Got a strange problem here..

[denon101]

Hi,

I have a bit of a strange issue here, some videos on the network will only play in windows media player if you place the video on the desktop. If you play the video from a network share windows media player will only play the sound like there is no codec installed. But it only seems to happen off network share.

Anyone else heard of this problem?

It does not seem to affect all videos either.

[elsiegee40]

This sounds very similar to a problem I got asked to investigate today. We have a DVD that plays sounds only on 1 PC - you get pictures too on other machines I haven't yet tested this PC with other DVDs.

This happens in both Media Player and RealPlayer. It's on the list for investigation next week once the kids are on holiday.

[mac_shinobi]

you need a dvd codec pre installed for dvds to work on WMP.

players that will play dvds without a pre installed codec as far as I am aware are

VLC
WMP Classic

how legal they are to use in a school enviroment with regards to dvd playback is another question / story.

Combined Community Codec Pack

dvd decoder utility

Download details: Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility

Supported software MPEG-2 DVD decoders in Windows Media Player for Windows XP and Windows Vista

Also another utility is gspot :

GSpot Codec Information Appliance

As for not playing over the network - is the same true for all or most machines or is it just one machine ?

Also when are you trying to play these over the network ? When there is lots of traffic or when no one is around ?

How large are the files and does this data have far to travel from the server to the client and if it is far are there many hops ie does it go through a few or more switches etc ?

If you transferred them locally to a few computers do they play normally ?

Also there are a few windows media player settings you can alter which may or may not help.

[elsiegee40]

I'm pretty sure there's decoder installed on this machine as I made a note of doing it on my log! It's really weird. On machines without a decoder you can't even get started. This one plays the threatening copyright warning and brings up the menu options, but when you choose the menu option all you hear is sound, no video

The teacher tried the DVD in another PC and it was fine!

Thanks for the suggestion anyway

This is happening on a BBC Geography DVD

[mac_shinobi]

hardware acceleration ? Also might be an option under the WMP options / settings.

I tend to stear clear of WMP all the time as microsoft never paid the license for dvd playback so where possible use power dvd.

As a test maybe see if it works under vlc or wmp classic and if so then see what error messages you get on event viewer reference the dvd playback on WMP ?

Post back with event id and description if there are any.

[elsiegee40]

hardware acceleration ? Also might be an option under the WMP options / settings.

I tend to stear clear of WMP all the time as microsoft never paid the license for dvd playback so where possible use power dvd.

As a test maybe see if it works under vlc or wmp classic and if so then see what error messages you get on event viewer reference the dvd playback on WMP ?

Post back with event id and description if there are any.

I won't be lable to look at this until Monday (just leapt on someone else's thread as it sounded similar...)

I'll let you know what I find out.

[JaTayler]

Hi,

Did anyone manage to obtain a fix for this?
I have a similar problem where the videos that run from within an application will play the sound but no video (all the application files / videos etc... have been copied from the original CD (Including any hidden files))

This is happening on both the machines that I have been testing on (Windows 7 Enterprise x64)
They both have VLC and K-Lite Codec (WMP Classic) installed. You can play the video files directly from the server perfectly fine in either application.

I can't see any errors in the event logs.

Any suggestions would be great

Thanks