Does anyone use the WMC player?

Does anyone use the internal wmc player for bluray rip playback?

Is there any way to make the internal WMC player use dxva?

And also what about playing my flac audio tracks.

Right now I get no sound (flac) and cpu at 100% on my poor computer.

Where as in mpc-hc, I get beautiful sound and about 30-40% cpu usage. I ask only because there are issues with mpc-hc opening in the background (thus making the remote not work) when launching from a full screen media browser. There are certain 'fixes' for this, but they really aren't that elegant and aren't working a 100% as advertised (for me). got me thinking about the wmc player.

Or does the wmc player just suck and stay away?

Thanks.

So looking at the first few lines of your post, looks like FLAC (lpcm) will play? Do I end up with the same issues/concerns you brought up in my FLAC Confusion thread - where wasapi was preferred as the windows media foundation can ruin the flac quality? I notice you talk about disabling wmf and using direct show pipline instead - is this comparable to using reclock/wasapi?

I can't remember if I have ffdshow 32 bit or 64bit installed currently (will check when I get home) - can they both be installed at the same time (and work correctly)?

What needs to be done differently for mkv (flac or ac3, no HD audio)?

Is there any reason not to use the wmc player (after making changes as per your post) in favor of say, mpc-hc?

---edit----

Just noticed it won't play vc-1. Is this still the case? That is kind of a deal breaker as I am doing 1:1 rips.

---edit 2-----
Notice a little further down you start talking about what decoder to use for vc-1. I think you are saying that out of the box wmc can't play vc-1, but if you make the changes (as per the post) it will play vc-1?

^ Thanks a lot renethx. I really appreciate all the help you've given me over the past week or 2.

Just to confirm, when you say: "MKV is played back in the DirectShow pipeline inside 7MC. So you don't have to worry about Media Foundation."

Are you meaning I don't even have to worry about disabling Media Foundation? That it is simply not used?

With reclock being a 32bit filter, I presume it is 'ignored' within wmc? Or should it be disabled to help avoid any issues?

I will give this a try when I get home. Even though it should be simple, I suspect I will come up with more questions.

Are there any disadvantages to using the wmc player vs. mpc-hc? I appreciate mpc-hc is more configurable and maybe can display/give you more info, but other than that?

So ReClock works with 7MC x86?

If I don't have bit-perfect audio, what exactly does or can that mean? Speaking 'in the real world' vs. 'scientific' type measurements, is not using ReClock realistically going to be noticeable to a guy watching a movie?

Why do you think 7MC x86 is greater than 7MC x64? Is it because of lack of support by software like ReClock?

And why mpc-hc > 7MC x86, again does it just come down to configurabiltiy or are there actual quality differences in terms of video/audio playback.

Are you using 7MC x64 or 7MC x86?

I see. This is going to be a pure htpc. In fact it will only be used to play bluray ripped 1:1 mkv's with flac (for HD audio) and ac3 for non-hd (backward compatibility).

Maybe the odd .mp4 file - which I converted from dvd rip to work with apple tv.

Think I might just start over and install win7 32bit. Really shouldn't take long to get back to where I am, as I don't have anything installed outside the htpc stuff - haali, ffdshow, madflac, reclock, etc.

If do go 32bit OS. Is the this statement still true? "MKV is played back in the DirectShow pipeline inside 7MC. So you don't have to worry about Media Foundation."

I just need to get this as plug and play as possible (using media browser) so that the wife and kids can use it and don't need to worry about stuff going wrong. Like when the external player doesn't close (even after hitting the 'exit' button that has been mapped to the remote).

With 7MC x86, can you do things like change/check the audio track being played? I can't even check right now as my cpu goes nuts and I struggle just to exit the movie.

So, if I interpret correctly, audio selection is not possible right now in 7MC x86? Is it possible to just check (not change) which track is playing (using dxva)?

Reality is, I am coming from apple tv, where I didn't have the ability to pick a chapter (or if I did, I didn't know how) or see/change an audio track.

I don't really care about picking a chapter. And the whole audio track thing is just so I can confirm the FLAC (HD) track is playing.

When I use mkvmerge I set the FLAC track first and also set it as default track = yes. So I really should be good. I just like to know for certain.

I will look into Media Portal. Though, I am so close right now with 7MC and Media Browser.

Either way, I think I will change to win7 x86.

Can 7MC do forced subtitles with dxva?

What setup do you actually run for your htpc? Media Portal?

^Crikey! I didn't realize you could create an iso with just the main movie.

I know PowerDvd can integrate right into WMC, but do you know how well powerdvd works with Media Browser? I see you can configure an external players for an iso.

But I guess that wouldn't be an integrated solution. I just don't want to lose the nice interface and backdrops you get with Media Browser. Guess I will have to create an iso and test.

On the plus side, I've got things working pretty smoothly now with Media Browser and MPC.

So you are basically saying that an iso just works, bitstream hd and all. No crazy configuration required?

Though I do like the fact with Mkv I can get just the movie, no menus, no fbi warning, etc. I will give an iso a try, but I think I've finally got things pretty good.

I think I am going to go through the effort of installing win7 32bit and try get wmc working well for me.

Just to clarify, if my mkv has chapters in it, will wmc use dxva? Is it just actually trying to select/change chapters that is not supported with wmc while using dxva? Or is it if my mkv has chapters, wmc will not use dxva?

Thanks.

So I take it you are win7 32bit? I know VC-1 will play out of the box, but my old athon 64 3200 just can't handle it.

So you are at 60% with no HA. I take it at that % there are no issue with cpu utilization 'spikes' cause any sort of slow down? I really don't want to spend a lot and the e6300 seems to be a decent price point. Still have to spec out a plain jane mb for it. Don't need fancy integrated audio or video, if possible to get one without. Have you tried overclocking your cpu and seeing where the cpu utilization is at?

There are just too many gottcha's with HA and WMC. No subtitles, no chapter selection, etc. Configure this, configure that.

Finally gave my htpc an official go this weeked with the family. It worked fine, but using mpc-hc as an external player (media browser) is a little awkward. On movie launch, you have to use a .bat file to close wmc or mpc will not take focus (making the remote useless). Upon exiting mpc, wmc will relaunch, but of course you are no longer where you left off when viewing the movie (the media browser movie details screen). You are at the media browser 'home' screen.

this is especially a pain when you want to watch more than one tv episode in a row. And even more so for me since I have parental controls enabled, and have to re-enter the code each time (for my TV-MA shows).

, I've already spent so much time on this.

What do you use for the re-encode to AVC? Is there any quality loss? About how long does it take to do the re-encode?

What do you use to build the subtitles (I am only interested in forced subs) into the image? I'm guessing this only works on the re-encode? Or is there a way to do it when creating the initial mkv (I currenlty use mkvmerge).

You are win7 32bit?

Thanks.

So I installed the e6300 last night. I see between 70-80% (no HA) on 1:1 (bluray) VC-1 mkv. Not terrible, not great. I only tested with one file (300) so far. Will probably play around with overclocking a bit tonight.

That said, I was easily able to get HA working for VC-1 in WMC. With HA cpu is at about 10-15%. Not sure what you tried and why it didn't work for you.

I simply registered the MPC Video Decoder.ax (can't remember the exact file name) and then in Win7DSFilterTweaker, set VC-1 playback to use MPC Video Decoder. Done.