Windows media player formats. Windows Blu-ray Player plays all media formats. Copy from CD

Video file formats

Now let's look at the file formats that Windows Movie Maker supports.

You can import:

video formats: asf, avi, m1v, mp2, mp2v, mpe, mpeg, mpg, mpv2, wm and wmv
audiofoformats:aif, aifc, aiff, asf, au, mp2, mp3, mpa, snd, wav and wma
Pictures:bmp, dib, emf, gif, jfif, jpe, jpeg, jpg, png, tif, tiff and wmf

But you can output it either in WMV format or in uncompressed form.

Common video file extensions:

AVI(Audio-Video Interleaved) is an extension for a huge number of video files, but is not a format or codec. This container, developed by Microsoft, which can store 4 types of streams - video, audio, text and midi.
This container can contain video of any format from mpeg1 to mpeg-4, sounds of different formats, and any combination of codecs is possible.

WMV(Windows Media Video) is a format from Microsoft, in which you will receive a video made using Movie Maker.

MOV- Apple Macintosh QuickTime format, can also contain graphics, animation, and 3D in addition to video. Most often, QuickTime Player is needed to play this format.

MKV- (Matryoshka or Matroska) is also a container that can contain video, audio, subtitles, menus, etc. It is open source, not very widespread yet, but very promising.

3gp- videos for third generation mobile phones are small in size and low quality.

Let's look at the video formats that are used in Internet:

FLV(Flash Video) is a video format for posting and transmitting on the Internet, used by such platforms for posting video clips as YouTube, RuTube, Tube.BY, Google Video, Movie and many others.

SWF(Shockwave Flash) is an extension of animation created in the Adobe Flash program, as well as video in Flash format, played by browsers using Flash Player. Flash movies are also widely distributed on the Internet.

This means that the FLV extension is a flash video, and the SWF extension is a flash movie.

RM, RA, RAM- extensions of the RealVideo format from RealNetworks, which is used for television broadcasting on the Internet. It has a small file size and low quality, but allows you to watch, for example, a TV news release on the website of a certain television company.

Let's look at the main extensions that relate to DVD:

VOB(Versioned Object Base) is a container extension that can contain multiple video (MPEG-2 format) and audio streams, as well as movie menus and subtitles. These are the main files on a movie DVD.

IFO- files on a DVD disc containing information about the film, menu, order of launching VOB files, necessary, for example, for a DVD player, i.e. service files. Created during the conversion or authoring process, i.e. burning a DVD.

m2v, m2p- video extensions in MPEG-2 format. I won’t go into depth, I’ll just say that such a video is needed for authoring, i.e. creating VOB files and burning DVDs.

Of course, not all existing formats are listed here, but only those that are often encountered.

So, our task is to create a video or video film, which means we must clearly understand what video format we have and what we need as an output.

Video file formats determine the structure of the video, i.e. reflect exactly how the file is stored on any storage medium. Currently, there are a huge number of different video file formats, and understanding their features can sometimes be quite difficult. In addition, users often confuse the concepts of “codec”, “container”, “video standard” and replace one with another.

In this article, we will try to understand what video formats there are, what their differences are, and what format is best to convert videos to.

Video codecs

To compress digital multimedia files, special programs are used - codecs. This is a kind of formula that determines how you can “package” video content. Codecs also perform the reverse decoding operation, in which case they are called decoders.

The most popular video codecs are the following: DivX, XviD, H.261, H.263, H.264, etc. Any operating system initially contains a certain set of codecs, but, as a rule, they are not enough to play certain video file formats.

Video containers

Codecs convert data into a special file called a container. A container is a special shell in which information encrypted using codecs is stored. Essentially, media containers are video file formats that contain data about their internal structure. The first media container was created in 1985.

The container can store information of different quality, in particular, images, audio, video and subtitles. Different types of containers determine the volume and quality of information that can be stored in it, but do not affect the methods of data encoding.

Format conversion

In practice, there are a huge number of cases when it is necessary to convert video from one format to another. The main problem is that different devices impose special requirements on the quality of the downloaded video, in particular on its format. In this situation, special programs come to the rescue - converters, which allow you to convert the video into the desired format. For example, convenient - VideoMASTER.

AVI

Audio-Video Interleaved- one of the most common media containers for Windows operating systems. This format can contain four types of information: video, audio, text and midi. This container can contain video of various formats from MPEG-1 to MPEG-4.

AVI has a large number of varieties in internal structure and can be played on smartphones, communicators and other devices. The AVI media container does not impose any restrictions on the type of codec used.

WMV

Windows Media Video is a digital video format created and controlled by Microsoft. WMV files can contain audio and video data packaged using the Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Video (WMV) codecs.

