Choppy Divx...help!

**dougmorgan99** · 03-21-2005, 01:23 PM

I had this problem in MediaCar, same issue in RR. Saw a post on MediaCAR forum (no responses). When I play a Divx movie and switch to another movie the video get choppy and the slide menu is really slow to retract or slide up (happens on all movie types .avi .mpeg). If I exit out of Movie Player, everything runs normal, DVD playback is always fine. Reenter Movie Player and choppy video. I have to kill RR and restart it to clear but it happens again when I switch movies. The last 2 times this happened I had to blow the whole O/S install away. I have tried to install all apps and drivers (Codecs, Divx, Nvidia Display Drivers, MediaPlayer, DirectX). Everything but WinXP O/S. All files play normal outside of MediaCar and RR. A Clue (maybe): Started after I install the new Nvidia Display Drivers to get my dual LCD setup to work. But I removed drivers; even ran Detenator Cleaner for any remaining files. Reinstalled old driver I was using that worked before and still plays choppy Divx. I can't be the only one this happens to? At least one person had it happen and reported it. Any help please, I don't want to to another format/reload with 220gig of movies on the drive. Other thread below:

choppy playback

**guino** · 03-21-2005, 04:21 PM

This sounds like a WINDOWS issue.. I believe that MediaCar used MCI (Windows) functions to play videos (just like the built in player in RR). You can probable switch the Built In Player OFF in RRConfig (then it will use MPC).. since MPC doesn't use MCI, it should play ok in there.. you will need to download media player classic and set it's path in RRConfig for it to work (if you don't already have it -- the installshield installs it for you). There's a link to download it on my links page if you need.

**dougmorgan99** · 03-21-2005, 06:50 PM

Thanks for the help. Will try and see and post my results. Like I said this happened twice before. Seems strange, it was running smooth till I installed new video card drivers, but wouldn't fix itself after going back to the old ones. Hmmmm...

**dougmorgan99** · 03-21-2005, 11:42 PM

Well disabled the built in player and it still doing the same thing. Does seem to not stutter as bad but still very unwatchable. I guess format/reload, something in the WinXP O/S got corrupted, I just wish I knew what keeps making it happen. Usually messing with the video driver (God forbid installing newest ones) ah well, if they were perfect...

**guino** · 03-21-2005, 11:47 PM

Have you tried playing your files outside RR with MPC ? If so, did you try changing any video settings in it (it has a bunch). I'd suggest to try it first, although a clean install is a clean install..

**TimmyM** · 03-22-2005, 12:02 AM

What do you have for a CPU and ram? I had a PIII 700 with 256 and the menus and such were a little slow but I didn't have any stuttering problems.

**guino** · 03-22-2005, 12:46 PM

I now have come across a similar thing on my desktop.. with a little research, I found that I was using Nero's Mpeg Decoder inetead of the DivX codec... This leads me to believe that when you installed your new video driver, it installed a codec that took over your normal ones... the bad news is that I am not sure how you can fix that.. specially not knowing which codec you're using right now...

**dougmorgan99** · 03-22-2005, 07:13 PM

Yeah everything plays fine outside of RR with MPC, Divx and Media Player9 all smooth. Its not the system with AMD XP 2500+, 1gig of DDR, 250gig HDD, Nvidia FX5200 128mb, MSI KM4M mobo with WinXP SP1 (SP2 kills boot times).

So I'm lost, on why it seems to happen after a video driver update, with it only affecting MediaCar and RoadRunner movie playback. One more funny thing, say I have a Divx or Xvid movie folder, most of mine have two files per movie folder in it. First selection of movie file plays fine. Now if I push FF to advance 1 minute, the movie plays fine. If I allow the movie to play the next movie file on its own then, it plays fine. Only when I advance to the next movie file(down arrow) or browse for a different file and select it to play do things start to play choppy. Something in XP just got jacked, I guess. I just don't see why its not a more common problem. Three seperate times with me. Do I need Divx Player installed or will MPC and Built In Player play Xvid and Divx movies (already have codec)? Maybe there is interference when I advance to a new movie file, like a copy of Divx player starting in the backgroud and chewing CPU cycles or indexing the movie error when I select new file. Will turning of "indexing files" option work(do I need it)?

Software on system
1. Windows XP SP1
2. Latest drivers for all components
3. Road Runner and MediaCar (same problem on both)
4. Codecs - Xvid, AC3 Filter
5. Other Software - Divx Player, Mappoint
6. Defragged HDD and complete virus scan with AVG (none).

Thats it - streamlined!

**guino** · 03-22-2005, 10:20 PM

I think the problem you're having is because the Overlay of the video doesn't seem to be "released" for the new movie to play... Try do this:
-Close ALL apps
-Open MPC
-Open and start playing a movie
-Now double click on another movie in Explorer (to open/play it)

If the movie you clicked on plays as you describe "choppy" then the problem is simply that the overlay is not being released "in time" for a the new video to use it.

The above could very likely be caused by the driver you installed (that you say started all this). I don't know how easy it would be to make a "fix" for it though..

**dougmorgan99** · 03-26-2005, 10:30 PM

Figured it out! Okay here we go, I did a format/reload, installed all the software except latest Divx and the latest Nvidia driver, used old Nvidia video drivers. Video playback was normal in RR and MediaCar. Installed latest Divx, still good with old Nvidia Driver. Installed new Nvidia drivers, sure enough choppy playback on switching videos files. Anyway I uninstalled Divx, figured out I could no longer see Divx movies after that, Duh! Anyways I thought about what you said earlier where you told me to kill the internal player and use MPC well I thought RR needed Divx Player to work which really it only need the Divx Codec not the player. Sorry...getting to my point. Well I did just that through the custom install of Divx and opted out of installing the Divx Player and installing just the codec for the internal player and BOOM it works now! No stutter, no lag anywhere! Oh happy days! So what I figured is that the newest Nvidia Video Drivers and lastest Divx Player have a bug when running in RR and MediaCar. Maybe when I switch video files a copy of Divx Player tries to run in the background and kills the CPU cycles or something. Like I said before all files run fine outside of RR. Since I dont watch anything outside of the RR enviroment when I'm in the car this is not a problem. So there you have it, do not install the Divx Player, just the Codec when using RR or MediaCar. CASE CLOSED!