Windows Media player

[Silent Warrior]

hi....for some odd reasons my player is acting wierd....now every time i open audio or video file it take very long to open file and it freezes off my computer for while...its pissing me off so much...does anyone know how to fix this problem? has anybody ever come accross this problem?

[Orethrius]

We're sorry, you've confused us for WinBBS.  A common mistake, I'll admit, but it won't gain any favors here.

On that note, if WMP is giving you crap, why not try Media Player Classic, Mplayer, or VideoLAN?  I've never had any freezing problems with any of those.  

[Calum]

hi....for some odd reasons my player is acting wierd....now every time i open audio or video file it take very long to open file and it freezes off my computer for while...its pissing me off so much...does anyone know how to fix this problem? has anybody ever come accross this problem?

yes indeedy i had this problem and similar ones several years ago, i changed my OS for red hat linux and installed mplayer and now it works fine.

let me know how this works for you.

[jtpenrod]

hi....for some odd reasons my player is acting wierd....now every time i open audio or video file it take very long to open file and it freezes off my computer for while...its pissing me off so much...

I imagine that that would. You do realize that Win-d'ohs Mediocre Player is spyware. Probably phoning home to report on what you've been playing on it. Takes awhile to report on large play lists.  :p

does anyone know how to fix this problem?

I sure do. First, go here: Evil Entity. Download the ISOs and prepare the install CD. Then install it by blowing away the Win part(s); you'll get xmms and MPlayer. You will never have that problem again.  

[JanusChrist]

Dump that bloated shit and get Zoom Player for your video and Foobar2000 for your music.

[muzzy]

I can recommend media player classic, too. Mpc has a far fewer problems, but the problem might not be with the player in this case.

If opening files into the mediaplayer stalls, the issue might be with some codec. Time the delay. If it's exactly 30 seconds or some other suspiciously round number, we have a winner. If you're feeling bold, you can get filemon and regmon from http://www.sysinternals.com and try to determine if there's some file/registry access from the app during the stalling. If there is, it will probably help you determine the codec responsible for lagging which can then be unregistered.

Obviously, debugging problems over the web is quite quite troublesome, issues like these are usually approached with a proper debugger, too, not just lightweight "maybe I'm lucky" debuggers. However, if the issues happen with every video player application you use, it's probably a codec issue.

[MrX]

IT is interesting because maximum PC March 2005 no-noed Media Player Classic, in their article 'digital media how-to' i bet next month they will be complaints about it published in the in/out section.

however, media player classic is a very light, fast, stable, useable open source media player. the best thing to do is:
download media player classic. now fecth the 'ffdshow'  alpha codecs. install these. now you have a media player that can play every single media file regardless. i use this setup on all windows computers i touch and it is the best and easiest solution.

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_players/media_player_classic.cfm
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow

hope this helps.

Mr X :beos:  :beos:

[muzzy]

mpc+ffdshow still can't play *every* media file. While mpc has lots of built-in filters, you'll still need more codecs for some files.

[Calum]

how come you're recommending an open source program, to replace a windows component, muzzy?

[Orethrius]

Just because he's a fascist dictator, that doesn't mean he can't be a benevolent fascist dictator!  

[muzzy]

It doesn't replace a windows component. The Media Player is just a wrapper application much like Internet Explorer is. The core is implemented using DirectShow. MPC and WMP both do the playback in very similar fashion, the filter graph generation differs and MPC allows more freedom over it. Additionally, mpc has some of the common filters as builtins, which it can take advantage of.

The core components responsible for video and audio management are untouched, they aren't replaced, and it's trivial to write a simple video player that uses the same engine that WMP uses.

[adiment]

I hate seeing people joiing this forum and posting their windows problems. I recommend Video Lan player for video and Winampfor video/audio.

Don't use windows media player...builtin DRM sucks.

mpc+ffdshow still can't play *every* media file. While mpc has lots of built-in filters, you'll still need more codecs for some files.

 
You still need codecs for all media players...don't expect for windows media player to download all codecs auto for you because it won't. MPC will play more media files than windows media player, windows media player won't open the intro videos from games (you know how they show all those cpmapny logos and crap at the start of games)

[Calum]

well i wouldn't recommend any of the AOL versions of winamp for a start, i'd recommend zinf since it natively supports mp3s *and* oggs and it's smaller and faster than the AOL winamps.

and re: wmp downloading codecs, does it download a divx codec for you nowadays or do you still have to find one and install it yourself?

[adiment]

well i wouldn't recommend any of the AOL versions of winamp for a start, i'd recommend zinf since it natively supports mp3s *and* oggs and it's smaller and faster than the AOL winamps.

and re: wmp downloading codecs, does it download a divx codec for you nowadays or do you still have to find one and install it yourself?

even though AOL owns Nullsoft, that doesn't mean winamp is now a shitty bloated AOL player. When you download winamp you don't see any AOL logo anywhere, no ads, no nothing...

or do you mean that AOL makes it's own winamp versions that are some kind of "special AOL versions" ?

Winamp is very stable, has internet radio/tv, skins, and doesn't use much ram. I would suggest itunes, but it uses twice the ram of winamp + helper service + itunes service (doesn't matter if you own an ipod)

:p

[Xeen]

why isnt this thread in the dumpster yet?