HowTo: MKV/OGM/MP4 Support in Vista RC1
Posted by Jaymz, September 5th, 2006 in Anime, Software, Tech, WindowsThis post has been superseded by a much better one. I’ve left this post here for redirection and archival purposes. Please follow the white rabbit to my newer MKV/OGM/MP4 support guide.
As you may or may not be aware, Windows Vista RC1 is upon us! I just spent a short while dicking around with the registry to get MKV/OGM/MP4 support in Media Center, and to optionally display thumbnails of said videos in Explorer. So, without further ado, here’s how to get the shit up and running.
- CCCP Purojekuto ni Youkoso! Download the latest CCCP Project. It’ll fail the first time, but Vista should rerun it, and fool it into thinking it’s XP. Untick the option for the Windows Media 9 VCM (you already have it installed). Personally, I don’t install their copy of MPC - I do that myself - but feel free to do whatever.
- When installing, try not to allow the CCCP project to dick with your file extension settings, and leave it all default (ie, in the hands of WMP). Do this later yourself within Media Player Classic (’sif ZoomPlayer).
- Don’t use Haali Splitter for AVI files. Use it for everything else.
- Execute these following registry files:
mkvfile.reg
mp4file.reg
oggfile.reg
Be warned - these files WILL overwrite your file association settings, and make WMP the default. I did my best to make this non-C drive specific (my Vista install is on V:), so hopefully things shouldn’t screw up terribly. - Execute WMP at least once.
- (Optional, but preffered) Run your favorite copy of Media Player Classic, and set all the extensions back to MPC. Stick it to Mikkkro$oft! Yeah! Doing it this way still ensures that a). You can still have pretty XP-ish icons and thumbnails if you choose to use that feature, and b). The shit still works in Media Center, and pretty much any other Direct Show capable player as if they had native support in the beginning. I don’t know what would happen if you let CCCP’s installer set associations. Possibly something bad.
- (Optional) Under Start Menu > All Programs > Combined Community Codec Pack, select Media Splitter Settings. From here, select the Options tab, expand Explorer integration, and select Enable thumbnails extraction, and set this to Yes. You can also try setting Thumbnails offset to something like 9650, but I found this to not work for me. If you have a need to wipe the thumbnail cache, it can be found in
<drive>:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer as a series of .db files. - (Optional) While you’ve got that Media Splitter dialog box open, you might want to also expand Compatibility, select Autoload VSFilter, and set that to Yes. Why? Because softsubs won’t work in Media Center without it. You can also expand Languages, and set the Audio language priority to jpn, and Subtitle language priority to eng, but this almost never works for me in Vista or XP. Maybe someone can provide me with the magic utterings one must scream on the eve of a full moon to get working language priority in Haali Media Splitter.
- (Optional) If you’re the obsessive compulsive type like me, you can use the images for your favorite UNLICENSED animu from AniDB and name it folder.jpg in your animu series folder. You can also make it not appear (more obsessive compulsiveness) in your animu’s folder, by opening a command prompt, CD’ing into that directory, and typing:
attrib +s +h folder.jpg
Go read a book or something to learn how to use more DOS commands. - ????????
- Profit!
So there you have it. Your favorite non-Microsoft endorsed media file containers operating as if Vista loved them like a red headed stepchild all this time. For the really nitpicky people, I even included support for OGG and MKA (despite not possessing any files of those formats myself). I may be inclined to update this in future for more bizarre formats, and installation methods for them.. but that should get us animu fags out of the woods for now.
8 Responses to “HowTo: MKV/OGM/MP4 Support in Vista RC1”
Leave a Reply
Search
About
Hello and welcome to Respect Sakura, yet another shitty blog under the premise of being an animu blog, when it's really just about Jaymz's tech leanings, spending habits and crack-inspired ramblings on topics noone cares about. Oh, and that other guy posts stuff sometimes, too.
Please be warned that this site may contain strong language, adult themes, and sexual discussion about characters that may appear underage but are really over 18, and anything that may look or sound illegal really isn't, you just imagined it because your mind is sick and twisted, and it ain't my fault so don't you dare blame that shit on me son.
GamerTags
You may notice an abudnance of &nsbp; tags in my post. That entire post was written with Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer, some kind of blog updating tool to promote their crappy MSN^H^H^HLive Spaces service, but can also be used for other blogosphere sites and services. Non-breaking space tags aside, the HTML it produces is relatively clean, and it has a pretty cool preview function as well. It can even upload stuff as a draft, and not publish it straight away, and generally supports everything you can do from WordPress’s own post page.
In any case, I’ll most likely use it whenever dicking with Vista, and feel the need to post from there.. but I’ll mostly do it the old fashioned way - pure HTML from WordPress’s post page.
Just a quick couple of updates to what’s written above.
First, the thumbnail offset option doesn’t do dick. Explorer now uses other methods to obtain thumbnails from video files, so to disable them, you’re going to have to do that from Folder Options (found in the Control Panel under Appearance and Personalization, or from the Organize menu in any Explorer window). You can also get rid of the little icon to the side from your thumbnails as well from the same place, if you choose to keep the thumbnails.
Second, it’s best to install MPC via CCCP’s installer after all, otherwise Vista will bug the everliving shit out of you for daring to run an executable that you downloaded from some webpage. In regards to changing the file associations, this has to be done from Explorer by right clicking on the file in question, going to Open With, and selecting Choose Default Program… and going from there.
Third, having Nero’s video decoders (comes with the Nero Vision Express installer) installed will cause Media Center to shit bricks and crash whenever looking at most MKV files. It seems fine with MP4, and most of my other various formats.. but something about my MKV files makes it spit the dummy. I’m guessing it’s some kind of drama between Nero’s AAC audio decoder and VobSub within MKV’s. WMP and MPC have no problems with these files, and Explorer generates the thumbnails just fine as well.
Wow!
Fianlly, after 2 days of searching, I found a great explanation on how to do it!
I downloaded probably over 100 different files and went to hundreds of different sites to find how to play mkv and other files via windows media center. And here it is!!!
Thank you so much! Simple… perfect!
Thanks for the thanks! :v:
I’ve actually delved more into getting this going with certain things, and tweaked the registry keys a little further as well, in addition to getting MPC playing better under Vista than it currently does (in addition to resolving subtitle issues, etc).
So once I get my hands on RC2, I’ll be rewriting this post, or possibly make a new one with pretty pictures included, and try my best to ensure compatibility with RC1, 5728, and RC2 as well.
The basic fix to allow Media Center to play back MKV’s and other obscure formats is actually in two forms: Setting the perceived type registry key to video, and adding in the permissions section to allow Media Player to play back those files. It doesn’t matter what they’re associated to, what you call them, or how they’re interpreted by Windows Explorer - just as long as WMP11 is “permitted” to play them back, and Explorer “perceives” them as video files.
The mkv are working now but without sound. Any ideas?
Depends on what audio codec is in the MKV, and what you have installed. I know that the version of NeroVision Express that comes with Nero 6 would cause all sorts of unholiness and evil to occur when installed under RC1.
Does it play under Media Player Classic? If yes, then go to the File menu, select Properties, click on the Details tab, and see what’s listed under Audio. Then we’ll know what audio codec it’s using, and should be able to troubleshoot further.
I look forward to your next update about Vista RC1/2 and getting the thumbnail support to work in MCE and Explorer. I didn’t have much luck with your last tutorial but I suspect I may have been partly my fault ;-) I have grabbed RC2 off MSDN but have not as of yet installed it. Let us know how it goes with updating the tweaks needed!
Updated. Pay no attention to anything in the above post.. the new visual edition should be the only guide you need.