I stripped back all codec add-ons, but it still won't play in media player.

I downloaded the VLC player and you are right it plays fine in this player. So again this is baffling because essentially its like the codec isn't being used by media player but will work under other players.

In PP4 it still is unrecognisable. I think I will have to take the further still....

This is normal. VLC does not care what codecs are installed on your system, as it uses it's own codec library. Media player, on the other hand, needs some mpeg-2 decoder installed, otherwise it will not play. ffdshow usually does the job.

I tried your file on my xp 64 machine, media player, vlc and PPcs4 handled it with no problems.
It seems unlikely to me that it is a vista issue or a 64-bit issue. sounds like something was bungled with codec installation/PP installation. I would also suggest a clean reinstall of PP.
You can also try opening the file with MPEGStreamclip and "Convert to MPEG", maybe it will help...
good luck :)

Hi Jon

Its certainly obvious theres simply something wrong with my installs. I've stripped everything back now and re-installed PP and still it doesnt work.

I guess its an OS install and hopefully that will do the trick. Can I ask what version of Vista 64 you are on ? Not that I think thats the issue but I starting to wonder !?

WELL after many, many hours of headache It appears it is Vista after all. The business edition for some strange reason doesnt have MPEG2 support (see below)......god knows why!! So I guess I have another upgrade on my hands.

You would have thought I'd have been able to get around it with FDD show or another co-dec pack but I haven't found anything that will work! Anyone any further ideas on that then certainly throw them up before I spend more cash on the 'upgrade' or rather 'mpeg2 support' :-)


The Movie Playback Problem
Some versions of Windows Vista don’t come with an MPEG-2 decoder / addin for watching movies, other MPEG-2 video sources and recorded TV. Vista Home Basic, Vista Business and Vista Enterprise customers are going to be a little upset when they try to play a DVD movie, watch certain TV channels or have a must see video clip and all they get is a message from Windows Media Player saying it can’t play the clip. Only Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate have support out the box!

Hi Mat,

I'm working on XP 64. Stayed away from vista, but it seems many on these forums are running vista 64-bit without issues...

As far as I know, Media Player never could play mpeg-2 without installing an additional mpeg-2 decoder to the system. That still doesn't seem to explain why PP is not recognizing your mpeg file, as I would think PP uses it's own mpeg decoder to work with mpeg-2 files.

Did you uninstall everything video related before reinstalling cs4? Nero, for example, also installs an mpeg-2 decoder to the system.

I hope someone with more vista experience can help you out...

On completely unrelated note:

Windows 7 plays MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, XViD, you name it, out of the box. No 3rd party codecs needed. Just tested it in latest build and it works. Nice!

Ok...this is now completely baffling and I'm wondering if this issue is somehow hardware related, as I said this is a new PC !!??? ASUS MB - Q6600 - 8800GT Graphics card - SATA Drives

I've now installed Vista 32 bit ultimate and the footage still won't play on the system. I know that ultimate has mpeg2 support out of the box and as yet I've installed NOTHING ELSE !

Has anyone got any ideas....this situation is killing me !??

Are your drives set up in a hardware raid 0 or 5

Not that I'm aware of....I havent set this up myself anyway. Excuse my ignorance, apart from understanding just about what raid is I'm not really sure how to use it and have never used it before.

Could this be causing an issue with the co-decs ? Is the something I can make sure is off in the bios setup?

Cheers
Mat

No. RAID is quite content agnostic. You could have codecs, video or peach pie recipes. It's all just bits and files to a RAID.

Unless you set up a RAID configuration, it's unlikely that your system is set up that way. For a mobo RAID, it's set up in the bios. You should see a disk status screen flash by on system boot. If it says non-RAID anywhere regarding your C: drive, you don't have a RAID configured on your system drives.

Hey Mat,
I was wondering if you ever got CS4 running on your system properly.
I have a Q6600 and a 8800GT with an ASUS P5E WS on a XP x64 OS.
I'm thinking of upgrading to CS4 and would love to know if your still having problems.
Thanks,

Scott

Hey Mat, you still there????