wmv files created by Vista shows terrible ghosting under XP

[ambushed19]

I like using my Dell notebook running Vista SP1 for capturing from cable or DVR since my desktops (all running XP Pro SP2 or SP3) are too clumsy to move. I chose capturing to wmv since it consumes much less disk space per unit of time, and for certain projects (like this one), the final video need only be of medium quality.

The capturing went fine, and when I played the resulting wmv files, they played just fine also. There was no ghosting or other anomalies.

But I need to edit these files, and only my desktop has enough horsepower to support editing with my uLead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus. But when I copied the files to my XP box, the editor (and every player, from GOM to VLC to CyberLink PowerDVD to Windows Media Player) shows incredibly bad ghosting and weird color bars (which I suppose could also be ghosting) no matter what! So no matter what I use to play or edit these files under XP, the video is really terrible.

I also re-confirmed that they still play fine under Vista.

What the heck is going on and what can I do about it? Does XP have a different codec than Vista, and if so, how can I transfer it to XP? The source material is no longer accessible, so I can't start from scratch.

What a mess! I really need your help.

[poisondeathray]

Test other .wmv files (not originating from the Vista captured box), and other file types - do they exhibit the same problems?

Could it be a problem with your video card or driver display settings on the XP box?

[ambushed19]

Thanks, poisondeathray, for your reply. All other wmv files play correctly under XP. But not a single one that I captured under Vista plays correctly under XP (even though they play fine under Vista). Weird, isn't it?

Obviously, I won't capture that way in the future, but I really need to process and edit what I have already captured since the source is no longer accessible.

Here's some more data to work with: When I tried various video converters under XP to convert to another format/codec, I get terribly messed-up output (a gray background with people in a kind of bas relief). So it's not just the players, it must have something to do with a codec problem (would you agree?).

What I haven't tried yet is converting it under Vista. The think is I don't really like any of the converters I've already got, so I'm looking for an alternative. Can anyone recommend a very good one that's rather fast? I've got hours of video to convert, and my Vista laptop is only 2GHz processor speed.

[ebenton]

The processor clock speed of your laptop is not as important as how many instructions per second it can perform. A 2 GHz dual-core processor running Vista is faster than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 running XP.

[jagabo]

Check the width and height of your WMV files. Some players/graphics cards don't like certain sizes. Try encoding with a mod16 (even multiple of 16) size.

[poisondeathray]

What software are you capturing with?

Check mediainfo (view=>text) to see what characteristics your captured .wmv file has (it might give a clue)

Do you have WMP11 or Windows Media Format 11 SDK installed on the XP box ? (It should install the newest version of WMAudio and WMVideo Decoder DMO)

[ambushed19]

The processor clock speed of your laptop is not as important as how many instructions per second it can perform. A 2 GHz dual-core processor running Vista is faster than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 running XP.

Tha's good to know, but my desktops are all dual-core 3.0 GHz boxes, one of which (my media machine) uses RAID0 for extra speed. That's the one I much prefer for editing.

[ambushed19]

What software are you capturing with?

Vista Video Import (via 1394)

Check mediainfo (view=>text) to see what characteristics your captured .wmv file has (it might give a clue)

Do you have WMP11 or Windows Media Format 11 SDK installed on the XP box ? (It should install the newest version of WMAudio and WMVideo Decoder DMO)

I installed WMP11 again last night to ensure I've got the latest codecs and all. No change. And to jagabo, the size and width look okay.

As for MediaInfo (thanks for the tip!), here's the output:

Format : Windows Media
File size : 3.95 GiB
Duration : 2h 17mn
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 4 117 Kbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 4 163 Kbps
Movie name : Cou_Jun08_2
Encoded date : UTC 2008-09-06 07:15:44.560
Writing application : Windows ® Import Video 6.0.6001.18000
WM/VideoWidth : 720
WM/VideoHeight : 480
WM/DateAcquired : 128651690005580000
VMG/VideoCamera : AV/C Tape Recorder/Player

Video
Format : VC-1
Format profile : AP@L1
Codec ID : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Description of the codec : Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile
Duration : 2h 17mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 4 000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.500
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Resolution : 24 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.386

Audio
Format : WMA2
Format profile : L2
Codec ID : 161
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Audio 2
Description of the codec : Windows Media Audio 9.2 - 128 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo (A/V) 1-pass CBR
Duration : 2h 17mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz

[poisondeathray]

WMP11 should be able to play that, it's WVC1 or VC-1.

Were the other .wmv files you tested for playback successfully on the XP box WMV3 or WVC1 ?(use mediainfo look at CodecID)

If your XP box has codec packs or other junk installed on it, sometimes it changes the preferred decoder from WMVideo Decoder DMO to something else

Before you go formatting your PC and screwing around, to check if its NOT that, render the file with graphstudio to see which filters are being used

You can also download a recent Mplayer build from Lord Mulder's page. It has many different codecs in a separate directory (independent of your system codecs & filters), so it should be able to render the file
http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/home

If that doesn't work, maybe something is wrong with your display settings and/or graphics card drivers or settings

[ambushed19]

First, here's a jpeg of GraphStudio's output:

The video filter leg shows two boxes: ffdshow Video Decoder -> VMR input0 Video Render.

