Some WMV files won't display correctly

Discussion in 'Windows Virtual Machine' started by pingaloca1, Jan 29, 2009.

  1. pingaloca1

    pingaloca1 Junior Member

    Messages:
    10
    I have been downloading some wmv files for school and notice that some look great but some look distorted.
    If I boot directly into windows through BootCamp all the videos look great, even the ones that were distorted through parallels. I don't remember having any wmv issues with Parallels 3, and now I'm wondering if this has to do with the upgrade to parallels 4.

    Is anyone else noticing this issue? What could I do to try to fix this?

    Thanks!
     
  2. Peter Canasius J L

    Peter Canasius J L Forum Maven

    Messages:
    509
    Open Parallels desktop => Do not Start the Virtual Machine => click on Configure => Click on Video => manually Change the Video RAM to 128 MB => Click on OK.

    This should fix the issue.
     
  3. pingaloca1

    pingaloca1 Junior Member

    Messages:
    10
    Thank you for the reply, unfortunately I had already done that. I currently have 128MB of Video Ram allocated.

    Some videos play just fine, other show distorted as my original post stated.
     
  4. John@Parallels

    John@Parallels Forum Maven

    Messages:
    6,333
    1. Minimize hardware acceleration level in display properties.

    Right click on Desktop -> Personalize -> Display Settings -> Advanced
    Settings -> Trobleshoot tab. Put hardware acceleration level to zero.

    2. Set Color in Display Settings to 24 bit making hardware acceleration
    set to maximum.
     
  5. pingaloca1

    pingaloca1 Junior Member

    Messages:
    10
    Thanks again for the response. That did correct the problem with the few videos that were coming in distorted. Why are some of the videos fine to look at without having to do all of these steps? Will this impact my games that I run in parallels? Why did I not have to do this in Version 3 of Parallels but I do in version 4?
     
  6. gdittmeier

    gdittmeier Bit poster

    Messages:
    6
    This is a bigger issue than simply a few videos. On my MacBook Pro I couldn't even double click on a jpeg file to view it in Windows Photo Gallery; the image shows all blocked as if there is a severe updating problem. Also running photoshop had severe updating problems.
    Was this release really tested? I have to wonder. This wasn't a problem with 3.0 I think those of us that upgraded for $50 deserve better.
    Making the changes recommended above does resolve these issues on my MBP.
     
  7. chashulme

    chashulme Junior Member

    Messages:
    12
    I'm also having these issues, to which cranking down hardware acceleration per John's recommendation has helped. Now I must agree that we need a permanent solution that does not compromise video performance in the Guest OS. In my case, all Windows Media files using the Microsoft DRM are distorted with an image tearing - non-DRM appear fine. The Guest OS is the latest XP Pro. Hosts tested (all 10.5.6) are Mac Pro 2.66, MacBook Air 1.86 SSD, MacBook Pro 2.33 and Mac mini 2.0 all exhibit the symptom. Parallels 3 did not have this problem.
     
  8. DaTa

    DaTa Hunter

    Messages:
    192
    Hello, chashulme,

    Our developers are avare of the issue.
    Please, kindly share a link so we use the same files for our investigation as you do.
     

Share This Page