Author: robux4
Date: 2005-01-03 12:31:00 +0300 (Mon, 03 Jan 2005)
New Revision: 849
Modified:
trunk/www.matroska.org/data/technical/guides/playback/windows/index.html.en
Log:
content: update the playback page (from Christian)
Modified: trunk/www.matroska.org/data/technical/guides/playback/windows/index.html.en
===================================================================
--- trunk/www.matroska.org/data/technical/guides/playback/windows/index.html.en 2005-01-03 09:25:25 UTC (rev 848)
+++ trunk/www.matroska.org/data/technical/guides/playback/windows/index.html.en 2005-01-03 09:31:00 UTC (rev 849)
@@ -25,13 +25,34 @@
</div>
<div id="content">
+ <p><strong>IMPORTANT NOTE :</strong> <strong><em>matroska</em></strong> is
+ a general use container format, and as a result of that MKV files can contain
+ many tracks with different audio and video compression formats. We try to
+ provide most of the necessary decoders in our full playback pack for Microsoft
+ DirectShow, but for some formats we are not allowed to do this because of
+ licensing problems. Typical examples are all codecs of RealNetworks Inc.
+ ( Realvideo, Realaudio, RV 9, RV 10 ) and ON2 ( VP 4, VP 5, VP 6 ). All
+ these formats can be stored fine in MKV files, but for playback it is necessary
+ to have the right decoders installed on your PC. To help all our users to
+ identify the codecs that were used in their MKV files, especially in case
+ when the matroska full pack will not provide the right decoders and the
+ files wont play, we provide a new tool called <a href="http://www.matroska.org/%7Etoff/MatroskaDiag.exe">matroskadiag.exe</a>
+ . The tool will check your MKV file and report if you have the right DirectShow
+ decoder filters installed or not, and point you to the right place where
+ you can obtain the necessary filters, in case they are missing. If your
+ files still dont play, you are likely facing a problem with your DirectShow
+ installation ( too many filters installed ). In this case all we can recommend
+ is a new installation of Windows, or the use of players like VLC ( Videolan
+ ) or Xine, which dont need an underlying framework like DirectShow for movie
+ playback, but will provide decoders for most formats with the player itself.</p>
+ <p><strong>How to play MKV files on Windows :</strong></p>
<p>In principal you can play <strong><em>matroska</em></strong>
files on almost every Mediaplayer on Windows if you have the latest <strong><em>matroska
</em></strong>DirectShow <a href="http://packs.matroska.org">playback
pack</a> from our <a href="../../../../downloads/windows.html">Download
Page</a> installed,as most of these players are based on Microsoft DirectShow
(TM). Examples for these basic players, relying on DirectShow only, are </p>
- <p>Windows Mediaplayer 6.4/7/8/9<br />
+ <p>Windows Mediaplayer 6.4/7/8/9/10<br />
BSPlayer<br />
Radlight Player<br />
Winamp 3<br />
@@ -49,15 +70,30 @@
<p>The Core Media Team are great supporters of <strong><em>matroska</em></strong>
, and they invested a lot of time to help one of our team members, Jory
'Jcsston' Stone, to add specific <strong><em>matroska</em></strong> support
- with a so-called <a href="http://cdl.matroska.org">CDL plugin</a>. Of
- course, its coming with a built in audio stream switcher.</p>
- <p>Using this plugin the users can currently<br />
+ with a so-called <a href="http://cdl.matroska.org">CDL plugin</a>. Of course,
+ its coming with a built in audio stream switcher. TCMP is currently the
+ only player with support for 'nested chapters' in MKV files.</p>
+ <p>Using the CDL plugin, the users can currently<br />
- read/write all the available tags in matroska audio and video files,
such as title, artist, creation date, etc.<br />
- automatically correct the display aspect ratio depending on the values
stored in the video track header, for anamorphic encodings ( like DVDs,
SVCDs )<br />
and there are are even more functions planned for the future. </p>
+ <p><a href="http://www.videolan.org"><strong>VLC ( Videolan )</strong></a></p>
+ <p>It was a big honour when Fenrir from the Videolan team added matroska support
+ to this player, and more or less over a ( looong ) night. VLC has great
+ streaming possibilities, as it can act as a streaming server also, and is
+ not based on DirectShow. Because of that, it doesnt need installation of
+ any other filters or codecs, as its coming with support for the most used
+ video and audio for-mats already built in. We strongly recommend this player
+ if you dont want to mess with installation of any codec packs or the like,
+ just to be able to play a matroska file a friend has sent to you ;-).</p>
