DirecShow codecs not working

For many years I have used Irfanview to view my .MOV vacation videos by checking "Use DirecShow for playing". It has worked on WinXP, WinVista, Win7, and Win10. On all of those I have used K-Lite Codec pack.

Now I have a new high-powered desktop computer the Dell XPS 8930 and Irfanview cannot play videos using DirecShow including MP4 videos. It plays audio but not video.

The difference may be: Intel UHD Graphics 630 Display adapter, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Display adapter, and ASUS ROG PG278QR monitor Resolution 2048x1152 Freq 59Hz.

Could the problem be the NVIDIA GeForce display adapter or the high resolution screen.

I have contacted Irfan Skiljan, author of Irfanview, and he says it is the codecs playing videos, his program has nothing to do with it.
--
Dan Cooley

The problem isn't the codecs

Irfanview uses an old interface called MCI to play files, which indirectly uses DirectShow for most file types. Irfanview doesn't use DirectShow directly.

Irfan should be able to fix it by changing the way he uses MCI. Basically what he should do is make sure that mciqtz32.dll is used as the playback device.

These registry keys may solve it in your case:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI32]
"DirectShow"="mciqtz32.dll"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\MCI Extensions]
"mov"="DirectShow"

You can test standard DirectShow playback with the GraphStudioNext tool that is included with the codec pack. If playback also has a problem there, then we need to investigate why.

Also, black video window can be because of an issue with the graphics driver. In that case you should try a different version of the driver.

Thank you Admin for your great reply. I would like permission to copy your reply and forward it to Irfan Skiljan. I know he will be VERY unhappy to see it but I think he should.

Also could you please send some instructions on how to use GraphStudioNext. I do know FastStone Image Viewer works on my new computer. In other words, it shows videos in its own window but Irfanview does not.

Yes, of course you may share the info.

GraphStudioNext is easy to use. Just open it and then drag&drop a file onto it and press play.

The codecs show icons in the Windows system tray (right bottom corner) during playback. So you can see if decoding is working. The video decoder has a red icon.

Also try opening two instances of Irfanview and play a video in both. If the first gives a black screen and the seconds works good, then it is definitely a graphics driver issue.

Admin - You're great.  I opened two instances of Irfanview the first MP4 was black, the second worked. The second one played MOV files too

So, I will contact NVIDIA right away. Could you give me a little more info to tell them. There are many adjustments that can be made on the GeForce card, it is probably one of those. Or, I need to update the driver.

Worst case workaround, just have two or more instances of Irfanview going.

Thank you so much.

Another workaround is to disable hardware acceleration in the display settings in Windows control panel. Unfortunately, this option doesn't exist anymore in recent versions of Windows 10.

(hardware acceleration of the windows GUI rendering, not to be confused with DXVA video acceleration)

Thanks. Could you tell me what to tell NVIDIA. The same thing that led you to tell me to try two instances of Irfanview.

Provide them details about your system:
- Windows version, including the build number (like 1803 or 1809)
- Your NVIDIA GPU model
- Version of your current NVIDIA driver (and other versions you may have also tried)
- Version of Irfanview

Problem description:
Irfanview uses Microsoft MCI (Media Control Interface) to render video files. MCI uses DirectShow for decoding the videos (.mov files). The decoding itself works fine, so it is no case of missing or wrong codecs. The problem is that the video is displayed as a black surface. If I open a second instance of Irfanview and play two videos simultaneously, then the second instance displays correctly. I suspect the problem is related to hardware accelerated rendering of Windows GUI elements.