Thursday, May 3, 2012

Playing dts-wav files on Windows Media Player(XP, W7)

Making dts-wav files to play on Windows Media Player is simple and hard. Simple because if you have the right things that you need your dts-wav files will be just like any other media files. Hard because of a lot of experimenting, configuration and re-configuration to do.

Anyway, here's what I have and have done to play those quality audio files. (Without these, static noise will be heard when playing dts-wav files)


For Windows XP users

*Download and install any codec pack you like. There are a lot of it in the internet for free (make sure it has FFDShow). I use Combined Community Codec Pack because of simplicity.
*After intalling open the "FFDShow Audio Decoder Configuration".

*Click on the "Codecs" at the upper left. It will show the different decoders on the right.
*Find the "DTS" format and choose "libdts" for its Decoder.
*Check the "Check for DTS in wav" check box below.


*Still in "Codecs", scroll down to the "Uncompressed" and choose "all supported" for its Decoder.


*Click the "Dolby decoder" and check the check box.
*Also check the check box of "Apply Dolby Pro Logic II decoding to all stereo sources" at the right.


*Click OK and try playing your dts-wav files on Windows Media Player.



For Windows 7 users
Its a little bit tricky in Windows 7 (Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit).

*Follow the instructions above in configuring FFDShow. Its the same with Windows XP.
(You will still hear static noise if you play your files after doing the configuration)

*Download Win7DSFilterTweaker, its a free tool for tweaking Windows 7 audio configuration.

*Run the application.(Does not need installation)


*Click the "Tweaks" button. It will open a new window named "Windows 7 Tweaks".
*Check the check box of "Disable Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder" and "Disable Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder (64-bit)"
*Click Apply then Close.


*Click the "Media Foundation" button of Win7DSFilterTweaker. It will open a new window named "Media Foundation Tweaks"
*Check the check box of .wav under ## Media Foundation (32-bit)##. This will disable Windows 7 from decoding .wav files.
*Click Apply then Close.

Now try playing your dts-wav files with Windows Media Player


These are my dts-wav files. It has .wav extension.


Note: When experimenting with the codecs you should also test your other files like avi, mp4, and dvd videos cause you might be able to play the dts-wav files with your configuration but the other files will not.

The configurations shown above worked for me. I hope it will work for you too.