h264 decoding with DirectShow -??

[vl_]

Hello,
I've been trying to use DirectShow playback filter to render video clip recorded with x264 codec. It always failed with some meaningless message. Does it ( DirectShow) support h264 playback at all, or does it need external decoder? The file didn't have any kind of the container, just compressed video.
My apologies if this forum is not a proper place to ask the sort of question concerning DirectShow capabilities.
Thanks,
-V.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yes, you need an H.264 decoder for DirectShow to successfully decode H.264 video :)

ffdshow has one, and there are many others.

~MiSfit

[Keiyakusha]

If your video doesn't have the container you probably also need a source filter that will be able to feed it to the h264 decoder.

[kidjan]

Hello,
I've been trying to use DirectShow playback filter to render video clip recorded with x264 codec. It always failed with some meaningless message. Does it ( DirectShow) support h264 playback at all, or does it need external decoder? The file didn't have any kind of the container, just compressed video.
My apologies if this forum is not a proper place to ask the sort of question concerning DirectShow capabilities.
Thanks,
-V.

what is this "meaningless message?"

It depends on the OS. In Windows 7, you should be able to use the Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd390679(VS.85).aspx), but previous versions of Windows will require some other filter like ffdshow. You'll also need a source filter to push H.264 to the decoder. I don't know of any filters that take a raw h264 bytestream, but writing one would probably take a few hours at most. (alternately you could mux the raw video into mp4 or some other container, and then you have lots of options)

either that or you can just save the file with a .h264 extension and play with VLC.

[bnshrdr]

Also be sure you have a media splitter, like Haali, installed as well. I just recently ran into this because all of my Avisynth scripts stopped working and gave me the error you seem to have. I for some reason uninstalled Haali, but after a re-installation, all was well again.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yes, your job will be much easier if you mux the elementary stream to a container first. MP4 and MKV are probably the most popular containers for storing H.264 video. TS and M2TS are also quite usable.

For MKV use MKVToolNix
For MP4 use MP4Box
For TS/M2TS use TSMuxeR

All are available in CLI and GUI forms :)

~MiSfit