Re: Playing video with IrfanView

Terry Pinnell wrote:
Ron Hunter <rphunter@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:
Does anyone here have a good grasp of how IV plays video files please?
There are 4 settings: 2 options in the main IV window, under
Options|Properties|Video/Sound.
1) Use external player (IV_Player PlugIn required!)
2) Use internal video/sound player

And if you click the Options icon in the 'Irfanview Multimedia Player'
window (only accessible while a video file is open), then there are
also 2 options:
Play videos/sounds through:
A) MCI interface
B) Microsoft Media Player interface (recommended)

So that makes 4 possible combinations.

But I sometimes get very odd results if Media Player is chosen (i.e.
combination 1B or 2B). With *some* WMV files, it plays only the audio,
no video. Yet WMP 10 does play video and audio on those same files!

I have the WMV plug-in installed, because under Help|Installed Plugins
there is an entry VIDEO.DLL near the bottom which includes WMV. But is
this to handle WMP? And is WMP the 'external player'? What exactly
then is the 'internal player', and the 'MCI interface'?

Also, all my videos are now opening with their left sides cut off.
Maximising and restoring the window size fixes that, but plainly there
is something wrong here!

Any comments gratefully received please. It would also be interesting
to know which of those settings 4 is used by others.

Irfanview uses plugins to play videos. In addition, the OS uses codecs to decode the video compression scheme used. You MUST have current codecs to match what was recorded to play back the video. Keep plugins updated with each Irfanview version, and keep your OS codecs updated often.

Thanks. As mentioned, plug-in is installed. (Or are there others
relevant, apart from the one I described?).

Codecs are something of a black art to me. I have scores (as listed by
programs like GSpot and AVIcodec, etc.) How in practice do you 'keep
your OS codecs updated'?

I use a file I get from majorgeeks. I believe it is called: XP Codec Pack. Look for the latest version, download, and install. Quick and painless. Note that new codecs are being developed and used, all the time, so it is a constant effort to keep updated so you can play all the clips.
.

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