I've been experiencing some audio problems recently on one my systems.
The problem only occurs on Windows video files (AVI, WMV, MPG, etc.),
but not on Quicktime video files (MOV). I've tried several different
media players, from the default Windows Media Player, to Media Player
Classic, RealPlayer, Nero Showtime, and various other media players
lying around that were packaged with various things.

The symptoms are always the same. The video plays, but the audio doesn't
after the first time. So for example, you can play any video file with
its video & audio the first time after reboot, but when you try playing
it a second time (or playing any other video file for that matter), the
audio doesn't play anymore. Windows Media Player starts and exits
saying, "You're running low on memory, quit other programs and try
again", followed by the "Close" button. Yeah, right I have 1GB of RAM,
and 3.5GB of swap! Media Player Classic just aborts completely.
RealPlayer plays the video, but there's no sound. Other media players do
the same sort of thing too.

Now, I think it's an audio codec problem because Quicktime player plays
its own files without problems, since it has its own native codecs
built-in. Also audio files aren't affected if you play them through
Winamp, which also has its own internal MP3 codec. But try to play the
same MP3's through Windows Media Player, and no sound comes out, because
it's using the default system codec.

I'm not sure if this is related but the problems seem to have started
after a recent Microsoft major patch update. I was thinking maybe the
update to WMP 11 was causing it, so I uninstalled it and reverted back
to WMP 10, but that didn't cure it. I've also updated the soundcard
drivers (Hercules GameSurround Fortissimo III 7.1) to the latest
available, but that didn't do anything. Windows XP SP2, of course.

How would I go about debugging the codec? Changing default codecs, etc.?

Yousuf Khan

When this stuff happens, are you able to play uncompressed WAV files? Any
audio (not video) files?

Does Sound Recorder work (it's using low-level Win32 multimedia API, as
opposed to WMP that uses DirectSound)? Try uncompressed, as well as ADPCM
compressed files in it.

I would guess it's WMP11 screwup, not cured by uninstall. If you switch to
different user, does Windows occasionally refuse you do so?

Does playback recover when you do logoff/logon (without restart)?

"Yousuf Khan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I've been experiencing some audio problems recently on one my systems. The
> problem only occurs on Windows video files (AVI, WMV, MPG, etc.), but not
> on Quicktime video files (MOV). I've tried several different media
> players, from the default Windows Media Player, to Media Player Classic,
> RealPlayer, Nero Showtime, and various other media players lying around
> that were packaged with various things.
>
> The symptoms are always the same. The video plays, but the audio doesn't
> after the first time. So for example, you can play any video file with its
> video & audio the first time after reboot, but when you try playing it a
> second time (or playing any other video file for that matter), the audio
> doesn't play anymore. Windows Media Player starts and exits saying,
> "You're running low on memory, quit other programs and try again",
> followed by the "Close" button. Yeah, right I have 1GB of RAM, and 3.5GB
> of swap! Media Player Classic just aborts completely. RealPlayer plays the
> video, but there's no sound. Other media players do the same sort of thing
> too.
>
> Now, I think it's an audio codec problem because Quicktime player plays
> its own files without problems, since it has its own native codecs
> built-in. Also audio files aren't affected if you play them through
> Winamp, which also has its own internal MP3 codec. But try to play the
> same MP3's through Windows Media Player, and no sound comes out, because
> it's using the default system codec.
>
> I'm not sure if this is related but the problems seem to have started
> after a recent Microsoft major patch update. I was thinking maybe the
> update to WMP 11 was causing it, so I uninstalled it and reverted back to
> WMP 10, but that didn't cure it. I've also updated the soundcard drivers
> (Hercules GameSurround Fortissimo III 7.1) to the latest available, but
> that didn't do anything. Windows XP SP2, of course.
>
> How would I go about debugging the codec? Changing default codecs, etc.?
>
> Yousuf Khan

Alexander Grigoriev wrote:
> When this stuff happens, are you able to play uncompressed WAV files? Any
> audio (not video) files?

I haven't tried WAV files in particular, but there was one AVI file with
uncompressed PCM audio in it, which also would not play anymore.

As I mentioned previously, I have tried playing MP3 files in WMP, but
they wouldn't play. But those same MP3's play fine in Winamp.

>
> Does Sound Recorder work (it's using low-level Win32 multimedia API, as
> opposed to WMP that uses DirectSound)? Try uncompressed, as well as ADPCM
> compressed files in it.

Use Sound Recorder to playback files?

>
> I would guess it's WMP11 screwup, not cured by uninstall. If you switch to
> different user, does Windows occasionally refuse you do so?
>
> Does playback recover when you do logoff/logon (without restart)?

I haven't tried that.

Yousuf Khan

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:06:29 -0400, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

>I've been experiencing some audio problems recently on one my systems.
>The problem only occurs on Windows video files (AVI, WMV, MPG, etc.),
>but not on Quicktime video files (MOV). I've tried several different
>media players, from the default Windows Media Player, to Media Player
>Classic, RealPlayer, Nero Showtime, and various other media players
>lying around that were packaged with various things.