MOV and QT

QuickTime File Format- this format was developed by Apple for QuickTime media player. To play such files, you must have a QuickTime player or players with MOV codecs already installed. The format may contain video, animation, graphics, 3D. This format supports any audio and video codecs.

A.S.F.

Advanced Streaming Format- streaming format from Microsoft. Based on MPEG-4 and used to transmit low- and medium-bitrate video to the Internet. ASF is a multimedia container that supports almost all video codecs.

MPEG

Moving Pictures Experts Group- video files containing video encoded using the Mpeg1, Mpeg2, Mpeg3, Mpeg4 standards. MPEG technology uses streaming video compression, in which not each frame is processed separately, but changes in video fragments are analyzed and redundant information is removed. MPEG-1 is a format for storing audio and video data on multimedia media.

The MPEG-4 format is commonly used for exchanging and transmitting video files on the Internet, video telephony, electronic news publications, etc. This format uses separate compression for audio and video tracks. MPEG-4 is designed for very low data rates.

Conclusion

We have listed only the most basic video file formats that are used in practice. When choosing a particular format, proceed from where this file will be played, and use video converters to convert video from one format to another.

Many people think that Windows Media Player is gradually losing its popularity, but this is not entirely true. There have been so many updates and additions to the player lately that you can completely customize it to your liking. While playing various types of files, you can change the player skin and install various add-ons. While the player has always been a core component of the Windows OS, Windows Media has become a really good one in the last few years. The latest, version 12, contains a number of interesting features that will certainly interest you. We will talk about these features and much more in this article.

Player update

If you have an older version of the player installed, we strongly recommend updating it. Windows Media is completely free and always available for download on the official Microsoft website.

Automatic mode: Open Windows Media Player, press Alt, go to the Help menu, and click Check for Updates.

If you don't want to manually check for updates every time, you can turn on "automatic check". To do this, follow these steps:

Step 1

Open Windows Media Player, press the Alt key, expand the Tools menu, and open Settings.

Step 2

In the “Player” tab, specify how often the player checks for updates.

First start

When you launch Windows Media Player for the first time, you need to spend a few minutes setting up the player's initial settings. They consist of several steps:

Step 1

The Windows Media Player installation wizard will appear, which at the first stage will ask you to choose which type of settings to use: recommended or custom. If you select recommended, the player will automatically set all the settings without your intervention. In this case, skip this section and move on to the next one.

If you want to configure the player yourself, select the "Custom Settings" option and click the "Next" button.

Step 2

The first to open is the Privacy Options dialog box. Check the boxes next to the items you really want to use and click Next.

Step 3

At this point, WMP will ask you if you want to add a shortcut to your desktop and Quick Launch, and will also ask you to mark it as the default. Set the required settings and click “Next”.

Step 5

At the final stage, the player will offer to set up an online store to access paid content. Select “Do not set up an online store” and click the “Finish” button.

Always remain anonymous online

When installed, Windows Media Player generates a unique ID for your computer. This identifier is used in many places, including on some web resources. Thanks to it, Windows Media Player can independently request information about media data and exchange service information. Although the developers claim that the player does not transmit any personal information, there are sometimes cases where they can track what you watch. If you do not want information about your player usage to be accidentally leaked online, disable this feature. For this:

Step 1

Hold down the Alt key, then open the Tools menu and select Options.

Step 2

Go to the “Privacy” tab and uncheck the box next to “Send a unique code...”.

Update the codec

Once you have installed a new version of Windows Media Player, you will also need to install additional codecs to support certain file types. A codec is nothing more than an additional add-on for Windows Media Player that helps identify and play many file formats. We recommend installing the K-lite codec package. It alone is enough to enable support for almost all audio and video data formats. You can download it from the official website of the developer.

It is also worth enabling the option to automatically download codecs by going to the player settings and in the “Player” tab, check the “Automatically download codecs” option.

Adding artwork and visuals to the player

Covers and visuals enhance your player's experience and allow you to customize the look and feel of your player. The only problem is that you can no longer download them from the official Microsoft website, so you will have to search for covers and visualizations on the Internet.

If you have been using the Windows operating system for quite some time, then this is probably not the first time you have encountered the problem that Windows Media Player does not play music or video files. Most often, the message “Windows Media Player cannot play the file” appears when you reinstall the system or replace it with a different version. How to make the player work again - I will tell you about this later in this article.

An error in Windows Media can have various causes:

The file you are trying to play is damaged.
The file is not supported by Windows Media Player. For example, VIV files cannot be opened by the player, it does not understand them. Therefore, an error like this will occur.
Your operating system does not have the required codec required to play video of this format.
The file is missing from the disk. This sometimes happens, for example, when a shortcut to a file is on the desktop, but the file itself was previously deleted.
The player does not support this codec, which is needed to play a music or video file.

