I use 2.51 for work, and have been doing so for years. The recent versions are nice, but lots of things in them are broken, and others just don't work the same way (the text field, for one), and I have things set up just so for 2.51. My problem is that, especially after the switch to Windows 7 years ago, I've had to struggle on each fresh Windows install with getting the program to display video properly.
This is partly to do with the specific files I work with, WMVs that are 352x288, which (as I've discovered through days of trial and error) the program has a problem with.
Video would either not show up at all, and I'd have only audio, or it would show up for an instant and then disappear, or it would play normally until I'd switch to a different window, and then the image would freeze.
I've tried various codec packs and the configurations thereof, and in the end, what worked for me was this.
First of all, make sure you have ffdshow installed. Now, using the Codec Tweak Tool ( http://www.free-codecs.com/download/codec_tweak_tool.htm ), make sure your codec type is set in 32 bit programs to be displayed by ffdshow. To do this, click "preferred decoders" in the bottom left, and check the left column. For me it's WMV3, so I have it set to ffdshow.
Now, try to play your video in SW2.51. If you have any other splitters installed, they might still be used to play back the video. For me it was LAV. Open the settings for whatever these other splitters are and uncheck the option to play the codec you need. Now SW should be displaying the video using ffdshow.
However, this might still cause issues with proper playback. What worked for me was this. Open ffdshow's settings. If you have a file playing, you should have an ffdshow video icon in the system tray. If you don't, you can open the settings through the Codec Tweak Tool. Click "DirectShow Filters", and then "ffdshow video decoder (x86)". Click on "output" on the left. Here, uncheck YV12, NV12, YUV2, UYVY, AYUV and RGB32. You should have RGB24 checked, as that is what you should be using for video output.
Personally, since my video is letterboxed and small, I also messed around with the crop and resize functions, but you might not need or want to do this.
And voila. Video should now play back properly. For me, with my files, I was no longer able to alter the playback rate in SW, but it's a small price to pay for actually seeing what you're doing.
If anyone has any feedback, I'd love to hear it. I know other people have encountered this issue, since I've seen descriptions of it while trying to google a solution, and nobody seemed to suggest this.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I use 2.51 for work, and have been doing so for years. The recent versions are nice, but lots of things in them are broken, and others just don't work the same way (the text field, for one), and I have things set up just so for 2.51. My problem is that, especially after the switch to Windows 7 years ago, I've had to struggle on each fresh Windows install with getting the program to display video properly.
This is partly to do with the specific files I work with, WMVs that are 352x288, which (as I've discovered through days of trial and error) the program has a problem with.
Video would either not show up at all, and I'd have only audio, or it would show up for an instant and then disappear, or it would play normally until I'd switch to a different window, and then the image would freeze.
I've tried various codec packs and the configurations thereof, and in the end, what worked for me was this.
First of all, make sure you have ffdshow installed. Now, using the Codec Tweak Tool ( http://www.free-codecs.com/download/codec_tweak_tool.htm ), make sure your codec type is set in 32 bit programs to be displayed by ffdshow. To do this, click "preferred decoders" in the bottom left, and check the left column. For me it's WMV3, so I have it set to ffdshow.
Now, try to play your video in SW2.51. If you have any other splitters installed, they might still be used to play back the video. For me it was LAV. Open the settings for whatever these other splitters are and uncheck the option to play the codec you need. Now SW should be displaying the video using ffdshow.
However, this might still cause issues with proper playback. What worked for me was this. Open ffdshow's settings. If you have a file playing, you should have an ffdshow video icon in the system tray. If you don't, you can open the settings through the Codec Tweak Tool. Click "DirectShow Filters", and then "ffdshow video decoder (x86)". Click on "output" on the left. Here, uncheck YV12, NV12, YUV2, UYVY, AYUV and RGB32. You should have RGB24 checked, as that is what you should be using for video output.
Personally, since my video is letterboxed and small, I also messed around with the crop and resize functions, but you might not need or want to do this.
And voila. Video should now play back properly. For me, with my files, I was no longer able to alter the playback rate in SW, but it's a small price to pay for actually seeing what you're doing.
If anyone has any feedback, I'd love to hear it. I know other people have encountered this issue, since I've seen descriptions of it while trying to google a solution, and nobody seemed to suggest this.