H.264 on Windows

[Enigmachine]

I'm having a very hard time watching H.264 streams on my 3.2 ghz windows machine. The sound is ok, but images keep flipping 'backwards' to keyframes and skipping a lot.

This happens even with VLC. I tried using quicktime and iTunes but, well, they simply crashed without warnings, which really didn't impress me at all.

Is there a good codec pack I should be downloading, or something better than VLC for H.264?

[raidersforever01]

I have always liked
http://www.cccp-project.net/
and
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm

I download hundreds of videos, shows and movies with many different formats. If the first one is not to your liking try the second one. Don't worry everything i download is legal its all unlicensed anime. You will never have a video format problem again atleast if you don't run into some unused old format that was rarely used.

[Kougar]

H.264 is a HD codec as I'm sure ya know. However you should be aware depending on the bit-rate of the media you are trying to play it can very easily fully load any old Netburst based CPU. I'd suggest running task-manager and watching your CPU utilization levels, if the CPU hits 100% you will start to get dropped frames and stuttering during playback.

If you are trying to watch actual streamed H.264 media you will also need plenty of bandwidth and a source that can actually transfer it quickly enough to not result in jerky playback.

[peti1212]

I would take a look at the Task Meneger just like what Kougar wrote, and also try out those codecs that raidersforever told you about, but if that does not work, then I have one more codec pack that might fix something. I always use it and it can encode any movie I wanted to watch before.

The Program is: FFDSHOW (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters/ffdshow.cfm)

[raidersforever01]

I think the codecs i put up also use ffdshow in it but also have other codecs it installs for video formats that ffdshow does can not decode. I used to use ffdshow only before but CCCP and k-lite seems to have gotten rid of any video problems i had before and one of them was slow choppy playback on some video but i never looked into what might have been causing it.

[peti1212]

I didn't know about that coded pack before. I thought that FFDSHOW was the one that had every codec colected. Oh well. But there are still codecs that you cannot get for free, but those are made for games just so you could not encode it, just with special programs.

[raidersforever01]

ffdshow does do many formats but there are a few it can't which is why those codec packs were made.

[Enigmachine]

I haven't managed to try anything yet, but I'm pretty sure the problem isn't my CPU, and I'm using cable for bandwidth. I will try to check the CPU usage again later but when I use VLC it says a lot of things like 'frame skipped to catch up' so it's not the bandwidth.

Thanks for the help, I'll look at that communist video player (CCCP project?) later :)

[raidersforever01]

:) Ya i know but it works whether its red or not.

[Enigmachine]

My CPU usage is around 20% on average when I watch a H.264 video stream, so that's not the problem.

I'll try the software later, my boss decided to call and tell me I had to deliver some software around noon... I better start coding it. :jawdrop: