trying to play an 'avi' file on windows media player?? help!- UPDATE NEW PROBLEM :(

lizzielondon

i'm trying to play a file ending in 'avi' in windows media player

i get this error message:

Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.

i looked around online and downloaded a codec thing-

but i have no idea what one is or what it does- please help me??

thank you soooo much in advance

mallada

Many video files are encoded and Windows media player does not have all the codecs, or even a large amount of them. I would recommend searching for VLC and downloading that, it is a lightweight media player and rarely struggles to play a file.

Alias_Omega

I would download and install this

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm

Its the big bar across the middle of the screen, will sort you out.



Though, i dont use media player anymore on my PC, i used XBMC for a few months now, and never has any issues with media i play.

Regards,

Alias

swvillafan

Here tis a link for VLC.

spike7451

I agree,VLC is a good allround media player & will play just about anything,Real Media,AVI,Mov ect...

aliEnRIK

Alias_Omega wrote: »

I would download and install this

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm

Its the big bar across the middle of the screen, will sort you out.



Though, i dont use media player anymore on my PC, i used XBMC for a few months now, and never has any issues with media i play.

Regards,

Alias

I use windows classic too

VLC can be a tad dodgy with some types of files when jumping scenes

Donnie

lizzielondon wrote: »

i'm trying to play a file ending in 'avi' in windows media player

i get this error message:

Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.

i looked around online and downloaded a codec thing-

but i have no idea what one is or what it does- please help me??

thank you soooo much in advance

You "downloaded a codec thingy"?? :eek: I would start by running a scan with Malwarebytes' AntiMalware. Download, Install and Update. Then run a Full Scan.

All you really needed was this XviD CoDec.

KillerWatt

Donnie wrote: »

All you really needed was this XviD CoDec.

How do you know it's the XviD codec that's needed?

It could be DivX, Cinepak, MPEG-4, etc among others.

lizzielondon

ok i downloaded the vlc but i have a new problem

the thing i have to watch is 2.9 hours long- it come up as this long on media player but can't watch it

just sat and watched it on vlc and it finishes at 1hr 45 mins ??

does anyone know how i can sort this out? it doesn't freeze it's like there is no more....

bat999

Hi
Sometimes it's a good idea to analyze the file with MediaInfo.
This will tell you which codecs have been used, and also the run-time.
MediaInfo is here:-http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

lizzielondon

Thank you - i'll try that

i think i need to go on some kind of course...