MP4 File Support in Windows Media Center / Media Player

// December 30th, 2011 // Other

Today I wanted to consolidate all my various music purchased from Apple iTunes along with my Amazon MP3′s, and all of my ripped CD’s. I consolidated things, added everything to the proper Windows 7 library, and yet my iTunes MP4 music wasn’t coming up. I had a handful of songs that were still encrypted with the old iTunes/AAC. I could have burned them to a CD and re-ripped them, but I took the easy out. I paid Apple to upgrade them all to iTunes Plus and quickly had pure MP4 copies without the DRM. Even after doing so the songs weren’t showing up in the album list, but I could open them directly with Media Player without an issue.

I did some searching and found that Windows Media Player couldn’t read the meta data from these files. There was a great piece of freeware called WMP Tag Plus that takes care of that: http://bmproductions.fixnum.org/wmptagplus/index.htm

If you install that, but still can’t play those files you should install the following:

This DirectShow filter: http://www.xiph.org/dshow/
Haali Media Splitter: http://haali.su/mkv/
DirectShow filter: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDshow.htm
WavPack: http://www.wavpack.com/downloads.html

Now that you’re set from a software point of view you just need to tell the OS that it can now use that format. That’s stored in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. I believe only the following would have to be added to the registry at this point for most people:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4]
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Content Type”=”video/mp4″

A more complete REG hack is listed below (with credit due to http://weinioli.wordpress.com/2007/08/07/xbox360-vista-media-player-11-mp4-video-streaming/):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Parts are set, but type already exists
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mp4]
@=”mp4_auto_file”
;”QuickTime.bak”=”VLC.mp4″
;”Content Type”=”video/mp4″
“PerceivedType”=”video”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mp4ShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mp4ShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}”

; WMPlayer extension
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftMultimediaWMPlayerExtensions.mp4]
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Permissions”=dword:0000000f
“Runtime”=dword:00000007
“UserApprovedOwning”=”yes”

; WMP MLS Extension

; This is very important for WMP to identify mp4 files as video files
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftMediaPlayerMLS]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftMediaPlayerMLSExtensions]
“mp4″=”video”

; M4V ————–
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.m4v]
@=”mp4_auto_file”
“PerceivedType”=”video”
;”Content Type”=”video/x-m4v”
“Content Type”=”video/mp4″

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.m4vShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.m4vShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}”

; WMPlayer extension
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftMultimediaWMPlayerExtensions.m4v]
“PerceivedType”=”video”
“Permissions”=dword:0000000f
“Runtime”=dword:00000007
“UserApprovedOwning”=”yes”

; WMP MLS Extension

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftMediaPlayerMLSExtensions]
“m4v”=”video”

After doing that Windows Media Player correctly sees all of those albums, their artwork, songs, and will update whenever I download new iTunes (or Amazon) music. It also seamlessly will stream to any Xbox 360 in your home, which is a nice perk for Windows Media Center addicts.

2 Responses to “MP4 File Support in Windows Media Center / Media Player”

james ringold says:

February 6, 2012 at 11:55 pm

that seems like a lot more trouble than burning them to an iso and then ripping them back out from the iso…just saying…
joew771 says:

July 4, 2012 at 12:26 am

I am using Win7 and WMP12 and had the same problem. Adding MP4′s to the library for streaming to my bluray player. There is a very very simple fix that I tried and it worked. All you have to do is change the extension of the file to .mpg or something else. For example, change ‘starwars.mp4′ to ‘starwars.mpg’ and it recognizes it and streams it like normal. That’s it! Don’t bother with regedits and stuff. Try that first.