TVersity, continued

After my last post, I continued to fiddle with my TVersity configuration.  What I found was that the Shark007 codec packs really do the job. 

Follow their instructions carefully.  You'll need to remove all other codec packs (they recommend even uninstalling TVersity's built-in codec pack).  Then install the 32-bit version, then the 64-bit version.  After I did that, I could play anything (even MKV videos) through TVersity using the DirecTV MediaShare or with Windows Media Player.   Since I haven't had good luck with Windows Media Center, I haven't gotten around to testing that again.

Another useful tool is the Win 7 Direct Show Filter Tweaker.  It allows you to control which codecs are invoked by DirectShow clients, both 32-bit and 64-bit.  It also allows control over the new Windows 7 "override" codecs (those used to create icons and play media through WMP and WMC).  I used this to force my DVIX and XVID to play through ffdshow.  Since Shark007 is really a repackaged version of ffdshow, you'll see that name among the alternative codecs for most of the popular video formats.

I haven't tried streaming Dolby or DTS since DirecTV MediaShare doesn't support anything but stereo (AFIK), so I can't vouch for that capability.

I did see TVersity die once, but I have a simple batch script that checks to see if it's running and restarts it if it's not.  Time will tell how often this is necessary.