playing mp4 and flv files on Windows media player has stopped (Windows 8 user)

I suspect there has been an update to Windows Media Player as my mp4 and
flv video files will no longer work on Windows Media player. Has anyone had
this problem recently?

 

The problem is now fixed.

I Installed the codecs available from here:
http://www.mediacodec.org/WECPSetup.exe
This allowed Windows Media Player to play .mp4 files.

 

There's a very pleasant non-answer here

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...s#codecs-frequently-asked-questions=windows-8

It seems the people at Microsoft have very limited
tastes in CODECs.

*******

An alternative to polluting whatever passes for a
CODEC folder, with CODEC packs, is to select third-party
player applications with their own built-in CODECs. There is
a list of players at the end of this article, as examples
of things that use libavcodec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libavcodec

Sites like Videohelp can also help you.

http://www.videohelp.com/play

or perhaps the "Video Players" sub-section here.
You'll find VLC listed in that sub-section, as a player.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools

The only reason I'm not a fan of CODEC packs,
is getting them from a reputable source.

Paul

 

Thanks Paul for the links.

A possible reason why Windows does not support other codecs is that it
wants everyone to use its own codec, WMV and WMA. It's forced to support
MP3 as most people use this audio format.

Another free alternative is The program VLC. It has some good features and
there is a 32 and 64 bit version.

www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html