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Zoom Player user.. best options for decoding h.264?

post #1 of 7
11/22/09 at 11:48am
Thread Starter 
Hi all,

I currently have Zoom Player v6.0 on a new Win7 laptop with 2.8Ghz dual cpu & HD4650 GPU with HDMI. I have never played HD videos just SD on my older laptops connected to SD TV so I never really needed to mess with codecs and filters, Zoom Player just auto downloads and installs ffdshow and some other stuff and you're good to go.

Now I want to go HD (with 1080p MKV files) and I need some help.

Off the top of my head I am aware of CoreAVC and Divx7 codecs that decode in software and support multi threading, they seem to be the fastest software decoders available correct? I also know there is software like PowerDVD (I actually have v7 somewhere still) and TMT(which I could get if necessary) that others are using to watch HD video, I know Zoomplayer can use PowerDVD for decoding videos since I've used it when watching DVDs on my old laptop.

There is also this issue of hardware acceleration which I am completely green about, I only know my GPU supports this somehow but I don't know yet how and what I need to get it working or if I should even pursue it if my CPU is up to the task in software. I can probably figure this out on my own searching and reading the forum but at the moment I don't even know if I need to use this method, are there any benefits to doing this?

So yeah, I need some help in deciding which way to go here, preferrably I'd like to stick with Zoom Player if possible. I understand this is all elementary for many here but I'm still struggling to get caught up in the new format despite reading around.

Thanks for reading.
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post #2 of 7
11/22/09 at 1:31pm
I use the MPC Video Decoder with Zoom player for h.264 stuff. This is the same decoder MPC-HC uses but you can download just the codec itself. Keep in mind that even if you are running Windows 7 x64, you will need to download the 32-bit codec, because zoomplayer is 32 bits. You can find it where you would download MPC-HC. You are free to use any h.264 codec you want with zoomplayer but I've had good results with the mpc one, plus it's free.

Once you download it, you will need to register the codec (open a command prompt as an administrator and run "regsvr32 ").

You will then need to go into Zoomplayer and tell it to use that codec for h.264 files. Make sure you have smart play enabled. This way, zoomplayer will ignore what codec windows would use by default and instead use what you told it to use.

That codec supports hardware acceleration but there's more to it in order to enable HA. You also have to pick a video renderer (in zoomplayer) that also supports it. I use EVR. Hopefully, that should get HA working for you.
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post #3 of 7
11/22/09 at 3:13pm
Thread Starter 
ok thanks, I'll give that a try, I have Zoom Player set to use EVR right now but I'm just running through some SD stuff I got on an old disk. It just occured to me to ask but decoders basically should all give the same quality right?
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post #4 of 7
11/22/09 at 3:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jiddu View Post

It just occured to me to ask but decoders basically should all give the same quality right?

Well I'll be interested to hear other peoples response to this question because I am finding that CoreAVC gives me better playback of 720p files than the MPC decoder. The MPC decoder does a sterling job with my own 1080p mkvs but I get poor results with 720p files I acquired elsewhere. I just don't know if it down to the decoders or my configuration of them.
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post #5 of 7
11/23/09 at 8:23am
Thread Starter 
uhm.. I'm a little bit stuck, I want to try the Divx decoder but can't get it working in zoom player. I registered the decoder in filter management but under system overview it doesn't show up and defaults to ffdshow when I play an h.264 file. Just for kicks I unregistered ffdshow but it just went to Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder.. registered filter manager does show the DIVX h.264 decoder though, I tried doing the "regserv32" deal and windows says it is registered ok but I just can't get Zoom Player to use the decoder. Maybe I'm stupid, what am I doing wrong?
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post #6 of 7
11/23/09 at 9:04am
Might I suggest trying out a new freeware program called “Mirillis Splash.” I assume it will play mkvs but I’ve never tried them. Basically, I loaded this onto my new computer build as the first and only playback program and it was able to play my blu ray rips (with playback of DTS-HD MA) without a problem.

It plays my Blu ray rips (ripping the main movie straight to m2ts) just fine. The free version only supports 2 ch analog output from what I can tell, with 5.1 spdif supposed to be available in the upcoming pay version. It doesn’t seem to support DVD file structures from what I can tell (haven’t tried) but there is supposedly a Blu Ray version to be released in the future so I would guess that would be added to that one.

I’ve sent them an email asking about future support for HDMI based high def audio, but haven’t checked to see if they got back to me.

I’ve owned a copy of zoomplayer from back when it was the cream of the crop for players, I’ve used MPC for many years too. I must say, for its simplicity and straight up “just works” capability, I am really impressed with Splash.

Check it out. In its current form it definitely would not work as your only player, but for a light weight player capable of watching blu ray rips while on the go, it works very well.

http://mirillis.com/splash.html

-Suntan
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post #7 of 7
11/23/09 at 7:36pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks, maybe I'll check the player out. For now though I'd really love to just get ZP to play with the divx decoder, I tried it in Divx' player and the picture is great but I don't like that player at all. I fiddled with everything I can think of or find with google but I guess I'm the only one that can't get it to work, I'm out of ideas

EDIT: never mind, I'm dumb, I should've gone into smart play and chosen my decoder there.. D'OH!

Divx decoder is working very nicely and fast
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