Have run into a problem playing mpgs with Windows Media Player 10 and 11.

[overboard]

Hello, I thought I'd post this here to see if anyone else has run into this.

When I click on a video clip link (mpg) that used to open WMP and play the file, it now hesitates and then shows the first frame of the clip and plays the audio but the picture just stays on the first frame while the audio continues to run. I have not made any changes to my system that I'm aware of. This just came out of nowhere. I can play avi's fine but when I click on a video link in a webpage it does this.

Anyone have any ideas here?

I have since upgraded to WMP 11 with the hopes that this problem would correct itself but it hasn't. I cleaned spyware with adaware and spybot and nothing helps. What happed here?

Thanks

[guns1inger]

Try using codec sniper to check for broken codecs, or better yet, stop using WMP in favour of VLC or MPC which don't have so many of the limitations of WMP. Sure, they don't look as pretty, but they play pretty much everything without problems, and also handle subtitles and multiple audio tracks with having to install splitters and crap.

[overboard]

OK I'll check out the sniper program. Wouldn't it bother you if something just stopped working for some reason and you couldn't figure it out?

I tried right clicking on the mpg files and saved them to my desktop where they will play fine in WMP. So it's some kind of problem playing them directly from the webpage.

[SingSing]

You are right. Normal(non-streaming) video don't play nice over the web. Download then play is the way to go.

[overboard]

erg! But it was working fine this afternoon......

[overboard]

I discovered something....

If I go into Media Player and click file types, then uncheck mpegs, then hit apply, close media player. Then open it again click file types check mpegs and hit apply, it will now play these files from webpages. Right on! But now here is the weird part when I delete my temp internet files WMP goes back to not playing mpegs from webpages. I have to go through the whole process again to get it to work. It never did this before by the way just since today.

Why!?!

[overboard]

I made some discoveries.

What I said in the previous post was all wrong! If I click on the mpeg clip and wait a few seconds it loads but freezes with just the first frame of video....audio continues to run fine. Now if I close WMP and then click the web link for the clip it will open and play fine. It seems it will only play the clip if it is loaded in the my temp internet files. If I delete these it won't play the clip.

Is there some setting that I need to adjust maybe?

[SingSing]

You are right. Normal(non-streaming) video don't play nice over the web. Download then play is the way to go.

seems it will only play the clip if it is loaded in the my temp internet files. If I delete these it won't play the clip.

Your browser decided to download them to play locally.

[overboard]

So is there a way to change that?

[SingSing]

The video that designed to be watched over the web are known as streaming video, see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media

Mpeg are not streaming video, you either download it, or your broswer will do it, or you can watch a broken up and choppy video.

What's wrong with downloading, anyway?

[overboard]

Video Example

Here is an example of what I am talking about. At that link I should be able to click play and WMP will open, connect and buffer and then play this clip. But it will not and I don't know why.

There is nothing wrong with downloading I just don't like when something is wrong and I can't fix it.

Thanks

[guns1inger]

It plays fine in my browser (firefox) but uses quicktime to stream it. If I open the same page in IE and click on the video, it opens it in WMP (version 10 - haven't bothered to put 11 on my home PC), which then sits there trying to connect.