Among all the listed reasons, most often the error “Windows Media Player cannot play the file” occurs due to the absence of one or another codec. In order not to install various codec packages and other software blindly, you need to know which formats the player supports. You may simply be trying to play a file format that is not supported.

Formats and files supported by Windows Media

The player supports the following formats:

MPE, MPG, M3U, MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), MPV2, MPA, MP3, M1V.
The following formats: WAV, WAX, WM, ASF, ASX, WMV, WMA.
MIDI formats (musical instrument digital interface) RMI, MIDI, MID.
UNIX formats are SND and AU.

The player does not support AVI files that were created using MPEG4v3. These files are only supported in ASF streaming format. There is only one way to play the file and that is to re-encode it into one of the supported formats. This can be done using Windows Media Encoder.

Fixing a player error when playing a video

To make sure the file is not damaged, try playing another file with the same extension. If other files are played, it means the file that is causing the error is damaged. If other files are also causing the "Windows Media Player can't play the file" error, try reinstalling the player.

If reinstallation does not work, you will need to install a special codec package. To do this, go to https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm and select the desired package from the list. It is best to download the most complete codec package (Full), it weighs about 56 MB. To do this, scroll to the bottom of the main page and select the “Download Full” link.

In the next window, select one of the links “Mirror 1” or “Mirror 2” and download the package, and then install it on your PC.

Select one of the links to download the codec pack

If you don’t want to do this manually, you can set it in the player settings so that it independently downloads all the necessary codecs from the Internet. To do this, launch the player, usually it is located in the Start menu, in the All Programs list.

Windows Media Player in the list of programs in the Start menu

What is a codec?

A codec is a special program that can convert signals and data. In order to transmit or encrypt any stream or amount of data, it is encoded using a codec, and for playback or conversion, it is decoded. Most often, codecs are used in the field of digital video and audio.

When converting data in the codec, 2 types of compression can be used - lossless and lossy. Almost all audio and video codecs use a lossy compression method. This makes it possible to reduce the size of the final file, which is a positive point for storing this data. But still, this method leads to a loss of quality during playback. Audio codecs have a good property - they can be configured in such a way that the loss of quality is practically undetectable by the human ear. You need to know this to fix “Windows Media Player can’t play the file.”

If the loss of quality is unacceptable, use another compression method - lossless. This can be used in cases where subsequent editing of the file is planned, otherwise the lossy quality of the primary file will deteriorate significantly each time it is saved.

If we talk about codecs in simple terms, then these are intermediary programs between us and the computer. If you encounter an issue where Windows Media Player won't play files, the first thing you can do is install a codec pack.

According to player statistics Windows Media Player used by more than 30% of Windows users. Microsoft has eliminated almost all the shortcomings in the player, released a huge number of plug-ins, covers and visual reviews for it, which improve the audio/video quality, appearance of the player and expand its functionality.

Stay in touch! Windows Media Player can only be used if you have a license for the Windows operating system.

System requirements

Operating system: Windows 7, Windows XP or Windows Vista (32-bit / 64-bit).

Playback
	Play local and streaming media files in the following formats: FLAC, MP4, M4V, MTS, TTS, TTA, 3GP, WTV, MP4V, M4A, MIDI, RMI, MID, MP2, MP3, ADT, WAV, WMV, AVI, MOV, JPEG , JPG, MPEG, MPG, M1V, M2V, AAC, H.264, MOD, MPA, VOB and many others.
	Play files from an audio CD, DVD or VCD video disc.
	View credits, lyrics and captions ( if attached).
	Listen to Internet radio in FM format and watch TV channels.
Recording and copying
	Record media files on CD/DVD discs at a specific recording speed (low, medium, high, very high).
	Copying music tracks from audio CDs in MP3 or WMA/WAV formats without loss of quality. If desired, you can specify the sound quality (from 48 to 192 Kbps) or set copy protection.
Synchronization
	Reception, transmission and playback of media files on portable devices (for example, MP3 players, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, smartphones) using new data synchronization technology. You can also use the Format function to delete all digital media files on your device.
	Play, receive and transfer files from local to remote computer or portable device.
Audio and video processing
	Supports 10-band graphic equalizer to change the tone of output audio signals. For example, you can make the composition sound in the style of “Classical”, “Rock”, “Retro”, and also change the balance.
	Change the quality of video images (brightness, hue, saturation and contrast).
	Change playback speed (low, medium or high).
	Changing the volume and normalizing the sound.
Add-ons
	Support for covers and visual overviews to change the appearance of the player.
	Support for additional modules for decoding music and video.
	Support for a large number of online stores.
	Download additional codecs. If Windows Media Player is unable to play a particular media format, install codecs