avi files only play audio with WMP

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Mike E - 27 Nov 2007 05:49 GMT

Looking back on previous postings it seems this problem comes up from time to
time. A bit strange when who consider who invented avi! I only encountered
this problem for the first time a couple of days ago. The first step was to
use the Gspot270a utility to check that the required codecs were installed.
It told me that the video codec was missing. Downloaded and installed that.
Still only got audio and the visualisation screen with avi. Downloaded FLV
player and videos worked fine with that. I could have left it at that but I
still felt that I should be able to watch avi using WMP. Looking back on
previous posts I saw reference to updates possibly comprimising WMP's ability
to play avi. The next step was to completely uninstall WMP. Not a rollback, a
complete uninstall. I then started with installing WMP9. Yes I know, not
supposed to use it with XP. Never mind, I then progressively updated from
there with the required updates as neccessary, to the point where I have
WMP11 installed with all updates. And guess what? I can know play avi on WMP
without any problems.

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Mike Ellis

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Mike E - 27 Nov 2007 19:29 GMT

Correction to this post. I dont know why I typed FLV player when in fact it
should read VLC player. Trying to do too many things at once I guess.

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Mike Ellis

> Looking back on previous postings it seems this problem comes up from time to
> time. A bit strange when who consider who invented avi! I only encountered
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> WMP11 installed with all updates. And guess what? I can know play avi on WMP
> without any problems.

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RalfG - 27 Nov 2007 23:00 GMT

Apparently MS has abandoned the AVI format in favour of WMV.

VLC has its own built in comprehensive codec support so it doesn't rely on
the codecs you installed in Windows.
MP on the other hand does rely on those codecs and if you have two or more
codecs that could be used to decode a particular AVI they will be used in
the priority order that was set for each of them in Windows. As a result you
can sometimes get playback problems when the codec being used is only
marginally compatible with the file. Despite installing the codec
recommended by Gspot MP could still be trying to use the same incompatible
codec. There are also combinations of codecs and filters which won't work
together. Gspot could for instance show 3 or 4 possible rendering
combinations yet when you test the file, 3 of the 4 combinations might not
work at all. You can also get conflicts between the codecs themselves if you
have more than one version of a particular codec installed, say multiple
versions of DivX, or hacked versions of codecs. Personally I've switched to
using FFDSHOW to play all file types that aren't directly supported by
either MS, or my installed 3rd party players.

> Correction to this post. I dont know why I typed FLV player when in fact
> it
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>> WMP
>> without any problems.

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zachd [MSFT] - 30 Nov 2007 20:24 GMT

> Apparently MS has abandoned the AVI format in favour of WMV.

AVI is pretty limited (RIFF metadata for example...). Certain external
people simply sabotaged the AVI world, which ties in with how awful "codec
packs" are.

I think if you could take back the works of three to four key external
people, AVI would still be a happy and good, if limited, place.

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Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

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