Playing WEBM in IrfanView

[jbrisle]

I used to be able to play .webm files with IrfanView, but now it's not working. I have k-lite mega codec as well as the IrfanView 64-bit and 64-bit plugins. Could anyone please help me identify how to solve this? IrfanView is the best .webm viewer (multiple at a time, no lag when looping, etc.) and I would hate to not be able to use it!

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Does the 32-bit version work?

Advantages of IrfanView 32-bit over 64-bit version:

• Runs on a 32-bit and 64-bit Windows
• Loads all files/images for normal needs (max. RAM size is about 1.3 GB)
• Needs less disc space
• All PlugIns will work: not all PlugIns are ported (yet) to 64-bit (like OCR) and some 32-bit PlugIns must be still used in the 64-bit version, some with limitations (see the "Plugins32" folder)
• Some old 32-bit PlugIns (like RIOT and Adobe 8BF PlugIn) work only in compatibility mode in IrfanView-64
• Command line options for scanning (/scan etc.) work only in 32-bit (because of no 64-bit TWAIN drivers)

[vinceb7]

I'm not OP but I have a similar issue. I used to be able to play WEBM files in IrfanView but now they all show a black screen for the video

Some other notes:

• I have tried with both the 64 bit and 32 bit installation (with correct plugins for both)
• IrfanView acts like it is playing a video, and audio still works if the WEBM has audio with it
• IrfanView sets the window to the correct size based on the WEBM it's playing
• What's very interesting is that pressing Ctrl-C to copy the current frame works. I can paste the frame into Paint and it has the correct frame based on progress through playing the WEBM
• All other players on my computer can display WEBMs properly: Media Player Classic, VLC, and Windows Media Player
• I have K-Lite Codec Pack Standard installed (and just reinstalled today)
• I'm on Windows 10
• If I set IrfanView to use an external player then the WEBM plays fine in the new window that pops up, but that isn't the functionality that I'm looking to fix here. I would like to get the internal player (with DirectShow) working
• Using Internal Player with DirectShow disabled yields a popup with the message "Error: Windows can't play this file!" with some additional information and a link to www.fourcc.org. I tried installing some other codec packs to try and get the non-DirectShow option to work without success. In any case it was previously working with DirectShow enabled

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I remember now. This was reported earlier and I sent a Bug Report.

[jbrisle]

Vince, you outlined the exact issue I'm having! Thank you for explaining it better. Any resolution?

[Sinbios]

I found a workaround that at least works for me.

Launch IrfanView and open any video file. The video will be blank. Pause it and leave it open.

Now launch another instance of IrfanView and open the video you want to play, it will play normally.

I think maybe the first instance takes up some broken video pathway, and the second falls back to some alternate pathway that works fine.

Bhikkhu Pesala, would appreciate if you could share this information in https://irfanview-forum.de/showthread.php?t=11689 and relay it to Irfan if possible, maybe it will help identify the issue.

[rdhw]

Launch IrfanView and open a video file. The video will be blank. Pause it and leave it open.
Now launch another instance of IrfanView and open the video again, the video will play normally.

I confirm this work-around (for what appears to be a Windows 10 version 1803 bug in DirectShow player windows).
The work-around applies to all video formats, not just WEBM.

What is more, performing this work-around in IrfanView also enables other applications using DirectShow player windows for video playback to work again.

[Sinbios]

I confirm this work-around (for what appears to be a Windows 10 version 1803 bug in DirectShow player windows).
The work-around applies to all video formats, not just WEBM.

What is more, performing this work-around in IrfanView also enables other applications using DirectShow player windows for video playback to work again.

Thanks for confirming, what other apps are you aware of that has this DirectShow problem? It's weird that this isn't more widely documented, maybe the broken interface is deprecated or something.

[rdhw]

what other apps are you aware of that has this DirectShow problem?

The "Sibelius" music notation application, from Avid.

