Windows 7’s new “play all” decoders, encoders and transcoding capabilities

[NormCameron]

Windows 7’s new “play all” decoders, encoders and transcoding capabilities

Windows 7’s new “play all” decoders, encoders and transcoding capabilities

"If you have had any theories Microsoft was conspiring with the media conglomerates to protect their interests and not the user’s, throw them in the bin, pour jet fuel and remotely detonate them since Microsoft can’t be any bolder than building in DivX and Xvid native support in Windows 7. Yes, all your favorite Family Guy episodes will play in Windows Media Player. Yes I’m looking at you. You may have also heard there’s also native H.264 and AAC support. But that’s not all. After all, decoding is only one part of the equation.

In a presentation titled “Video Improvements In Windows 7” at WinHEC 2008, Microsoft also revealed new encoding and similarly transcoding capabilities in Windows 7. The new “Media Foundation” decoders are as follows,

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In Windows 7, encoding is extended to widely adopted MPEG-4 and 3GPP standards with H.264 video and AAC audio encoders built in, on top of the WMV, WMA and MP3 encoders built-in to Vista today - after all, hardly anyone uses Windows Media outside of the Microsoft ecosystem. Speaking of which the Zune even supports H.264 and AAC natively.

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Bear in mind however these encoders are not a replacement for commercial alternatives. The limitations include simple profiles, maximum bitrate and resolutions.

With this new pool of decoders and encoders, Microsoft’s also doing some building in some interesting transcoding (decoding and re-encoding from one format to another) technology in Windows. From what I can at least gather from the presentation, transcoding is actually built right into the Windows 7 shell. That is, if you drag and drop a video from your desktop to your portable media player, the conversion will happen automatically. Personally, anything that removes unnecessary third-party bloatware to add content to portable devices gets my vote.

Microsoft also recognizes that software transcoding is less than ideal - a movie will usually take hours, so Windows 7 will also support a new breed of dedicated hardware transcoders which could ideally become a standard motherboard chipset feature.

Windows 7’s new “play all” decoders, encoders and transcoding capabilities - istartedsomething
"

 

[mansrm81]

Good read Norm.

I liked that you didn't have to download any codecs to play videos.

 

[z3r010]

I did find that xvid playback was pretty poor with the built in codec but at least it's there.

 

[swarfega]

I wouldnt imagine the need for the likes of free-codecs.com will vanish with the release of Windows 7 since people will probably want better quality.

 

[NormCameron]

so Windows 7 will also support a new breed of dedicated hardware transcoders which could ideally become a standard motherboard chipset feature.

That's my favourite bit

 

[z3r010]

If I get chance later I will check out how well it handles streaming various formats to my 360 extender

 

[hdjunkie]

I've been playing xvids, and divx shows/movies for the past couple weeks with my 360 but I've been unable to play mkvs. The video plays (sometimes studders) but I can't get any sound. (dts, ac3, dd5.1, or anything else).
Has anyone had success streaming mkvs to the 360?

 

[Emptysoul]

My only problem with this is that you now no longfer have any control over codecs being used in WMP12 and MC. For example, a lot of my of my DVD rips have quite low volume so I use FFDShow to boost the volume slightly. Now Windows doesn't even use FFDShow so I can't do this.

 

[johngalt]

For the average user, though, simplicity is the key - they just want a couple of simple steps for their videos to play.

Those that are into high quality renders, those that manually edit videos already, and those that want complete control will still be using third party solutions.

I mean, come on - Win XP had CD burning capabilities - how many of us used no other solution? It had Windows Defender available as a DL and was installed by default in Vista - sis most of us not use a 3rd party AV suite?

M$ can and *will* only provide limited support for some things, and for those things we will continue to use better, more robust 3rd party solutions.

 

[Emptysoul]

But if you want to use Media Centre then you CAN'T use third party codec solutions because (as far as I can see) there is no way to turn off the inbuild support in WMP12. If there was then it wouldn't be an issue. It's perfectly possible for MS to maintain out-of-the-box functionality for ordinary users yet still allow power users to keep control over how their media is rendered.

Hopefully this will be addressed in later releases.

 

[TripOG]

i think its great, with my having an old computer the less stuff i have to download and run to play videos the better. i just wish they would let me add mpegs and what not to the windows media player library

 

[johngalt]

But if you want to use Media Centre then you CAN'T use third party codec solutions because (as far as I can see) there is no way to turn off the inbuild support in WMP12. If there was then it wouldn't be an issue. It's perfectly possible for MS to maintain out-of-the-box functionality for ordinary users yet still allow power users to keep control over how their media is rendered.

Hopefully this will be addressed in later releases.

I am using the Vista Codec Package without a problem in W7, and Media Center is even playing my Matroska files....

i think its great, with my having an old computer the less stuff i have to download and run to play videos the better. i just wish they would let me add mpegs and what not to the windows media player library

You need to add them to your video library....

More specifically, add the folders containing your video files to the videos library.

 

[TripOG]

I am using the Vista Codec Package without a problem in W7, and Media Center is even playing my Matroska files....



You need to add them to your video library....

More specifically, add the folders containing your video files to the videos library.

i have it wont add them, i have them in my videos library folder it searchs nothing adds then i drag and drop em into my wmp library and nothing happens.

 

[johngalt]

Can you play them in WiMP if you manually open the file using File --> Open?

 

[TripOG]

windows media player will play the files it just wont add them to the library, why does it add them to your windows media player library?

 

[johngalt]

weird - all folders I have added to my library show up just fine in WiMP....

 

[TripOG]

weird - all folders I have added to my library show up just fine in WiMP....

can you confirm that it will add a mpeg/mp4 file to your library?
im curious to know if its something on my end or if its just not supported..

 

[Emptysoul]

I am using the Vista Codec Package without a problem in W7, and Media Center is even playing my Matroska files....

Yes, if a codec isn't natively supported by WMP12 it will use other installed codecs to render the video. i'm not disputing that. However, the problem is now you have no choice but to use Microsofts own built in codecs (if they support the media you are playing).

One prime example of why this is a bad idea is that there is a well known bug in the AC3 codec which means that most AVI's encoded with this audio stream suffer from very low volume. To get around this you can use applications like FFDShow to boost the volume. Now this is no longer possible from what I can see. WMP12 (and WMC) will always use the in build decoder for AC3 which offers zero configuration options.

Also, applications like FFDShow are invaluable for post-processing a video to make the image sharper etc. Now if I want to get the most out of my videos I cannot use Media Centre.

Yes, out of the box support for lots of different media types is a great thing, but it shouldn't be at the expense of choice.

 

[johngalt]

OK, so we have two items going on in this thread - rather than search for myself, will

TripOG send me a link to an MPEG or other file that will not show up in the Libraries? I already have one that I converted from a 3gp to mpg and it shows just fine in my libs, so I wnat to test with a virgin file....

EMptysoul send me a link to an AVI with AC3 sound that I want ot try in WiMP and MC to see if my VCP or if hte original codec gets used....Obviously the sound should be a key feature, right?

 

[persuasive]

Windows 7 really sucks when compared with video/flash playback in Vista. go for a search "pixelated video in Windows 7" and then u will know what Im talking about. I can play DVDs and HD Videos without any codecs, same with "W7Codecs" and "KLiteCodec" installed. Whenever u try to play a Divx or Xvid, or flash in any browser, it is pixelated, blurry or whatever u name it, just cant compare with Vista. Rest, I like all the features of Windows 7 and I see great improvements. And I tried some solutions like, installing Vista64 drivers of Nvidia, installed new driver for Windows 7 64, but no luck guys.