Direct Show filters are used by several multimedia applications in Windows 7 like Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center. Users who prefer to use third party filters like ffdshow are not able to do so unless they are willing to edit the Windows Registry. The Preferred Filter Tweaker tool makes it a lot easier to change the default Windows 7 Direct Show filters to third party filters. The portable software program supports a variety of third party filters including popular filters like ffdshow, divx, xvid or Cyberlink.
The program will automatically display all available options in its interface after startup. The program lists the supported video formats and the available Direct show filters for these formats in the interface. Microsoft filters are the default filters which should be selected at the beginning. To switch one would simply select one of the available alternatives to the Microsoft filter, e.g. ffdshow as seen in the screenshot below.
A click on the apply button will switch the default Direct Show filters to the selected filters. Users should note that the changes made with the tool have only an effect on media players using Direct Show. The developers of the program mentioned that some users reported playback problems in some media players when switching to alternative filters. Users who experience these problems are encouraged to switch back to the Microsoft filter for the time being.
