Video playing problems (1 Viewer)

[samoddie]

Hi there

I have successfully managed to have a working mediaportal in my lounge. TV works fine, pictures work fine and so does music. However, videos do not!

I have a few films on my harddrive encoded in different formats. They all play totally fine in media player and used to work in mediaportal but then they just stopped. I have changed the codecs a few times and am currently using ffdshow.

I just can't figure out why they don't work.

What happens is that I select the video i want to pay and then the screen goes blank and flickers a few media portal headings. I can hear the movie, just can't see it... Does anybody have any ideas?

Oh, VOB files work fine..!

And on a bit of a side note... I am trying to make my HTPC look nothing like windows. I have tried following a few guides and many talk about gpedit, which you can't get on XP home. Has anyone managed to completely remove the look of XP whilst still allowing it to be used like a PC if needs be..

Cheers!

Sam

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Could be the directshow renderer, but sounds more like your codecs are screwed, uninstall any codecs you have manually installed, then run filmerit (link in signature) use the padlock button to unlock the fix function, repair anything found, reboot.

Then try the Vista Codec Pack (FFDShow\Xvid\haali media splitter based), this can correct associations with windows for codecs by correcting registry entries.

Regards

 

[samoddie]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

i don't think the codecs are the problem, all my movies play fine in everything else, have downloaded, installed, re-installed ffdshow and the xp codec pack, followed a codec setting up guide i found on the internet and still the problem remains.

If i tell media portal to use media player classic as the external player it does this fine and the movie plays ok - just not when using the internal mediaportal movie player...!!

Done it!

I managed to sort the problem out by going into mediaportal configuration, movies, movie player and then ticking the box saying Auto - direct show merit..

I ticked it, and now my movies work.. still don't really know what it is for..!

So the video playing problem is solved but does anyone have any ideas about removing the look of XP totally. i.e. completely hiding the taskbar, removing loading personal settings dialogue box and blue screen before loading windows, hiding mouse cursor etc etc...