# Can't view MPG **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 25, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362 "2003-05-25T04:53:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/1 "2003-05-25T04:53:10Z")
My brother sent me an email with a small video as an MPG attachment… but I don’t get any video in windows media player. It just tried to treat it as an audio file. I don’t think it uses a funky codec or anything. Any ideas? Running Media Player 9 on XP. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/2 "2003-05-25T05:26:17Z")
Try downloading Irfanview and see if that will do it. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/3 "2003-05-25T06:15:08Z")
May want to try the DivX codec. [Download.com](http://Download.com) should have codecs/players. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/4 "2003-05-25T06:22:51Z")
Either it’s been sent incomplete, or it does use a funky codec (or at least one you don’t have). You should be able to determine that by looking at the file properties in Media Player. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/5 "2003-05-25T07:42:22Z")
Sounds like missing codec to me. Maybe DivX. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/6 "2003-05-25T07:50:37Z")
It’s not DivX-- divx movies have an AVI extension. If you’re not getting the video, possibly it’s MPEG-2, which doesn’t come native with Windows, like MPEG-1 does. (MPEG-2 used for SVCD & DVD.) Since the MPEG-2 codec is proprietary, it’s hard to find freeware that will support it, since they authors are obliged to pay for the license. Try [downloading PowerDVD](http://www.gocyberlink.com/english/download/dl_file_new.jsp?dl_id=1&ProdId=28). Once it’s installed, you should have the codec, and it’ll work with Windows Media Player, too. No idea if the codec continues to work after the trial period expires, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu\_Tashoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@Gozu\_Tashoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu_Tashoya)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/7 "2003-05-25T07:51:38Z")
OOC, are DIVX files ever saves as MPEGs? All the ones I’ve ever seen or made were saved as AVIs. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/8 "2003-05-25T07:56:06Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s not DivX-- divx movies have an AVI extension. Uh, or a .div, .divx, or .mp4 extension, apparently, though I’ve never seen anyone encode a divx file with those, because you know that the great unwashed aren’t going to be able to deal with it if they’re asked to select an association for an unknown filetype. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/9 "2003-05-25T10:31:55Z")
Also, My Media Player 2 will not play MPEG2 (DVD) files correctly and other specific codecs every time. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t. But PowerDVD seems to play everything every time. You might want to try that. Just one of those mysteries of computer science. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/10 "2003-05-26T13:22:16Z")
Thanks for the advice - I have Power DVD, I will install it and see what it does. ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/11 "2003-05-26T14:26:19Z")
Well, didn’t work. However, it appears it is an ATI VCR1 codec, which I downloaded from ATI. Still didn’t work. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/12 "2003-05-26T15:45:45Z")
You can check in the control panel - Multimedia - devices - video codecs to see what codecs you have installed and see if you have the one you need. It does sound like a codec missing. Check with your brotehr to see which codecs he has. ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/13 "2003-05-26T16:55:19Z")
I don’t know if this will work for you, but it worked for me. I am still using WMP 8. There were a few clips that I would only get the audio for, no video. These were clips posted to web sites or in forums, and other people could see them and commented on them. So I knew it was my problem. I poked around in Windows Media Player, and I had the “automatically download codecs” unchecked. I rechecked that, went back to one of the video clips I couldn’t veiw before, opened it, the media player downloaded the codec I needed, and I could view the clip fine. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cant-view-mpg/177362/14 "2003-05-26T20:44:17Z")
Try the program [AVIcodec](http://avicodec.duby.info/). It will show you exactly what codec you need and tell you where to get it. Despite the name, it also works with MPEG, ASF, and other file types.