Finding the right codecs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Doug Kanter
  • Start date Start date
D

Doug Kanter

A friend sent me an .mpg file which Windows Media Player won't display. It
sends up the usual codecs error message. The MS help page suggests a couple
of sites for finding the right codecs, but how do you really do this if you
have no further information about the video file? Trial and error? I checked
Properties for the file, but there are really no useful insights shown.
 
Doug Kanter said:
A friend sent me an .mpg file which Windows Media Player won't display. It
sends up the usual codecs error message. The MS help page suggests a couple
of sites for finding the right codecs, but how do you really do this if you
have no further information about the video file? Trial and error? I checked
Properties for the file, but there are really no useful insights shown.
Click to expand...

A dandy little project for some programmer: A little utility that will
scan the first few dozen bytes of a file and determine a list of the
codecs that will play that, check to see if you already have that codec
on your system and if not display a list of places where you can get them.

The list of byte strings and codecs could be kept updated on a web page
somewhere.

EVERY ONE of the players is checking these headers and looking at all
the available codecs to see if one will work. And NONE of them are
telling you what is needed or where to get it if they can't handle it.
 
Don Taylor said:
A dandy little project for some programmer: A little utility that will
scan the first few dozen bytes of a file and determine a list of the
codecs that will play that, check to see if you already have that codec
on your system and if not display a list of places where you can get them.

The list of byte strings and codecs could be kept updated on a web page
somewhere.

EVERY ONE of the players is checking these headers and looking at all
the available codecs to see if one will work. And NONE of them are
telling you what is needed or where to get it if they can't handle it.
Click to expand...

It makes me wonder if some of the open sauce team from Mozilla is behind
some of these players. And, I do mean "sauce", not "source". :-)
 
Wesley Vogel said:
SHERLOCK - The Codec Detective!
Created By Marc Liron - Microsoft MVP - Digital Media
http://sherlock.corecodec.org/

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
Click to expand...

Thanks, Wesley. That utility provided a list, but I still have no way of
knowing which codec I'm missing!
 
Failed. All the specs it could've gotten from the file were shown as "n.a.".
Must be something wrong with this file.
 
It's an .mpg file. If all of the info boxes show as n.a., how is the program
supposed to help determine the correct codec to install?
 
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