Thursday, May 28, 2009

Playing MKV or DivX using FFDShow in Windows 7

One of the main issues that I had with Windows 7, was playing MKV files. I've installed Haali Media Splitter and FFDshow. I've started playing an MKV file and noticed that they playback was choppy a bit. After further investigation I've noticed that the FFDShow video decoder doesn't appear in the tray, so I understood that FFDshow isn't used. I've searched for a solution for a couple of days. I've quickly learned that the problem is that Windows 7 comes with it's own codec for MKV, and even for DivX, and it doesn't let FFDShow take over, but it took me another day to get to the following solution.

A word of warning: The solution is involves renaming files in the Windows\System32 folder. It isn't an ideal solution, and can cause certain things not to work right. I assume that TV recordings using Media Center won't work, and DVD playback also wouldn't work. It may break other things as well, so I take no responsibility for this solution.

The main solution is posted here. However, besides renaming the following files:
MP4SDECD.DLL
MP43DECD.DLL
MPG4DECD.DLL

The ones above are needed to enable DivX to be decoded with FFDShow. I had to rename one more file to get FFDShow to play MKV files, and that's: msmpeg2vdec.dll

That's it, now MKVs play well, with FFDShow. Hope this post saves people some time finding the solution.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you sir, I can watch all my shows in glorious windows 7 now.

Anonymous said...

Thanks!! I've been seraching for two days for a solution. This worked perfectly!!

gladykov said...

thank you!!