windows media player won't play AVI files?

hi, my windows media player will play the music but shows no picture for my AVI files. why is this?

 

Hi Barkey

I cured this problem by installing DirectX, in my case DirectX 8 did the trick. May not be the best choice for your machine though.

if you post back with some details:
- what OS
- what version of media player
- presumably you can get video OK with other file types?

...it'll help folks give better answers

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as this sounds more like a software thing than a hardware thing, don't be surprised if a friendly admin person transplants the thread into a more appropriate forum

best wishes, HJ

 

i'm using media player 11

 

i downloaded directx but it says requiring codec?

 

Hi

if you are running XP then the Codec Installation Package page at Microsoft is probably useful, it also has a link to a "Video Decoder checkup Utility for XP" which sounds good (I wouldn't know, not running XP)

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alternatively, DIY-style (& irrespective of OS): try to determine which codec you need - you are after the FOURCC, a 4 character identifier for the codec

one way of doing this is to check the Properties for the AVI file in question - in this example the FOURCC is DIV3

(this is tricksy though - from what it shows you'd think that I couldn't play that file without a DivX codec - but in fact it plays quite well just using DX8)

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another way is to inspect the AVI file with a text editor (this can be seriously tedious if the file is large!), or even hex dump it if you have a program which does the biz...

one way or another, quite near the start of the file you will find the letters vids - the FOURCC is contained in the next 4 characters after vids

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assuming that you have managed to determine the FOURCC for your file, then go to fourcc.org (follow the sidebar link for Video Codecs) (wonderful resource!) to look it up, and hopefully find download details, or perhaps a workaround

best wishes, HJ