Nowadays HighDef content is getting each time more popular on internet, you can get tons of movie trailers on apple’s trailer website, but till now, the thing you needed was a very fast processor with a lot of ram memory. But your problem is over (always wanted to say this), here’s a guide showing how to play High-Definition Videos on not-so-fast computers, for example a Athlon-XP 2600+ with 768mb of ram (the one I tested). Obs: HowTo for Windows (sorry mac/linux users)
So, here we go:
The Player
- For low resources and great playback: Media Player Classic
Codecs for x264 encoded with .mkv or .mp4 :
- For just CoreAVC 1.1 Pro (which decodes x264 and includes haali media splitter) use this Here
- DirectVobSub (VSFilter) , subtitles Link
- And for those .mp4 /.mkv files use Haali Media Splitter Download Link
When playing .mkv /.mp4 files you should see the following icon in your taskbar:
For Playing .x264 - which is most of the High Definition content:
- 1. Install CoreAVC.
- 2. Make sure FFDShow’s H.264 decoding is disable by doing the following:
Play a .x264 video in MPC
Right click and go to filters. If you see FFDshow there like the following image, then click it:
And then you need to go to its video decoder settings, click the Codecs entry in the list to the left, find the H.264 entry in the grid, and change it from “libavcodec” to “disabled”. like the following image:
- 3. Reopen the .x264 file and now when you go to filters it should like something like this
- 4. CoreAVC will now get used instead of FFDShow for H.264 decoding.
How to play Apple’s Quicktime Trailers in High Definition with CoreAVC
This allows nearly anyone no matter how good/bad your hardware is to playback 1080p trailers at normal speeds.
- 1. Unistall Apple Quicktime.
- 2. Install Quicktime Alternative
- 3. Go to the Apple Trailers website
- 4. Choose a HD (High Definition) trailer of your choice
- 5. Left Click on the Resolution you wish to download, I normally choose 1080p, even though I have a 1280×1024 monitor because I like to think it will have a better image, although some people say it will look worse due to aspect ratio changes. So choose whatever you want.
- 6.Then choose Download and Play with Media Player Classic
- 7. The important part in the next step is to check the box that says “Rename to .hdmov” and then once the file is done downloading, open the file with media player classic, and under filters CoreAVC should be there..
Note: any h.264 file that has the file extension of apples .mov can be renamed .hdmov and opened with MPC to use CoreAVC, Quicktime Alternative just makes it easier
I have a Athlon XP 2400+ with 1 Gig of RAM and an old GeForce2 MX 400 / 64Mb with ForceWare 93.71 (AGP 4x) on Windows XP SP2.
I played First Snow at 720p and 1080p downloaded from Apple Trailers. I have used above documentation. I played both in MPC using CoreAVC as videodecoder and AAC decoder (looked this up under mpc->on video rightmousebutton->filters)
720p plays good (no skipping, in sync) but 1080p skips frames and sound isn’t in sync with the video.
What is the bottleneck? Videocard? or CPU?
Does these two movies play correctly on your hardware? Your CPU isn’t that much better. What are the rest of your specs (videocard, …)?
Hey man, I belive the main problem is the CPU, but a VGA helps alot, mine is 128mb. Anyway I still have some problems playing 1080, so for this feature, you should still have a little faster CPU.
I’m making a media center pc at my place, I’ll take an Pentium E6400, I belive it can handle, and a Gforce 7xxx.
Hi,
keep us informed about your mediacenter. I am also in need of one! Let us know how well it performs. What software are you using? MCE, MediaPortal, MythTV (Linux)?
What videocard of 128Mb do you have? What OS?
Good luck.
hey i’m planning to buy a new 20″lcd monitor…the problem is i’m not sure whether all lcd monitors with dvi-hdcp are hd compatible…even in the manufacturer’s site they jus dont giv a clue as to find whether the monitor is hd ready or not…so hope any1 of u can help me sort out tis prob…
thanks in advance!!!
hi,
do you have any idea what might be the cause if after installing coreavc and haali and deactivating ffdshow, both mpc and wmp crash as soon as i try to open an mkv-file?
what player you’re using?
I too get a crash on windows media player (latest version) when playing the m.264 videos.. MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC plays them fine and quicktime plays them but its jumpy. I didnt install quicktime alternative since I need the full quicktime for some applications I use…
Any help would be appreciated…
First I need to say that I really don’t like Windows Media Player, what kind of help do you want, if you said Media Player Classic plays it fine?
You can also use BsPlayer or VLC, both are good programs!
hey man the video works perfectly after following your steps; however, the audio just disappears?