[OneNot]

I'm not OP but I have a similar issue. I used to be able to play WEBM files in IrfanView but now they all show a black screen for the video

Some other notes:

• I have tried with both the 64 bit and 32 bit installation (with correct plugins for both)
• IrfanView acts like it is playing a video, and audio still works if the WEBM has audio with it
• IrfanView sets the window to the correct size based on the WEBM it's playing
• What's very interesting is that pressing Ctrl-C to copy the current frame works. I can paste the frame into Paint and it has the correct frame based on progress through playing the WEBM
• All other players on my computer can display WEBMs properly: Media Player Classic, VLC, and Windows Media Player
• I have K-Lite Codec Pack Standard installed (and just reinstalled today)
• I'm on Windows 10
• If I set IrfanView to use an external player then the WEBM plays fine in the new window that pops up, but that isn't the functionality that I'm looking to fix here. I would like to get the internal player (with DirectShow) working
• Using Internal Player with DirectShow disabled yields a popup with the message "Error: Windows can't play this file!" with some additional information and a link to www.fourcc.org. I tried installing some other codec packs to try and get the non-DirectShow option to work without success. In any case it was previously working with DirectShow enabled

The problem still persists. This post describes my situation EXACTLY.

I found a workaround that at least works for me.

Launch IrfanView and open any video file. The video will be blank. Pause it and leave it open.

Now launch another instance of IrfanView and open the video you want to play, it will play normally.

I think maybe the first instance takes up some broken video pathway, and the second falls back to some alternate pathway that works fine.

Bhikkhu Pesala, would appreciate if you could share this information in https://irfanview-forum.de/showthread.php?t=11689 and relay it to Irfan if possible, maybe it will help identify the issue.

Can also confirm that this works.
Currently on irfanview 4.51 - 32-bit, Win10, NVIDIA GPU
The problem began when I updated my GPU drivers (coinciding with what the others here have been saying).

[crispychickenstrips]

I found a workaround that at least works for me.

Launch IrfanView and open any video file. The video will be blank. Pause it and leave it open.

Now launch another instance of IrfanView and open the video you want to play, it will play normally.

I think maybe the first instance takes up some broken video pathway, and the second falls back to some alternate pathway that works fine.

Bhikkhu Pesala, would appreciate if you could share this information in https://irfanview-forum.de/showthread.php?t=11689 and relay it to Irfan if possible, maybe it will help identify the issue.

this is still an issue and opening a 2nd instance in fact fixed it, I never had this issue until recently and I think a certain windows update or nvidia driver may have caused it. I tried fresh installs of irfanview 32/64 bit and reinstalling all my drivers and trying various different codec packs, only opening a 2nd instance of irfanview managed to fix the black screen with audio issue (happens when viewing any video format: mp4, avi, webm, etc). If anyone found an alternative fix pls share

[j7n]

Maybe there is an incompatibility with the hardware accelerated YUV upsampling, and converting the picture to RGB32 in the decoder could be a workaround. Make sure the video decoder is either Ffdshow or LAV Filters, and uncheck all other codes for output except RGB32 (no yv12, no yuy2). Simpler codecs don't have such an option. This used to solve blocking reds and inability to have multiple videos open simultaneously in full contrast in older systems. Only the first video would get the good pathw?? w/acceleration. I don't have Windows 10 and I'm only guessing.

[Lomax]

Excuse the bump but have anyone found a solution other than opening two instances workaround? I recently did a fresh install of Windows 10 and found the need to replace the built in image viewer and the only issue so far has been playing webms. I've installed k-lite codec pack and tinkered with the rendering in irfanview options but so far I've had to rely on video players to play webms. Tried everything mentioned to the best of my ability but can't get it to work in current year either, is it the same for everyone else?

[tantalus]

Same here. In fact, i had to stop using irfanview ages ago because of this problem, in hopes that in newer versions (this was about one year ago) things will be fixed. What is my surprise that one year later, things are exactly the same and nothing was fixed. Is this problem even being investigated? or should we forget about irfanview for good? seriously guys... i loved the fact that i could make a slideshow with video files really quick, but a) i got tired of having to open two instances and do the quick workaroud just to play a quick video file and b) this "fix" doesnt work when making a slideshow because the program blocks the instance.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

As noted in this other thread it is not a bug in IrfanView.

Sorry, video problems are NEVER IrfanView problems

IrfanView sends the file to Windows, Windows looks for the codec and starts it => the codec does everything.
=> IrfanView has no idea what happens.

This is either a problem in Win10 update or in the MP4 codec.

Please use another video player like VLC.