Adding FLAC support to MPClassic....

[2Tired2Tango]

I keep getting asked about this so I thought I'd post it here for everyone to try...

Installing FLAC support in MPClassic...

MPClassic has no internal FLAC audio file support at this time. It's not
that hard to install but you do have to do it manually.

1) Download the FLAC codec from ...

http://www.free-codecs.com/madFLAC_download.htm

2) Make a folder under Program Files; FLAC is as good a name as any.

3) Unzip the files from the MadFlac-1.8.zip file into the new folder.

4) Click on the Install.bat file to install the codec. You should see a
message saying it was installed correctly.

5) Open MPClassic and type an O to open the Options dialog.

6) In the External Filters dialog click the Add Filter button and add
the MadFlack Decoder and MadFlac Source filters.

7) While still in the Options dialog go to Formats and check the FLAC support
item in the formats list (if it isn't already) then click Apply.

8) Close the Options window and Exit MPClassic.

9) Download some FLAC files and enjoy the greatly enhanced audio performance
of lossless files. You can click on them to play them just like you can
MP3 or AVI files.


Works on MPClassic and MPClassic Home Cinema versions.

 

[Rob Williams]

Great instructions... I'm sure this will help many (especially those searching for help in the search engines).

I'm curious, though, why did you choose MadFLAC over proper FLAC (URL)? Is there a benefit with MadFLAC that makes it a better choice over the official version?

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Great instructions... I'm sure this will help many (especially those searching for help in the search engines).

I'm curious, though, why did you choose MadFLAC over proper FLAC (URL)? Is there a benefit with MadFLAC that makes it a better choice over the official version?

Excellent question... If you read the FLAC download page at your url you will see they are very aware of installer problems for the windows version. I chose to go with one that had a high probability of success rather than have a wave of people asking me why the installer doesn't work. madFLAC has never let me down... so...

 

[Kougar]

Hm, interesting idea. Thanks for posting the walkthrough to help readers out, 2Tired!

Honestly I'm not a fan of using MPC HC as my music player myself, Winamp has better hotkey and keyboard support and will play FLAC files natively.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Honestly I'm not a fan of using MPC HC as my music player myself, Winamp has better hotkey and keyboard support and will play FLAC files natively.

I prefer Media Player Classic for 3 reasons...

1) CPU usage. On the little ASRock boxes where I'm installing it most of the time it uses about half the CPU time of WinAmp, which really matters on HD video playback.

2) Command Line support. MPClassic has terrific support for command line options such as /Open /Play /Add /Close /Fullscreen etc. which makes it very customizable for different file types. For example: It's very easy to set it up so you can click on a movie file and have it come up on the fly, in full screen mode and then exit the player when it finishes by adding /Play /Fullscreen /Close to the command line in the registry.

3) Multiple Configuration support. MPClassic will support multiple INI files to allow you to have differing playback configurations for different types of media. For example you can have one configuration for Movies which includes AC3 compression, another for Music which doesn't use it, and a third for Playlists that activates the Shuffle and Continuous Play options.

This makes it an excellent choice in situations where you are remote controlling the system, which is mostly how it gets used in my setups.

 

[Rob Williams]

If you read the FLAC download page at your url you will see they are very aware of installer problems for the windows version.

Ahh, that's true. But it still seems odd, since they could at the least just let you download a Zip archive with the .DLL inside of it. This is how LAME does things.

Good reasons behind the MPC usage. I am just curious, have you ever given foobar2000 a go? I know it's audio-only, but it's quite good for what it does (in terms of features built-in compared to how lightweight it is).

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Good reasons behind the MPC usage. I am just curious, have you ever given foobar2000 a go? I know it's audio-only, but it's quite good for what it does (in terms of features built-in compared to how lightweight it is).

I haven't played with foobar too much. I did look into using it for music with MPClassic for videos but ran into some configuration issues. Like most windows programs Foobar is a bit light on command line support.

Perhaps it would help if I explained what I'm doing...

I've written a custom media player remote control package called (oddly enough) Remote Media. This will allow you to open any shared file anywhere on your Lan, to play on your HTPC, from any computer on your Lan. You can, for example, download a movie for the kids in your den then use a laptop in your dining room to launch it on the HTPC in your basement. Once the movie starts you have a playback control over it... really, all initiated by a simple right click.

The attached image shows how easy it is and the remote control is visible in the upper left.

To make this work I need a very high level of command line support. Fortunately, Media Player Classic provides all I need. Obviously hotkey support is important for the transport controls. And the support for multiple configurations is a real bonus as it lets me have separate playback scenarios for movies, music, playlists, etc. As far as I know, no other player gives me all this in one package.

