I can't play avi or mpg movies - it's not a codec problem

Hi everyone, I have looked around and can't find the answer to my problem! I don't want to have to reinstall my OS, please help!

The problem is I can't open any movie files, avi or mpeg.. I've tried several different files, ones that I know worked fine in the past. I have bsplayer, avipreview, windows media player installed, they all respond the same - i click on open movie and it gets stuck on "opening" and sucks up all my resources, never an error message, it just looks like it's trying to open but nothing happens. Then I have to "end task" - DivX player works, I installed it yesterday.

I have tried to uninstall and reinstall both BSPlayer and WMP, I have tried other versions of these players - same thing.

I'm going to install PowerDVD today and see what happens. Seems like a new install might work, since the new install of DivX player worked.

I don't know what could've caused the problem. It has been a couple of weeks since I tried to play a movie and a lot has happened to this machine in that time, installed kaspersky anti-virus, took that out and installed mcafee, installed roxio, updated video card drivers, installed directx9.0c, installed the new xvid codec, installed windows media player 10, and also have microsoft automatic updates going all the time.. that's all i can think of for now. I've tried undo-ing all these changes but no luck.



Please help me think of anything I could try to fix this.

Thanks

It IS a codec problem. Download VLC and I'll prove it to you. VLC will play it, proving your inability to play it in other players (except divx player as you've noted) is a codec problem.

I have all the codecs I needs to play my avi movies.. I think if this was a codec issue that the movie file wouldn't play correctly in any player. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The problem is with the players I had installed when the problem occurred. I can't get them to work, even if I reinstall them. Any new player I install works fine.

Well avi is one thing as theirs 2 types.The original Windows and now divx.
But mpg's shouldn't be a problem with What Windows installs with WMP.
In what way do you try to play an mpg ?
1.Open the player and load file ?
2.double click a file ?
3.Other ?

I have all the codecs I needs to play my avi movies.. I think if this was a codec issue that the movie file wouldn't play correctly in any player. Please correct me if I'm wrong..
Your Divx player you installed uses its own codec for playing Divx movies. VLC brings its own codecs as well, that is why both of them will play - VLC will also play the videos that you may not be able to open with Divx Player. Most other programs share codecs with the system. You should probably remove all your codecs and start fresh. Good luck, I've never had much of it trying to deal with codecs once they were screwed up in WMP and Winamp.

Zipperman, there are far more than 2 types of avi files. avi is just the container, it can hold any number of formats inside of it; divx, xvid, mpeg4, ect

The problem is I can't open any movie files, avi or mpeg.. I've tried several different files, ones that I know worked fine in the past. I have bsplayer, avipreview, windows media player installed, they all respond the same - i click on open movie and it gets stuck on "opening" and sucks up all my resources, never an error message, it just looks like it's trying to open but nothing happens. Then I have to "end task".
So it's the player that's taking all of the CPU power, not explorer.exe ?