MPG files won't play - Windows Media Player 11

[crjackson]

I recently did a clean install of WinXP-Pro and all it's updates. Then I added all my applications and everything seemed to work well. I recently discovered however that I can't play MPG or MPEG files.

I have PowerDVD 5 installed and it will play them, but WMP 11 only tells me that it can't find a compatible CODEC.

WMP 11 used to play them just fine before the fresh install.

I have searched these forums and found this issue to be overwhelming.

Can someone tell me the easiest way to fix this? I want something that's clean and correct. I have vegas 7 installed, DVDA and Procoder express. So I don't want to do anything that will jack this up. Especially Procoder since I have to beg them for registration keys everytime I have to reinstall the thing.

Please tell me how to fix this and how to avoid this happening again.

Thank In Advance

[Krispy Kritter]

You are missing a mpg codec. PowerDVD installs its own codec.

There should be one available in the Tools section under codecs, or a quick google search should turn up one.

[crjackson]

You are missing a mpg codec. PowerDVD installs its own codec.

There should be one available in the Tools section under codecs, or a quick google search should turn up one.

Can you recomend one. I don't want to chose something blindly that will cause problems with something else.

Doesn't WMP come with this codec? I reinstalled WMP and tired to install the stock codecs and it didn't help.

Thanks

[KBeee]

MPEG2 codecs cost a license fee, and MS, like all software & hardware companies, think all license fees are outrageous (except their own of course).
IIRC the MPEG2 royalty cost was $2.50 per copy back in 2005, but I dunno what it is today.
There's also a fee on HDMI, so you'll probably see that connection being replaced over the next few years by companies that aren't profiting from the royalties.

[Krispy Kritter]

There is a microsoft utility for checking codecs and assigning which codecs WMP uses here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6...displaylang=en

[crjackson]

Yes, I have this already. It only shows the CyberLink codec. It won't let me assign it to anything else however. Can it be assigned to WMP somehow?

[Krispy Kritter]

You should be able to, unless WMP 11 is not allowing it for some reason known only to MS. I rarely use WMP and I still have WMP 10...I don't see any reason to upgrade. I mostly use MPC or BSplayer.

[gll99]

There are a few free mpeg2 decoders that are compatible with MS windows media player and media player classic.
This is a freeware from Dscaler which I like and use but there are others in the tool section on this site.

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=dscaler+mpeg&Submit=Search&s=&orderby=Name&h...uthorfeatures=

Here's another
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=GPL_MPEG-1_2_Decoder

edit: It appears that this latter one does not play encrypted DVD discs.

Also I'm a big fan of the freeware KMplayer. It has a few bugs but it's free and full featured. It may play DVDs out of the box since it has a lot of built-in codecs and filters but I'm not sure since I have the decoder installed and it may be using that. It's a large full install (about 7 mb I think) so if your on a slow connection it may take a while to get but it's worth it.

[crjackson]

Okay thanks, I'll give it a try.

As it turns out the problem was caused when I removed Nero Ultra 7. I back up my system on a regualr basis especially just before and just after a software install. Unfortunatly, I didn't check to see if Nero had damaged WMP. I just didn't think to check that one.

I would like to set it right so that it behaved as though Nero was never installed, but there's probably no way to do that.

Also, the earlier backed up version has Nero 7 installed (which I now know to be buggy and I wish I hadn't purchased) and I can't uninstall it because it will just screw up WMP again.

So I'm stuck with it until a have about 3 days to do a fresh install, and load all my apps. again. Damn I hate Nero now!

If you have any other suggestions, let me know. I will try using the codecs you pointed me to, but I sure wish I could go back to the standard installed version.

[gstewart]

As I just posted elsewhere in this forum, the problem may not be with either Windows Media Play or with codecs. In my case it was Samsung PC Studio 3 - a program that comes with many Samsung cell phones. Neither my Vista nor my XP were able to play mpg files until I uninstalled the Samsung software. It tooks weeks to figure this out thanks to the excellent service from the engineers at Honestech who suspected the problem after examining my SystemInfo file. Samsung does not acknowledge that there is a problem. Conceivable, although this is pure speculation, other cell phone software could be doing the same.