[SteelWill]

I can not for the life of me get my HTPC to stream .avi files without entirely downloading/buffering the file first. IE wants to download to a temp folder first instead of just opening & playing it, and WMP11 just seems to hang while I assume it's trying to buffer the whole thing when I try to stream it with a Firefox plugin. I can play .avi files fine once they're downloaded, but it'd be nice for them to actually stream. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[BigLan]

I guess this is an xvid or divx file, in which case you'll most likely have to download the whole thing. VLC might be able to stream it, but wmp11 won't.

 

[SteelWill]

Well I tried the very same thing on my Vista/WMP12 PC and it worked so I was hoping it would work on my HTPC. I tried VLC and it would start to play but wouldn't do a good job. It'd play the first second or two, stop playing for a while, start playing again skipping all the video it passed while stopped, stop again, etc. I also tried Media Player Classic and it behaved like WMP seeming to want to buffer the entire file.

 

[dan4081]

I had the same problem. This fixed it for me:


"If you are having any problems opening video links in Internet Explorer 7

such as Windows Media Player will not open when you click a video link. There is a very easy fix and you don't need to uninstall anything just change a simple setting and

you should not have any more problems. So close Internet Explorer and go to

Control Panel and open Default Programs. Then click on Set Program Access and

Computer Defaults then click Continue. Now click the dot in Custom and click

the down arrows next to Custom. Now choose Internet Explorer as your default

web browser and then scroll down to default media player and you guessed it

choose Windows Media Player as your defualt media player. Then click OK. You

should now be able to open video links in Internet Explorer and Windows Media

Player as usual. Now if you happen to go back into default programs and set

program access you will see that everything looks as though it is back where

it was and your settings have been canceled but they have not been canceled.

You will still be able to open videos. For some reason the settings look like

they were never changed but they are changed until you physically change them

again."

 

[SteelWill]

I found that previously and tried it but it still doesn't fix .avi files for me. And I also discovered that while .mpeg & other files will stream, some don't play correctly if I click the link in IE. WMP will open and start to play but they will be green and blobby and not load all the same filters as opposed to if I download them first. I don't know, maybe my system is borked somehow, but I've combed through settings & filters & everything else I know of and all of that looks right. My Vista PC with WMP12 is doing all this just fine.

 

[dan4081]

Hmmm, very strange. I was having the same problem where all of a sudden avi files would always download to a temp file instead of just streaming. The above fixed it for me.


When I get home from work I will try to find the other info I had that may help you. (btw, my issue was with Vista and wmp11)

 

[Firefed]

Have you tried using a Media Sharing Utility that is optimized for streaming video such as TVersity??