Downloaded video plays audio but no picture???

[hitman3000]

I recently downloaded several videos off a posting site. Nearly all came out flawless playing perfectly. So far .mpeg, .wmv, and quicktime videos play and work fine.

All the videos(other than quicktime) also show a preview icon. All the ones that play perfectly indicate that they are .mpeg, .wmv, quicktime, etc. But, several are only showing a windows media (my default player, version 9 I beleive) icon, when I look at the properties of the file it only says "video file" but not what type, and when played you only hear the audio of the file, no picture. I think some of the these also say .mp3 audio, but not all.
Also, an important note: ALL VIDEOS played fine on their preview player(some form of flash player I think). So I know the source files were NOT audio only.

I do not think these are corrupted files or any malware/virus hocus pucus. No ill effects from downloading them. And they play the audio portion perfectly, just no video.
Is this a codec problem? Maybe I am missing a codec for the type of files these were encoded in??? I am a noob in the codec department, so I have no idea how to check this or fix the problem.

Any suggestions from more experienced users would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[psx_pirate]

Definately sounds like a missing codec ... download the latest version of gspot and load in the video to see what codecs are needed then do a google seardh for the required codecs.

Note ... only get individual codecs .... don't use codec packs (such as the k-lite codec pack etc) as these will screw up your pc big time

[hitman3000]

Thanks for that tip, a program that tells you what codecs are needed for playback, very nice.

I will be heading back home in an hour or so, any suggestions on good(safe) places to DL the needed codecs?


Thanks

[Pinstripes23]

you can start here at videohelp under tools-->codecs. Another site: http://www.free-codecs.com/index.htm

Whatever you do don't download codec packs, only what you need. A player that can play almost all files is VLC player. It has its own codecs internally if you want to check it out.