Windows 7 WMC Issue relating to Graphic Card

[gahoole]

I am having an issue with a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate. I have videos that will not work in Windows Media Center but will play fine in Windows Media Player. I have downloaded codecs, reinstalled drivers, etc but I am still getting one of 2 errors:

When I try to play a movie directly from Windows Media Center, it says:

"Video playback is not currently allowed. This is often due to incorrect drivers for your graphics card, because the card has less than 64MB of memory, or because the card is not DirectX 9 compatible"

When I got to the folder the video file is in and right click and tell it to OPEN WITH WMC it says:

"Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer."

I have tried everything I know but I can't seem to find the issue. This seems to be a problem that a lot of people are having, according to my searches but no one really had a fix. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My card is an ATI Radeon with 256mb so it's certainly not under 64MB required for WMC.

 

[CommonTater]

I am having an issue with a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate. I have videos that will not work in Windows Media Center but will play fine in Windows Media Player. I have downloaded codecs, reinstalled drivers, etc but I am still getting one of 2 errors:

When I try to play a movie directly from Windows Media Center, it says:

"Video playback is not currently allowed. This is often due to incorrect drivers for your graphics card, because the card has less than 64MB of memory, or because the card is not DirectX 9 compatible"

When I got to the folder the video file is in and right click and tell it to OPEN WITH WMC it says:

"Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly. Restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer."

I have tried everything I know but I can't seem to find the issue. This seems to be a problem that a lot of people are having, according to my searches but no one really had a fix. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My card is an ATI Radeon with 256mb so it's certainly not under 64MB required for WMC.

Ahhh... welcome to codec hell...

My solution was to go "old school" with a brand new media player...

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Video Player

It's small, fast, free, and all codecs are built right in. It doesn't have nearly a gigabyte of fancy graphics and indexing features, it doesn't re-orgainize your music collection, dosn't change MP3 Tags and best of all it can play just about anything you throw at it.

I've been using it exclusively for a year or so and currently have WMP and WMC disabled.

 

[gahoole]

The problem with that is I already paid $100 for the MyMovies addon for WMC and I really want to set it up like that...

 

[CommonTater]

The problem with that is I already paid $100 for the MyMovies addon for WMC and I really want to set it up like that...

Ouch...

Then we're going to need more information...
What types of movies are giving you trouble? (avi, mkv, mp4, wmv, etc.)
What is the exact error message you're getting? (a screen clip would be great)
What video chip/card do you have in your machine? (look in device manager)

In the mean time check with the manufacturer and be sure your video supports DX9 (some don't)
Install the correct driver for DX9 (it may not be the newest).
Try playing the files in a different media player... to make sure the're not broken or locked.

 

[gahoole]

thanks, I already stated all of this in my original post. No videos file types play in WMC but they play fine in Windows Media Player. It is an ATI D33053 Radeon R9600 256M

Exact error messages are also in the original post above

 

[CommonTater]

Well... I'm going to defer to the others on this one.

I can't help you much if you aren't going to provide the needed information...

 

[gahoole]

what other information? Your questions:

What types of movies are giving you trouble? (avi, mkv, mp4, wmv, etc.) ALL, I said this
What is the exact error message you're getting? (a screen clip would be great) Both errors are listed in my first post. It is exactly what it says, I don't see how a screenshot of the same words will make it better.
What video chip/card do you have in your machine? (look in device manager) Answered this in my reply to you.

How am I not giving the "needed information"?

 

[Athlonite]

The simple answer to your problem is you need a better Graphics card whilst an ATI R9600 (Pro) would have been fine for most things in Win XP it is quite under powered for most things in windows 7 especially Video in fact anything under an X1650 is under powered that and there is not an WDDM 1.0 driver out for your video card which is an min requirement

 

[gahoole]

ok, I did what you said and bought a new motherboard (ASUS M4A785-M with built-in sound card that far exceeds WMC requirements) and a AMD Sempron processor.

Rebuilt the entire computer with a fresh install of W7 and still getting this error when opening WMC:

TV and video may not work as expected because the video card does not meet the minimum memory requirement of 64 MB of video RAM. If you consistently encounter errors with TV or video, update the video driver or install a new video card.