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Showing posts with the label Windows Media Player

Common Reasons Why You Can't View a Video

One thing I've had to deal with in my last two (day) jobs is helping solve why some customers are unable to view our support and/or training videos. A recent problem for one customer led me to document what I know about the problems and likely solutions. Your feedback is welcome! Missing or out-dated codec. This applies to video files such as WMV, AVI, and MPG. These formats are all containers that can use various different codecs depending on the tool that was used to create. For example, GoToMeeting/GotToWebinar, WebEx, and TechSmith's Camtasia could all put out WMVs and AVIs, which have the same extension, but would not play unless you had their specific codec. Out-dated or missing player. This applies to MOV and RM. Since MOV is QuickTime, controlled by Apple, I don't often see problems because Apple pushes updates with iTunes. RM from Real Media is just not found much any more. When it is, most likely their is no player at all, so the download gets you the latest ver

DVD Doesn't Play on Your PC

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Recently I took a class where the instructor could not get one of his DVDs to play for the class. This particular DVD was a custom compilation made by his organization. The error I saw when trying it on my laptop was that it was blocky and played fast. Another person tried it and got a black screen. I search Google on "free DVD codecs" and found a codec to that worked . Once installed, it still did not play with my default player, but it did play with the player installed with the codec -- the Media Player Classic. Because this first codec worked, I did not try the other downloads. I tried this one first because the file size was the smallest. So if you find that you still have trouble, try one of the other links within the first result ( Codec Pack All in 1 or K-Lite Mega Codec ).

Security Flaw in Windows Media Player

As reported by IntelliAdmin.com and ComputerWorld , another security hole has been found in a Microsoft product -- this time it is Windows Media Player Versions 9 and 10. Specifically, the problem is with media files that have the .asx extension. By default when you click on this file type, Windows Media Player will launch -- a compromised file would allow hackers to gain control of your PC. IntelliAdmin.com recommends that you remove the association for Windows Media Player to play .asx files. Microsoft recommend that you upgrade to Windows Media Player 11 . Microsoft says Windows Media Player 11 will work on all versions of Windows XP that have Service Pack 2. I did find one mention of possible problems if you have Windows XP Media Center 2005. If you are looking for a fix to versions 9 or 10, it does not look like Microsoft will have something by this Tuesday, the monthly patch release from Microsoft. So just as I indicated you will likely need to wait for January's patch re