Try a software group.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

"Yousuf Khan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4604512a$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Does Sound Recorder work (it's using low-level Win32 multimedia API, as
>> opposed to WMP that uses DirectSound)? Try uncompressed, as well as ADPCM
>> compressed files in it.
>
> Use Sound Recorder to playback files?
>

SoundRecorder allows to open (File->Open...) and play a wav file. Because of
very old design, it will load the whole file into memory. I remember in
Windows 3.1, the whole system would get stuck when I tried to load a
particularly big file.

Franc Zabkar wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:06:29 -0400, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> put
> finger to keyboard and composed:

>> I've been experiencing some audio problems recently on one my systems.
>> The problem only occurs on Windows video files (AVI, WMV, MPG, etc.),
>> but not on Quicktime video files (MOV). I've tried several different
>> media players, from the default Windows Media Player, to Media Player
>> Classic, RealPlayer, Nero Showtime, and various other media players
>> lying around that were packaged with various things.

> Try a software group.


These are the most appropriate groups.

Yousuf Khan

Alexander Grigoriev wrote:
> "Yousuf Khan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:4604512a$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Does Sound Recorder work (it's using low-level Win32 multimedia API, as
>>> opposed to WMP that uses DirectSound)? Try uncompressed, as well as ADPCM
>>> compressed files in it.
>> Use Sound Recorder to playback files?
>>
>
> SoundRecorder allows to open (File->Open...) and play a wav file. Because of
> very old design, it will load the whole file into memory. I remember in
> Windows 3.1, the whole system would get stuck when I tried to load a
> particularly big file.

Interestingly, after I tried to open some of the standard Windows *.wav
files in c:\winnt\media, nothing came through, and then I looked at the
Device Manager and now there is a big yellow bang on the device driver
known as "Microsoft Kernel Wave Audio Mixer", which is
c:\winnt\system32\drivers\kmixer.sys. Now no sound will come out, even
from Winamp and Quicktime. Will try reboot again now.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:
>> SoundRecorder allows to open (File->Open...) and play a wav file.
>> Because of very old design, it will load the whole file into memory. I
>> remember in Windows 3.1, the whole system would get stuck when I tried
>> to load a particularly big file.
>
> Interestingly, after I tried to open some of the standard Windows *.wav
> files in c:\winnt\media, nothing came through, and then I looked at the
> Device Manager and now there is a big yellow bang on the device driver
> known as "Microsoft Kernel Wave Audio Mixer", which is
> c:\winnt\system32\drivers\kmixer.sys. Now no sound will come out, even
> from Winamp and Quicktime. Will try reboot again now.

Okay, after rebooting, I tried again with the Sound Recorder and now it
works again. So all of the *.wav files played in Sound Recorder, and
tried them under WMP as well, and they played there too.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:
> Yousuf Khan wrote:
>>> SoundRecorder allows to open (File->Open...) and play a wav file.
>>> Because of very old design, it will load the whole file into memory.
>>> I remember in Windows 3.1, the whole system would get stuck when I
>>> tried to load a particularly big file.

>> Interestingly, after I tried to open some of the standard Windows
>> *.wav files in c:\winnt\media, nothing came through, and then I looked
>> at the Device Manager and now there is a big yellow bang on the device
>> driver known as "Microsoft Kernel Wave Audio Mixer", which is
>> c:\winnt\system32\drivers\kmixer.sys. Now no sound will come out, even
>> from Winamp and Quicktime. Will try reboot again now.

> Okay, after rebooting, I tried again with the Sound Recorder and now it
> works again. So all of the *.wav files played in Sound Recorder, and
> tried them under WMP as well, and they played there too.


I'm starting to think that this is a DirectSound problem, because doing
some experiments in Winamp, you have the choice of output plugins in
there. There are two included drivers, a DirectSound one, and a Wave-Out
one. The player doesn't play if DirectSound is selected, but Wave-Out is
fine. Maybe I should reinstall DirectX?

Yousuf Khan

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:27:51 -0400, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

>Franc Zabkar wrote:
>> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:06:29 -0400, Yousuf Khan <(E-Mail Removed)> put
>> finger to keyboard and composed:
>
>>> I've been experiencing some audio problems recently on one my systems.
>>> The problem only occurs on Windows video files (AVI, WMV, MPG, etc.),
>>> but not on Quicktime video files (MOV). I've tried several different
>>> media players, from the default Windows Media Player, to Media Player
>>> Classic, RealPlayer, Nero Showtime, and various other media players
>>> lying around that were packaged with various things.
>
>> Try a software group.
>
>
>These are the most appropriate groups.
>
> Yousuf Khan

You have posted a *software* question to *hardware* groups. As such it
is off-topic and in violation of accepted Usenet practice. Even though
you are a regular (major) contributor to c.s.i.p.h.c, that still
doesn't entitle you to special privileges.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.