Black screen when playing video files in WMP11 and/or BSPlayer Pro 2.1 !?

[Videonator]

Hello everybody!

I have a problem with video not showing up when trying to play it in WMP11 and/or BSPlayer Pro 2.1. I have Cole 2K Media Pack installed with tons of codecs and everything, so all codecs are definitely there, but the question i ask myself lately is whether they are all too mixed up with BSPlayers,WMP11's and maybe PowerDVD's (which i also have installed) codecs?

Anyway...story so far...

Everything was ok until some 2 weeks ago, when suddenly i started having problems with video playback in BSPlayer which i mainly use for such purpose (watching movies,etc). It just didnt want to play/show wmv video as it should, with only black screen appearing with audio playing in background (which i know is generally video codec issue), and also it took looooooooong time to pre-buffer and still same result....audio playing but no video. AVI and other format played ok at that time. So...I tried to change some settings in player itself (buffer size and stuff) and also in the Cole Pack but there was even worse...way to hard to setup for me...with millions of settings all mixed up....Cole Cole... )))

Anyway...what happens now is...when i try to play avi or wmv in either of them...wmv still takes ages to prebuffer...and then it plays audio...and sometimes video too if i left everything intact from begining...i.e...if i do fast forward...and wanna watch from the middle of video or movie...it goes black screen...prebuffers again....and audiio plays but no video anymore. Almost same symptoms in WMP11...black screen with audio...also in WMP11 if i try to stream video (not just in wmv format i guess) from internet....there's just audio that plays...no video. And avi sometimes plays sometimes not...crazy...!??

To sum it up...i know there is probably just some setting to be changed...cause like i said...all was ok before. Orrrrr...I was thinking of removing codecs pack...and BSPlayer....and reinstall them or find some other better and not so complicated codecs and player (nicely packed in one all-in-one pack if possible).

So what do you guys and girls suggest i should do? I am really LOST. )

Otherwise, I use WinXP SP2 Updated till august...also all other files are updated regularly...like video, audio, directx files,...

Thank You in advance for all help and sorry for such long post (and it was the first one...so I really hope that the second wont look like one of Harry Potter books,hahaha).

THANKS!

Nick.

[mats.hogberg]

I have Cole 2K Media Pack installed with tons of codecs and everything

That's most likely your problem right there, yes. Try codec sniper to go hunting for bad/conflicting codecs. One codec pack once hosed my computer completely as far as video play back goes, and I never really got back on track until I reinstalled Windows. Lesson learned: When a file wont play, Identify what codec is used, and install that and only that codec, from a reliable source. (ffdshow alone will take you a long, long way)
You could try to play video with VLC - It doesn't rely on DirectShow filters/codecs.

/Mats

[jagabo]

Play a video in both players at the same time. Do you get a picture in one and not in the other? If so adjust your graphics card's overlay settings. Or update your drivres and adjust your overlay settings.

[Videonator]

Sorry for late reply - had connection problems, but thats fixed now.

Thank You guys for your advices! I appreciate that very much!

So back to the story...

I believe the problem is gone (at least for now). So what i did was (just as Mats suggested,btw.Thanks!)...I uninstalled Cole Codec pack cause its really one big mess anyway...too much various stuff mixed there...well lots of codecs and helping tools too maybe...at least until you dont touch anything or you run into problem similar to mine. So....uninstalled that...and also...hahaha...funny...just as jagabo suggested on the other hand...I gone to WMP's settings and unchecked "use overlay" setting (forgot to test on 2 players as jagabo said,sorry). And voila...it works...at least for now...so maybe it was just that overlay that was screwing all up, cause i tried to check it back...and picture gone away again with audio still playing... Butttttt...still strange cause i know i surely havent checked that setting by myself in first place!? Maybe some update caused that? Or was it done via some of Cole's software like ffdshow (which is also very complicated to setup properly)? Dont know...dont care...for now...

What I also did was to install AVS DVD Player, which i heard supports all the major codecs/formats, and best of all....its FREE....and no spyware or adware is included...can you imagine? Hahaha... And best of all...it WORKS!

