Tag: flashing

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XviD Playback Keeps Flickering

So for the past few weeks, I’ve been experiencing a lot of flickering with video playback. The funny thing was it only happened with MPC (Media Player Classic) and not VLC media player. However, I know VLC uses it’s own codecs for decoding and would often times skip what’s registered.

Anyway, I decided to try debugging. I installed the latest release of ffdshow, but that didn’t help. It doesn’t flicker all the time, but usually flickers the most often in dark or mostly black scene. I also notice the flickering only happens with .avi files (particularly Xvid). When I was playing some .mkv (H.264 encoded) files, they played fine. That’s when I realized that when I play .avi files in MPC, the little ffdshow system tray icon no longer shows up.

In MPC, I opened the context menu –> Filters and looked for the video decoder. Apparently it was using something called: FunBox Video Codec Filter. I don’t recall ever installing a FunBox codec and started to think maybe I had accidentally installed some malware.

Anyway, I did a bit of research and found the file that’s associated to this codec: FunVideoCodecFilter.ax. I started a system-wide search for this file while I continue searching for clues to how I got it.

I then landed on this page: AVI playback issues – weren’t even there days ago. It appears that the FunBox codecs came with a recent update of Samsung PC Studio 3, which I did update a few weeks back. I just never associated the two because I didn’t expect my cell phone software to be installing video codecs (overwriting the ones that were already installed), but I guess they do do some multimedia stuff. I just use it for my bluetooth synchronization.

Anyway, all the FunBox codec files are located under:
C:\Program Files\Samsung\Samsung PC Studio 3\

And I simply unregistered all of them:

regsvr32 /u FunAudioCodecFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunAviSplitter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunConvFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunDecFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunEncFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunEQFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunImgFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunMp3DecFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunMpgDecFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunMpgGrabFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunOggDecFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunSampleGrabberFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunSubFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunVideoAdjustFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunVideoCodecFilter.ax
regsvr32 /u FunVideoResizeFilter.ax

Things are back to normal now, and the little ffdshow icon shows up in my systray again. I still don’t understand why reinstalling ffdshow didn’t fix my codec settings. I even made sure the Xvid box was checked. Hopefully this post will help someone out there that’s experiencing a similar problem.

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HDHomeRun Faulty Power Adapter

For quite some time, I’ve been hearing about people having faulty power adapters on their HDHomeRun on the Microsoft distribution alias. Turns out when I wanted to show VonLobster, I got the dreaded “Unable to locate tuners” error message.

I looked at my HDHR and notice all the LEDs were off. A closer look revealed the power LED was actually blinking green, but very dim. I looked at the power adapter and it was blinking red.

Later that night, I went to SiliconDust, hoping to contact customer support in regards to this issue. From what I’ve heard, it’s pretty simple to get them to replace it for you free of charge. Turns out if you go to their Submit a trouble ticket page, this issue is so big, that they actually streamlined it:

SiliconDust is offering replacements for the SW20-S050-15 power adapter shown.

A failing power adapter may result in one or more of the following symptoms:

  • Flashing power light on the HDHomeRun or failure to power on.
  • Flashing red light on power adapter.
  • Zero signal-to-noise quality (snq) on all channels.

If your HDHomeRun included this power adapter please see this page for a replacement power adapter.

If you go to their Power Adapter Replacement page, all you need to do is enter your HDHR device id (located on the bottom/back of your HDHR unit). They then verify if your HDHR unit actually came with a faulty power adapter and if it did, it prompts you for your name and address.

After submitting that info, I should be getting my power adapter in 3-5 days. I guess it’s good timing since new seasons for TV shows are just around the corner.

Update: Got my replacement power adapter today and once again, QAM HDTV on Vista Media Center works again 🙂