Problems with WMP 8.0 & WinXP

[Hat]

I have Windows XP, and I think Windows Media Player 8.0 came with it by default.

The problem I have, is that no matter what codec I have installed, I still cannot play seemingly random files.

Some movies will work just fine and run smoothly and perfectly, while others will not work at all, and I just get that "Blue Tunnel" visualization thing.

The weird this is, however, that those same movies will work with "mplayer2.exe", Windows Media Player 5.7.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this just Microsoft being the smartest company in the world again?
Any suggestions, comments or help would be greatly apprechiated.

Thank you, Hat.

[Batman]

It is a known fact that divx media cannot be viewed properly using WMP 8.0

"Am I doing something wrong, or is this just Microsoft being the smartest company in the world again? "

It is Microsoft's fault.

[VERT]

Originally posted by Batman
It is a known fact that divx media cannot be viewed properly using WMP 8.0

"Am I doing something wrong, or is this just Microsoft being the smartest company in the world again? "

It is Microsoft's fault.

A friend was having a similat preoblem, thanks I'll pass that info onto him.

[Batman]

You're welcome

[Enchanter]

Though I've always been viewing my movies with WMP 6.4 (and PowerDivX), I've had my share of watching DivX shows on WMP 8.0 (On XP) and have never had any trouble with it (If only it would allow you to change the filter settings). I think we shouldn't be blaming Microsoft for every single problems that we have (bar the recent security flaw on WMP), and we should take into account the possibility of user fault as well.

Just giving my thoughts.

[Hat]

Hrm

So I guess it's not only my lame box that does it.

I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it if my sustem resources didn't become 100% used up when I try to view them.

Even left clicking once will use all my resources and they will never become freed.

It's really stupid.

I love Microsoft!

[puzling]

I use MP v8.00.00.4477 on XP - no problems for divx viewing (except that XP is obviously not as media friendly as the non-NT Windows OSes). I just finished my monthly Windows system rebuild. The only divx codec I downloaded was from divx.com. After disabling the gator ad-aware software (which unfortunately installs as part of the divx.com codec package), everything is still working fine. While it's a pain to rebuild your system, I think everyone should do it regularly, just to know what you're using.

[Enchanter]

except that XP is obviously not as media friendly as the non-NT Windows OSes

What makes you think so? How is it so, to be more specific?

[puzling]

Foremost, I think it's an empirical discovery; if you compare music, movie, and especially game performance between NT (4.0, 2000, XP) and 9x (95,98,me), you can see and hear the difference without benchmarking or hard evidence. But I think it mostly has to with the HAL (hardware abstraction) idea of NT - where the applications never directly interact with hardware. The idea of direct3d does not work so great with NT until XP, at least theoretically. Direct hardware interaction was considered a weakness with regard to security (the fundamental reason behind NT over basic windows) and stability of a system. And I'm a little confused over the whole evolution of MS OSes. I refuse to upgrade beyond winME for gaming because it just doesn't work as fast. But for business or web service functionality, I require the additional components traditionally included in NT. If XP is supposed to be a hybrid of 9x mutimedia / NT stability in theory, then it falls short in reality. My apps drive my need for the underlying infrastructure. So if my mp3s play faster and crisper in a windows 9x environment, I'll use that. Does that make sense, or am I rambling about nothing?

[Enchanter]

NT-based OSes do have the added security and stability when compared against DOS-based OSes. However, when it comes to compatibility and games, DOS-based OSes still "rule" for some obvious reasons. However, in my experience of using Win98SE and Win2K, the difference seems insignificant to me (I'm talking about real gaming difference, not 3DMarks). Both OSes handle games nicely (Pity Win2K does not play legacy DOS games though) and the added stability of Win2K has always made me side on it.

So if my mp3s play faster and crisper in a windows 9x environment, I'll use that. Does that make sense, or am I rambling about nothing?

First of all, why would anyone want their MP3s to play faster and in the end, sound like chipmunks? On sound quality issue, it depends on your soundcard driver and decoder (player). Recent;y, I upgraded my soundcard driver for Win2K (The vendor has stopped supporting Win98 unfortunately). Prior to the upgrade, the sound quality between the two OSes, music-, movie- and gaming-wise, have been roughly the same. After the upgrade, the sound quality in Win2K has been consistently better than Win98 in all aspects. This shows that drivers play a major role in sound quality, not the OS.

If you are torn between DOS-based and NT-based OSes, there is always this nifty feature called dual-boot.