Video stuttering in VMC but perfect in WMP

[jonathancarty]

After 3 years of (virtually) trouble free use of watching video files on my Vaio XL-201 I have come across a weird problem.

I have a range of video files on my hard drive (.avi, .vob, .wmv and .mkv). 2 weeks ago the playback through VMC suddenly became jerky and stuttering. It is fine when not much is going on in the picture but as soon as the camera scans / objects move in the picture the playback becomes very jittery.

When playing the same file in WMP, playback is perfect.

I have updated all drivers, downloaded latest version of CCCP Codec Pack but still no luck.

Interestingly, I have a number of .wmv files (converted .mts files using Voltaic HD) which work perfectly in VMC.

My gut feeling is that something has changed in VMC or there is an additional process occurring which is interfering with .avi, .mpg. .vob and .mkv playback.

Has anyone else had similar probs and does anyone have any bright ideas??

Thanks

Jon

[Ai Haibara]

Do you mean VLC?

VLC uses its own internal codecs, so installing codecs (much less codec packs) won't really have an effect on its performance. It's possible, though, for the settings to become corrupt. Try going into the Preferences and use the "Reset Preferences" button. Or reinstall VLC, and choose to delete/reset the preferences when the installer gives you the option.

[redwudz]

Or he might mean Vista Media Center, though it's usually called Windows Media Center. But I would use VLC or other players myself. Or MPCHC player. If you do mean Windows Media Center, MS may have mucked it up with one of it's frequent updates. If you think that may be the case, try a restore to a date before the problems started and see if that fixes it.

BTW, codec packs often cause playback problems as they don't 'work and play well' with other installed codecs and can be a real problem to fix or uninstall. Not really advised for any purpose.

[jonathancarty]

Thanks

Sorry I wrote VMC as Vista Media Center.

I had a suspicion that it may have been an update that caused the problem. I will uninstall all updates back to when things were OK and report back.

I hear what you say about codec packs, I used to have ffdshow an haali istalled changed to CCCP on advice and to be fair it's been fine...... until now.

[lordsmurf]

I don't understand the sudden hard-on everybody is having with codec packs. Over on this site http://forums.techguy.org/72-multimedia it seems everybody is ******* up their computers daily with codec packs.

[jonathancarty]

Uninstalled all Windows updates back to before the problem started - no better.

Took out CCCP and put back ffdshow and haali but no difference. My gut instinct is there is a process running in Media Center which is ineterfering but not sure how to figure out what it is.

[John-Paul]

Awhile back my Windows XP media centre began stuttering on live TV all of a sudden. Tried alot of fixes, but eventually reinstalling direct.x corrected it (ATI Radeon card though).