Going crazy over DV-AVI playing - PLEASE HELP!!!!

[gsamokhleb]

For the past 3 days I've been trying to figure out why Windows 2000 is suddenly having trouble with DV-AVI files. When I attempt to play a DV-AVI file in any media player it plays the first two seconds or so normally, and then begins to jitter and slow down until it reaches a speed of 6-8 frames per second instead of the normal 29-30. The file then plays awfully slow, and takes up 100% of the CPU. Whatever the problem is also affects capturing via firewire from a DV Camcorder. The first second or two are captured normally, but then lots of frames start dropping (although it is fine in Preview while not capturing).

Before when everything was fine Windows 2000 was always to play DV files without any trouble right from the start after a clean install. I tested Windows 2000 on another computer with Generic Microsoft VGA drivers, DirectX 7.0, and Direct3D/DirectDraw both disabled. DV-AVI files would still play absolutely fast and fine (although with crappy colors obviously).

I have tried everything that I could possibly think of to determine the problem or to rule things out. On the same computer (a Dell Inspiron 8200) everything works absolutely fine in Windows XP, so the problem is not hardware related (ie - nothing is physically damaged).

Even though I've figured out Windows 2000 doesn't really need any DirectX features or any real drivers to play DV-AVI at full speed, I still tried different DirectX versions. I've re-installed Win2000 several times using DirectX 8.1 and 9.0a. I've also tried different versions of the drivers for the video card. I've also checked the BIOS but there was nothing helpful there. I can't think of anything else to try.

So to summarize, I've ruled out the following:
It's not a hardware problem because everything works fine in Windows XP.
I dont think it's DirectX because DV works fine on another Win2000 computer with DirectX 7.
I dont think it's Direct3D or DirectDraw because it also works fine on another Win2000 comptuer with both of those things disabled.
I dont think it's the video drivers because I've tried different versions and Generic VGA drivers seem to work fine on the other computer too.
THe problem is not in too many processes running. All unnecessary services are off and no applications are on. Only the 13 or so mandatory Win2000 processes are on.
The answer is also not in any Windows 2000 service packs because I have NEVER EVER used any service packs and everything was just fine.

I suspect the problem MIGHT have something do with DirectShow but I have no clue as to how do go about solving that or even checking if that's the problem. This is getting really annoying and frustrating now. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Pentium 4 1.8 Ghz
512 MB RAM

[bugster]

Have you mad sure all Anti-Virus software is disabled when you try to play the file?

[racer-x]

How about codecs? you may have too many installed. How clean is your clean install? If you used an Image to restore W2K, and had the same conflicting codecs in that image, the you also restored the same problems.

[gsamokhleb]

No, neither is the problem. Like I said, it's a perfectly clean install of Win2000. There is no antivirus software (and when there was it still wasn't a problem), and there arent any codecs other than the ones made by the Windows installation.

[bugster]

Well, in that case it sounds like a disk access problem. I guess you have dula boot Yp/2k. Does copying a large file in 2k take longer than in XP? If so it may be a disk driver problem. Check in device manager that your HD is set to the same DMA mode as it is in XP.

[gsamokhleb]

Nope, it's not a disk problem. I'm sure of it.

[Prospero424]

I really don't have much experience with DV, but you might want to double check how DirectShow is decoding and rendering it. I don't know if Gspot supports DV or not, but I know ffdshow has it's own built-in DV decoder. You might give that a try.

/stumped if it's not a disk access issue


Prospero

[catnip1]

I don't know if this will help or not but it might be worth looking at:
http://ogo.nerim.net/reclockfilter/. This is in the tools section.

Good luck,
D. E.

[Gazorgan]

What has happened most likely is the display format changed. I had this happen on me with the post-processing filters in FDDShow. Basically it was like putting DivX on a quality of 5 (which no computer can display).

Sounds like you are trying to realtime process the video to display it, which can't be done for DV on your box. What it really means is you are using the wrong codec/player to see it. You have a conflict or an overwrite. I know you don't wan't to hear this, but you changed something right before it went bad, you just need to remember what. Updating to Directx 9.0b (to avoid the security bugs in 9.0a) cost me my sound card and video drivers, took an hour to fix.