DirectShow Playback Guide:DVD and MPEG-2
From JRiverWiki
- further information: DirectShow Playback Guide
For DVD playback, you need DVD capable MPEG-2 video decoder and a MPEG-2 / AC3 audio decoder. These filters may or may not already exist on your computer. Some computers come with filters for DVD; some do not. Filters may also come with installation of some third-party software. If you do not already have the needed filters, you may need to install them. Commercial decoders are available from various vendors. Free decoders are available and described below.
Again, CCCP fully supports DVD Playback out of the box. The simplest free method to enable DVD Playback support is to just use CCCP. The only other configuration step typically required is to enable Dolby Digital (AC3) decoding support in FFDSHOW (which is included as part of CCCP). This process is explained on the Dolby AC3 page.
Please Note: CCCP does not enable DVD Playback from within Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center Edition. CCCP works fine for MC, ZoomPlayer MPC, and most other DirectShow players. However, Microsoft intentionally broke the DirectShow DVD playback interface for WiMP. In order to support WiMP, you have to pay for a commercial package (Microsoft charges a very large licensing fee, which the free software obviously can't afford to pay).
Alternatively you can try these filters:
Contents |
Video decoders:
DScaler 5. This is still in alpha. Therefore expect to have some problems with it. I have had only one problem though. It is related to DVD menus. I experience menu problem only with one of several DVD movies I played.
Generally DScaler can be used for vastly improved deinterlacing and resizing support, and it's quality is "considered" the best. It can be difficult to get it set up properly.
Gabest Universal Open Source MPEG Video Decoder
Older versions of the FFDSHOW video decoder do not work well with DVD (even though it has a user interface to turn on DVD decoding capability). Newer versions may be able to decode DVD properly. However, because there are still some (relatively minor) issues with DVD decode support in FFDSHOW, CCCP still uses the Gabest Decoders, which work reliably.
When using CCCP/FFDShow to decode DVD's make sure you go into FFDShow Video Decoder configuration which can be found in 'All Programs' from the Windows Start Menu and then in the codecs list find MPEG2 and make sure it's set to libmpeg2 or libavcodec (Experiment with both for the best results. Some machines prefer one or the other). Also tick the DVD decoding box. Failure to do these things will cause DVD Decoding to fail.
Audio decoders:
FFDSHOW Audio decoder works very well for DVD playback and can handle PCM, AC3, DTS, and M2A audio tracks.
DScaler 5 (DScaler 5 includes both an audio decoder and a video decoder).
AC3Filter is another good option for decoding AC3 and DTS tracks.
Be sure to read this FAQ if you are interested in full support for DTS WAV playback.
Hardware Accelerated Decoders
Both the AMD AVIVO technology and the Nvidia PureVideo technology mentioned in the DirectShow Playback Guide:Alternative Filters page include MPEG-2 decoding support in addition to MPEG-4 support. Both decoders are very high quality and extremely fast, though with modern computer processors the necessity of offloading the relatively simple task of MPEG-2 decoding to the video card is of limited benefit.
AMD's AVIVO decoder in particular has been rated among the highest quality decoders available in independent quality comparisons. AMD's MPEG-2 decoder (developed in partnership with Cyberlink) is available free of charge with many of their video cards (updates are available at AMD's web site). Nvidia's PureVideo product is available for a small fee from their PureVideo site.
Many other third party commercial applications include codecs that support the MPEG-2 hardware acceleration features of both nVidia and ATI/AMD video cards, including: Nero Digital, Cyberlink PowerDVD, and InterVideo WinDVD. Often, however, these proprietary codecs don't "play well with others" and have playback issues in general purpose DirectShow players.
Problems and Solutions
DVD Playback won't start. The answer was to disable automatic selection of DVD filters.
Crash on DVD playback The answer was to change DirectShow filters.
