Computer no longer plays MPG's

[bowmah]

I used to be able to play, edit and import MPG's onto my laptop. It's been 8 months since I bought the machine. Now, whenever I try to import, pay or even use Windows Explorer to open a folder containing MPG's, XP crashes. I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL to close off the application that was hanging.

I defraged but that did not help. I am still capture MPG's from my mini DV but I then have to use another computer to transfer the through the network to use it on another computer.

Any ideas on why I can no longer use MPG on my machine?

[redwudz]

Probably your MPEG-2 codec is corrupted. Try reinstalling it. The MPEG-2 codec does not come with Windows, you have to install it or install a player that installs it, such as PowerDVD or similar.

Here's one that some of us use https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Stinkys_MPEG2_Codec

[bowmah]

Hey thanks for the MPEG-2 codec. It helped a bit. After installing and rebooting, I can at least use Windows Explorer to navigate to folders containing MPG's and AVI's without crashing. I can even open AVI and MPG using Windows Media Player again. But unfortuatenly, after I click stop on the player, WMP crashes.

Just to give more background, when I double click on the MPG's, Quicktime player won't open it and says it is not a recognized file. But I can manually open Quicktime>>File>>Open then AVI's and MPG's will play fine. Hope this can help someone who can help me!

Any more ideas? Keep them coming!

[bowmah]

I can use Quicktime to view AVI's now. Quicktime will only play some of my MPG's, not all. Windows Media playe cannot load AVI's. It can however load MPG's to play but when I click the Stop button, WMP crashes. After the first crash of WMP, it won'y load MPG's anymore.

Any ideas?

[redwudz]

You might try the freeware VLC Media Player. It has it's own codecs so at least you can tell if it's a issue with missing or corrupted codecs with your computer. It also plays most any format. I don't use WMP, so I can't help much with it.

[bowmah]

Redwudz, thank you for the VLC suggestion. Just got it installed. Everything works fantastic as far as a player goes. It looks like this may be a converter as well? Still not sure yet but, I have since uninstalled Quicktime (60 megs) from my mahince Unfortunately, I cannot completely remove WMP

[whitejremiah]

another good alternitive to WMP/quicktime/real media/insert other lousy player here is media player classic....its right up there with VLC and a few others..........i wouldn't recommend using windows media player to anyone though........it's honestly quite bloated and takes a lot longer to buffer files/pull up filelists/dial home to good ol MS, ect.....than it should.......