Video won't play? Get audio but no video (or vice versa)? Use VLC

[gibbocool]

This guide is one of a series of guides that are the TorrentSpy FAQ (part of the *Spy FAQ family).

Video Players

You need VLC Media Player - the cross-platform media player and streaming server!

VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

It is guaranteed to play just about any video file you can throw at it (including bin files - via the associated cue files), without any additional codecs!

You can also use Media Player Classic

But you will need to install codecs (see below) to play non-standard .avi or other video files.

Other options - CODEC packs

If for some bizarre reason VLC player will not play your file, you may need a codec. Codec packs are certainly not as clean as VLC player. VLC has all the codecs already built in, whereas with these packs you can install them onto your other players.
Do NOT download every codec you can find - you'll cause conflicts.

You can run VideoInspector on the .avi to find out exactly WHICH codec you require: see here for details.

What codec pack should you get? Pick one of the following and see if it solves your problem.

1. k-lite codec pack (almost-everything-under-the-sun-pack) - FREE version: HERE
   
2. Codec Pack All in 1 HERE (a general smorgasbord of codecs)
   
3. Matroska codec pack HERE (the odd-man-out codecs and most of the big ones too)
   

What is a codec?

Codec is short for "Compressor-Decompressor" or "Coder-Decoder," which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data stream or signal. Codecs can both put the stream or signal into an encoded form (often for transmission, storage or encryption) and retrieve, or decode that form for viewing or manipulation in a format more appropriate for these operations. It can also compress or decompress various formats, such as video files.

Also see the Video FAQ.

Asking for further help

Further assistance

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Author:

• Gibbocool, MaggiePixel and other members of the TorrentSpy/IRCSpy forums and mod/admin team.