audio plays but not video

[Jay]

Whenever I play a movie, my windows media player just
shows a black screen but I can hear the movie playing. If
I switch between programs really fast, the video appears
for a split second but then it goes back to black.

Anyone else seen this problem and found a fix?

Thanks.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

It's always helpful if you tell us what file format you are trying to play!

However, with an AVI file, it's nearly ALWAYS a codec issue:

Download and install G-Spot from
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Once you analyze the AVI file, it will tell you with which codec it was
compressed. An uncompressed AVI file is over 12gb per hour, (yes, GB not
mb) so it is highly unlikely you have an uncompressed AVI file. A
compressed AVI file needs to have the correct codec installed on your PC
BEFORE it will play correctly.

The two most common codecs are DiVX and XVid.