Thread: HowTo: Play mkv 1080p/720p Movies.

If your on Windows 7 you will need to download Haali Media Splitter and AC3 Filter. Then open a mkv file, choose Windows Media Player. If the video gets choppy and your NOT getting very high CPU usage, uninstall Haali Media Splitter and restart. The video should still play without Haali Media Splitter and give you smooth playback.



If your on Windows XP/Vista Download k-lite Codec Pack Basic and AC3 Filter, then restart your computer. Open a mkv file and choose Windows Media Player. The video should run without a problem.

If you video is choppy, does not run at all, and you tried the following above, try to update your video drivers and/or install k-lite Codec Pack Full.

Requirements to run a 1080p/720p video file.
Windows XP/Vista/7
3 Ghz Processor or a 2.0 Ghz Dual Core Processor.
1 Gig of ram (The more the better)
A hard drive with lots of storage.

Windows 7 and possibly Vista. (If you have a good GPU)
A 1.8 Ghz processor
A Nvidia 8400 or above. (ATI cards can do the same.)
1 Gig of ram.

I think Halii,AC3Filter and FFDShow playing in MPC Home Cinema works best. But it's all up to yourself to test& decide.

Hm yeah...

Codec packs may be easy, but they often mess with the system (like changing the default merit values from standard DirectShow filters etc.) and often contain old/unstable filters.

The K-Lite Codec Packs are one of the better ones, not like some other packs that don't uninstall completely. I can also strongly recommend the CCCP : Link

But for most users, i think, FFDshow + MPC should be enough (plus Haali Splitter for .mkv)

Or VLC. Or Mplayer, which is also great ;)

Originally Posted by KeYBoarD1337

I think Halii,AC3Filter and FFDShow playing in MPC Home Cinema works best. But it's all up to yourself to test& decide.

Well, I don't know what version of MPC HC you're using, but usually MPC HC uses its internal codecs/filters. Which is also ffdshow, yes, but depending on the version, they modified it a bit.

You can control the MPC HC settings in Options > Internal Filters, if you want to use the ffdshow codecs of the system.

Klite + CoreAVC always does the trick here

Originally Posted by Horaxon

Well, I don't know what version of MPC HC you're using, but usually MPC HC uses its internal codecs/filters. Which is also ffdshow, yes, but depending on the version, they modified it a bit.

You can control the MPC HC settings in Options > Internal Filters, if you want to use the ffdshow codecs of the system.

Yea,but as you said, you can shut 'em off=) I've heard that the internal ones arent the best, that's why I use the external.

Yes indeed, i would generally recommend to turn them off.

Recent ffdshow builds are regularly uploaded to their sourceforge.net project page. Direct from the repository, but they're very stable. I use the standard builds by clsid.

Imo, ffdshow is the best decoding option for hd h264 stuff on the windows platform.
CoreAVC is also great (faster/lower cpu usage), but i think that the quality of ffdshow is actually slightly better. But its only minimal, maybe just my display ;)