Direct Show Filters
This is a page that can be improved upon.
Preamble: Shareaza Media Player uses DirectShow filters to decode and play media files. This is similar to how Windows Media Player works. So if Shareaza balks at playing something, it probably means you need to install a codec to play it. If you can't play a file you've downloaded and can't find any DirectShow codec for it, try a different media player. Some good media players able to play many media formats are: MediaPlayerClassic (audio/video), Foobar2000 (audio), VideoLanPlayer (video), WinAmp (audio). DirectShow works by a series of filters. A filter is best described as a program that takes a file and breaks it down into its components (for example, a video file might be broken down into sound, video, and subtitles), each sub component is can then be read by either another filter, but eventually content will be passed to a decoder, which will finally decode the data, and pass it to a renderer, which will then tell your computer how to send sound out of the speakers and display images on the screen. Since many different filters and codecs can interact to decode a file, problems, like crashes, do often occur.
Audio
Ape Extension: APE Description: Ape is Monkey's Audio codec, a free lossless way of encoding music. WebSite: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/
DirectShow Codec: DS-Monkey Source Location: http://dsp-worx.de/index.php?n=7 Author: DSP-worx - Digital Signal processing, Milenko "DCoder" Mitrovic Licence: MOZILLA PUBLIC LICENSE Version 1.1
Flac Extension: FLAC, FLA Description: FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is the most popular way of encoding music without losing any of the data in it (lossless). WebSite: http://flac.sourceforge.net/
DirectShow Codec: CoreFLACDecoder_0.4 Location: http://corecodec.org/projects/coreflac Author: http://coreflac.corecodec.org/ Licence: It is hard to say, as the installer (oddly) did not give an opportunity to view or agree to any licences ... the project has the source code available, see the web site of the author. The licences in the CVS are GPL and one called the 'Q-public licence'. Comments: It seems to work alright with Shareaza (no crashes). It is possible there are some issues with this DS codec. Both windows media player and Shareaza media player seem to 'skip' while playing flac. Foobar2000, which has its own built-in decoder, does not skip. Possibly this is due to my computer, which is fairly old. Musepack Extension: MPC Description: Musepack is a lossy compression format. It is an open standard. WebSite: http://www.musepack.net/
DirectShow Codec: RadLight MPC DirectShow Filter 1.0.0.4 Location: http://www.musepack.net/index.php?pg=win, Radlight forums thread Author: Radlight, Igor "RadScorpion" Janos. Licence for codec: Gnu LGPL Comments: It seems to work well enough.
Video/MultiMedia
Matroska Extension: mka (Audio), mkv (Video) Description: Matroska is a modern container format for multimedia streams. It is a very active open-source project. WebSite: http://www.matroska.org
DirectShow Codec: http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/ This is a filter pack which can split matroska files (and other files) into their audio, video and subtitle, and chapter sections.
MP4 Extension: mp4 (Video/Audio), m4a (Audio), m4p (DRM-protected audio) Description: .MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is a container format for multimedia streams (audio, video, subtitles, etc). m4a is just a way of specifying an audio-only mp4 file. WebSite: MPEG industry forum's Mpeg-4 home page, Doom9's MP4 FAQ
DirectShow Codec: http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/ This is a filter pack which includes an Mp4 splitter. Once an Mp4 file is split, it will use other codecs (which you may need to install) to play the audio and video portions. Often Mp4 files contain AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) - a lossy encoding audio format touted as the successor to mp3.
OGG Extension: ogg Description: from the Vorbis website: www.vorbis.com: <<Ogg is the name of Xiph.org's container format for audio, video, and metadata. Vorbis is the name of a specific audio compression scheme that's designed to be contained in Ogg. Note that other formats are capable of being embedded in Ogg such as FLAC and Speex.>> Most of the files I have encountered with the ogg extension are Vorbis audio files, but it is possible that their are video files with the ogg extension. Also note that ogm (a separately developped multimedia container format, often containing vorbis audio, and various different video formats) is not officially associated with ogg (but converging with it), and that some ogm files are mislabelled ogg. Website: www.vorbis.com
DirectShow Codec: RadLight Ogg Media DirectShow filter v1.0.0.2 Location: http://www.oggmedia.info/ Author: Radlight Licence: uncertain, so it would be best to read it. Author provides the source code at the location given. Comments: This is a filter pack containing an ogg filter (splitting the file into its various streams of data), and decoders for Vorbis audio, Speex audio and Theora Video. I have tested this codec pack with ogg audio files in the Shareaza media player, and it works. It doesn't contain a decoder for ogg-flac yet. Check the website for updates.
Real Media Extension: RA, RPM, RM, RAM, RMVB
DirectShow Codec WebSite: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1054136293/1
QuickTime Media Extension: MOV, QT Description: Apple's lovely proprietary format(s). Available Codecs: Alternative Plugin (plays via original QuickTime)
Subtitles Description: a filter for displaying subtitles in video files. (These are rarely stand-alone files, but inside various containers like ogg, ogm, mkv, avi). Website: see the matroska website for a good description of various subtitle formats.
DirectShow Filter: VSFilter Author: Gabest Licence: Gnu GPL Note: This codec doesn't come with an installer, so you have to register it with regsvr32: From the start menu, open the run box, type: regsvr32 path to vsfilter. Rolandas, has this advice though: Put the dll in c:\windows\system (if in Windows 98) or in c:\windows\system32 (if Win2K, WinXP, Win2k3). Then start->run->regsvr32 vsfilter.dll . This is because regsvr32 is designed to look in those folders first when registering a dll :-). In the download there are unicode (for 2k, 3k and xp operating systems), and non-unicode versions (win98, win95, winMe). I believe you should register the appropriate dll for your operating system.
XviD Extension: Mpg, Mpg4, xvid, divx & in other multimedia container formats, such as ogm, avi. Description: XviD is an open source MPEG-4 video decoder. WebSite: http://www.xvid.org/
DirectShow Codec: Nic's XviD xvid codec 06/04/05 (april6,2005) Location: http://nic.dnsalias.com/xvid.html Author: http://nic.dnsalias.com License: Gnu GPL
Problem codecs
Here is a list of codecs that cause crashes with Shareaza, for whatever reason.
illiminable ogg DS filter pack collection {Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Speex, Ogg Theora, Ogg FLAC and native FLAC}, Version (0.69.8924) - 15/02/2005 WebSite: http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/ Notes: this is a filter pack. It is well regarded, so don't discount it simply because it crashes Shareaza media player. Maybe the crashes will not happen with you as they do with me :-) .
Radlight APE monkey's audio direct show filter, Version 1.0.0.4 WebSite: http://www.radlight.org/products/filters/filter.php?filter=8 Notes: this codec just didn't work in Shareaza, nor in two other direct show players: Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player