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Microsoft Windows Media: Disabling Media Foundation and Using DirectShow

100| Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:13:00 GMT| pdwxm29| Comments (6)
This isn't actually a development question, but I think this section would be the most appropriate for it.

Is there a way to disable Media Foundation in Windwos Vista so that it reverts to DirectShow for decoding and playing back files?

I ask because mfpmp.exe eats up 40-60% of my CPU when I'm playing audio, which slows it down to the point where the audio crackles and cuts in and out while playing back at half-speed. This is extremely annoying.

I know DirectShow doesn't use or rely on mfpmp.exe for anything at all.

Other reasons for wanting to do this include some DSP and filter effects I like to use in ffdshow. I installed ffdshow on Vista, but the effects don't do anything, presumably because Vista uses Media Foundation and not DirectShow (and therefore, ffdshow) for decoding.

A somewhat-related question: does Vista have VC1 decoding support? I tried playing back some VC1-encoded movies in Windows Media Player and they don't work, even after installing Windows Media Encoder and the Windows Media Format 11 SDK.

Keywords & Tags: disabling, media, foundation, directshow, microsoft, windows

URL: http://www.cooldevelopers.com/microsoft-windows-media/25159/
 
«« Prev - Next »» 6 helpful answers below.
The registry key had no effect.

The 0x00000002 wouldn't entirely fit when it was a DWORD value, so I changed it to a QWORD value. In either case, mfpmp.exe still takes 40-60% of my CPU and when I look at a file's properties in Windows Media Player, it doesn't say "ffdsow audio decoder" which it did on XP and presumably would if Windows Media Player was using DirectShow and ffdshow.

Windows Media Player itself hovers between 10 and 15% CPU usage whether the registry key is a DWORD or QWORD value or whether it wasn't there at all.

I tried something else though.

I renamed mfpmp.exe in the system32 folder and now Windows Media Player will play MP3s using ffdshow, but not WMAs (unprotected). Windows Media Player's CPU usage is the same, but the audio doesn't crackle, play at half speed, or have any other problems.

That's more of a hack than the registry key, though, and still with one problem: WMAs won't play. I can just rename mfpmp.exe back to what it originally was, so changing things back isn't a problem.

Should the registry key be a string or other type of value?

pdwxm29 | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:58:00 GMT |

My bad... The regkey I referred to only works on internal builds (I even deleted my post so that others wouldn't see it and get confused.)

And I certainly don't recommend renaming or deleting mfpmp.exe!

OK, there is no _easy_ way to force WMP to not use Media Foundation. (There is a less-easy way... If you use the Windows Media File Editor tool that's in the (freely downloadable) Windows Media Encoder and add a dummy marker to your WMA file, then WMP will not try to use MF for it. Clearly, you're not going to want to do this one by one for every file in your media library.)

I'm especially interested in this "crackling and playing at half-speed" business: That really shouldn't happen. Is this a particular WMA file or all your WMAs? And if you're motivated to try the above approach, I'd be interested in a head-to-head comparison of the file before and after you added that marker.

beckyweiss_msft | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:59:00 GMT |

After restoring mfpmp.exe, the playback problems still occur on all of my MP3s and WMAs but strangely, only when the SRS DSP effects built into Windows Media Player are enabled. If they're turned off, the songs playback just fine.

I looked at how much CPU mfpmp.exe was using in both cases. When the effects were turned off, it used 15-20% of my CPU but turned on, it was always 60% or higher.

Plain WAV files play just fine, even with the SRS DSP effects turned on, presumably because ffdshow is decoding them, not Media Foundation. When mfpmp.exe was disabled, ffdshow would take over decoding MP3s, so MP3s played back with the DSP effects enabled too.

I guess now that I can solve my problems by just finding a DirectShow decoder for Windows Media so that ffdshow can decode WMAs and WMVs.

VC1 videos still don't work, mfpmp.exe enabled or not. I opened up one of them in the Windows Media File Editor. Which attritubes should I change, or is it even the right tool to use? Curiously, the File Editor plays back the video in its little preview window...

pdwxm29 | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT |

That's interesting that you've pinpointed this to a specific DSP. We'll need to try this in-house and see if we can reproduce what you're talking about.

I'm able to play VC-1 content through Media Foundation; if you have a specific file that doesn't play and can post it somewhere that I can get to it, I'll try it.

beckyweiss_msft | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:01:00 GMT |

The VC-1 files now work. It was a problem with the playlist they were in. They work jsut fine. I still have the other problem, though.

My laptop is an HP Pavilion ze4540us. The audio chip is a Conextant AC-Link onboard chip. Vista didn't have drivers for it out of the box but had to download them from Windows Update.

pdwxm29 | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:02:00 GMT |

"No easy way . . ." yeah that is sure the truth, Becky, et al. That pretty well sums up my experience with Vista Home Premium in many, many, many areas.

Specifically, as it relates to this thread (and others just like it that have been abandoned by MSFT--abandoned without a solution) my highpowered PC often gets bogged down, playing MP3s and WMA and whatever at reduced, fluctuating speed and with lots of crackling. Tskmanager reveals heavy usage by mfpmp.exe.

I also wonder if this problem is related to "COM surrogate has stopped working" and other STILL nagging, STILL unresolved still crappy aspects and issues with Vista that 1000s of us are having every day.

Any more ideas to try that might work us.

Has MSFT ever thought about how many millions of man-hours have been wasted because of all this mess we have to go through every day?

dbarr | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:03:00 GMT |

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