New computer wont play avi/mpeg

[ThePuma]

GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Im so frustrated i could punch a hole through my office wall. We just received a "state-of-the-art" digital video editing workstation from a company who supposedly deals only in this field, and the stupid thing wont even play avis or mpegs in windows media player. When i go to open them, a weird mangled image just shows in the video area...usually the audio will play and that image will just remain the whole time. I went to the windows media player website and downloaded the newest version of it, installed it, and it doesnt work. If i play the video in quicktime, the video works but the audio doesnt. they open up and are editable in premiere pro, but when i render something i edited, again, it wont play in the player. i downloaded some codecs i thought i might need, including the indeo xp pack from ligos, and divx (which i knew probably wouldnt help but would need in the future anyway). I will list the codecs my computer says I have right now below:

iccvid.dll
Indeo Video Interactive R4.5
Indeo Video R3.2
Indeo Video RAW YVU9
iyuv_32.dll
Ligos Indeo XP Video 5.2
Matrox Codecs
msh261.drv
msh263.drv
msrle32.dll
msvidc32.dll
msyuv.dll

Am i missing something? could it be a problem with my video card? I went to the nvidia website and downloaded the driver and reinstalled that even, to no avail. I have GForce FX 5950 Ultra. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!!!

-Puma

[setarip]

In order to determine which codec(s) you need for a particular .AVI, you should do the following:

1) Load the original video file into VirtualDub (or one of its many variants) or NanDub

2) From the "File" dropdown menu, select "File Information"

3) Post (here) EVERYTHING you see (BOTH video and audio information), or post a screen capture .jpg of the information box

[ThePuma]

[setarip]

1) Have you successfully played this tiny (12 second) .AVI on your previous system? If not, it MAY be a fake file (No delta frames)

2) It requires the ancient Cinepak codec by Radius, which should have been one of the standard, pre-installed Windows codecs. Search for it online and download and install it.

[ThePuma]

Yes, the file is actually one that i had captured from a DV tape and rendered in premiere. It works perfectly fine on my other computer, and even plays in virtualdub on this new computer perfectly. The fact that this new computer doesnt even play mpegs in windows media player leads me to believe that there may be a more serious issue at play than a missing codec. Im going to get in touch with the manufacturer now and bitch at them for a while until i figure out what is going on here.

[ThePuma]

Update:

I read on another thread that turning down the hardware acceleration and trying to play the file might work, and that if it did then it was probably a problem with the graphics card. Guess what? I turned the acceleration down, and it worked. Great, but now I still dont know how to solve the problem. Any ideas?

[setarip]

"even plays in virtualdub on this new computer perfectly. The fact that this new computer doesnt even play mpegs in windows media player leads me to believe that there may be a more serious issue at play than a missing codec"

Sorry, I initially overlooked the codec (iccvid.dll is the Cinepak codec) at the top of your listing of installed codecs...

[ThePuma]

Any ideas on why the video would play correctly when the video acceleration is all the way down? Must be a graphics card problem right?

[ormonde]

"Any ideas on why the video would play correctly when the video acceleration is all the way down"

I assume you are using the latest version of WMP since it is a new machine. Have you tried playing the file in another player besides WMP or Quicktime?