Can't Get That Video to Play? Help with Codecs and Media Players

It's a common problem: you've downloaded a highly anticipated video file, and no matter what you do, it just won't play. In most cases, you're missing the right codec that matches the video's format. If you use Windows Media Player, it'll try to find the appropriate codec, but oftentimes it'll return an error like "Unable to download appropriate decompressor". A very popular codec package is the K-Lite Codec Pack, which contains just about all the codecs you could ever require.

If that doesn't work or the video is jerky or sluggish, try VLC Player. Almost anything will play well in it, and there are versions for every major operating system.

If even VLC doesn't cut it or maybe the aspect ratio is wrong (the video is stretched or squeezed), MPlayer is the ultimate media player. Now that a serviceable, but a little awkward, GUI has been provided, just about everyone should be able to use it. Although originally coded for Linux, there is an experimental Windows GUI build available.

If none of these methods works, the video file may be corrupted or possibly encoded with such a recently released codec that none of these apps can handle it. In that case, GSpot might be able to tell you which codec you need if you have an AVI file.

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Labels: Technology

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