De-installation of Elecard MPEG-2 decoder fails

[hans-jürgen]

Hi, I hope this is the correct forum for this question. I installed the latest Elecard MPEG-2 decoder package from their web site (v3.4) which is supposed to be a trial version like the well-known 2.0 from 2003. De-installation of that one worked without problems, but the new one did not work after a correct installation, i.e. trying to look at *.vob files on a DVD with RealPlayer 10.5 only shows a black screen unlike v2.0 which decoded the MPEG-2 stream fine. So I decided to uninstall it, but the process hangs when trying to remove the LS.dll, and I cannot abort it anymore, so I have to restart the computer.

Is it safe to simply delete the folders (one in Programs, the other in Programs\Common files) and trying to delete all keys in the registry refering to Elecard, or has anyone else experienced this problem, too, and maybe found a better solution? Why doesn't the new version work, is it because of the expired trial period of v2.0 perhaps?

Last question: which are the alternatives for a simple DS filter to watch DVDs on my rather old computer? I would like to keep everything as small and lean as possible, i.e. not installing a ton of media players (PowerDVD etc.) if all I need is a free MPEG-2 DS filter. AC-3 filter is already installed, by the way.

[_xxl]

You could use ffdshow and MPC.

[hans-jürgen]

Right, but wouldn't one of them be enough already? I've read that MPC comes with its own MPEG-2 DS filter, and ffdshow has a free MPEG-2 DS filter as well (maybe the same as MPC?).

Anyhow, RealPlayer could show the *.vob files on a DVD with the Elecard v2.0 filters (and AC-3 Filter for the sound) without problems except that the Elecard logo started jumping around after 21 days. ;-) So I would prefer to keep RealPlayer as the main DS player on my computer besides WMP 6.4, because I might need it now and then for RealMedia internet streams like the "Rock am Ring" festival or for sound clips on Amazon.de.

[Leak]

Anyhow, RealPlayer could show the *.vob files on a DVD with the Elecard v2.0 filters (and AC-3 Filter for the sound) without problems except that the Elecard logo started jumping around after 21 days. ;-) So I would prefer to keep RealPlayer as the main DS player on my computer besides WMP 6.4, because I might need it now and then for RealMedia internet streams like the "Rock am Ring" festival or for sound clips on Amazon.de.
Well, I haven't really tried it recently, but MPC should play RealMedia streams just as well - it's got support for QuickTime and RealMedia built in... but not the clunky RealPlayer interface.

Why not give MPC a try? It's just a single executable...

[hans-jürgen]

You mean I could de-install RealPlayer and still see/hear RealMedia streams, or does MPC need an installed RP version or only parts of it as well? Sounds interesting indeed... what I also like about the latest RealPlayer is the ability to rip to AAC and its support for the MP4 file format, but I could install 3ivx for that.

Anyone with an answer to my initial question perhaps? Is it safe to simply delete the new Elecard MPEG-2 decoder filters and clean up the registry manually?

[foxyshadis]

It depends on the codecs. FFdshow contains most of the older realvideo/audio codecs, and with MPC's parser will open those files fine. The newer ones from the last 5 years or so aren't present and will need realplayer or realalternative installed.

Before just deleting, try running regsvr32 /u on all the dll files. That should get a good chunk of their registry entries cleaned, much easier that going back and manually cleaning it later. Once they're unregistered you can trash them without affecting anything.

[hans-jürgen]

OK, thanks for the tips!

[hans-jürgen]

One month later: removing the new Elecard filters with that method worked, but I still found some entries in the registry of Win98SE which I deleted manually as well. After that I used the older Elecard download package from Doom9 (v1.x) to install a MPEG-2 DS filter, but it seems it works slower than the v2.0 filter I already had, so I installed that one again which runs smoother on my PC (Pentium III 500 MHz, nVidia TNT2 M64 onboard chip with internal MPEG-2 hardware acceleration).

In the meantime I also installed a Win2000 dual boot configuration, so I can use newer software than before. Today I downloaded MPC 6.4.9.0 for Win98SE from the Sourceforge site and wondered if there is any advantage when using the "correct" Win2000/XP version (faster perhaps)? I tested it under Win98SE and also under Win2000 where it worked similar, i.e. complaining about some missing DVD navigator filters, but otherwise playing the *.vob files on a DVD.

The synchronization between audio and video got worse during playback, but I guess I can configure that somewhere, right? MPC seems to choose the uncompressed stereo PCM stream and not the stereo AC-3 stream that RealPlayer uses when playing the same file, maybe that's part of the reason for the bad synchronization.

By the way, where can I find those missing DVD navigator DS filters on the net? The link from within MPC when showing the error message does not work anymore, because gabest.org seems to be hijacked. Or should I simply install ffdshow as well and hope that everything works afterwards (only downloaded the stable version from 2002 yet)? Or maybe try the newer MPC versions that are mentioned in this forum, too?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

gabest.org seems to be hijacked.

http://guliverkli.sourceforge.net/

Nevertheless you won't find the "DVD Navigator" filter there, nor is this filter (or something similar) part of ffdshow!
AFAIK the DVD Navigator ships with DirectShow itself...

[hans-jürgen]

The error message itself looked a bit strange with lots of question marks for the name of the missing filter, but after closing it the status line in MPC mentioned that it could not link or connect some pins of the DVD navigator filter when trying to open the DVD disc.

I have DirectX 9.0c installed, by the way, and just tried again to open my two DVDs with no problems this time. :) The video_ts.ifo file is shown in the playlist, and I could click on the first button of the shown DVD menu. The synch problems seem to have disappeared as well, but the playback is still a bit choppy, i.e. RealPlayer with Elecard MPEG-2 filter plays it smoother. At the moment I'm testing the Win98SE version under Win2000, so maybe using the Win2k/XP version would help with that?