with DVI, no mpeg playback

I recently formatted my computer because i couldn't play any mpegs, and i was due for a format anyways (i format like every 3 months for no reason), so i formatted and i i still wasn't able to play mpegs. turns out it was because of the dvi cable, when i hooked up my lcd monitor through analog though, it worked just fine, does anyone know what could be causing this? i could try changing the dvi cable, although i think that is fine because it is still sending every other signal but mpeg videos. is the problem a hardware problem in the video card?

ps. i believe it worked before with a dvi (not positive)

 

sounds like a video card problem. i'm assuming sound will work, but the video is always black... hrm. have you tried using another video card?

 

but does it make sense that the video card would output everything fine BUT mpegs? i changed the DVI cable but it still doesnt work, and i dont have a spare video card laying around.

although i agree, it sounds like the video card, because i dont know what else could be causing it.

anyone else have any input?

 

** brushes dust off of avatar **

It is almost definately a video card or video driver problem. The way Windows plays mpegs (and any hardware-accelerated video file) is by not playing it. Essentially, the OS makes the display portion of the player a "green screen," which the hardware then fills with the video after it has decoded it. This is why normal screen captures don't work.

Try doing this (on analog) to see the effect (it's kinda cool). Open a movie, and start it playing. Make the screen about 1/3 the size of the whole desktop. Pause the playback, and press <Alt>+<PrntScrn> to take a screenshot of the video player. Now open mspaint, and paste the image. Drag the mspaint window so it overlapsthe playback image from the movie player. You'll see the image show up as if the screenshot were a window through to the movie player. Now for the cool part. Switch back to the media player, and click play. Now switch back to mspaint, and you'll see the movie playing.



You can confirm that this is the problem behavior fairly easily. Switch to your DVI cord. Right-click your desktop and go Properties --> Settings tab --> Advanced button --> Troubleshoot. Find the Hardware acceleration slider, and drag it to "none". Now try playing an mpeg. It should play, but be slow or choppy since the CPU is doing all the work the graphics card normally does. If you took a screenshot now, it would behave like a normal screenshot. If the movie still doesn't show up right, then I would be very confused.

Try updating your video drivers and your chipset drivers. If your Display Properties claim you have multiple monitors, make sure that the monitor you're looking at is monitor 1 when you're connected to DVI.

Is it just mpeg files? Do avi, mov, and other files play normally? Do you still get audio with mpegs?

Try playing the file with other media players like Media Player Classic and Zoom Player.

 

yeah thanks it seems to have been the nvidia display thing detecting it as 2 monitors. i changed some settings with that and it worked, then i just disconnected the analog cable all together, but i eventually wanna get it working with both connected because some versions of linux dont play nice with dvi
other files like mov and wmv and avi were playing flawlessly
and i tried winamp and windows media player, but i found out something weird i forgot to mention earlier:

if the default media player is windows media player, and i right click on an mpeg and go to "open with" and select winamp, it will play
and same thing if winamp is the default player, i can select windows media player from the open with menu and it will play
so if i opened it with a non-default player it would work... does this make sense? does windows disable accelleration on non-default players or something? makes me wonder...

thanks