+ <p>Very unfortunately, VLC has no support for proprietary codecs like Realvideo
+ ( RV 9, RV 10, RV 40 ) or ON2 VP6, because its developers decided to include
+ support for only those formats where a free, GPL decoder is available. RealNetworks
+ and ON2 did not provide such a decoder, so MKV files using these formats
+ are not supported.</p>
<p>
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/"><strong>Media Player
Classic</strong></a></p>
@@ -67,16 +103,13 @@
parser filter</a> that will work on all other players named above also,
but does allow a few specific functions in conjunction with his <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&release_id=164452">player</a>,
like switching audio streams, etc..</p>
- <p><a href="http://www.videolan.org"><strong>VLC ( Videolan )</strong></a></p>
- <p>It was a big honour when Fenrir from the Videolan team added matroska
- support to this player, and more or less over a ( looong ) night. VLC
- has great streaming possibilities, as it can act as a streaming server
- also, and is not based on DirectShow. Because of that, it doesnt need
- installation of any other filters or codecs, as its coming with support
- for the most used video and audio for-mats already built in. We strongly
- recommend this playe,r if you dont want to mess with installation of any
- codec packs or the like, just to be able to play a matroska file a friend
- has sent to you ;-).</p>
+ <p><strong>Important Note :</strong> MPC is still a great mediaplayer with
+ excellent matroska support. However, as Gabest doesnt have the time to update
+ the player anymore ( Real Life Issues ;-) ), the internal matroska parser
+ in MPC is outdated. This is not a big problem, just make sure to de-activate
+ the internal matroska parser and subtitles renderer in MPC's advanced settings,
+ so that the external matroska parser from the latest matroska packs will
+ be used. If you don't do this, newer MKV files will maybe not play correctly.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.inmatix.com"><strong>Zoomplayer</strong></a></p>
<p>Blight, who made his hobby a profession and is coding this player for
@@ -87,8 +120,13 @@
and has a built in audio stream switcher. Zoomplayer is DirectShow based,
like TCMP.</p>
<p><a href="http://xinehq.de/"><strong>Xine</strong></a></p>
- <p>This great Linux player has matroska support meanwhile, thanks to the
- hard work of thibaut, and is available as a Windows compile also.</p>
+ <p>This great Linux player has matroska support meanwhile, thanks to the hard
+ work of thibaut, and is available as a Windows compile also. Other than
+ the VLC guys, its developers will also add support for proprietary formats
+ like RealVideo or ON2, using the specific Windows DLLs. For this very reason,
+ Xine is your first choice if you have to play a MKV file with a proprietary
+ codec, but you dont plan to install any more DirectShow filters than you
+ already have.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.foobar2000.org/"><strong>Foobar2000</strong></a></p>
<p>Peter Pawlowski, a former member of the winamp development team, has
created his own audio player project, and already a huge group of fans
@@ -97,10 +135,16 @@
the first apps that supported the new matroska tagging system.</p>
<p> <strong><font size="+1">Additional playback Information :</font></strong> </p>
- <p><strong><em>matroska</em></strong> files can contain a big number of
- different audio and video compression formats. We are trying to list the
- most used formats here, and also give links to the necessary decoder filters
- you have to install to be able to view your movies :</p>
+ <p>As stated above, <strong><em>matroska</em></strong> files can contain a
+ big number of different audio and video compression formats. We are trying
+ to list the most used formats here, and also give links to the necessary
+ decoder filters you have to install to be able to view your movies :</p>
+ <p><strong>Realvideo :</strong> The biggest number of confused users turning
+ to us with playback problems are trying to play MKV files containing tracks
+ with the Realvideo codec. The matroska full playback pack can use the DLLs
+ from Realplayer ( RealOne ) if this player was installed. Alternatively,
+ you can google for RealAlternative, an unlicensed, free distribution of
+ the Realvideo decoder DLLs.</p>
<p><strong>DivX Video :</strong> To view DivX 3/4/5 video, install either
the official <a href="http://divx.com">DivX codec</a> or <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow">FFDshow</a>,
a great opensource project for a free MPEG4 decoder filter.</p>
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