Did I do that right? Do you want some other info?

As for MPlayer, when I tried to install it, ZoneAlarm Pro blocked the process "ns126.tmp" from running (it was started by the installer). It thought it was malware. Should I over-ride and let it run, do you know?

[ambushed19]

Oh, forget the malware thing. Sorry. I see there's a discussion on the site which says they're false positives. Will install and run and report back.

[ambushed19]

Okay, MPlayer played the questionable files perfectly! This means that the codec that came with the full installation of MPlayer is the one I want, am I correct in that? Because the other players still don't play the files without ghosting.

Can you help me replace the system's codec with the MPLayer codec? I don't know what to do there.

Another issue now is that Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus will only show individual frames but it will not respond to any play buttons (it just sits there with nothing playing when I press any of them). Perhaps replacing the codec will fix that problem, too.

THANKS!

[jagabo]

Disable the WMV and VC1 decoders in ffdshow.

[poisondeathray]

The fact that Mplayer plays it fine means your XP box has conflicting filters/codecs.

If you just rendered it with graphstudio and it has all those filters, that means your system has a lot of "junk" on it. It is going through several unnecessary filters. You probably have a bunch of codec packs installed on there.

You can't just port Mplayer's codecs to install on your system. You have to do each one manually

VideoStudio probably relies on the same directshow filters required for MPC required to play it properly, so you would have to clean out your XP box.

I would uninstall all codecs, and just re-install the ones you actually need/use. In this case, just start windows media format 11 sdk. When you eventually need to play other file types, install ffdshow and haali media splitter (+/- real alternative and quicktime alternative if you play real media files and/or quicktime files)

[ambushed19]

Now we're getting somewhere! Huge thanks poisondeathray!

But I need more detailed instructions, newbie that I am. I downloaded and tried to install ffdshow following jagabo's advice, for instance, but I don't know what options need to be selected and de-selected. And I don't know how to "uninstall all codecs" and the rest.

May I ask for your help with that, too?

[poisondeathray]

For now, just turn off the WMV options as jagabo suggested. Use the ffdshow audio & video configuration accessed throught the start menu => ffdshow configuration and select "disabled" for VC-1 and all WMV related entries.

Now re-render the file in graphstudio, it should look like the previous screenshot I posted. If not, you may still have other filters that shouldn't be there, or the priority/merit is selected incorrectly. If everything is working ok, it should play and seek in MPC fine, and I'm guessing VideoStudio as well (not sure, don't use that one).

If it plays fine in MPC on the XP box, but VideoStudio still has problems, you might have to either save the video as uncompressed avi or frameserve using avisynth, then use that as input to VideoStudio (it might not be able to handle WVC1 streams directly; again, I'm unfamiliar with VideoStudio)

Eventually i suggest cleaning out your PC. e.g. If you have a codec pack installed, uninstall it. But try the steps above first

[ambushed19]

Wonderful! I left all the settings with their default values for ffdshow, and now GraphStudio's output matches your output (everything's simpler). The best news for me is that VideoStudio seems to be handling everything correctly, it plays in edit mode and there's no ghosting!

Weirdly, though, WMP11 and still shows ghosting and VLC just shows gray gibberish when I play it with those players, but GOM and MPlayer work fine. Obviously, I need to follow your advice to further clean up all my codecs.

I read years ago that installing most multi-codec packs are trouble, so it's been a long time since I tried installing one. And neither the super-great Revo Uninstaller or Add/Remove programs show any codec packs installed.

I'm sorry to ask to take still more of your valuable time, but could you direct me to instructions for clearing up my codecs? I really have no clue as to how to do that.

Hooray for poisondeathray!

[poisondeathray]

I don't know of any easy all-in-one method that is good for cleaning up your system codecs. The best way would be not install anything in the first place, except the ones you need.

One way is to go manually through the start menu and add/remove programs to uninstall each one (this assumes you know what you are looking for)

You could re-install a fresh copy of Windows to be 100% sure, not sure if you want to be that drastic

This is controversial, but another method is to install k-lite mega codec pack, then run the included codec tweak tool. This will detect all miscellaneous codecs and give you the option of registering it or deleting it. After it's run, you can uninstall the codec pack and the newest versions are actually good at removing most traces and unregistering .dlls.

After uninstalling all the codecs, you might want to run a registry cleaner like ccleaner

[jagabo]

Use FilMerit or Radlight FilterManager to remove all broken DirectShow codecs/filters.

[ambushed19]

Sorry to you both, but I'm in over my head in the effort to clean up my codecs. I might try the mega install/uninstall; I should be able to handle that, anyway.

The only comprehensible error message I got from FilMerit or Radlight FilterManager is: dll not found: advc.dll The rest had to do with audio echo canceling problems.

I guess I'm just too much of a newbie to figure this out, but I'll do some searching and see what I can find to help.

I'm calling it a day. but I want to thank the two of you one again for your invaluable assistance!

[jagabo]

Just delete any missing codecs in the DirectShow section of Filmerit. It sounds like you don't have many problems there now.

If you have Panasonic DV codec installed you should uninstall it. It has several bugs that can screw up your system. If you need a standalone VFW DV codec use Cedocida instead.