hey guys
windows media player used to pay all my movie files fine, but i noticed today, i get sound and no video, but if i keep double clicking the file im playing, i get video as well eventually, any idea whats going on?
i did system restore to a few days back, un-installed my graphics card drivers,and re-installed them, no luck.

few basic system specs if it helps

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.7Ghz
ATI X2900 Pro (1Gb GDDR4) @ 858/1153
OCZ Reaper DDR2 8500 (4 x 1GB Sticks)

Seems to be a codec issue. Make sure all the latest codecs are installed. Personally I use VLC player (free download) and it works great with all my videos.

Hope this helps

hmmm good point, every time i play a video, on the bottom left hand side it says, acquiring codec, then codec acquired, yet it still messes up. hmm where do i get the codecs it wants? :S
i use VLC sometimes, but i prefer the everyday use and simplicity of Windows Media Player, if i can get it working.
What i don't get is, it all worked fine a few days ago, now its just being odd.

right, i installed the latest 'All in one codec' thingy, uninstalled windows media player 11, tried 10, that didnt work, then a fresh install of 11 again, still no luck.
I even reinstalled direct X9, made no difference, running out of ideas now :(
i really dont want to re-format my pc, but it seems liekt he only choice.
any ideas guys?

those all in ones sometimes break machine software
I would un-install any of these you have
then start with fresh look at what codecs you need to play the movies you have
google for Codec/Video Identifiers

You can try to download this codec, it works great for me on when using Windows Media Player

http://www.cccp-project.net/

I reccomend K-lite (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm). It's the codec pack i use and i can play everything in WMP

thanks guys, but even after i un-installed the codec's, it still didnt work, so i just reformatted my pc, everything is fine now, hope it doesnt happen again, whatever caused it in the first place.

This might be a typo on your end, but you were suppose to install the codecs, not un-install. Anyway, glad your computer works.

It wasn't a typo, i un-installed the codec pack i had, and tried to play a standard .wmv file, which should require a codec, and that didn't work.
Then i reformatted my pc, got it all working, then yet again got the same problem, as far as i can tell, it was because of ATI Catalyst Control 8.1, when i use 7.12, its all fine, so i think ATI drivers caused me all of this hassle :(
even the fact that i un-installed ATI CC 8.1 to go back to 7.12 didn't work, neither did system restore.
This has been the worst software problem iv had, purely for the fact its from a hardware driver from someone like ATI. But i have had problems with ATI new driver releases before.
Anyways, i had to reformat my pc yet again, this time I'm just sticking to ATI CC 7.12 and so far everything is working fine.

Why not use Windows media Classic, it's a free ware and much powerful than windows media player...

All you need is the KMplayer. Its great, easy to use and very fast and efficient.

http://www.download.com/The-KMPlayer/3000-13632_4-10659939.html?tag=lst-1

Do some research on it if you want