Hi I really hope someone can help me. When I have downloaded a movie in avi I can never watch it... It always asks for the codec... But how do I get that codec? I downloaded DivX Player and DivX Movies as I read somewhere here in the forum, but it didn't help. I am looking very much forward to hear from you. Have a super weekend, ALEX!!!

2 suggestions. For codec identification get Get GSpot (click on link). For a backup player with in-built codecs get VLC - (click on link) _ (choose nearest mirror site) VLC saves you continually installing & updating your codecs. Not a pretty player but it does the job when needed.

I'm having the same problem when trying to play a downloaded avi file. It will not play period (video nor audio) in windows media player or real player. I downloaded the player you suggested and it played but with no sound or video again (but this time it would actually attempt to play). So when I say play I mean the time bar moved like it does for normal movies, expect I didnt' see nor hear anything..

I run gspot and it says that this file is not a valid avi file. Does that mean that I've downloaded a bad file that just is not going to play?

I'm living overseas and dying to watch the fall premires!!

I've been wondering about codex and how I get some, too, but my downloaded movies from LW are all playing fine, but play best on my Windows Media Player. Come to think of it, my RealPlayer shows that sound is working, but I still can't hear it and can't see it at all. Could it be a resource issue? I have WinXP Home running with 256 ram and lots of free harddrive space. I've also gotten the invalid file message and the file played just fine, so go figure....

But if anyone is listening, I have some questions, too, about just what all the letters mean, like wmv, avi, srt, and mpg mean. When I talked with a friend about my avi downloads, (that's what I've been selecting) he said that he was amazed I got a picture, said the avi is the sound portion of movies or some such thing.
I've tried to look up the definitions of the movie extensions, but come up blank everytime in any help files I go to.
Another question is the time that some folks put in the info of their files to share. I always pick the biggest files in hopes of getting the full movie and it sure looks like the full movie when watched. But the info says for a 700 meg file that it's 59 minutes long. That's not long enough for a complete movies. So what am I getting? An edited version? Does the sharer cut them down, or do the programs do it for you? And how do they get squeezed from a 2 gig movie to what we can download? I have DVDShrink, but I don't know what it does really. And I haven't figured out how to use it either. The movies I shrink seem to come out as long as they were to begin with, unless they were longer than 2 gigs to begin with.
Any help on this would be wonderful. Maybe if I understood what was happening better, I could get my copies on the computer to share. So far, I think 2 gigs is too big to share. I wonder what extension they have once DVDShrink has shrunk them? Oh, help! Anyone! Thanks.

Yeah i have that problem too with...cough cough...a certain season premiere.
It's not like i'm a complete novice either so please don't think i maybe unclear about the existence of DivX codecs or the player or that i havent tried downloading VLC player as suggested.
Despite having spent an entire sunday looking for the codec required to play it, I have not been successful in finding one which has had any effect.
G-spot names the codec needed to be
'Motion JPEG including Huffman Tables' yet tells me i have codecs installed which claim to be able to procces this format.
All websites i checked gave me links only to the IBM site which didnt enable me to download it either.
Basically i have tried every player and every codec package i've been able to find. I have also tried downloading different versions of these videos but none of them seem to work. HELP!

So did you actually try using VLC to play the trouble-some file?

__________________
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
640 K [of computer memory] ought be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates (1981)
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -- Albert Einstein
When facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. -- Albert Einstein
Religion keeps the poor from murdering the rich. -- Napoleon Bonaparte
The important thing is not to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein
"A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians." -- Frank Zappa
"Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." / "May your sh*t come to life and kiss you on the face." / "Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?" / "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." / "There are three things that smell of fish. One of them is fish. The other two are growing on you!" / "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." / "The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese." / "Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." / "The most important thing to do in your life, is to not interfere with somebody else's life." / "Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read." -- Frank Zappa
"The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson
The shy can light the dull dark room with life when their eyes mirror their inner sunrise - LOTR

yes i tried using the vlc program you suggested but it was the same as using real player or divX.... 1h 49min of blank instead of 42 min of a video.
if it helps sometimes it displays something like what youd get on a very old TV with no channels.... basically stripes of different colour, if you know what i mean

Sounds like it's been encoded with a very poor or old encoder. Either way, if even VLC can't play it then if no other program plays it, I personally would trash it. Have you tried to see if your Nero or Roxio burner program can convert it?

__________________
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
640 K [of computer memory] ought be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates (1981)
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -- Albert Einstein
When facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. -- Albert Einstein
Religion keeps the poor from murdering the rich. -- Napoleon Bonaparte
The important thing is not to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein
"A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians." -- Frank Zappa
"Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." / "May your sh*t come to life and kiss you on the face." / "Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?" / "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." / "There are three things that smell of fish. One of them is fish. The other two are growing on you!" / "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." / "The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese." / "Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." / "The most important thing to do in your life, is to not interfere with somebody else's life." / "Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read." -- Frank Zappa
"The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson
The shy can light the dull dark room with life when their eyes mirror their inner sunrise - LOTR

yeah...i forget what its called... 'dub' something or another.
didnt work... gave me a 12 MB file of blankness too.
i don't get how it can be an encoding problem tho... because there was tons of different version of the same video out there, all with the same problem.
I think i've tried all the more or less common versions and if i try downloading a video with only 3 ppl sharing it, it will take me a month.
I just reckon that if it was an unreadble file why hasnt every1 else trashed it?

For the benefit of the sharing community please submit your findings at the Bitzi site How to use Bitzi Web Lookup ...

__________________
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein
640 K [of computer memory] ought be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates (1981)
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -- Albert Einstein
When facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. -- Albert Einstein
Religion keeps the poor from murdering the rich. -- Napoleon Bonaparte
The important thing is not to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein
"A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians." -- Frank Zappa
"Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." / "May your sh*t come to life and kiss you on the face." / "Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?" / "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." / "There are three things that smell of fish. One of them is fish. The other two are growing on you!" / "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." / "The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consonant and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only 'good guys' in it, or eating cottage cheese." / "Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." / "The most important thing to do in your life, is to not interfere with somebody else's life." / "Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read." -- Frank Zappa
"The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson
The shy can light the dull dark room with life when their eyes mirror their inner sunrise - LOTR