One interesting thing was that in my clip, the sound was indeed playing, because the audio layer of the MPEG video format uses the standard MP3 (MPEG Layer 3) format most online music comes in.
The lack of the correct MPEG "codec" to play the video in Windows Media Player was the problem.
Codec is short for compressing/decompressing. You can learn more about codecs and Media Player from Microsoft Digital Media MVP Marc Liron in an article on his Web site.
Windows Media Player ships with many common codecs, but it does not ship with every possible codec. A list of the codecs you should have gotten with Media Player is on the Microsoft Web site.
You may solve the problem by updating Media Player, or you may have to go looking for the right video codec on the Web.
Make sure Media Player is up-to-date.
- Open the File, Help menu and choose Check for Player Updates.
- Install any critical updates Microsoft recommends.
Try reinstalling the conversion software if updating Media Player does not solve the problem. The codec file may be corrupted or has been inadvertently deleted.
If the problem persists, you need to find out which codec the converter uses to encode the video and make sure it is on your computer. The converter should tell you this in the Help or other documentation.
The easiest way to find out if the codec is on your computer is a free tool called Sherlock the Codec Detective.
Find and install the correct codec if Sherlock does not find it on your computer.
Finding a codec on the Web can be daunting.
A good place to start is The FourCCs.
Every codec is identified with a four character code, hence Four CCs.
If Media Player gave you the message "The xxxx code is needed to play this file," find those four characters in the list of video codecs at FourCCs and download the associated codec.
If your codec is not on the list at Four CCs, or you did not get the Media Player error message with the codec code, you should contact technical support for the company that made your converter.
