Microsoft antics

[John Doe]

I move 18 movies to my tablet and Microsoft asks if I want to
reformat them since otherwise the tablet might not be able to play
them. Yeah, right. Since when has Windows media player ever been
able to play videos. So I say "No" and all of the 18 videos play
just fine without Microsoft's reformatting. As I recall, I
accepted that offer once before and it messed up the video so it
was not playable.

But seriously...

 

[John Doe]

Don't bother with Windows Media Payer. VLC can play anything.

I should have written that more clearly. I was dissing Windows
media player, not suggesting that I use it.

In other words... "Since Windows media player hardly plays
anything, how would Microsoft know how to make media more
playable?"

That's why it's silly for Microsoft to suggest that it can
reformat video so that it's more easily playable. I suspect what's
happening is that Microsoft is assuming you are sending the videos
to a Microsoft device, so Microsoft wants to make them more easily
playable by its media player. But even in that case, it probably
makes things worse.

 

[. . .winston]

I should have written that more clearly. I was dissing Windows
media player, not suggesting that I use it.

In other words... "Since Windows media player hardly plays
anything, how would Microsoft know how to make media more
playable?"

That's why it's silly for Microsoft to suggest that it can
reformat video so that it's more easily playable. I suspect what's
happening is that Microsoft is assuming you are sending the videos
to a Microsoft device, so Microsoft wants to make them more easily
playable by its media player. But even in that case, it probably
makes things worse.

You didn't mention if the message was specifically for reformatting to
play in Media Player or a Windows message. As written your message
seemed to imply that reformatting would be for use in Media Player.

- Win8x comes with its own modern UI video app.
- Media Center is also available for Win8x ($10 - Add Feature)

 

[John Doe]

I'm trying this again, allowing Microsoft to reformat the files.
It's taxing my CPUs and will take very roughly 7 or more hours,
but... I did notice an improvement in playback smoothness at 2x
speed for two videos apparently converted.

The stock Galaxy Tab 3 (Android 4.4.2) media player makes the
comparison a breeze. Just click the button to persistently show
the controls AND show on the left-hand side all available movies.
Then click between the two different versions. It even shows the
current playback location in the left-hand side icon.

 

[Bruce Sinclair]

So I took the 6+ hours to do the conversion while putting the
movies on the Android tablet into a different folder. Then went
through every one of them, comparing them to the other set of 18
movies that were not converted. Seems that surprisingly something
positive was done to them. When playing them at double speed,
there is no stuttering/skipping in the converted videos.

... so ... was it worth the 6+ hours then ?

 

[John Doe]

So I took the 6+ hours to do the conversion while putting the
movies on the Android tablet into a different folder. Then went
through every one of them, comparing them to the other set of 18
movies that were not converted. Seems that surprisingly something
positive was done to them. When playing them at double speed,
there is no stuttering/skipping in the converted videos.

 

[John Doe]

John Doe <always.look message.header> wrote:

.. so ... was it worth the 6+ hours then ?

I don't know. If it weren't for all four cores working at 70% for
that time, probably. It's nice to be able to do fast-forward on
the Android tablet correctly.

It might help VLC fast-forward and reverse them more smoothly in
Windows after the movies are moved back (after looking at just
one). If so, then probably.

I wonder why Microsoft doesn't provide that conversion for
windows. Or maybe it does, but I've never seen it offered.

 

[John Doe]

It converted all of them to WMV format. And it reduced the folder
size from 14 GB to 10 GB.