I have a video file that plays perfectly well on one of the computers here at Bricker World HQ and Playhouse, plays only video with no audio on another, and won’t play at all on a third, with Windows Media Player claiming it tried and failed to download the right “codec.”
I get, generally, what a codec is. What I don’t get is how you’re supposed to know where, when, and which codecs to download. Obviously at some point I lucked out on machine #1, and downloaded a good set of codecs. Is there an easy way to copy an installed codec from one machine to another? Or, better yet, is there a tool to analyze a video file and report back what codec(s) are needed to play it, by name (as opposed to the impotent failure of Media Player which merely announces, limply, that it cannot do the job)?
I’m going to guess that the file is something you downloaded. Likely candidates for missing codecs are DIVX and XVID. Loads of information can be had at http://www.moviecodec.com, as well as links to tools like AVICodec.
Codecs are the Devil. I mean that in the best way.
Go to MS windows update and see if there is a more recent version of Windows media player. (the latest is verison 9) you can DL. There is/was also a codec update pack available via update as well.
Also see here once you’re sure you’ve got version 9.
Some files will only play in DivX, some will only play on VLC for Mac OSX. Some files are corrupted in the middle, and only certain players will let you skip that bit.
There are also many fake files out there. I have read that a “FourCC=0” error means a fake file (apparently 0 would be uncompressed, meaning a 200mb file would contain literally seconds of video, no more, so 0 tends to be a dummy file).
Bricker
AFAIK, there is no good way to copy codecs around if you allow Windows Media player to get them for you. Something I have had good luck with is D/Ling kcodec225f.exe. You can Google for this and get it. The package contains every codec on the planet (well, most of them anyway) and also has Windows Media player 6.0 which will play just about anything. You can install this file on your various machines to fix the codec problems. I usually identify codecs using VideoMach which is free for trial/personal use. When Videomach refuses toload a file it will usually tell you what the problem is and what codec the file is compressed with.
As OBTW, if you use the old media player in the above package you can D/L a codec called “realalternative” and play RM files in media player. The Realalternative codec is from sourceforge. This avoids all the realmedia spyware and hassles. I’m running Win2K pro and this stuff works fine.
Yes, the whole thing about codecs is a mess, but what can you expect…?
As to theOld OP:
I much prefer AviCodec to GSpot for codec info. The program itself as well as its website has a lot of useful info.
As to the New OP:
It really is best to run the codec’s install package on each machine unless you have a commercial software package that can keep machines in sync with a master system (and which can handle all software update distributions).
As to followups:
The widely touted unofficial “all-in-one” packages can actually do more harm than good. Many experts strongly discourage their use. I personally know of one very common such package whose installation script is totally fubarred.
People such as myself who are greatly concerned about privacy, rights management, etc. avoid all WMP versions above 6.4. There are a number of alternatives that are not so encumbered.
And my extra 2 cents:
In addition to just not having the right codec, another common problem is that two or more codecs are installed which both think they can handle the same file type. Depending on the order in which they are installed, the phase of the moon, etc., you can have a 2 machines with the same 2 codecs installed, one will run the first codec and you see your movie and the other will run the second codec and you get garbage. You need to go into the codec details menu, look for settings and turn on/off which files that codec is supposed to handle. Ugh.
It’s right here: