Windows media player cannot support file - HELP!!!

[allie181]

I've got an avi file. When I try & play it in Windows Media Player it says it doesn't support the file, and that I may not have the correct codec.

I have used GSpot to try & determine what codec the file requires, but GSpot says it is not a valid avi file.

Can anyone tell me what to try next to try & get this file to play?

Thanks in advance!

[tigerman8u]

load the file in Virtualdub or one of it's variants (I use Vbud mpeg2) and look at the file info. post it here. try moving the slider in vdub and see if any video is present

[allie181]

I tried to open it in virtualdub but got an error message "cannot detect file type". Can i try anything else or is the file simply not playable?

Thanks!

[LT. Columbo]

sounds like a bad file---i'd delete it and move on....

[mastercontrol]

You could try renaming it with different extensions, like .rm, .mov and see if any players you have will pick up on it. It could be a misnamed file in a proprietary format that Media Player, VirtualDub and GSpot can't understand. If that doesn't work, then it's probably a fake file, so do what Columbo suggested and just delete it.

[tigerman8u]

you can try VLC (videolan) free. It uses it's own codecs and plays most anything. If that doesn't work, without looking at the file, I agree with columbo