WMC will not display live TV or Play .wtv files

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
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AZDoug

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WMC will not display live TV or Play .wtv files

#1

Post by AZDoug » Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:51 pm

I recently installed WMC using the recent V8.8.3 installer. At first glance things seem OK, but I didn't get much beyond TV, and live TV or previously recorded .WTV files will not display. WMC crashes when trying to display either. The tuner seems to be OK otherwise; signal strength is OK and a selection from the TV Guide can be recorded. Windows Media player works OK when playing .WTV files. I have a second Win10 PC that I'm trying to get WMC working on, and I have seen the same or similar problem. It seems like it should be simple enough, but I'm clueless.

I am running the pre-release version of W10 V1903 on both PCs.

pbcopter

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#2

Post by pbcopter » Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:04 pm

Replace file CPfilters.dll located in C:\Windows\System32 with one from Windows 10 1803. You will need to take ownership and change the permissions to allow Administrator full control to do this.

I also needed to replace MSVidCtl.dll located in C:\Windows\System32 with one from C:\Windows\ehome. You may not need to do this after installing v8.8.3 as I haven't tried that version yet.

AZDoug

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#3

Post by AZDoug » Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:45 pm

I don't have V1803 handy, although I should be able to pluck it out of a backup I probably still have around here somewhere. Is there any chance that the one from 1809 would work? I still have a PC running 1809 here.

This may take a few days, but I'll report back. Many thanks for the tip.

pbcopter

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#4

Post by pbcopter » Sun Apr 28, 2019 3:27 am

Yes I think the one from 1809 would be okay.

AZDoug

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#5

Post by AZDoug » Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:16 pm

I got the cpfilters.dll file from V1803. I took a shot at changing the security settings. I don't understand this very well, but I have managed to make changes in the past that accomplished what I wanted to do.
In this case, I made the Administrator the owner, added Everyone as a user and set it to full access.

I had less luck trying to delete the current cpfilters.dll in V1903. The PC is dual boot with W8.1, but even trying to delete and replace it from W8.1 wasn't possible. If I can't manage it by booting from a non-windows OS, I'll remove the drive, put it in a USB carrier and try on a different PC.

There's no great rush around here, but I will keep at it.

AZDoug

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#6

Post by AZDoug » Sun May 05, 2019 1:12 am

I replaced the two .dll files in the windows/system32 directory as suggested by pbcopter above, and it appears that WMC is working OK in Win10/V1903. The only thing I noticed so far is that when a file is recorded, there is no audio for something less than 10 seconds. After that the audio seems normal and appears to be in sync with the video. This is based upon pretty minimal testing, but everything appeared to work as normal upon installation except video display. I'm using a mygica USB tuner, from some years before Win 8. When I installed the tuner, I set the compatibility tab set at Win 7 or 8.

I did have to resort to youtube.com to find out how to get around the file permission problem, but it is easy enough, and not something I would have cracked on my own.
A million thanks to pbcopter for all the tips.

technodevotee

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#7

Post by technodevotee » Wed May 15, 2019 7:26 pm

I had this problem (delay before sound came on) and it turned out that the problem was to do with playready.

I posted about it here: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/thread ... st-1522674

technodevotee

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#8

Post by technodevotee » Wed May 15, 2019 8:27 pm

pbcopter wrote: Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:04 pm Replace file CPfilters.dll located in C:\Windows\System32 with one from Windows 10 1803. You will need to take ownership and change the permissions to allow Administrator full control to do this.

I also needed to replace MSVidCtl.dll located in C:\Windows\System32 with one from C:\Windows\ehome. You may not need to do this after installing v8.8.3 as I haven't tried that version yet.
I had to replace MSVidCtl to get WMC to play any recorded TV at all and CPFilters to stop it crashing out when trying to play anything in HD.

AZDoug

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#9

Post by AZDoug » Sat May 25, 2019 1:25 am

An update I installed today (probably one of the cumulative updates for V1903) replaced the CPFilter dll in both of my W10 machines with WMC. It killed playback of live TV in both machines. Replacing it as discussed in this thread fixed the live TV playback problem. That was the first and only problem noted.

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