Windows Media Player won't play AVI

Hi everyone!

I just started getting this issue in which whenever I play an AVI file through windows media player 10 it comes out distorted. These are files that worked perfectly before and not suddenly give me a problem. When i turn my harwards acelleration down, it seems to help but the distortion is there still. All other formats; wmv, mpeg, etc. work perfectly. I wanted to test the Directx but i don't know how to access the utility, HELP!

Thanks in advance!

P.S - Just thought i'd give more information: It appears distorted in realplayer also. Quicktime won't even play and it says that i need a plug-in. it wont tell me which one and there is a list of 10-15.

 

I have a similar problem with avi files I've made. They always played fine, then one day nothing but static. I solved my problem by doing this.

In Media Player click tools>options>performance and click the advanced button. Where it says video acceleration, mine had a check next to "use video mixer renderer" and below that the line that says "use overlays" was checked. I unchecked "use overlays" and then put a check next to "use high quality mode ". Doing this enabled me to play them again.

One thing though. Since doing this I have come across a couple of websites that when I try to play their videos all I get is sound and a black screen. To view them I have to go back into the options and change that setting back again. So, if this works for you keep this in mind if you come across something on the net that you can't play.

I don't know what caused things to change on mine. Perhaps it has something to do with recent MS security updates. There was one that was multimedia related but I don't know just what types of files were involved.

 

You might need to get a DivX codec.