Saturday, November 27, 2010

k-lite cannot play rm rmvb file RealAudio COOK

When I install K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 6.5.0 on WinXP SP3, Windows Media Player and Media Player Classic can play rmvb/rm files smoothly.

After I install Real Player ver 14 Hexlix Powered, WMP and MPC failed to render rmvb/rm files. It shows the following errors:

C:\Downloads\Movie\movie.rmvb::Output 00 (Audio Stream)

Media Type 0:
--------------------------
Audio: RealAudio COOK 44100Hz stereo

AM_MEDIA_TYPE:
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Audio {73647561-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
subtype: Unknown GUID Name {4B4F4F43-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
formattype: FORMAT_WaveFormatEx {05589F81-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 1
lSampleSize: 14880
cbFormat: 112

WAVEFORMATEX:
wFormatTag: 0x2004
nChannels: 2
nSamplesPerSec: 44100
nAvgBytesPerSec: 0
nBlockAlign: 930
wBitsPerSample: 16
cbSize: 0 (extra bytes)

pbFormat:
0000: 04 20 02 00 44 ac 00 00 00 00 00 00 a2 03 10 00 . ..D¬......¢...
0010: 00 00|2e 72 61 fd 00 05 00 00 2e 72 61 35 00 00 ...raý.....ra5..
0020: 00 10 00 05 00 00 00 4e 00 18 00 00 03 a2 00 00 .......N.....¢..
0030: 00 00 00 07 55 67 00 00 00 00 00 10 03 a2 00 ba ....Ug.......¢.º
0040: 00 00 00 00 ac 44 00 00 ac 44 00 00 00 10 00 02 ....¬D..¬D......
0050: 67 65 6e 72 63 6f 6f 6b 01 07 00 00 00 00 00 10 genrcook........
0060: 01 00 00 03 08 00 00 25 00 00 00 00 00 06 00 05 .......%........

I un-install all. No matter how I change the installation steps, i.e. install RealPlay first then K-Lite, or install K-Lite first then RealPlayer, or install older version of K-Lite, or Real Alternative, the result is the same. Once RealPlayer is installed, K-Lite is broken.

Official FAQ says:
http://www.codecguide.com/faq_mpc.htm#item23
Q: RealMedia files (.rm .rmvb) freeze or play without sound

A: MPC is not fully compatible with RealPlayer 11 and 12.

or C:/Program Files/K-Lite Codec Pack/Info/faq_playback_issues.htm#item32
Q: RMVB files play without sound

A: You are probably missing a decoder for RealAudio COOK. You can install that by following these steps:

Download the Windows version of binary codec pack for MPlayer.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html#binary_codec
Extract these files from the .zip archive: cook.dll, pncrt.dll, sipr3260.dll, drv33260.dll, drv43260.dll
Put those files in this folder: C:\Windows

It seems redundant as K-Lite itself is the bundle of media libraries, why do we need to download additional binary from 3rd party? And the above steps are troublesome.

The easier way and solution is that:

1) Install K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (contains Real Alternative) or Real Alternative first. You'll see the following directory:
C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\Real\Codecs

2) Save a copy of this [Codecs] directory. Because it'll somehow disappear when RealPlayer is installed, or you install K-Lite after RealPlayer, this folder won't exist (I don't remember clearly).

3) Then, install RealPlayer. As expected, WMP and MPC cannot play rmvb/rm properly (without sound, missing RealAudio COOK)

4) Go Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab -> [Environment Variables] -> edit Path

Add the following path:
%path%;C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\Real\Codecs

Adding the above path, [Codecs] folder is visiable to Windows. Now you try to play rmvb/rm with WMP and MPC, it will play smoothly again.