Tivo Desktop 2.3a and WMP10

[Grex]

Just upgraded to 2.3a now when i try to play a Tivo file on my PC WMP 10 crashes. I have a compatiable codec installed as they used to play with the older version of Tivo Desktop. I tried reverting back to the older version of tivo dekstop but no such luck still crashing WMP.

I also checked to see if WMp was using the right codec, it seems to be.

Help Please.

[Mark.Tolman]

I just installed TiVo Desktop 2.3a and I have the same problem. Every time I try to open the files in either WMP or Media Player Classic the player crashes. Here's what shows up in the Event Viewer Application log:

Faulting application wmplayer.exe, version 10.0.0.3646, faulting module tivodirectshowfilter.dll, version 1.1.239.826, fault address 0x00006ced.

Faulting application mplayerc.exe, version 6.4.9.0, faulting module tivodirectshowfilter.dll, version 1.1.239.826, fault address 0x00006ced.

I have PowerDVD install correctly. Just to make sure, I uninstalled PowerDVD, rebooted, and used the MS Decoder Check Up Utility to make sure I didn't have any other MPEG-2 codecs installed, then I installed PowerDVD. The codec works perfectly on DVDs.

I checked and noticed the players opened the following file just prior to the crash.

TiVoDirectShowFilter.dll

As far as I could tell, it was trying to render the graph when it crashed. When I open the .tivo files with GSpot v.2.6 and try to render the graph it fails. It first tries the CyberLink Splitter, then the MainConcept MPEG Demultiplexer installed by TiVo. I'm not worried the GSpot wasn't able to render the graphs since it wasn't a normal MPEG-2 file.

Here's where it gets interesting... I AM able to open the .tivo files with The Core Media Player. It has no problem with the DirectShow filters. I don't know if this means anything, but TCMP doesn't list the TiVoDS filter as being used to play the file. I don't know enough about how the filter works to know if that's important or not. If I remove the TiVoDS Filter from DirectShow, TCMP complains that it can't find the Source Filter, so it uses it.

Windows Media Player is doing something the Core Media Player isn't doing. Perhaps it has something to do with WMP's DRM system?

Any Thoughts???
Mark

[Mark.Tolman]

I noticed that the file extension is required to open the .tivo files. Otherwise they open up as MPEG. I found the .tivo entry in the registry. It set the default to "Tivo Recording", content type to "video/mpeg", and Perceived type to "video". Seems ok to me so far.

The "Tivo Recording" entry had some shell entries, nothing unusual there either.

I don't know if it matters, but my "video/mpeg" Content Type is a "QuickTime Object". I'm not sure what the default "video/mpeg" type normally is, but I bet it isn't QuickTime. I don't know is WMP even cares about the content type or not, but since it is so connected to Explorer it may be worth looking into.

Here's a question: Does anyone from TiVo Support read the forum posts? Since they no longer have email support, what would be the best way for me to connect with them? Waiting on the phone forever, just to talk to a level one support rep. isn't my idea of time well spent.

[Mark.Tolman]

The following is from the Core Media Player's log file:

Render file C:\Documents and Settings\Mark\My Documents\My TiVo Recordings\Stargate Atlantis - ''The Return'' (Recorded Sep 22, 2006, SCIFI).TiVo
File has media type 0x00000000... Subtype 0x00000000...
Source filter clsid is 0xa65fa79b...
AddFilter has failed to add the filter to the graph, hr=0x08x
Source filter has loaded the source file
RenderFile: Source filter added: Address=b8e28cc
RenderFile: Render source filter pin b8e29c4
Render: Pin b8e29c4 has major type 0xe436eb83...
Render pin b8e29c4
Render: Pin b8e29c4 has major type 0xe436eb83...

The rest of the log is just TCMP trying the different filters' pins. Two things caught my eye as I scaned the log. First was the fact that the file media type and subtype were both 0x00000000. Second was the line about failing to add the source filter (the TiVo filter) to the graph.

Neither of these things stopped TCMP from rendering the file, but maybe Windows Media Player 10 isn't as forgiving.

