Video codec for Android to Windows 7 videos needed

brotj7

Senior member
Mar 3, 2005
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I backed up my wifes phone to my laptop because it is almost filled with videos (~7.5gb of 8gb) and is now having problems. Unfortunately, more than 1/2 of the .mp4 videos are playing audio only. I tried Windows media player, and quicktime but it's the same in both. This is really weird to me because ~40-45% play just fine.

My win 7x64 laptop only has the stock codec pack from Windows Media Player, and whatever came with quicktime which I finally installed yesterday. I really don't want to muck around with malware from bogus codecs trying to find one. Any suggestions?

Phones are Evo 3D, but we only shoot 2D. Video is .mp4, audio is .mp3

I need to keep this a WMP solution because my wife gets confused and will stop using it is more than a 1 or 2 click solution, and I really really need her to keep this hobby ;)
 

brotj7

Senior member
Mar 3, 2005
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Unfortunately, thats a no go. Anyone able to tell me how to attach an inline image?
 

gsaldivar

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2001
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Upload it to imgur.com and paste the link here. Better yet, provide a tiny sample video clip that isn't playing on that computer so we can find a solution for you.
 

brotj7

Senior member
Mar 3, 2005
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Here is the screenshots of two videos next to each other with some metadata along the bottom.

http://imgur.com/a/keQ3G

One clip is 9 seconds, the other is 16, is there somewhere else I can upload the actual videos? imgur does not seem to support the videos...
 
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FelixDeCat

Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
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What is on video195? Looks somewhat personal.

Anyway, the FFdshow codecs are the only way to rest assured that you will be able to play virtually any video file from any device on your Windows based PC. I remember back when I used to struggle having to find exotic codecs before using the FFdshow download. That came to an end around 2007 and its been heaven ever since.

It will allow to use Windows Media Player as the default player for all videos. You dont have to use the media player. I installed the 32 bit and 64 bit codecs, use the 64bit version of media player classic and WMP for other file types depending on the video Im watching.
 

zokudu

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2009
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mp4 is not a video type it is a container format. If you do not want to install FFdshow then you need to find out what the videos are actually encoded with.
 

brotj7

Senior member
Mar 3, 2005
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Sorry I wasn't clear, I did install FFDShow as gsladivar suggested. There is no change for WMP, and upon checking Quicktime will no longer play the audio either. The files that are recognized will play in either, but the unrecognized files are still a problem.

Meowkat: Thanks for checking, nothing too personal. The working file is my little girl with her doll, the big flesh looking blob in the center of the pic is the top of the dolls bald head. The nonworking file is my dog.

I don't think the files themselves are corrupt because I can play them on either phone. The HTC website just says MPEG4 and MP3 for the recording formats, unfortunately nothing about the guts in the container.

I used the FFDShow defaults when I installed, is there anything I should double check?
 

gsaldivar

Diamond Member
Apr 30, 2001
8,691
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You might try VLC, but that requires using a new player - it won't affect WMP. You can also try a utility called GSpot to look inside the video file and determine exactly what codec is required for playback.

If you check FFDShow's settings, there is a codec screen that has an extensive list of supported playback formats. You will notice that some are set to "libvcodec", others are set to disabled. The disabled ones are sometimes supported but left turned off because they aren't complete, etc. you can try turning a few of those on to see if allowing FFDShow to handle that file type enables playback in WMP. Without knowing the exact codec used in the video file, this will be trial and error.

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FelixDeCat

Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
31,003
2,681
126
One thing you could also try is to check for broken VFW/ACD codecs, or uninstall all the ffd codecs, then do a reinstall, set everything to default.

When you reinstall you have the choice of setting your default player. If you like using Windows Media Player vs. Media Player Classic (the one included in the download), just uncheck the box at setup and choose WMP. Like I mentioned earlier I use the x32 and x64 codecs, hacked the registry to set WMP64 as the default player and use Media Player Classic when I want to fine tune videos Im watching.

Ive no doubt a reinstall, delete settings and default choices using WMP should work for you.
 

brotj7

Senior member
Mar 3, 2005
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Thank you both. I exported the settings and renamed the extension to .txt but the output was too large to post and not that clear. I think reintalling FFDShow will be the broad step needed.

On a better note: I plugged in my phone via USB to our media center PC because I already had FFDShow installed for my bluray playback and the files worked!!! So I have proof they are not corrupt, and I can finally back up my wifes phone so I can clear it out and she will have a useable phone again. But it does irk me my laptop is having issues still. Will update later tonight or tomorrow...