Playing Non-native video files in Windows Media Center / Windows Media Player 11
19. Jan, 2007 
23 Comments
This tutorial will be helpful for those of you wishing to view video files such as .mkv, .ts, .m4a, .mp4, etc… in Windows Media Center. When you launch media center and navigate to the Video section, try adding a folder that contains video files other than .avi, .mpeg, or .wma. You will notice that these files don’t even get displayed as thumbnails in Windows Media Center. As far as WMC is concerned, they don’t exist. The way to get around this is by doing a little bit or registry hacking. Here are the steps.
1.) Make sure you have all of the right codecs installed for the media you want to player.
- The best codec pack, in my opinion is the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP). Download it here.
- After installing that, reboot your computer
2.) Get your reg-hack on!
- Open up the registry editor by clicking Start > run. In the box type regedit
- Warning: editing the registry can be dangerous for the novice user. Be sure to create a registry backup before attempting to edit.
- Creating a registry backup
- Click File > Export.
- Choose a location and a name for the backup and click Save
- If you mess up the registry, you can enter windows in safe mode and restore it using this backup file.
- Click the + sign next to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT , you should now see a bunch of file extensions.
- Navigate to the file type that you want to view in WMC (if it is not there, post a comment and i will add a note about adding new keys)
- Once you find the file type that you want to play, click on its folder icon.
- Right click anywhere in the right content box and select New > String Value
- Name this value Content Type, press enter, and then double click on it.
- In the box labeled Value data:, enter in video/[type] – type being the file extension. So for .mkv it would be video/mkv
- Click Ok
- Now add another String value and name it PerceivedType
- Give this string the value of video
Now all you have to do is restart WMC and navigate back to that movie folder and you should see the new video files.
How would i go about adding x264 video into the registry, i use vista and an xbox360 and have a lot oh hd content in x264 format. Transcode360 plays it for about 10 seconds and then dies. I had .tc streaming nicely under XP and am looking for the same with this codec !!
cheers in advance
Have you tried downloading the VLC player? it has a heck of a lot of codecs as well. Check it out. Google VLC.
What do you mean by dies? Does it seem as if the end of the movie has been reached, or does it lock up or error? I have been having problems transcoding high-def video on the 360, and have discovered it is because my computer is too slow to handle the transcoding a video of that size. It takes a lot more CPU power to transcode larger high-def video files than just normal one. I am having the same issue only with .mks format. But I could be wrong and you could have some sweet machine in which case I would speculate it was a codec issue. Good luck
Unfortunately even adding the registry entry the files do not show up in mediacenter on the extender (xbox 360) , i’ve added it like this:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi]
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Content Type”=”video/avi”
I simply don’t see the folder (called Series if it might be of any use) with the AVI Files at all on the xbox360.
Running MC locally i can see the folder and the files even if i can’t play them
I am running Vista Ultima x64 RTM
Any idea?
Thanks for your very useful guide, you’re the man!
Ziggy, I actually had a similar problem. What fixed it for me was adding the “watched folders” via setup in the media center from the xbox 360, and making sure to have a wmv file in there. Then it sees the otehr files. Either way, that is what worked for me.
Hi
this looks great – but havn’t had a chance to try it yet. will it let you access subtitle streams from .mkv files? If not, i may stick with playing them through mplayer
cheers,
timpig
I didn’t have to do any registry hack to see or play .mkv (par2) on my computer. I’m running Windows Vista Home Premium and just installed CCCP (Combined-Community-Codec-Pack-2006-12-15).
With Xbox 360 as an extender I can see the .mkv file, but an error occurs when I try to play it on the 360. No solution yet….
hi, could you please add a note about adding new keys? Thanks in advance.
Matt
Hi !!!
Thanks for your tip but I can not add mkv files in my wmp11 library or vista center . . .
I have a vista ultimate version . . .
Does anyone manage to add mkv files into wmp11 library and windows media center and origami experience (i have an asus r2h umpc ) ? ? ? I can play these files in media player classic and wmp11 but I can not see them . . . Any help would be appreciate
Totoro ( a french guy )
I did what you advised and WMP now plays mkv files however the subtitles for the movie do not show. Is there a way of simply turning them on that I don’t know of?
I followed your registry hack and it worked. I can now see .mkv files on my Windows Vista Premium Media Center… However, I cannot see those files on my xbox 360. I have every codec I need. Any thoughts? Im positive I did the hack correctly.
Hmm. Make sure that you’re “watching” the folders that contain videos files in your Windows Media Center. Can you see any other video files besides the .mkv’s. Also with the spring update of the 360, Microsoft did some screwy things. This could also be affecting it. Sorry I can’t be of much help.
hey everyone. is it possible to change the thumbnail view of the .avi from first frame to later frame in explorer. this is insane howcome explorer not have this feature. even google’s picasa have it. thanks.
Sigh…no luck here, still can’t see .mkv’s on my 360.
Where do we enter the “watched” folders?
I can see other video files on my 360, just .mkv’s don’t show up even after doing the registry hack…
Thanks!! been looking for a way to play more video types in MCE for ages!! works great now! =)
I’ve added the reg keys and installed all the codecs. I can play the .mkv files in my windows media player, but it still wont pick up on them, in the library. I’m running Vista Ultimate 64x.
Any ideas?
hi, could you please add a note about adding new keys? Thanks in advance.
Sytse
After some calls I managed to add a mkv key, but I am stuck at gthe same point as Nicolai, so any help would be appreciated
Hi. I went through these steppes. But found that the strings were already there for the .mkv. Only diffrence was it said video/x-matroska. I changed it to mkv. My media player still doesnt recognize the files if I update the library(search for new files) even though i have specified the exact folder they are located. I tried adding a wmv to the folder.And this shows up. I will try to reboot the computer.
I can play the mkv files in mp11 as long as I drag them in. They just dont show in the library. Witch is sad because I would like to play them on my PS3. My roomate installed the newest Winamp on his machine(XP pro). And the Winamp Remote worked perfectly with PS3 showing all files. and transcoding them on the fly. If I install the same version with same codect only on my Vista Ultimate x32 they dont show. They wont even get played by Winamp.:( Any thoughts?
rebooting didnt help either.:(
Thanks for the 411.
All, same here. The videos now appear in my PC’s WMC (I’m working with *.m2t files), but not on the Xbox 360. I’ve tried re-watching the folders, but that didn’t work either. Any progress by anybody?
Hello, My WMC sees the files… all of them… but doesn’t play them. Doesn’t even mention the duration. This is for .mkv files. Everything looks fine, just doesn’t play… I would greatly appreciate any advice/help… thank you.