[Mark.Tolman]

I've tried just about everything I can think of to get the .tivo files to play in Windows Media Player or Media Player Classic, but they both still crash.

One the bright side, I just found out that the files will play in the DivX Player.

I guess I'll just have to wait for the next update, and in the mean time I can watch the files with the code media player.

By the way, if you are unable to ff or rw, it may be because your computer is using an MPEG demux filter other than the Main Concept filter installed by TiVo Desktop. In my case it was the one that came with PowerDVD. Once I made it so the Main Concept filter loaded instead, I was able to use the slide bar again and jump to any point in the file.

[Mark.Tolman]

I've finally found a way to duplicate the problem. I noticed that the players that were able to play the .tivo files loaded the Video Mixing Renderer 9 filter to render the video. For some reason that filter's merit is very low, so the default Video Renderer filter is normally called. I had configured those players to use the Mixing Renderer in the hope it would improve performance.

If I change the config back, so the Mixing Renderer isn't loaded, the player fails to load the .tivo file. It doesn't crash, but it does throw an error, so it is clear that this is related. The Mixing Renderer shouldn't be needed to render a single video stream. It is used to display video content on top of each other - like picture in picture or subtitles.

I hope this information is of use to someone in TiVo support. I like the desktop product and want to see it working bug free. :)

[rys]

Bump, I found the solution to this problem after doing a reinstall on a second desktop of mine.

In my case it was the demuxer. The quick solution is to re-register and merit up the built in Windows MPEG2 Muxer. That's the file here:

c:\windows\system32\mpg2splt.ax

The long story is that with all of my codec packs installed, etc. The codec packs had installed their own demuxers that cannot deal with long file names. Anytime I would try and load a .tivo file, WMP10 would crash with an error in TivoDirectShowFilter.dll (An error that I presume occurs in TivoDirectShowFilter when it tries to pass a long file name to a Demuxer that cannot handle it).

On my system it was using Mainconcept MPEG Splitter, so I had switched it to Mainconcept MPEG Demuxer (No luck). I had built a machine inside VMWare (A virtualization software), this really isn't good for video playback, but it would let me run GraphEdit and G-Spot on a unmodified configuration, free from the hazards of multiple installs of codec packs and codec/merit hell.

The machine showed "MPEG-2 Splitter" (c:\windows\system32\mpg2splt.ax), a windows component.

Of course you will need a reasonable MPEG2 Decoder. Mine continues to be Mainconcept MPEG Decoder, but you can use NVIDIA, Cyberlink, Intervideo, etc. You will also need an audio decoder, I use AC3Filter.

This will be a little difficult for the non technical, all I can tell you is that you will need to play with Merit settings for your codecs and make sure that "MPEG-2 Splitter" is the primary demuxer for MPEG stuff.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

-Brian

[Grex]

I also found a resolve to my problem. I used the XP video decorder checkup utility and found that the version of the codec i was using was no longer capatiable with WMP10. I had to buy a new decorder. After i did that evertyhing worked fine.

[Mark.Tolman]

I had the latest MPEG-2 codecs from CyberLink/PowerDVD. I noticed several MainConcept files in the TiVo Support directory, so I uninstalled the CyberLink filters, rebooted, and installed an Open Source (GPL) MPEG-2 filter I found on free-codecs.com.

Microsoft's tool said the filter wasn't fully WMP10 compatible, but that didn't cause any problems. The TiVo files opened up just fine with Media Player. Once I removed the default MPEG-2 splitter and replaced it with one from MainConcept, I was able to seek forward and backward in the files, too.

I removed the Open Source filter and now have actual MainConcept MPEG-2 codecs and filters installed. Everything is working just fine now.

I suspect CyberLink's code and TiVo's just didn't get along on my system. I didn't like PowerDVD anyway. :)

The Graph now looks like this for video:
[Src] -> [MainConcept MPEG Demultiplexer] -> [MainConcept MPEG Video Decoder] -> [Video Renderer]

The Audio looks pretty much the same.

I'm glad the TiVo Source filter likes the MainConcept files. I was starting to get frustrated.