I thought I’d just share this wonderful new plug-in I’ve discovered recently. You all know that WMC is somewhat limited when it comes to codecs. You’ll say: “I can fix this by using ffdshow or the K-Lite codec pack” (and if you didn’t say that you should certainly give it a try if you want to play more then the standard avi and wmv files.)
And even though this is a great solution to solve the limited codec problem there’s still the matter of subtitles, other audio tracks, chapter skipping, etc… For example: you could be playing an HDTV mkv file with embedded subtitles or you want to skip a few chapters (just like a DVD), well that won’t be possible without this plug-in.
Media Control works as a plug-in for WMC and allows you to control ffdshow from inside the Media Center. This way you can control your post-processing, enhance your video, display subtitles and make use of all the extras in Media Center. AND it’s available for both 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows Media Center. You can even use it in combination with your MCE remote.
The author’s (Damien Bain-Thouverez) website offers some great instructions to set everything up. I’ve been testing this plug-in myself and I’ve come to enjoy it. Beware though, you’ll need some pretty good WMC skills to set this up. It’s mostly about making sure the right software is installed on your (HT)PC.
Stay tuned for another recommended plug-in, tuned being the operative word here. I’m currently looking into Online Radio Streaming in Windows Media Center and possibly integration with WHC so be sure to check back soon.
Link: Media Control Plug-in
July 13th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Nice post i have to try this out.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Hello Kevin,
Nice to see another Belgian here on the site.
Nice post, I also will try it out.
Greetings from Gent
Nic
July 14th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I totally didn’t get what or how this is supposed to work.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
same here edward