Vista works, a question and a suggestion

[sem]

Ok, using Vista Home Premium, GeForce 7300LE and latest beta drivers (101.41) all is fine. Never used the player before and really impressed. Nice work guys.

One issue, I only got acceptable results configuring the OpenGL output module and skins behave strangely. Either theapp doesn't exit cleanly or when initiating a skin, the video window remains separate from the skinwindow - so the skin control andvideo window appear, but the film (or whatever) plays in a separate window. However....

can I suggest (or is the following possible):

vista aero glass effects look really cool, so could the video always be set to play in it's own window and have a detached control bar? That way, you wouldn't need a skin if you ran aero, both the video and control window would look "native" and fit in nicely with the desktop?

Also, is there a general issue at the moment with Quicktime audio files stuttering and vista? I downloaded an audio ile through quicktime, played it in QT and it started stuttering after 10 seconds or so, but VLC does the same when playing the file?

cheers, sem

[sem]

Sorry guys - your search crashed a few times so that's why I asked the question. I've found the "embed video" command in the preferences so that sorts the separate video widow out.

Also, the minimal control interface is good but still not small enough - is there an option to hide it or reduce what's displayed?

cheers, sem

[DJ]

The issues at the moment are still audio and video drivers. This may be resolved soon or not! Another issue is DirectX 10 for VLC. However, anything other than DirectX in Windows is more for testing, as these modules put all the weight of decoding on your CPU. The lack of a usable DirectX points to needing new drivers. Lockups when exiting VLC points to audio drivers that are not releasing when the program is closed and often portions of VLC remain in memory.

[sem]

Thanks for reply DJ. THe machine I'm using is a new Vista 'experiement' - it's got Sigma Tel 7.1 HD onboard audio with a Nforce mboard (it's dell) - there seem to be issues with drivers for this so will need to sit and keep fingers crossed.

I take it that as I am using opengl (and reading another thread) that is why my cpu usage is 25-35% when playing a pressed dvd? using directx would free this up? my problem with directx was no video and changing the suggested settings didn't help.

also with the control panel, could reshacker be used to mod the dialog and make it even more minimal?

cheers, sem

[DJ]

Sounds like the experiment is failing on both fronts (audio & video).

[sem]

Sounds like the experiment is failing on both fronts (audio & video).

Yes, well you'd think that if a pc has onboad audio then the manufacturer would supply a working driver when preinstalling an os. And as for video, nvidia should know better, I'd have thought?

Vista looks like it's a bit of a misfire all round really - for now at least, although I'm certain that Apple needs to get things together with their apps and file formats - I'd be surprised if QT files weren't culpable - mp3s play fine with no stuttering, as do iTunes ingested mp4s. Could it be a DRM issue? Infact, apple should just buy a vista developers toolkit and stick a plain o/s gui on the front of iTunes - the old interface looks really out of place now.

As long as the directx layer is sorted for vlc video then I'll be happy I guess.

sem

[sem]

just to add more info - if this helps....

my xp machine uses qt to play mp3 files embedded in webpages. when vista does the same, and then saves the mp3 via qt, that's when the stuttering happens. if itunes playes the file automatically from the webpage, then it's fine. if vlc plays from the webpage then it's fine. so, it looks like quicktime is a real issue and is broken (more so than iTunes).

Also, just tried messing around with directx output for video. eitherthe first few frames play and then freeze with the soundcontinuing or there is just sound. this happens with any video file, mpg, mov, dvd whatever. the strange thing is that mpg etc will play fine with windows media player(or media center). when playing, only 7 - 12% cpu is used, as opposed to 25 -40% with vlc using opengl output.

my question is, if this is a driver issue (video for instance) then my can media player play ok? wouldn't that also be affected? for info, quicktime also screws up videos in the same way as vlc. it started playing an mpeg1 fine,i opened a mov trailer and the video and audio got choppy, and then it crashed with a buffer overrun. just for info incase anything is related.

cheers, sem.

[DJ]

There are a few people that are getting Beta video drivers to work with DirectX. But it seems like some functions are still bad like Wallpaper mode. This is probably changes in DirectX 10.