How can I play old Cinepak MOV files?

[mkanet]

Most of my old videos clips/music videos from circa 1990-1995 were cinepak compressed mov's. I'd love to be able to play my vintage clips in sageTV. Currently, when I try to play them back, I get the "There was a Playback Error in playback. Details: sage.PlaybackExcpetion: ERROR (-4,0x80040218): There was a problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback." error message.

If sageTV doesnt know how to play these files, is there a way to at least let the sageTV media player use the system's/directshow decoder?

[Fuzzy]

You'll need to install a cinepak capable directshow codec. I think ffdshow can handle cinepak, but there is also a dedicated cinepak codec at free-codecs.com. never tried it, as I don't have any old cinepak files.

[mkanet]

Thanks for replying.. But, I already did that before posting. Thats how I play them outside of sageTV with directshow players such as WMP, MPC. I figured if since I couldnt play them inside sageTV, its because sageTV wont use an external DS filter unless there's explicit support for it (ie, WMV, H.264, mpeg2, mpeg1). Before there were hardware assisted playback to decode video files, Cinepack was one of the most popular formats to use since the the options for "mainstream" video (and audio) compression codecs were so limited. People who have been storing media back way before before it caught on had no choice to store mp3 (which are still supported), mpeg1, or cinepak video files usually in AVI/MOV containers. Its a good thing I decided to at least use Cinepak for video instead of my proprietary Winnov hardware encoder/decoder video back in the early 90's. I'm some people can probably appreciate how happy I was when I built one of the first ever HTPCs using hardware assisted mpeg2 playback for DVDs using my pre-release ATI Fury display adapter.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

You'll need to install a cinepak capable directshow codec. I think ffdshow can handle cinepak, but there is also a dedicated cinepak codec at free-codecs.com. never tried it, as I don't have any old cinepak files.

[Fuzzy]

Have you tried choosing Default as your video decoder? This will let windows auto-decide the decoder to use, and in effect, do the same thing WMP does.

[mkanet]

Good idea. I'm not too sure how to change the properties file to let the system decide what filter to use for mov playback. I could be wrong, but I think you might be talking about the sageTV detailed setup menu option that's meant for mpeg2 playback; if you meant the properties file, hopefully you or someone else might know how to change this.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Have you tried choosing Default as your video decoder? This will let windows auto-decide the decoder to use, and in effect, do the same thing WMP does.

[Fuzzy]

The 'Video Decoder' option in sage is actually for ALL forms, UNLESS otherwise specified. Choosing default there will cause auto to be used on anything BUT those determined by the H.264 setting (or other specialized lines in the properties file).

You can also check to make sure that the 'always use dshow' option in set to true in the properties file.

[mkanet]

Hi Fuzzy,

Yes, I already have the "always_use_dshow_player=true" setting (which I did a while back to get the right audio filter to be used). I changed default decoder from "Cyberlink 8" to "Default", started sageTVservice and sagetV.exe. However, I am getting the same symptom as before.

When I drag the files like this into graph edit, I notice that the haali spliter gets involved (which I have installed to better support than he default splitter). I'm not sure if its because sageTV doesnt use that?

I'm sure there are other people who have a video collection that dates back to the days of Cinepak MOV's who want to play them in sageTV. Maybe theres some kind of tweak I'm missing; or sageTV just doesnt support file formats this old?

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The 'Video Decoder' option in sage is actually for ALL forms, UNLESS otherwise specified. Choosing default there will cause auto to be used on anything BUT those determined by the H.264 setting (or other specialized lines in the properties file).

You can also check to make sure that the 'always use dshow' option in set to true in the properties file.