Installing LAV Codecs for using with Whirligig

[Whirligig]

Whirligig comes with 3 video path options.


Media Foundation
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This is built into windows 8 and 10 and doesn't require any codecs to be installed. It has a wide range of support and works well on the majortiy of videos.

Video Lan
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This is built into Whirligig and als doesn't require codecs to be installed. It uses the same video support as VLC video player and works on all Windows versions 7 up.

DirectShow
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This does require video codecs to be installed but in my opinion is the best option, plays the widest range of video formats and has the fastest playback when combined with the LAV codecs.

installing LAV codecs
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Warning, these installation guides are only offered as suggestions for installing codecs. Please take care when installing any third part software.
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There are many ways to install videos codecs to work with Whirligig. The easiest and safest is to install the LAV filters manually. Find here a guide on installing the LAV codecs and if you're lucky enough to own an Nvidia graphics card, how to set up gpu decoding.

http://wearestars360.nsccreative.com/setup

This guide is for setting up your system to play 'We are Stars' a VR science education film and you can find more details on that here:

http://wearestars360.nsccreative.com/

A great example of high end 360 video even if I do say so myself, although I did work on it :)

The other way to install codecs on your system is to use a codec pack such as klite. There is a strong word of warning here though as these packs often come with bloatware which you have to choose to not install. I've also had reports on issued caused by installing these packs. If you intend to install your codecs this way make sure you fully research into what you're doing first.

I hope these guide helps with setting up Whirligig for the best video support. If you have any problems or issues let me know and I'll do my best to help.

Happy watching.

Phil

[Whirligig]

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that the player has in some way developed an error and needs to be fully reset. The player stores settings in the Roaming folder and without removing these uninstalling and reinstall will often not make a difference.

There are a couple of ways to do this. The first is press alt, ctrl and tap f9 in the player then accept the message that appears. That should reset the player. If that doesn't work then try following these instructions:

Close Whirligig.
Navigate here :
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming
Find the folder called 'Whirligig' and rename or delete it.
Restart Whirligig.

Give that a go and see how you get on. If that doesn't work there could be something else that's going on that's causing it but I can't think what at the moment. It might require more information to help fix it. Have you managed to get any videos to player?

Hopefully that helps though.

All the best

Phil

[andrea.marchi.san]

I tried both solutions and the error is still there.

The player can play all non-vr videos I load, the problem is with the vr mp4s. I can't open those with any player I tried, but I'm sure they're not corrupted or anything.

Thanks for the support.

[Whirligig]

Humm. Would it be possible for you to send me a link to a file that doesn't work? Also when you say non VR videos do you mean that mp4's work but not VR ones.

It's good that other videos are working and the fact VR ones don't work in all three video paths makes me think that it might relate to the resolution of the videos. VR videos often have a much higher resolution which will mean they only work in directshow and if the directshow installation isn't working properly then that might be causing it.

Have you tried setting the prefered codecs manually using tweaktools. download tweaktools from here if you haven't got it on your system.
https://www.codecguide.com/download_other.htm

and do the this part of this youtube video.
https://youtu.be/lK-52yfGKg4?t=131

There is also a fix option in the tweaktools that might help.

More information about your system might help as well.

Video card

Windows version eg 7, 8 or 10

Headset

LAV codecs
Also have a look at the setup of the LAV codecs. You can open the splitter and the decoder up from the start menu. Try turning off gpu decoding if it's on for example.

There are a few more things to try. I'm not sure of the problem but the most likely explanation is that the codecs aren't registering properly or have failed to install properly. I think once that's fixed then it will start working again. Hopefully.

Give them a go. Currently I can't think of any other explanation but if it still doesn't work maybe the info you send me will help.

Regards

Phil

[andrea.marchi.san]

After trying everything with no results, I set up the player on a twin PC at the studio (same hardware same Windows versions, same Oculus setup) and everthing is fine...

I can only imagine something's wrong with some part of Windows installation on the first machine.

Anyway, I can continue on the other pc so I won't have to solve this mistery :)

I really thank you for your support!

[Whirligig]

Thank you for letting me know.

It's taken a long time to make the player and working out how to make it work on as many systems as possible when every system can has different setups is an unsolvable problem.