The Remote Media server/client pair is in mid-Alpha right now. A full re-write to incorporate what I've learned and it will go into Beta sometime early next year. I will be releasing it to the "freeware" market but it will never be "Open Source"... I am not about to give away all my secrets, you know.


I don't fault any player. If it works for you, that's great. But I did choose Media Player Classic, Home Cinema Version for what it can do in my scenario. Since making that decision I've come to really appreciate it's small size and low CPU usage... I doubt I could make the ASRock systems do what they do without it.

 

[Rob Williams]

Ahh, very interesting Tango. I can understand the reasons behind using MPC now. Definitely the way to go if you want as lightweight a tool as possible.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Ahh, very interesting Tango. I can understand the reasons behind using MPC now. Definitely the way to go if you want as lightweight a tool as possible.

That and one of my friends just clued me in on a new version (1.3.1249.0) that actually includes native FLAC support... They're keeping up but I do wish they'd get ahead of me... I've tested it a bit and the FLAC support seems solid so I'd say it's a go.

I guess that means my note above should be applied only to previous versions.

It's not actually the "weight" of it that I'm impressed by, Rob. It's what it can do...
For example, modifying the registry's command lines can profoundly change the behavior of the player. The standard Open command line simply has the program's filename and the usual "%1" for the file. Changing it to read:

"C:\Program Files\MPClassic\Mplayerc.exe" /Add /Close "%1"​

produces an accumulating music player that lets all users on the lan add songs to the gueue to be played... it builds ad hoc playlists for you and then exits when the last song finishes... Way Cool. For movie files use /Add /Fullscreen /Close and it queues up movies for the whole family, showing them automatically in full screen mode and exiting when done.... also Way Cool.

The thing is that so far this is the only player (free or otherwise) I've seen that does this reliably...

That's not to say my remote controls don't work with other players. In fact I've yet to find one I can't remote control... MPClassic is just my "tool of choice".

 

[Merlin]

Tried it.....
Messed up my Flash player, so I deleted and now all is fine
Won't do that again

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Tried it.....
Messed up my Flash player, so I deleted and now all is fine
Won't do that again

Tried which... MPClassic or MadFLAC?

In my experience neither of these interferes with Flash... Flash players have their own group of file types. All you likely needed to do was to stop the overlap... unchecking Flash support (*.flv) in the MPClassic Options/Formats dialog would likely have fixed the problem.

 

[Rob Williams]

produces an accumulating music player that lets all users on the lan add songs to the gueue to be played... it builds ad hoc playlists for you and then exits when the last song finishes...

That's actually quite cool, but not impossible to pull off with other media players. To do it with others, you'd just have to keep the playlist file (.pls, .m3u or whatever) on a central machine or NAS box. Each PC would access the same playlist file and as a result, have the exact same playlist. Adding or removing to the playlist would add and remove from it. The downside is that it would be unwise to have the playlist in use by more than one PC, because one might overwrite the other, so if MCP can get around this issue, then that's definitely a plus.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

That's actually quite cool, but not impossible to pull off with other media players. To do it with others, you'd just have to keep the playlist file (.pls, .m3u or whatever) on a central machine or NAS box. Each PC would access the same playlist file and as a result, have the exact same playlist. Adding or removing to the playlist would add and remove from it. The downside is that it would be unwise to have the playlist in use by more than one PC, because one might overwrite the other, so if MCP can get around this issue, then that's definitely a plus.

That's not what I'm describing Rob... I'm talking about making an HTPC play list on the fly with users on more than one computer contributing to it simultaneously. No saved file... just users selecting songs to be played being accumulated in the player's list window.

For example... I ask the HTPC to play one song, from the laptop, then go over to the desktop and click on a different song.... the MPC playlist window now shows 2 songs... plays them and then exits when done.

It's the combination of the Remote Media package and MPClassic's command line support that makes it possible.

Another thing MPC does very nicely that other players don't do so well is to make playlist files that will play correctly on any machine on the network... even with files from several machines in the same list.

I'm continuously surprised at how flexible this little player is.

 

[Rob Williams]

That's not what I'm describing Rob... I'm talking about making an HTPC play list on the fly with users on more than one computer contributing to it simultaneously. No saved file... just users selecting songs to be played being accumulated in the player's list window.

I realize that, but the idea I had gives somewhat similar functionality. The main difference is that yours is real-time, and has no saved play list. Either way, it's a cool feature.