Thanks for your help in advance.
Anyway, here is the story. I have an “avi.” movie file I’m trying to play. I’m using Windows Media Player if it matters, but I’m not sure if it does.
It won’t play it, but says, “No combination of filters could be found to render the stream”. I can play some other .avi files on my computer, but I have seen this once or twice before.
It does display the name of the file in the upper right corner and also displays the length of the avi. file, as if it realizes that it is real.
Anyone know what the problem is? If it is a driver problem, does anyone know where I can get the absolute drivers? I use Windows 98 and Windows Media Player 7.01.
What can I do? I’d really like to watch this and other files like it.
Thanks a bunch. 
Most likely the file is encoded with the divx codec. Go to http://www.divx.com and download the codec only (You don’t need the player if you want to use Windows Media Player.

I thought that as well. I tried it, but it didn’t work. I now have DIVX 5.02. It still doesn’t read it, though it does konw how long the movie file is.
Right click the file and select properties. It should say which codecs (audio and video may be different) the file is encoded in.
Video: 480 x 260, 24 Bits, 88530 Frames, 24.006 Frames/Sec, 19 KB/Sec, DivX codec
Audio: MPEG Layer-3,55 kBit/s, 22,050 Hz, Stereo
Very odd. It says DivX codec. Why wouldn’t it work?
Could it just be a bad copy of the file? Perhaps some of the information contained in the header is being reported correctly, but that critical information isn’t actually included in the file.
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case, since I encounter this problem with other avi. files once in awhile.
I wonder if the computer is trying to open it with another codec. Is there a way to force it to open it with the DIvX codec? I noticed you can’t put a priority order to your video compression drivers, though you can with audio ones.
This is frustrating.
Hmm you could try playing it with the divx player, or the older “Playa” - both are available on their website.
How fast is your computer? I do know that divx decoding requires at least a 450mhz processor…
Hmm you could try playing it with the divx player, or the older “Playa” - both are available on their website.
How fast is your computer? I do know that divx decoding requires at least a 450mhz processor…
I’ve tried playing it with both players. Divx player says it failed.
Playa freezes on all those files. My processor is quite fast.
You may need one of the older “hacked” Divx codecs. Try the Nimo Codec Pack. Be caareful and follow the instructions, if you chose the wrong options it may screw up your other codecs.
Also, many Divx files work just fine on my 333mhz with 64 MB RAM.
Download VirtualDub (a freeware media encode/decode program) and then open the file with it. Use the slider at the bottom and slide it to the right. Do the frames change in the main window? If so then at least VirtualDub can read it. Choose File/Properties and it will tell you exactly what codec the file needs. It could also be that the first few frames are corrupt. That could be why Windows Media Player will tell you how long the file is but is unable to play it. At worst you can re-encode the file with VirtualDub.
Good Luck