Windows Media Player can't find compatible decoder

ckmckee

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I am trying to watch a dvd movie and get this error message:

"Windows Media Player cannot find a compatible DVD decoder on this machine"

I have run windows updates (both Microsoft and Win Media Player) with no luck. Don't know what else to do. Anyone have any tips?

Thanks very much!
 

ckmckee

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no, ffdshow did not work for me. i cannot get windows media to play dvd's buy using it. i have found a substitution though:

VLC Media player from: www.videolan.org/vlc

a very nice media player that works well for me.
 

ckmckee

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one other thing I wanted to add is that i search hi and low for a mp2 (dvd) decoder and even went on microsoft's website. they directed me to websights that charge for this (cost around $15). I have 2 pc's i recently reinstalled xp home os on and got the same missing dvd decoder message on both of them. so it appears to be something new that one must pay to get the proper decoder to play dvd's on windows media player.
 

ckmckee

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seems to be a good program. although the very next day after i installed it i turned on my pc and played a dvd and could see it but no sound. after restarting pc the dvd played with sound just find. don't know why this happened. i hope this doesn't happen a lot.
 

ckmckee

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yes indeed. as i am a big proponet of Event Viewer in the Administrative tools, i could check that to see what happened. But installations can get corrupted and reinstalling VLC is certainly an option. Thanks!
 

xxnideoo

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I agree with you. You can convert your file into WMV format. Get a video converter here.
http://www.downloadvideos-convert.com/
 

ckmckee

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hi, i am to pick a best answer and i would like to choose yours. i just don't know how. can u tell me how?
thanks!
 

modenji

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Thanks for the reminder about vlc. I used it on another machine because it could play videos that even a fully-functional Windows Media Player was having trouble with. More recently I had the common problem with missing sound codecs in WMP on a newer machine. You reminded me about VLC and it's working like a charm.