"PapaJohn" <papajohn@chartermi.net> wrote in message
news:OBwef9RZIHA.1212@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

> One of the many things I don't understand about operating systems and
> codecs is why, if Quartz.dll is Microsoft's good decoder for Motion JPEG
> files and comes with my Vista system, why doesn't Vista manage the codec
> priorities such that Quartz is used by WMP and Movie Maker even if ffdshow
> and PICVideo codecs are installed and given permission to be used as
> needed.

It's been generally assumed that if you install a codec, it's for a good
reason. That assumption has blown up in user's faces since the advent of
the hideous and embarassingly shoddy world of codec packs.

> It's hard to believe a codec from a third party can step in front of the
> one preferred by Vista, and the operating system will accept it without
> getting me the user involved. Among Quartz, ffdshow and PICVideo, the most
> polite one is ffdshow when it asks if it should be used once, all the
> time, or not. The other two don't ask.

FFDShow has gotten better. They've made their mistakes too. FFDShow
1.0.0.1 and other early/broken versions are still out there breaking people.
This is why I try to exclusively use the term "FFDShow Tryouts", referring
to the sustained tree that fixes up most of the FFDShow problems.

You're hinting at a much larger problem affecting all of DirectShow as the
field becomes terrorized by incompetent installers and beta or alpha grade
filters. The right people are looking at this non-trivial problem. I'm
trying to coax things back to more "normal", but the rampant third party
codec pack incompetence has really dealt a fairly crushing blow to the
multimedia ecosystem. Having the average user living on the bleeding edge
is causing massive problems. When I look at SP1 crash data and see a third
party codec atop the crashes for almost every multimedia component... that's
pretty depressing.

> On a slightly different subject, when a Motion JPEG file is open in WMP,
> the file properties show the video codec when either ffdshow or PICVideo
> is being used, but it offers no info about the codec being used when it's
> Quartz... why is that?

I haven't looked into that code chain for a while. If it's important, I
could, but I suspect it's an idle question.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.