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General discussion

Media playback problems(windows Media, real player, quicktim

Nov 20, 2004 3:03AM PST

i have a hp pavilion mx70(Windows XP) and have quicktime, windows media player and real player installed. Until about a month ago no problems but now whenever i download any movie it plays in black and white bluish colors no matter which format it's downloaded to. I've tried Go back and no success as well as reinstalling all programs. Can someone please help? Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Re: Media playback problems - I'm having the same problem!
Nov 25, 2004 5:33AM PST

Hey,

I was on the phone with a Microsoft technician for 2 hours yesterday morning trying all sorts of things. We uninstalled WMP, then reinstalled WMP 10. We went into msconfig 20 times, changing one thing at a time, and rebooting. We uninstalled Quicktime and after about 2 hours, we finally were able to get the WMP to play video clips without the color problems. However, my DVD still played with the problem. The tech said that I needed to contact my computer manufacturer.

Before I did that though, I checked out my factory loaded DVD player and it worked fine. I uninstalled the downloaded one, and everything seemed to be perfect. THEN my son reinstalled Quicktime, and today, I'm having all the same problems again! Arghhhh!

I've tried to recreate all the changes we made yesterday, but have had no luck. My call with Microsoft yesterday was a grace incident and if I call again, I'll have to pay.

Help!!!!!

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(NT) (NT) Is there no one that can help us???
Nov 26, 2004 4:01AM PST
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If you intend to stick with WMP, don't ask me.
Nov 26, 2004 4:27AM PST

Let me be blunt. I do not use WMP for such playback. If you want my thoughts on the matter, that's one thing. But if you insist I make WMP work, then I leave you to deal with Microsoft.

I know it sounds very odd, but I can only share what I do and use.

What I use is the MEDIA PLAYER CLASSIC from http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/ I use this in place of WMP for all but DVD playback.

For DVD playback I think one machine has PowerDVD, another Intervideo and another player on another machine. WMP is not tolerate of errrors so I can't use that for DVD play.

I have no issue with Quicktime, but rarely use it but it seems to play sporadically from Web content. I know of no real cure for that.

In closing, CODECS can be an issue since Microsoft support can't acknowledge third party codecs that you might need from http://www.moviecodec.com

And finally, no spyware allowed. If you allow spyware on the machine, then issues abound.

Bob

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I appreciate your honesty
Nov 26, 2004 12:36PM PST

I really don't understand a lot of all of this. I just know that one day my DVD and streaming videos weren't playing right.

1st - I have no problem giving up WMP. There is definitely no loyalty there! So, I might try to download Media Player Classic, and give it a whirl.

2nd - About the DVD player. I adjusted some setting in WMP and now the streaming video and such will play properly, but the DVD still has the same picture as before. If I go with the above player, will that cure my DVD problems?

3rd - Codecs. I have no clue what they are and what I need to do to see if I need to do something about them.

4th - Spyware. How do I prohibit spyware from being allowed on my machine? All I have is AdAware to locate problems.

Thanks a lot for your candor. I am very naive when it comes to all the techological stuff. I just want to play my videos properly.

Vicki

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About Spyware.
Nov 27, 2004 12:08AM PST

It's the new plague for PC users and discussed daily in the Virus and Security forum. These are not viral so your Antivirus may provide no protection.

Sorry if my response is rather technical, but when we step off the curb we tend to get hit with that busload of technology issues. The Microsoft tech support is good, but they are artificially limited to a rather straight and narrow response. They can't point to simpler solutions like Media Player Classic or the Codec issue...

Some spyware can interfere with such video playback so it's time to read about such.

Bob

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Re: About Spyware.
Nov 27, 2004 12:28AM PST

My problem is I like Windows Media, Quicktime and Real player. It's doubtful it has anything to do with problems specifically related to any of these programs because my problem with the "no color" and blue tint started at the exact same time for all programs. I have Norton System Works and i have found no spyware. Is there one universal codec that affects them all that may be missing a file or corrupted?

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Norton System Works doesn't detect spyware.
Nov 27, 2004 3:38AM PST

Or at least very much.

Here's a simple test. Go to http://www.pestscan.com/ and see if it finds such...

About Codecs. " Is there one universal codec that affects them all that may be missing a file or corrupted?"

That would be nice, but if we look at http://www.moviecodec.com we discover there a many codecs out there.

Bob

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Re: Media playback problems(windows Media, real player, quic
Dec 7, 2004 4:41PM PST

Try uninstalling Real Player... please let me know what happens. Best regards.

Miguel