In Windows 7, Media Center comes pre-installed – but it isn’t necessarily set up properly. In our two previous articles for Windows Media Center, we showed you how you can set up Windows Media Center for the first time and how you can rebuild your Media Center library. Another thing that Windows Media Center is missing is playback support for Matroska Video ( MKV) files. With the rising popularity of the MKV format, this can become quite troublesome. In this tutorial we’ll learn how to use a work-around to add MKV playback ability to Windows Media Center. Step 1 – Download FFDShow Tryouts Adding MKV playback support to Windows Media Center doesn’t take much, in fact it mostly involves downloading a few codecs. Let’s start with the first one: Download FFDShow Tryouts. Once the download is finished go ahead and run the installer, it is pretty straight-forward. Note: If you are running a 64-bit operating system you will need to also download this file to enable 64-bit rendering. Step 2 – Download Gabest’s MKV Splitters Now we need one more codec called Gabest’s MKV Splitters. Download the 32-bit version or download the 64-bit version depending on which version operating system you are running. Once downloaded, Extract the contents of the archive to the C:\ directory* (root) of your computer. * Or whatever custom directory you’ve installed Windows to. Now that the contents are on your C:\ drive, Right- Click the gabest_splitter_enable.cmd file and select Run as administrator. A messages will pop up confirming that the installation was a success. Step 3 – Downloading the Registry Modification The last thing you need to do is to download and open a registry file. Again, there is a different version for 32-bit and 64-bit computers. Download the 32-bit version or Download the 64-bit version Optional: If you are curious as to what keys the registry files will be editing.
Thanks, I don't have an Android phone now but I am going to upgrade in December to either the Galaxy S2 or the Galaxy Nexus. For now though I still plan to get a remote (or possibly even a TV tuner with remote since those aren't TOO much more expensive than just remotes).
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