I'm looking for some confirmation that my assumptions are correct, and hopefully a solution to the following.
I'm trying to play some old wmv files through Windows Media Player. These are files that all played fine on my nine year old laptop, but flicker on my nine day old laptop.
GSpot has the following to say about one of these files:
(Container):
--- File Type: ASF (.WMA/.WMV)
--- Mime Type: video/x-ms-asf --- File Length Correct
--- Sys Bitrate: 376 kb/s
(Proposed Codec):
--- Src -> DMO:WMVideo Decoder DMO -> Video Renderer
If I turn off DirectX via Display->Settings->Advanced->Troubleshoot->Hardware Acceleration it does not flicker in Windows Media Player.
DirectX is up to date on this machine. All OEM drivers are up to date. I tried to update the graphics driver via the Intel site but I can't get around their Java detection tool, which does nothing on my machine except say "Running".
My Windows Media Player is v9. I don't want to update it because it will bring with it all kinds of stuff I don't want (I updated a webcam driver from Microsoft and it installed 330MB of stuff!).
In mplayer, it selects the following codec to play the video, which seems to be the same as that GSpot suggests, but in mplayer there is no flicker:
Selected video codec: [wmv9dmo] vfm: dmo (Windows Media Video 9 DMO)
My surmise is that it is the codec that Windows Media Player is using to play back the files that is causing the flicker (because they play in other players). Is this a reasonable assumption?
If so, can anyone tell me how to update these codecs? As I say, I don't want to update the whole Windows Media Player.
Failing that, is there any way to make Windows Media Player use some other codec? I remember on my nine year old machine that it was using ffdshow (as the icons appeared in the system tray when it was playing them).
I don't want to use another player because I like Windows Media Player. ;)
