Windows Media Technologies Registry Settings
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8/28/2008
The registry stores information necessary to configure the system for applications and hardware devices. The registry also contains information that the operating system continually references during operation.
Note
The default registry values vary depending on which Catalog items are included in your OS design. For more information, see Default Registry Settings.
General
The registry subkey HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Netshow\Player\General controls buffering and transport protocol properties for Microsoft® Windows Media® technologies. The following table shows the named values for this subkey.
| Value : type | Description |
|---|---|
AudioDropRate : DWORD |
Default setting is 3. If the frame rate is larger than this value, the ASF splitter will not send audio frames. This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
Buffering Time : REG_DWORD |
Default setting is 5000. This value sets the buffering time in milliseconds. You can set it to any value between 1 and 30000. |
DisableBandwidthSwitch : DWORD |
Default setting is 0. This value controls whether dynamic bandwidth switching is disabled. Set this value to 0 to enable dynamic bandwidth switching, or 1 to disable dynamic bandwidth switching. When dynamic bandwidth switching is disabled, the value ManualBandwidth sets the bandwidth. This value is available for Windows CE 5.0 and later. |
EnableHTTP : REG_DWORD |
Default setting is 1, indicating that streaming over HTTP is supported. Set this value to 0 to turn off streaming over HTTP. |
EnableMulticast : REG_DWORD |
Default setting is 1, indicating that multicast streaming is supported. Set this value to 0 to turn off multicast streaming. |
EnableTCP : REG_DWORD |
Default setting is 1, indicating that MMS streaming over TCP is supported. Set this value to 0 to turn off MMS streaming over TCP. |
EnableUDP : REG_DWORD |
Default setting is 1, indicating that MMS streaming over UDP is supported. Set this value to 0 to turn off MMS streaming over UDP. |
FileReaderBufCount : DWORD |
Default setting is 4. This value sets the total number of buffers to be used in the file streamer. (Total buffering space is FileReaderBufSize * FileReaderBufCount). This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
FileReaderLowWatermark : DWORD |
Default setting is 1/2 of the value of FileReaderBufCount. When the number of buffers pre-read cross below the low watermark value, refill of the buffers is restarted immediately. This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
FileReaderPrefillCount : DWORD |
Default setting is 3/4 of the value of FileReaderBufCount. This value sets the total number of buffers that will be pre-read when starting or restarting streaming. This may happen, for instance, when a new streaming position is set. This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
FileReaderBufSize : DWORD |
Default setting is 128000. This value specifies the size of each buffer to be read from the file system. This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
FirstProtocol : REG_DWORD |
Applies only to the MMS media server protocol. This value identifies the first protocol to try when a client begins streaming a new file.
If the first protocol fails then Windows Media technologies will attempt the next protocol. If the value is not specified then Windows Media technologies will create the value and enter in the number for the first protocol that it attempted to stream over. |
KeyFrameOnlyRate : DWORD |
The default setting is 16. If the frame rate is larger this value, the file streamer only sends keyframes. This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
ManualBandwidth : REG_DWORD |
This setting allows you to specify a fixed bandwidth for your OS design. If no value is specified then the bandwidth is calculated dynamically, which is the behavior recommended for most applications. |
Maximum Buffering Time : REG_DWORD |
Default setting is 5000. This value sets the maximum buffering time in milliseconds. You can set it to any value between 1 and 30000. |
MinFileReaderBufSize : DWORD |
Default setting is 32768. This value sets the size of the buffer to use for each read from the file system when the file streamer is sending just key frames. The file streamer sends key frames only for all negative rates and when the current rate is greater than the KeyFrameOnlyRate registry value. This value is used to tune the file reader when playing local media. |
Device Color Depth
Windows Media Video output is produced at a color depth of 16 bits per pixel.
If your device has a display with a lower color depth, such as a 12-bit LCD controller, you can use the LCDBitDepth named value in the shell registry settings to assure that Windows Media Video content is correctly displayed on your device.
For more information, see General Shell Registry Settings.
Controlling local media playback
Several of the values listed in the table can be used to control local media playback, and to tune the file reader used to play back local media. Local media includes hard drives, memory, and memory cards.