Using videos, which media player(s) do I need to install?

[OzStick]

Hi All,

As per the subject title, I'm using videos with MaLa for the first time and I'd be grateful for some advice.

I am using a stripped version of XP created with nLite and it has no media player with it, so now when I go to add a video frame to the layouts in MaLa the videos don't play.

Can someone please advise which media player(s) and codec pack (if any) I should be installing to ensure that AVIs from www.emumovies.com will work properly? I've read about XVID and I have that, but it doesn't appear to be a player and I'm not sure what it does!

Cheers,
Chris

[dungbeetle46]

Mala has its own video player, what you need to do is install xvid but make sure you dont have divx installed or they wont work, make sure you have your paths to your vids setup correctly and make sure the vids name match the roms name
cheers

[OzStick]

OK, so it has an inbuilt video player?

The XVID install I have is called Xvid-1.2.2-07062009.exe and its description is "Xvid 1.2.2 final installer" and its size is 637Kb. Is this the only thing I need?

[OzStick]

After more research and testing it appears I have two issues:

1/ My version of XP compiled with nLite has Windows Media Player removed, which has probably left out other files critical to MaLa being able to play vids.

2/ After putting a standalone media player (MPLAYERC.EXE) onto the PC and installing Xvid codecs I  have a lot of AVIs that it will not play. They also don't play on my normal PC so it seems I have been provided with a heap of dodgy AVIs.........

[Henrik68000]

Try installing the VLC videoplayer and nothing else but the xvid codec. this worked with my setup

[saint]

On my nlite setup, I installed xvid, then installed Windows Media Player 10, and videos now work.

[OzStick]

Thanks for the suggestions, I managed to fix the problem, which was twofold.

Firstly, I had omitted Windows Media Player from my nLite compile which is the MAIN reason why vids were not playing. This is a trap for young players when brewing your own version of XP with nLite - I followed the guide made by Spystyle however I missed the important bit of info that removing WMP was optional! Easy enough to install it after the fact, so it's all good.

Secondly, I had acquired a HDD with the basic setup already running and it turns out about 75% of the vids were corrupt. After 11Gb of downloads everything is now fine......

[system01]

This is after the fact, but I highly recommend the CCCP codec pack (google it).  For every machine you use.  Anywhere.  You will rarely come up with codec/cannot read the file/blah blah problems again (unless the file is broken).  The only thing it won't take care of is DivX, which is garbage anyway.

Another alternative is the K-Lite pack.  Similar but with a few small differences.

P.S. I'm running nLite XPerience r.9.  I don't remember if WMP was part of it, but I threw the CCCP on there first thing with no problems with any A/V since.

[Henrik68000]

THe xvid videos from emumovie is not optimised to the full for MALA's xvid player. If you run them trough 'Prism Video converter' they will load faster.

Guide to Prism Video converter. You set the settings in the video prism converter like this: output format: AVI. 'Encoder options': X-vid mpeg 4 codec, sound compresser; uncompressed pcm, sound format (as you like it, but i put it to 8 bit mono as i dont need the sound and this makes the files smaller. The 'edit output' i leave as it is. Now you only need to press 'browse' to find a new folder (that you've already made)to let the program put the final files in. It's a fast program and it works. Even when the new torrent with x-vid format came out some months ago i still had the problem with 2 seconds of blank screen before the video showed up. After running the video files trough Prism Video coverter things worked smoot. If you are using the old torrent then there's a world ín difference and things will work out to the smootest. Try it. You wont regret it.