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Article Title: How do I watch movies I've downloaded off the internet?

Article Author: Daryl Quenet
Article Category: HOW-TO Guides
Times Read: 6116
Date: 2003-10-05 20:00:00
Pages: 1

In my day I've had a lot of people ask about playing downloaded movies. Which is understandable theres a lot to know to about this subject. When it comes to watching movies theres two important things to take into account:

One - A Good Media Player:
The play back of some forms of media are limited by which media player you use. My personal favorite player is Media Player Classic. For some of you old school users this may look like the older version of Microsoft Media Player 6.4, but it's definately not. You'll notice some nice features like a Filter menu (VERY important for some playback options) under the right click menu during playback (you'll need to change the AC3Filter settings if your going to use a SPDIF for AC3 output).

Two - Necessary Codecs:
Codec is an acronym for "COder/DECoder". The codec determines both how the audio/video has been encoded (ie Xvid, Divx, Mpeg, Quicktime, MP3, OGG), and how it should be decoded (playback). To be able to watch a movie (decode) you'll need to have the corresponding codec it was coded with. A great source for codecs is the K-Lite Codec Pack. Be careful however don't install anything that says MPEG4 / ffdshow (some forms of Xvid / Divx movies aren't MPEG4 compliant so you will get a green screen or blotchy playback). You'll find all codecs you'll need with official links located within my Links Archive / General Links section, I also recommend Koepis Xvid binary (unlike DivX, the XviD project only supplies the source, and third parties compile it). If your interested in encoding Koepis is one of the most respected builds.

Trouble Shooting:
Some people that install codec packs will find the occassional Xvid / DivX they try to play back is green and blochie. The first time I saw this I discard a rip I did because I thought it was a problem within the encoding process. Later I noticed that under the Filter submenu during playback the XviD filter wasn't mentioned. Some features that are available within codecs break the MPEG4 standard, and render it unplayable by MPEG4 devices, but gives the computer user a higher quality movie. It did however have a ffdshow listed in the filter menu (sometimes called Microsoft MPEG4). To correct this install Zoom player (take your pick of personal or professional). When you run Zoom player right click the main window, and select Player Options (bottom leftish). One of the features included in player options is Filter Control, one of the best features in any media player! Now select ffdshow under Filter Registration Profiles, and click unregister. It will sit there scanning your drive for a minute or so then display a message. After it says Filter Unregistered your now ready to try playing it again. Now if it doesn't work it just might be a bad encode, the current XviD codec version is 1.0.3, and some movies may have been encoded with older builds that are now no longer compatible with the latest compiles. But don't fret Xvid anything coded with a stable build, will playback with future stable builds. Check out xvid.org for more details. Also bewarned theres a lot of bad encoders / encoding guides out there, ones of these days I'll post mine.

If you experience problems playing movies feel free to message me through the contact section. If the movie just suffers from bad quality, it's probly because the source, or an uneducated ripper.