Sorry we couldn't work out what your issue was but I'm glad to here you have it working on another machine.

If you have any problems or issues with that please let me know.

All the best

Phil

[KillerBOY]

following LAV Video Settings help to play 4k files for me: https://i.imgur.com/LUQw2Zl.png

[gatsB]

I have a decent pc and installed the lav codecs and also selected the nvidia cuvid in the settings, but somehow I can't manage too make it work. Nothing happens when I select a mkv file. Any help?

[cheater]

Цитата допису Whirligig:

Hi

When you load the video do you see the LAV icons appear in the taskbar at the bottom? If you do, right click on the red one and change the hardware decoding to none and see if that helps. If not try the other options in there as well.

Poor frame rates are things I've been working on to improve but very poor frame rates seems to be something else and something I've not been able to pin down.

There are a couple of other things you can try. You can also try the betas. To try the betas right click on Whirligig in Steam, go to properties and then the beta tab. In the beta tab try the 3.8 directshow version and the 3.8 media foundation version. You can also try the 3.73 version which has VLC support, check the News note for more information.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/whirligig/announcements/detail/603865318485493125

Again this might help.

Let me know if any of those suggestions are of any use. I'm constantly updating the player and there will be a new version out soon so hopefully that will improve things.

Best of luck.

Phil

Regarding very low frame rates, I sometimes encounter this sort of thing with VLC when I run too many VLC processes at once (they don't even have to be playing). Some instances of VLC will become a bit less responsive, and an instance of Firefox that I was running in background will slow its rendering framerate down, the view will update at just a few frames per second eg when I scroll the page. I was told at some point this might have to do with the way timing info is acquired by some programs, and that eg VLC is using some sort of resource that is finite, and the multiple copies of VLC have exhausted that resource, but they get the highest priority and so they push down the timing quality of something like Firefox. Have you tried this sort of approach in Whirligig? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/sysinfo/acquiring-high-resolution-time-stamps Hope this can help you! Thanks for your work

[Whirligig]

There shouldn't really be that many LAV processes running as you'd only be watching one video at a time in Whirligig. It's good to know though. I very much appreciate the work that LAV have done in create a filter pack that is worthwhile, free and constantly updated. It really opens up the video playback options for a lot of people.

Regarding the high-resolution time stamps approach. It's something I've not looked into. I use AVpro plugin for Unity3d which deals with all the video playback options. They're are working on a new version for the plugin which is much more officiant so maybe they're implementing optimization to the directshow system as well.

[Whirligig]

Hi

I suspect that virtual desktop is using either there own video engine for Media foundation. I use the AVPro plugin for Unity3D for my video playback and they are currently working on a new version of this plugin that will hopefully offer a greater level of support. Once they've released this I'll implement it and hopefully support will go up.

So keep an eye out for updates and fingers crossed we both won't have to wait too long.

Phil

[soldat]

after installing its crappy codec. whirligig. crash. impossible that its works after having reinstalled everything help plz

[Whirligig]

Hi

I recommend the LAV filter pack as I've had the least problems with them although it is possible to install any other codec packs that work with DirectShow. In your other post you mentioned how you fixed it by deleting the Whirligig roaming folder. For anyone else having this issues here is how to do that:

Close Whirligig.
Navigate here :
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming
Find the folder called 'Whirligig' and rename or delete it.
Restart Whirligig.

I'll look into installing the latest LAV codecs to see if this also happen on my setup.

Thanks for letting me know and Happy New Year :)

Phil

[Vivi]

Is cuvid still the best option since this is quite an old thread? When cuvid is chosen it says the device to use is automatic. I think in another thread it said you should choose the hardware device(gpu) but that's only available under D3D11 and dxva2.

[Whirligig]

I think maybe someone else might be able to answer this question better. I'd like to know as well.

A good way to check what's being used is to check the computer performance under task manager. If it's not using the GPU it'll be very obvious.

[Logorouge]

Just wanted to drop by to say thank you for making this thread.

High resolution movies suddenly stopped working on my Vive one day and I was lost as to how I would ever fix the issue. I originally bought Whirligig because I wanted to test if the same problem would happen regardless of the software, which it did.

But then the other day I noticed this thread and tried installing the LAV codecs, which fixed the issue entirely! So again, thank you so much.