HELP! Windows Media can't stream MPEGs anymore

[eman2003]

hi,

As some of you may know, a lot of NLEs and video editing software messes around with the windows mpeg decoders/apis and such.

Well after I installed a couple of these NLE/video encoders, I can't stream MPEG-1 files from the web anymore. Before, I could go to a webpage, click an .mpeg file (mpeg-1 100%) and Windows Media would take over and start streaming the video.

Now it just opens and says connecting using 95% of CPU and I have to terminate the software... it never plays the video. I know one of these programs messed up my WMP and I'm pissed. I installed Vegas Video & MainConcept MPEG encoder, Premiere and Adobe Encoders, Procoder & Cinemacraft. My bed is on the MainConcept that screwed me up.

Anybody know how to get rid of this problem? Again there's no errors or page faults. Just WMP freezes on streaming mpegs. downloaded mpegs playing off HDD are fine. Anyway to put back the default Windows MPEG Decoder ?

Help!

Thanks

[donkey_puncher]

Man I have the exact same issue. I think mine has to do with the installation of WinDVD 5. I tried uninstalling it and that didn't fix my problem. Did you ever figure out a way to fix this. I do not want to have to reinstall windows.

[migf1]

This makes us three guys! I have the very same problem with Adobe Premiere 6.5 (on Win98SE).

A wild guess for fixing it is to try re-installing the Windows default video-compresion (Control panel->Windows Setup->Multimedia->Video compression), but I don't know if that fixes the problem... haven't tried it, since I'm not a great video-streaming fan and I CAN certainly live without it.

But if you try it and it works, drop us a note.

Regards...

[donkey_puncher]

It appears that your instructions are for Windows 98 or Windows ME. With Windows XP the windows setup is located in CONTROL PANEL>ADD REMOVE SOFTWARE>ADD REMOVE WINDOWS COMPONENTS>

But there is no Multimedia section in there any longer. Windows media player is still in there, but I've already tried reinstalling WMP 9 and that didn't help. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Any other ideas?

[migf1]

Sorry for the confusion dpuncher, I was indeed refering to Win9x, since I refuse to instal XP on my system (tried them for a couple of weeks and threw them away ).

Regards...

[donkey_puncher]

Why no XP?

[migf1]

Why no XP?

For some little and not so little things. For one thing, nVidia's detonators drivers were working better for me on Win98SE, at least until version 40.75 (last time I checked). In particular, version 30.82 is the last one which let me disable nVidia's TwinView (via a registry modification) which in turn let me play smoothly Virtual Pool 3 and Carom3D (these are two games of billiards). Then it is my MS Sidewinder Forcefeedback Pro stick, which is not fully supported by XP (no drivers). Besides that, I don't like at all the fact that XP do not let you enter DOS before they get started. One reason for using DOS before XP is to cleanup system files that get infected by viruses (i.e. with F-Prot, a DOS based antivirus program). Also, DJgpp (a very powerful, free C and C++ compiler) doesn't really like NTFS... actually it only "feels" perfectly happy on Win9x systems.

Of course, XP do have advantages over Win9x but for my personal use they seem like getting overcome by their disadvantages.

I know eventually I have to use XP (or their succesor) but I postpone it as long as I can. Even then, I may choose Windows 2000 (or their sucessor).

Regards...

[CogoSWSDS]

I am also running 98SE...You are supposed to be able to set XP up to dual-boot. It'll then ask you which OS you want to boot - XP or the other OS (Win98/ME/Linux, etc.) Don't ask me how to do this, I don't really have any XP experience... Try searching the Micro$oft knowledge base if you want more info or ask an XP guru on here...

CogoSWSDS

[migf1]

[snip]
You are supposed to be able to set XP up to dual-boot. It'll then ask you which OS you want to boot - XP or the other OS (Win98/ME/Linux, etc.)
[snip]

Dual boot (between Win9x and XP) requires that you have at least one partition/hard-disk formated as FAT32 (for Win9x) and another one formatted as NTFS (for XP). Now, when booting from Win9x (FAT32) the NTFS partition/hard-disk becomes completely unusuable, since Win9x cannot recognize it... so you cannot for example scan it for viruses, or even save files on it.

The other way around works ok, because XP recognizes both FAT32 and NTFS partitions/hard-disks.

In my point of view, the dual-boot solution is more messy than helpful since, besides the above, you waste space for installing same programs twice under different OSs (Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and your favorite antivirus program for example -you need them on both OSs).

Regards...

[donkey_puncher]

I spent a lot of time looking through Microsoft's knowledge base to try and figure out how to fix this streaming problem and still couldn't come up with anything. There has to be a way you can "reset" your mpeg codecs or at least go back to the defaults.

[arcorob]

Your answer should be here

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2fsupport%2fmediaplayer%2fwmper%2fwmp80040255.asp

I believe its item #3 (you have corrupted the codec) but follow the troublshooting

I have mainconcept, (Vegas, Premier, et) and it has not overlayed my codec however, I run XP. That makes it a bit more stable

Good luck. That should fix it for you

[RabidDog]

win/xp works as happily with fat32 as it does with ntfs, so you can dual boot and keep all parts fat/32. I used to use win/xp in exactly this manner until I got seduced by the benefits of ntfs (better use of space, faster, better defrag). vitual pool 3d is a billiards game! christ billiards is boring enuff against a human opponent.
billiards program:
start
hit white on white
hit white on black
goto start

[migf1]

win/xp works as happily with fat32 as it does with ntfs, so you can dual boot and keep all parts fat/32.

I know... I have already pointed that out in my original post. The other way around is the one that doesn't work (booting from Win9x and working on NTFS partitions/hard-disks).

I used to use win/xp in exactly this manner until I got seduced by the benefits of ntfs (better use of space, faster, better defrag).

So very true! However I never claimed that Win9x is a better OS than WinXP. I stated that for my personal needs it gives me more troubles than solving them. There are other thnigs also, which I didn't find neccessary to mention: for example, personally I'm not interested in complete movie ripping, so the 4Gb limit of FAT32 doesn't really bother me for the moment (I just copy scenes I like, join them together with MSP7 or Premiere and output them to VCDs just to watch them from time to time). All these are just my personal preferences/needs, not a final judgement on which OS is generally better or worse.

vitual pool 3d is a billiards game! christ billiards is boring enuff against a human opponent.
[snip]

Hehehe... the truth is that playing billiards is a far more complicated task from the procedure you described. Sometimes you don't even need an opponent (human or non-human) in order to find satisfaction. There are... zillions of strokes that give you satisfaction by just managing to make them. And Virtual Pool 3 is by far the most realistic billiards simulation on the PC platform (btw, it implements about 20 different games). Anyway, we are out of topic here

Regards...

[donkey_puncher]

Your answer should be here

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2fsupport%2fmediaplayer%2fwmper%2fwmp80040255.asp

I believe its item #3 (you have corrupted the codec) but follow the troublshooting

I have mainconcept, (Vegas, Premier, et) and it has not overlayed my codec however, I run XP. That makes it a bit more stable

Good luck. That should fix it for you

Thanks for the tip. I will check it out. However, it seems to imply that this fix is for Window 98/ME. I am running XP and I don't think I can uninstall media player.

[donkey_puncher]

I will bump this thread until I get this issue fixed. lol I'm bald I've pulled so much hair out.