Help! I broke my ProCoder!

[kkm]

I noticed that ProCoder started picking up a different codec than Ligos for decoding the source MPEG files, which lead to some pecularities in the compressed file. I decided to repair its installation, ran setup and chose the "reinstall" option. After that, the MPEG-2 files generated by procoder started playing "jerky": normal speed for 3/4 seconds, pause for 1/4 seconds, and so on. They do that with any player and even on a standalone.

I unregistered the Ligos codecs, and ProCoder choose the same Main Concept decoder that it used before, but this did not help relieve the jerkyity. I removed ProCoder, erased all mentions of Canopus and Ligos in the registry and reinstalled it, but it is not able to correctly encode MPEGs any more!

Anybody have seen similar problem with ProCoder or other encoders? Is there any known remedy for it?

Thanks!

[Nahie]

Do you have Adobe Premier 6.5 installed? The main concept MPEG encoder that comes with Premier 6.5 is a monster...it will take over all MPEG operations on your computer. I have had so many problems with it and the only solution seems to be to uninstall Premier 6.5 (or just the MPEG encoder AKA Adobe MPEG encoder).

Also you could download graphedit and see what filters your windows setup is using to decode MPEG2. Just open graphedit and drag a MPEG file into it and it will give you a list. I wouldn't be surprised if Main Concept is in there somewhere...

[kkm]

Yes, I have Main Concept (came with Vegas, I guess), Ligos and PoverDVD decoders. I can chose which one is selected into the graph by manually adjusting their merit value in the enumerator data in the registry. Graphedit was how I discovered that ProCoder picks up the MainConcept coder (I confirm that by looking at the DLLs loaded into the Procoder process using procexp.exe from www.sysinternals.com). Apparently, ProCoder always picks up the same decoder that graphedit also chooses; no surprise - it seems that it just asks DirectShow to render a file, letting it choose a filter.

My problem is different however - whatever decoder I choose, it plays the original MPEG-2 fine in Media Player and in graphedit, but when I run the same file through ProCoder, the resulting MPEG-2 video stops for ~0.25 seconds each second. I think that this is the encoding part that somehow broke, and even the complete reinstall does not help!

I cannot exactly identify what I did to break it; it seems to me that it broke after I run setup with repair option.

Any other ideas please? I am pulling on the air where my hair once was... :(

[Nahie]

Procoder seems like a very picky software. On one machine I had it installed and it worked great for awhile. Then I did something (installed something I guess) and then procoder wouldn't encode anything. It would just show a blank screen. In the end I had to re-install WINDOWS! just to get it back. Uninstalling Procoder, other codecs, other apps, even system restore couldn't fix it. Sorry but I think you're going to have to re-install everything to get procoder back. And then I'd say keep all extra codecs, etc. to a minimum.