Vista Media Center Decoder Utility

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html' target='_blank'>http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Well here it is the Vista Media Center Decoder utility. This utility will show you the current default decoders, let you select an alternative from a list of installed decoders and by pressing Set Default change the defaults. Although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, you can even select a Video Decoder from one provider and an Audio Decoder from another."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/DFC-decoderutil-042507.jpg" /> <br /><br />Hmm, interesting. I've never had a problem with Vista's decoders, so I've never felt the need to change them, but if I ever do, I know exactly where I'm going to go. Thankfully I haven't had decoder problems for a couple years since my AIW 9600 and Beyond TV (knocks on wood).

[Jason Dunn]

It turns out that in order to take advantage of the hardware acceleration for MPEG2 and more importantly h.264, you need to use the Nvidia MPEG2 decoder...and the Microsoft tool for XP doesn't work on Vista. Hence, this tool. :-)

[Damion Chaplin]

It turns out that in order to take advantage of the hardware acceleration for MPEG2 and more importantly h.264, you need to use the Nvidia MPEG2 decoder...

You mean the MPEG2 hardware acceleration in Nvidia's cards? Or any hardware acceleration using any card is only supported using Nvidia's decoders?

[Jason Dunn]

You mean the MPEG2 hardware acceleration in Nvidia's cards? Or any hardware acceleration using any card is only supported using Nvidia's decoders?

It's only for Nvidia cards I believe - as in, if you want to take advantage of the h.264 acceleration in the Nvidia card, you need to be using the Nvidia codec. I'm not 100% sure though, that's just what I read in the comments...