I use Media Player Classic. It's free and open source, and it does a great job. It will play 5.1 audio on true 5.1 computer speakers if you have them(many programs only support true 5.1 output if you BUY a special upgrade, otherwise you get only a 2.0 downmix of the 5.1). Plus, it plays AC-3, which I have never been able to get WMP to play. It will play an MPEG file and an AC-3 file together if they have the same name. It can play DVDs. All in all, you can't beat it unless you buy something much better, in my experience.

-Jayson

As my site is currently be revamped, there are two file types on there. In the main site, most of the embedded files are quicktime and you'll need to download that at apple.com/quicktime.

The ones on the archive page are indeed WMV files and you'll need to see if you have the latest player for that. I was very apprehensive about the Windows Media Video format cause, well, it's windows. But after a lot of experimenting I really can't say enough about it.

Codecs and players are quite a personal thing and to each of us their own tastes and thank goodness for that. Window's Media Player 7 was a classic and I miss it greatly. 8 had lot's of problems and that's why I was into doing Qucktime at that time. But I really do love window media player 9 and the audio and video codecs 9. I can finally get my films down to a managable size without too much loss of quality. All of my videos will eventually be in WMV format.

O.K. Three comments, and thanks.

But no answer to my question regarding what to do to make WMP vers 9 play when I get the message "The source filter for this file could not be loaded." What is a source filter? And why isn't it loaded? And what is the relationship between this filter and a .wmv file?

I'm working with the latest version of the software and am told when I go to the Microsoft download/upgrade site and attempt a download that I already have the most recent version installed.

Jack

Drastic move here...but perhaps a complete uninstall and a reinstall ?

Worth a try if all else fails.

I'm still searching the MS Knowledge Base to see if there's anything there.

Thanks, everyone.

Jack

I'm wondering, are you getting this error when you select a file that "should" view in a Window? If so, can you view the files if you right click and download to your computer?

I have a problem at times when I try to view a media file within Windows. For example, I cannot read Ken Calhouns video at http://www.DaytradingU.com/winningchartsmenu.wmv

In this case, I just get a "Page Cannot Be Displayed" browser error and the video does not play. However, I can go to his base menu and right click on the video to download. Then it plays fine.

I believe this is because I stripped out Internet Explorer's virtual java driver and a few other things when I was trying to remove a really persistant broswer hijacker (eventually got rid of it, after 3 weeks of figting and 7 hijacker removers (one was fake) with a custom registry edit program.

However, I do have scripts that allow me to view videos live. Go to www.chanimal.com/video. Click on the Windows Media Video (that plays in a separate window). This should play (give it 15-30 seconds to start). Then, select the link below that says, "Right Click to Save." Download the video and see if it works.

If you can play it remote, it may be a browser issue, not a media player issue.

Try it and let us know what happens.