problem of visual output in Windows Media Player

[albertlee]

Hi

 

Just yesterday, my windows media player, in play mode, does not output the the movie frames, where the movie screen on the media player remains blank with only the audio output.

 

I ve tried with all media file types like mpg, wmv, asf... but all the same thing happens.

 

I have even recovered the whole laptop for this with a recovery CD, but same thing happens.

 

However, the monitor looks and responses normal though... Looks not like a hardware problem.

 

The strange thing is that other types of media player do not work as well.

 

I thought this might be that my media files were corrupted, but I tried them on another computer but they played fine.

 

This erroneous computer is laptop, with OS windows xp home edition.

 

in essence, no visual output at all, but audio output is perfectly ok.

 

 

Please help

 

thanks

[insane_alien]

maybe the codecs got corrupted? try installing a new codec library.

[5614]

And you can always reinstal Windows Media Player.

 

You can get the latest version (v10) from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/default.aspx

[albertlee]

I have reinstalled Windows Media Player with the latest version but still, problem remains

 

As you see in the 1st image, my windows xp can display the picture from the movie in thumbnail....

 

but, in second image, when I try to play them, no visual output at all, but only audio output.....

 

 

I dont think this is the problem of the codec, but I will try to check it...can any one tell me how?

 

any more help, please?

 

thanks

[5614]

It sounds like a codec issue.

 

Try something like this:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Codec_Pack_All_in_1.htm

 

Video codecs are all over the Internet and can be easily (and for free) be downloaded and installed, e.g:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=video+codecs&meta=

 

What is the file extension of the video? (e.g. .avi or what?)

 

Also sometimes if you right click on the video file and select Properties, then Summary (make sure it is Advanced) it will say at the bottom e.g. "Video compression XVID"... does it say anything for the Video compression?

[albertlee]

thanks for ur response, 5614..

 

the file types that wont work are mpg/mpeg, avi, wmv, and asf..

 

I tried your procedure to find more about the video compression, it says: Video 2.

 

Any more help?

 

thanks

[Dave]

Could be a video overlay problem. Try disabling the hardware overlay option (can't remember where it is) and try again.

[bluesmudge]

How odd - all the solutions being suggested don't seem to be taking into account the fact you have already used the recovery disk - now i must ask - was this full partition deleting recovery, or just windows reseting itself?

 

The fact your screen dumps are showing a slightly diffrently shaded black square in the middle of the main video screen suggests that its not a missing codec at least - although playing the sound track and not the video is normally a sign - the fact with have an attempt to put something to screen suggests otherwise . .

 

Hardware - very doubtful this is your problem, the best way to try it is to open the file in a diffrent player - may i suggest Video Lan (http://www.videolan.org/) it plays very almost everything - if thats not working then we can probably say its a driver problem . . . . though once again if it used to work, then using your laptop's recovery disk should have solved the problem for you . . . . so maybe you could check you did a full hard drive wiping restore - (though back up your data!)

 

Reinstalling windows media player only works if you're going to run through your registry and deleting things windows keeps just incase you want to reinstall it - so that won't help

 

**edit*** I am also eager to know whats inside you "US chemical weapons" folder.

[Dave]

Personally, I still think it might be a video overlay problem. Basically, when you run a video file through a decoder, you can generally expect the video frames to be encoded as YUV (I420 or some other format). Unfortunately, YUV isn't a nice format to blit to the screen; RGB is the preferred choice. This is why 99% of video cards have an onboard YUV<->RGB converter for hardware-accelerated colorspace conversion.

 

I've had exactly the same problem as you (no video but sound and thumbnails), and turning the video overlay off seemed to fix the problem. If you're using Media Player 10, you can do this by going into Tools->Options and selecting the "Performance" tab. Then click the "Advanced" button and deselect the "Use Overlays" option.

 

If that doesn't work then clearly I was wrong