Update codecs on network for Media Player / Movie Maker

[cookie_monster]

Someone has bought a load of i-pod Nano things to make short videos with, they then want to edit the videos in Movie Maker. The problem is that Movie Maker won't open the type of .avi file unless I install a codec pack (like the one in the link below). Has anyone had any luck packaging codecs like this into an msi file or have a better suggestion on how I can overcome this issue with Movie Maker? We want to stick with Movie Maker if possible as it's already installed network wide.

Media Player Codec Pack specs and Video Player specifications - CNET Downloads

Thanks.

[glennda]

K-lite codec pack is what i use - never had problems also silent script install link here

[sted]

silimar vane vistacodec pack /win7codec pack (Shark007) msi out happily and play most things

[aaronjwilkinson]

I've made and deployed an Msi of the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. Works perfectly.

[cookie_monster]

I've made and deployed an Msi of the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. Works perfectly.

Any things to watch out for or tweeks when making the msi?

[cookie_monster]

silimar vane vistacodec pack /win7codec pack (Shark007) msi out happily and play most things

Does it come as an msi or do you make your own?

[aaronjwilkinson]

Any things to watch out for or tweeks when making the msi?

Not as far as i'm aware.

During the installation of the software (therefore in between the snapshots), just make sure you choose the correct codecs you require. I selected all Mp4's, RAM files and a few others like 3GP.

[cookie_monster]

If I only select a couple of file types I take it all of the other current codecs will be unaffected? Also I take it this won't affect file associations?

Thanks.

[sted]

Does it come as an msi or do you make your own?

comes as one just requires extracting from the file iirc

[cookie_monster]

Hmmm I gave K-lite a try and it packaged well and rolles out so that's good, Media Player now plays AVI files but Movie Maker still doesn't. Oh! I guess I'll look into the other options.

[sted]

Hmmm I gave K-lite a try and it packaged well and rolles out so that's good, Media Player now plays AVI files but Movie Maker still doesn't. Oh! I guess I'll look into the other options.

i dont think movie maker ever does it uses its own codecs i believe

[CyberDrac]

My experience with KLite and Windows Movie Maker was a mixed bag, on the plus side the students suddenly could draw on a huge range of sources for their video work, the down side was that WMM became hideously unstable (this was about 10 versions of Klite ago though), be very selective about what you allow KLite to install, the collection of codec seem fine for playback but less suitable for the editing process that WMM puts them through, install just the bare minimum and test it vigourously, if you do find that there is a potential issue with a particular codec then you can disable it within WMM (Tools - Options - Compatibility?), my personal bug bear was some sound files or the audio of some video as handled by FFDShow, but that may have been improved since.

[cookie_monster]

Well I've managed to package the Media Player Codec pack that I posted first I've selected just the AVI codec and it works in media player and movie maker. We'll see how it works out.

[Arthur]

Hmmm I gave K-lite a try and it packaged well and rolls out so that's good, Media Player now plays AVI files but Movie Maker still doesn't. Oh! I guess I'll look into the other options.

Well I've managed to package the Media Player Codec pack that I posted first I've selected just the AVI codec and it works in media player and movie maker. We'll see how it works out.

You do know that these codec packs contain illegal codecs? The standard/full/mega editions of K-Lite and the Media Player Codec Pack you mentioned all include commercial codecs from Cyberlink and/or Real Networks which the codec pack creators definitely do not have permission to redistribute. Personally I wouldn't take the risk having these on my school network.

One of the codec packs from Shark007 would be a good choice (the MSI gets extracted from the EXE to %TEMP%). As CyberDrac mentioned, installing a huge number codecs will cause issues. Keep things simple and install only the codecs you require. To find out which codec a particular file was encoded with, you can use a program like MediaInfo.

In most cases though - if you are only concerned with playing videos (and not encoding them), all you really need is ffdshow-tryouts plus a splitter like Haali's. There's a really good tutorial on how to set this up properly here (XP) and here (Windows 7). Another alternative would be to use a media player which has the codecs built-in such as MPC-HC, VLC or SMPlayer.

To answer your original question, if the videos from the camera were encoded using an MPEG-4 ASP based codec such as Xvid or DivX, all you need is the Xvid codec to be able to import/edit the videos in Windows Movie Maker. There's an MSI available here or you can create your own. It's very easy. Getting H.264/AVC videos to work in Windows Movie Maker is a different matter however. Without converting them into WMVs or Xvid AVIs beforehand it is close to impossible to import them.

[cookie_monster]

The link you gave appears to say that most of the codecs are fine, I haven't included the real networks ones. Thanks.