Windows Media Player compatibility

[Leolam]

Hi all,

I am new in this forum, & I have been trying to view some 2003 to 2003 created video clips with my latest Window Media Player. It was found out that the images & audio was transmitted intermittently, on & off all the time.
What puzzled me was that some of the video clips were actually fine, & viewable.

Can anyone shine some lights on this issue? I really want to view some old video clips. Maybe I need to install an old player for this purpose, or is there any tuning needed? I tried to tune many settings but with no luck so far!

Regards,
Leolam:confused:

[SufferWell1396]

its depends on what their file extention is (ie .exe, .mp3, .m4u, .avi, and so on) if their file extention is one that WMP can handle on its own you shouldnt have a problem, but if it says it cannot run the file try downloading a plug-in for its file extention for WMP

[Leolam]

Thanks for your advice. I will find out the file format first.

Leolam

[Sylvander]

"the images & audio was transmitted intermittently, on & off all the time"
Just read in a webpage linked here in the PC-Guide that the DRM capability [in Vista?] degrades audio and video in this way "by design".

e.g If someone in a hospital is using computer to process visual images of scans, and happen to be playing a CD [as they often do to cover annoying background noise etc] protected by DRM, the patients' scan images would be deliberately degraded, and this could eventually cause the death of the patient because doctors would be reading degraded images.

Don't know if DRM is the problem in this case or not.

[Leolam]

Thanks for your response!
What is DRM means? I searched & it seems like a digital Rich media type of stuff?

Please advise.

Leolam

[pentachris]

DRM = Digital Rights Management

That means enforced copyright protection, usually with a strong arm.

To help determine whether that's the problem here, we need to know what version of Windows and WMP you're running.

Perhaps the jumpy files are particularly large, loading in slowly, maybe from a heavily fragmented hard drive, maybe to a low RAM system or system with heavily burdened RAM? Those are a few things to consider as well.

[Leolam]

Hi Remembering Kay,

Thanks for your comments. My Windows verison is XP SP2, & WMP is verison 11. Is there any setting to adjust ?

Regards,

Leolam

[pentachris]

No settings to adjust. Seems like an issue of system performance. Are the files that play jumpy much larger than the files that play fine? How much RAM does your system have? What CPU & video card?

You should probably try defragmenting your hard drive. It may solve the problem - if not, it certainly won't hurt anything.

[Leolam]

Hi Remembering Kay,

The files are quite large as they last for 45 to 65 minutes on average. But this doesn't seem to be the source of problem...
I looked into defragmenting my pc, but my windows system say it is fine!
My RAM is 512 MB, which should be able to handle the job alright, as it truly worked before! My video card has extra 128MB for processing graphics, so I don't see this is bottle neck. Does it worth to try to download an older version of WMP for a trial, as I speculate that the video clips have a better chance to work with a previous verison of media player.

Thanks in advance.

Leolam

[pentachris]

I'm still not convinced it's not a system issue. Windows has a high tolerance for what it considers to be a drive that doesn't need defragmenting. 512 MB of RAM is the minimum I'd recommend in an XP system. If your system tray looks like most people's (to be honest, mine doesn't look all that great and needs a little cleaning up! :o), it has an antivirus scanner, printer software, IM'ing software, Quicktime, and a host of other things running - some necessary, but most not -that can quickly eat up your system's RAM and resources. And plenty of other things may be lurking that are unseen in the system tray.

What I was looking for when I asked about the video card wasn't the memory it has, but simply whether or not you actually have a video card, as opposed to onboard video - if you do have onboard video, you actually only have 384 MB of system RAM...

But, all that aside...

No, I wouldn't download an older version of WMP. Give VLC a try - it's lean, mean and free, and it can handle most any video file you throw at it (except Real). Get it here (http://www.videolan.org/).

edit: And by the way, "Remembering Kay" is simply part of my signature. Call me "pentachris," "pent," or just "Chris." :)

[Leolam]

Hi Pentachris,

I am sorry to get confusion with your name... will get it right from now on!
Thanks for your recommendation.
I will try to download the software & try it out! Hope this will work. I never try this before though.

My graphics card is a Nvidia Quadro FX1300, handles graphics imaging ok. It has 128MB memory. Not a lot, but alright to handle media playing.

Regards,

LeoLam

[pentachris]

Curious to hear how VLC worked out for you?

[Leolam]

Hi Pentachris,

I downloaded the software already, & can it open an URL location file?
I searched the open file menu & don't see the way...

The clip files that are in question are from a website.
Regards,

Leolam

[pentachris]

I'm sure that it can be done, although I'd have to be at home to figure out how.

But, now that we have that bit of info - are we sure that network lag isn't the issue? And can you not download the file to your hard drive or retrieve it from your temporary internet files?

[Leolam]

Hi Pentachris,

I finally got it resolved ! I tried to view the same files from my friend's old PC, which has a WMP verison 10, which worked out well. Don't know exactly what is the problem, but there seems to be some kind of parameters twisting factor involved to make the difference!

Learning something new everyday. Thanks for your help!

Leolam

[pentachris]

Good to hear you found a solution!