I installed some video software to convert some video (DVDx freeware and "Any Video Converter") and suddenly Windows Media Player cannot play any MPG (MPEG1) format video files. Files I was playing just yesterday suddenly only play audio, and when I get web help it says: The strange thing is, when I ran GSpot on the files, it says the codec is installed. I even downloaded the latest version of VLC and the MPG files play just fine in it. Reinstallation of DirectX, Media Player 10, and even Power DVD software didn't help at all. The codec is there, and I'm thinking that WMP may be looking in the wrong place, but I have no idea how to point it to a codec manually. Has anyone heard of this happening before, and is there any way to fix it without uninstalling ALL of my codecs and reinstalling them all (and hoping I remember them all as well...)? Thanks!
I have the same problem and did what you suggested and downloaded g-spot. According to g-spot, the codecs are there. I had tried to run the file on Media Player 10 (after downgrading from Media Player 11 due to wav file issues. I gave up and ran the file on realplayer 10 and it worked fine.
I still haven't figured it out. As you say, other applications show the files just fine. Even mplayer2.exe, the older version of media player that comes with XP! I just upgraded to WMP11 and it still will not play MPEG-1 video files, yet everything else will.
I rolled back to wmp10 because wmp11 wouldn't play wav files. I saved a wave file in different wave formats: Windows PCM, Microsoft ADPCM, DVI/IMA ADPCM, ACM Waveform and A/mu-Law Wave and tried to play it in WMP 11 and it wouldn't play. Microsoft called me asking for my input as to their customer service and I stated that we should not have to be debugging their products. Their QC should take care of that. I am not the only one with this problem as you can see in the thread. If anything, they should tell us that there is a known bug that they are working on and contact us when a fix is available.
