Opening video files

I am having trouble playing my video files - I have formats avi. mov and wmv but none of them will open. I can't seem to open the Windows Media Player program either.

Would I be better downloading software like VLC - which will hopefully open them all.

They are just small videos of my grandchildren so very precious.

Not sure why Media Player won't open; but installing VLC will play them fine, and is often preferable as it will play a better range of video formats anyway.

Hi,

Yeah VLC plays pretty much anything you throw at it. But DIVX player plays even damaged or incomplete video files (personal experience). Of course when file is not complete, there is glitches and artefacts but it still plays it.

You may have an underlying hard disc problem, see the follwoing link for instructions on how to use check disk, should work for win7/8/10

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/guide-to-using-check-disk-in-windows-vista/

I can also recommend MPC, but yeah VLC you can give anything.

There shouldn't be a problem to open these videos with WMP (Cameras rarely encode recorded videos - i exclude lack of codecs issue)

Try with another program 1st and then as @Mikes10 wrote try to check drive just in case.

really dislike VLC, quite laggy on old(er) systems... GOM Player is my choice... and MPC... well, I do't see what all the fuss is about...

I would recommend the "The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack"

Just google it. It comes it with its own media player (which is optional to install).

But I choose to install it as it has much easier controls to use (eg: left-click to pause a video file)

It also integrates well with Windows Media Player, if you prefer that, and allows you to play mostly all formats with Windows Media Player as well.

I would recommend the "The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack"

Just google it. It comes it with its own media player (which is optional to install).

But I choose to install it as it has much easier controls to use (eg: left-click to pause a video file)

 

It also integrates well with Windows Media Player, if you prefer that, and allows you to play mostly all formats with Windows Media Player as well.

That's usually not needed anymore, it was for XP and some times Windows 7, but I haven't needed to use a codec pack in about 5 years....

VLC/GOM and now even Windows Media Player will play most .mkv, .mp4, .avi etc without a problem...

It's only when the file has strange audio encoding (AC3, DTS or something that's not just Dolby Digital / Stereo etc) that you MAY need a codec...

Oh, and KLite uses MPClassic, which was already mentioned on the thread

That's usually not needed anymore, it was for XP and some times Windows 7, but I haven't needed to use a codec pack in about 5 years....

 

VLC/GOM and now even Windows Media Player will play most .mkv, .mp4, .avi etc without a problem...

 

It's only when the file has strange audio encoding (AC3, DTS or something that's not just Dolby Digital / Stereo etc) that you MAY need a codec...

 

Oh, and KLite uses MPClassic, which was already mentioned on the thread

MPC and VLC got everything integrated inside theres no need to install any codec packs unless you encode/decode videos on your own. Like @Ghozer said time, where external codecs were required to run anything passed away.