Can't open VC1 video with MeGUI

[Happysin]

So to give a bit of background, I have an M2TS file I've muxed with VC1 video source and AC3 Audio source. My ultimate goal is t have an MKV with an H.264 video source and the same audio source I already have.

I have installed the Microsoft VC1 SDK on my computer, and Haali Media Splitter.

When I try to open the M2TS in MeGUI, it gives me the error "Unable to render the file. You probably don't have the correct filters installed."

Well I thought I did, but apparently not. What can I do to resolve this issue?

[XhmikosR]

Which OS do you have? Install ffdshow and set VC1 to wmv9. If you use Windows 7, you might have to use this (http://www.codecguide.com/windows7_preferred_filter_tweaker.htm) tool to set ffdshow to decode VC1.

[Happysin]

This is on Server 2003 (32 bit) and while I did have ffdshow installed, I did not have the VC1 decoder set to wmv9. I did that update, and unfortunately I did not get different results. I went ahead and updated ffdshow to the newest version just in case, but to no avail, same error. :(

[XhmikosR]

Weird. Can you use eac3to to remux the m2ts to mkv and try to load the mkv instead?

[stax76]

Just drop the file on GraphStudio to see if DirectShow builds a working graph. I have a M2TS VC-1 sample and it's loads with Haali and ffdshow using wmv9.

[Happysin]

One more update, Handbrake was able to start re-encoding the file, but then crashed. So I don't know what they use to decode VC-1, but that worked seamlessly until I ran into a crash bug of theirs. ;)

What I had of the resulting file looked pretty good, too.

[Inspector.Gadget]

Handbrake is using something based on libavcodec. MeGUI opening an M2TS file directly is going to use Directshow. IIRC Server 2003 lacks some Directshow components. Do you have WMP11 installed? Do you have a working transport stream splitter (either the built-in one or Haali Media Splitter) installed?

[Happysin]

I just re-installed Halli just in case. I did not think WMP11 was supported on Server 2003. Since it appears that the libavcodec path is working, would it help if I set ffdshow's VC-1 decoder to libavcodec instead of WMV9?

[Inspector.Gadget]

That'd be fine, but be aware that it won't work on some interlaced VC-1 cases and may be slower than the built-in one. On the other hand, it won't apply some default post-processing, so you're getting the maximum sharpness out of the VC-1 content.

[Happysin]

[EDIT] Success! As soon as I changed to libavcodec in ffmpeg, I can see stuff! Further updates if this re-encode complete successfully. ;)

[Happysin]

Ok, so I just wanted to post that it did indeed work, now I just need to tweak settings (and remember to include audio...).

So thanks to everyone with your suggestions, I'm very happy I have a total path to rip all my HD-DVDs to my media server!

Side note: I'm roughly targeting about 4-5GB per movie, do you all think that's sacrificing too much quality to save size?

[simonhowson]

I've got a very similar problem to this that I can't solve. I am using Windows 7 64 bit. I have a VC1 stream inside a MKV file ripped from a Blu-ray. I have used the tool to make FFDShow the default filter for VC1 files (instead of Microsoft's filter), and I have set FFdshow to use VMR9 as the renderer. If I drag the MKV file to graphstudio it plays properly. Yet when I try to open the MKV in MeGUI's AviSynth script creator it says that it has timed out waiting for DirectShow filter. Any ideas?

[sreg0r]

I've got a very similar problem to this that I can't solve. I am using Windows 7 64 bit. I have a VC1 stream inside a MKV file ripped from a Blu-ray. I have used the tool to make FFDShow the default filter for VC1 files (instead of Microsoft's filter), and I have set FFdshow to use VMR9 as the renderer. If I drag the MKV file to graphstudio it plays properly. Yet when I try to open the MKV in MeGUI's AviSynth script creator it says that it has timed out waiting for DirectShow filter. Any ideas?

I was having a similar problem on w7 64-bit but managed to get it working with ffdshow/haali by setting the decoder to libavcodec for all video types and using Preferred Filter Tweaker for Windows 7 to set ffdshow for all video types as well.

[tomos]

i've just had a similar prob loading a vc-1 mkc in megui. graph kept timing out but was ok in graphedit. had to use graphedit to use ffdshow. that worked.