Thanks... but you don't say why the codecs supplied with the operating
system take a back seat to the 3rd party ones when they get installed. Seems
that stronger operating system management of codecs would be a step toward
resolving things, and would be an appropriate thing to expect from an
operating system..

And what WMP shows for the video codec isn't an idle question... I'd much
prefer having WMP tell me what it's using than to have to check the file
with GSpot or another utility and guess what WMP is using. And I'm using the
pointer in WMP to tell me what Movie Maker is using, as the properties of
the files in MM don't include the codec used.
--
website references are to www.papajohn.org

PapaJohn


"zachd [MSFT]" <zachd@nomailplz.online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:%23FBSmXSZIHA.4196@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>
> "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.
>
>