Hmmm...and one more thing before i go....I just remembered that i used TV-out on my gr.card few weeks ago...and that i "played" with that "swap display mapping" setting in catalysts...to get video to play on tv but not here on the monitor (with WMP). Although from my knowledge...changing setting in catalyst cant just change setting in WMP too....or maybe this one can? But still...when i finished watching...i changed swapping back...so...ahhhhhhhhhhhh...nevermindddddddd....

Thanks once more for all your help guys!

[mats.hogberg]

just remembered that i used TV-out on my gr.card few weeks ago...and that i "played" with that "swap display mapping" setting in catalysts

Ah - Since overlay can only exist on one screen, maybe it's still set to your TV? That'd explain the "audio but no video", and that you get video when you disable overlay. Try to un-swap the display mapping in catalyst, and see if you get your video back using overlay.

/Mats

[jagabo]

You want to use overlay if at all possible. It offloads part of the video decoding (YUV to RGB conversion) and scaling to your graphics card. It also allows for TV output independent of the desktop window (the video playing in a window on the desktop can be full screen on the TV). The video can also use different brightness, contrast, and color settings than the desktop -- so you can adjust for the fact that computer monitors have different gamma curves than televisions.

If your player isn't working with video overlay enabled you should look through the graphics card's configuration applet and make sure the feature is enabled and make any necessary adjustments to the color, brigtness, contrast, etc. Or you may need to install newer drivers.

[itsu69]

Hi,

did you just update your video card drivers by any chance?

I just updated to latest ATI drivers and all videos suddenly play as black (though the audio is OK).

Maybe an ATI driver issue?

Cheers
Steve

[jagabo]

Both nVidia and ATI always seem to screw up the overlay settings when updating drivers. The solution is almost always to disable overlay, reboot, then enable overlay and reboot again.

[Videonator]

Latest updates regarding my video problems...


mats.hogberg - i see video now, and i also rechecked everything in catalysts to make sure overlay isnt set to my tv

jagabo & itsu69 - I have all the latest drivers installed...exept that i use catalyst 7.7, cause version 7.8 (which we all know has lots of bugs) caused all my smartgart settings (fast write,agp read,write,etc...),to be either set to OFF or greyed out (dont remember anymore), so i uninstalled them and put back 7.7's.
But what i just found out (while writing this reply), is, that if i set WMP to use overlay for video acceleration, screen goes black...and if i.e. i choose option below overlay (use high quality mode), video is seen normally. After that I also went to catalyst control center and checked some settings there....andddd....found that AVIVO Video Presets were set to CUSTOM...so i changed that back to where i thought it was before (to HOME).

And guess what? Now WMP plays movies in both modes (either Use Overlays or Use High Quality Mode)! God knows what that custom mode meant and how was it set (i believe it was set by ffdshow that i had installed before)?!

So now i really believe video problems are gone...Thank You All once more!!

Exept...hahaha...always some "problem" remains huh....that in BSPlayer when playing .wmv files, buffering still takes few seconds...and if i skip to i.e. middle of movie...it again takes few second to buffer...then audio is heard...and after next few seconds....video comes too....so i need to recheck players buffer options...and this problem will vanish too i hope..

Will let you know later if i succeed to set buffer or whatever is wrong in BSPlayer properly.

Meanwhile..have a nice day everyone.


EDIT :

Found solution for long buffering of wmv files in BSPlayer!

So anyone with similar problem can read this thread : http://bsplayer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6723&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=buffering&start=40

Some members there suggested to copy some 3 files info system32 folder and then re-register them in BSPlayer...but I managed to fix the problem with another solution someone there mentioned...that is...by going into Options > Preferences > Filter management > Filter Manager and to select each codec there, re-register it, and also run Update on every one of them.

And done...finally....video runs flawlessly now....wmv, mpg, avi...you name it...no long buffering....no wait while doing fast forward....nothing...just pure video with audio...i feel like it runs even faster now than it did before all these problems appeared....

Thanks to all one more time...cause i surely couldnt solve this if there werent your helping contributions to lead me along the "path to the non-black video"... 8)

Cya