE experience.

Thanks for sharing an insider's perspective.

[MysTinuX]

Originally Posted by RadioactiveMan

I am using Windows 7 RC Build 7100 64bit German

I also had problems with a french release of 7 RC.

I had to set permissions on the Prefered regkey manually with SetACL Command line to use CLSID's tool.

How to do this :

Download and unzip this file : permissions.zip
Edit permissions.cmd file
Change for every line this string : "Administrateurs" by the "Administators word" in german/french/spanish...
Save the file and run it with command line (see attached image file)

After that you sould be able to change decoders with CLSID's tool.

CLSID, do you think you could update your tool to support non english Windows 7 versions. I think you just have to change the "Administrator" or "Administrators" strings for SetACL command lines (I think your tool use this).

French translation :
Administrator=Administrateur
Administrators=Administrateurs

[turbojet]

Originally Posted by clsid

I am not planning to add that at this moment. There are other tools that can scan for such issues. If a preferred filter can not be loaded, then DirectShow will simply fall back to using a different filter.
Those who want different alternatives than given by the tool can either request an addition or mess with the Registry themselves. I am not going to offer the possibility to delete the whole key.
The prompt can't be easily removed. I am not wasting my time on it.

OK I understand.

Originally Posted by MysTinuX

I also had problems with a french release of 7 RC.

I had to set permissions on the Prefered regkey manually with SetACL Command line to use CLSID's tool.

How to do this :

Download and unzip this file : permissions.zip
Edit permissions.cmd file
Change for every line this string : "Administrateurs" by the "Administators word" in german/french/spanish...
Save the file and run it with command line (see attached image file)

After that you sould be able to change decoders with CLSID's tool.

CLSID, do you think you could update your tool to support non english Windows 7 versions. I think you just have to change the "Administrator" or "Administrators" strings for SetACL command lines (I think your tool use this).

French translation :
Administrator=Administrateur
Administrators=Administrateurs

Another option is using regini which shouldn't be affected by non-English versions because it uses numbers to set permissions.

For instance this pasted to a cmd or bat should work:

@echo off
Reg Query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node" >nul
if errorlevel 1 goto 32BIT

echo \Registry\Machine\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DirectShow\Preferred [1 5 8] >> x64.txt
regini x64.txt >nul
del x64.txt >nul

:32BIT
echo \Registry\Machine\Software\Microsoft\DirectShow\Preferred [1 5 8] >> x86.txt
regini x86.txt >nul
del x86.txt >nul

This should set full access to admin/creator and read access to world.

[clsid]

Changing the ownership of the key is the problem. But I have found the solution for it. By using the SID instead of the localized name.

[sarastro]

Thank a lot for adding support for the MPC DXVA decoder! Now I've got the same performance -CPU wise- with Media Center on x64 as I have with MPC-HC.

MPC-HC is my default player and a great one, but Windows Media Center with the Mediabrowser plug-in is just a lot slicker and awesomer for browsing through your video collection.

[MysTinuX]

CLSID, could you also add NVIDIA Pure Video MPEG-2 Decoder?
It is as good as Dscaler 5.

NVIDIA Pure Video MPEG-2 Decoder : {EAFD99D7-54B6-4e87-8C7C-6A3C85F8997C}