Codecs and Video Playback
You’ll find until you’ve installed WinDVD or equivalent, you can’t complete Media Center setup. When you come to select the number of speakers you have it will probably tell you that “The video decoder has either malfunctioned or is not installed”. It is not installed. You don’t need to install a complete product like WinDVD or PowerDVD, but you do need some decoder software. I recommend downloading
If you install
Profile 4: Lots of stuff
…with the following amendments:
On the “Select Components” page, I use the following settings:
∙Add Xvid DirectShow video filter
∙Add InterVideo
∙Change AC3/DTS/LPCM (DVD audio) DirectShow audio filter from AC3Filter to InterVideo
∙Add MP1/MP2 (MPEG Audio) DirectShow audio filter and set it to MainConcept
∙Add AAC DirectShow audio filter and set it to 3ivx Pro
On the “Select Additional Tasks” page, I use the following settings:
∙Reset all settings to their defaults
∙Make Media Player Classic the default for: Nothing (MPC might be a good, reliable, lightweight media player but it’s just too ugly to be my preferred media player
∙Speaker setup: 5.1 (or higher)