Codecs don't work

[NTHQ]

I am trying to view videos that used to work perfectly fine when I had Vista but now they don't seem to play anymore. I tried, K-Lite, Shark007, and VLC Player but none of them seem to be able to play the video. I tried installing the "official" xvid codec since that's what I assumed the format is due to it's filename (it's a video I downloaded). I am using Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Also how would I make sure what format my videos are?

 

[Tews]

It would be easier to help if you told us what happens when you try to play it.... Is this a video that you got from a torrent site?? Many times these are fake files and will not play regardless of the file type...

 

[Bearlout]

the video file could use an older codec that is not on your win 7 machine.

is the video file Avi, mpg, mpeg....
if it is .mpg or .mpeg then most times vlc player will play it

download a program called mediainfo that will tell you want codec the video file is using

then you can google that codec



hope this helps

 

[NTHQ]

It would be easier to help if you told us what happens when you try to play it.... Is this a video that you got from a torrent site?? Many times these are fake files and will not play regardless of the file type...

Sorry for the lack of info. I am sure the videos are not fake as this is happening with many different videos and I am getting them from a private tracker that I always use. It's always from the same uploader as well. (It's a TV series)

When I try to watch them with WMP, I get an error that says "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."

With VLC, simply nothing happens. Also when I tried with the player that came with K-Lite, it said that it could not render the file.

 

[harpua]

If it was me who was having such issues, I would use graphstudio (free app) to render the file in question and see what codecs/filters/splitters were being used now. This would likely give some clues as to why the file is not playing.

Then I would use Sharks settings app to adjust and try different codecs/filters/splitters for that particular file type, till I found something that worked with the player I wanted to use.

To render a video file in GraphStudio (GS), simply open the app and drag and drop a video file of the same type you're concerned with from explorer onto GraphStudio. Then you will get a visual graph of the specific codecs etc that are being used by your system to render (play) the file in question. After you make a change with Sharks settings app, you can render the file in GS again to see if the codecs being used have actually changed.

(I also would not be using WMP, but that's just me. I like MPC-HC better. )

 

[NTHQ]

Everything is ok. Thank you.

 

[Freogg]

Hi NTHQ,
What did you do to solve the problem. I get the same error!

 

[NTHQ]

Hi NTHQ,
What did you do to solve the problem. I get the same error!

The problem actually had nothing to do with the codecs. It was my own mistake for not being careful.
The files were RARed into many different parts and when I used 7-zip to extract them, only part1 was extracted. So in a way the files were corrupted and there was no way to play them. I re-extracted them using WinRAR and everything works fine.

 

[Freogg]

I tried to play one of the samples that come with Windows 7 and I still get this error:

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.