64bit doesn't play all h265

Windows 10 64bit with latest klite installed.

MPC plays everything, however I still use Windows Media Center (and Emby) for my main player. WMP and Windows Media Center do not play all of my h265 files. It'll play audio, but will not show video.

I have tried to force LAV splitter to load versus merit and that didn't work.

Using graph studio, it shows it is going through LAV splitter first then LAV video and LAV audio then "VIDEO RENDERER"

This is a 64bit issue, because I have another machine running Windows 7 32bit and that machine with the same klite plays all of the same files just fine using WMP and MCE.

Any idea what to try next?

MCE uses Media Foundation codecs by default. Win10 uses it more than Win7.

HEVC Media Foundation codec:
http://codecguide.com/media_foundation_codecs.htm

Or you can use Codec Tweak Tool to disable Media Foundation.

Or you could replace MCE with something else like Kodi.

Thank you very much for the great information.

So if I am understanding you correctly, I can force WMP to use lav codecs by disabling media foundation? Or will that just break compatibility all together?

I installed the free codec from the link you provided, and the trouble files do play which is great. But the playback makes my cpu load go to 100%. I have a nvidia geforce 1030 which I think does hevc decoding, yes? Is there another setting I need to enable somewhere?

Unfortunately I am stuck on windows media center. Everyone in the family is familiar with it, and it's remote friendly. I have tried to migrate to kodi but it ended up being too much of a learning curve for everyone. One of my biggest gripes was the way it sorts files by date modified instead of date created. So if someone watches a older movie it moves to the top of the list as an example. This was confusing and one of the reasons I have stuck with MCE for so long. Also it's my DVR for OTA content.

Disabling Media Foundation might work. WMP can fall back to using DirectShow. MCE should as well, but I don't know how well it works on Windows 10 with the modified MCE.

Disabling MF of course does break applications that need it, such as some browsers and games. But you can easily revert any changes.

Yes, the 1030 should be able to do hardware acceleration. Is that your only GPU or do you also have an integrated Intel one?

Test if acceleration works when using the Movies&TV player from Win10. There it should work.

I have two separate machines, both running Windows 10 with the 1030 - on the first machine I tried, disabling media foundation (both for the specific file extension and completely) basically broke WMP. It gives an error and won't even attempt to play the file.

The second machine, doing the same, does make WMP use LAV which is fantastic and exactly what I wanted. It does work with the modified MCE, which is what I needed it to do.

I will continue to try to make it work on the first machine. It's an older AMD Athlon 64 cpu, but plays 4k hevc in MPC and Kodi with the 1030.

I have another question about MCE and recorded tv and live tv - on the second PC when the sound settings are 7.1 audio (hooked up HDMI to a atmos soudbar) Live TV and Recorded TV sometimes will cause the audio to skip in a two second loop, and you have to change the audio settings to 2.1 sound in order to correct it. I am assuming that if I disabled the media foundation for those as well it would fix this issue. Do you know which extensions I would need to disable by chance?

The audio issues are a common MCE problem.

This might be helpful:
https://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=7074

@We87
Various versions of Windows Media Center (in particular the DISM based versions) have issues on Windows 10 and break with updates of Windows; the most stable version now is v8.8.5 that you can get here.
This is the original thread: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/discussion-patch-wmc-to-run-on-windows-10-final-possible-alternatives.61061/

I suggest to do this:
1) Run

Code:

sfc /scannow

from command prompt,
2) Restart PC,
3) Run

Code:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

from command prompt,
4) Restart PC
5) Disable Media Foundation
6) Install Windows Media Center v8.8.5