.AVI Sound but not Video

[roosta21]

Over the past year or so I have been taking DVD's out of my collection and using Fairuse to compress them onto my laptop. I compress them to 700 megs so I can watch them when I travel. They are compressed into .avi format and I have not had any problems until yesterday. I went to play one and got only sound and no video. I am using windows media player to play the files. I even clicked on several movies that I watched within the last couple weeks and the same thing. I have read a little about codec but it makes no sense. The files have played fine in the past and now all of a sudden they do not want to play. Should I try to use a new video player?

[osprey4]

You probably have a corrupted codec. Try VLC Media Player. Installing this may fix the codec you need.

[roosta21]

could you please explain what a codec is? When i try to play a file it says the codec was obtained and there are no error messages associated. the link you sent over is that an entire player or simply like a plugin or patch for windows media player?

[roosta21]

I downloaded VLC Media Player and it seems to play the avi files fine. quite strange. Thanks alot for the program recommendation. I still wish that i could simply use windows media player or at least understand what the problem was.

[osprey4]

Originally Posted by roosta21

I still wish that i could simply use windows media player or at least understand what the problem was.

WMP is bloated, intrusive and prone to errors. Other than that, it's fine.

Seriously, the more you get away from WMP, the happier you'll be.

[fpantovich]

if u really want to play it in WMP, then you COULD just download the latest K-Lite Codec Pack

Codec Guide: K-Lite Codec Pack and other useful stuff

I prefer the "Mega" version, but up to u Good luck

[roosta21]

osprey4 you are probably right. I am downloading winamp right now. i will probably use that to manage my music and as a player. is there any other player/music manager that you would recommend?

[osprey4]

I use Foobar for playing music, EAC for ripping. I don't use VLC all that much, but I recommend it since it can do so many things well.

[beeflolo]

if you want to use your own player (media player, winamp, etc) your machine requires the proper codec. A codec is almost like a driver that helps interpret the video data so that i can be displayed.

here's what i use.
Combined Community Codec Pack

its got all the codec that are used in 99% of the videos on the internet. Once installed, you can run any player to view your videos.

hope this helps.

[KarmaKiller]

I'll vote for Foobar to. It's extremely customizable, which I find cool. It's simple to learn, and isn't prone to errors.