Intro video
 

Has anyone else had this problem? The main intro vid only plays for about threee seconds and then starts stuttering, getting gradually worse until it won't play at all. I can play it outside of the game and it goes fine. Now on top of that, my SH3 intro has started doing it. SH4 always has, SH3 just started at my last reinstall. Everything has been defragmented and I meet the recommended specs. The game and in game movies play just fine.

Metl
I have just installed SH4 for the first time within the last hour. After instal, I re-booted and defragged and started game. Intro movie froze after about 30 secs and then computer gave a warning/fault screen (which disappeared before I had a chance to read it properly) and re-booted.
I then installed patch 1.3 and tried again with same result. Pressing Esc before it freezes and going straight to game seems ok. Intro movie plays OK from the file outside of the game as in your case.
This sounds similar to your problem so I'm also keen to hear any comments.

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Hardware specs, gentlemen?

It's Windows Media Player fault. I had that couple of months ago (with sh3 and 4 too)
but unfortunetly i cant remember how i have fixed this. Maybe try (1) to update your wmp to newest version, (2) turn off dx acceleration in wmp settings, (3) update directx, (4) try other graphic card driver (if any of the above fails).
Hope it will help you somehow.

Sounds like a conflict with codecs to me. I had a similar problem with the Falcon 4 intro movie(black screen, everything freezing, warning dialogue), and it turned out that there was a conflict between ffdshow and a codec included in the game. This problem only occurred when running the game, and the movie would be fine when played separately. I used an application called GSpot to see what codec is needed to play the movie, and then unchecked the codec in ffdshow settings. After that the movie played out fine, since ffdshow didn't kick in and screw with the game's included codec anymore.

Yes, agree with Fincuan. Had the same problem with GTA San Andreas on my kid's computer. Solved the issue similar to Fincuan's post.

Theres an intro video :hmm:

I usually hit the escape key ~Fly Endless~ <click>

I watched it through the first time I ran the game but havent since.

It is a codec issue, already ran into this. You need to have all the updates for MP 9 or later.

You can also try these movies. I made them after the RFB movies (actually 0 byte files) caused the game to crash on load because the new MP 11 codecs couldn't handle 0 byte wmv files.

The logo movie is now a 3 second slide, and the intro movie has kind of a patriotic/campy 1940's feel to it.

Extract to the mods folder and use JSGME to install them. Let me know it you still have problems. These were made with a media player 9 codec.

You may also need to try the K-lite mega codec pack. This has tools (gspot + others) to find codec issues

Link to the topic with the movie download link ;)
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=124191

Link to codec pack
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/...Codec_Pack.htm

Here is the key...

When you instal SH4, do NOT Install the wmp codecs option that comes on the disk. It seems to fubar something. Leave your existing WMP as is, or install updated codecs from the Microsoft site.

Thanks for all of the answers, I'm goign to see if I can get it straightened out now. At least I know it is not a problem with my game.

Thanks for all this guys.

Could someone please tell me what/where 'ffdshow' is. Is it a setting in Media Player, SH4 or somewhere else? I have searched my comp for files or text containing 'ffdshow' and came up with zilch.

Cheers

KC

I suspect you'll have to download ffdshow and install it off the Net. Hopefully someone can post a URL here. Until then, try clicking on Start -> All
Programs - > Automatic update and run that to see if the Ms updater detects an upgrade to your Media Player. That might be the fastest way to get going.
-Pv-

The only way you can access this is with a codec tool like gspot. You won't find a file you can delete, as it's a function of the API/codec used to decode and display the video

Go here for gspot: http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Be sure to read the info in the "Suoer quick start for newbies" link on the gspot page.

It may also be partly your video drivers fault. The latest ones from nvidia (163.71) break many video codecs.

I rebuilt my machine from scratch and the only thing added was DirectX9.0c before loading subsim. It worked fine. Therefore i would say its something added not something you are lacking. GSpot tells you what codec is required to play something - but its supposed to play this out of the box.