Can't Play .mp4 files

publius

New Member
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7
I just decided to turn loose Win8 RP on "bare metal" here as opposed to a VM. I didn't even bother to mess with video under a VM, but with the bare metal install, I've run into some trouble.

At first, media player didn't seem to play anything, including .wmv files. Messing around, I unchecked the "Direct X acceleration" box and that allowed it to play .wmv files. However, it still won't play .mp4 files -- no video, just sound, and Media Player will hang trying to exit.

It did this with a clean install with only the Windows supplied video driver. My video card has been obsoleted by AMD now (HD 4200 chipset) and I couldn't use the new Windows 8 preview driver package, but I did try intalling the AMD 12.4 driver in Win7 compatibility mode. That worked fine it seems, but it still won't play .mp4 files. Turning the Direct X acceleration back on still kills .wmv playback as well.

Any ideas? Win7, both x64 and 32-bit played .mp4 files fine right out of the box on this machine.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
I see this got moved to audio. To be clear this is a problem with .MP4 *video*, not an audio problem. .MP4 may look too close to .MP3 or something. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
This won't be helpful, but I have no trouble playing .mp4 videos.

I have the X64 version of Win 8 RP, an NVidia GTX 680 graphics card, and WDDM 1.2 drivers.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Window 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    homebuilt
    CPU
    I7-3930k
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Gskill DDR3-2133
    Graphics Card(s)
    eVGA GTX 680
    Sound Card
    Soundblaster Zx
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus PA246Q
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    Corsair Force GT 120GB
    WD Cavair Black 1.5TB
    PSU
    PC Power & cooling Silencer 750
    Case
    Silverstone FT02B-W
    Cooling
    Noctua NH-D14 w/ PWM fans
    Keyboard
    cheap Logitech USB wired
    Mouse
    old 5 button Microsoft USB optical
    Internet Speed
    6Mb cable

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire E1-571
    CPU
    i5-3230m
    Motherboard
    Acer Type-2
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD 4000
    Sound Card
    High Definiton Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Generic
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
    PSU
    Generic
    Keyboard
    QWERTY
    Mouse
    ELANTECH Touchpad
    Internet Speed
    12.68Mbps
    Browser
    IE11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-2500k
    Motherboard
    ASRock z77 Extreme 4
    Memory
    Team Elite 8GB (4 x 2GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD Graphics 3000 & Nvidia GT 530
    Sound Card
    Realtek ALC892
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Western Digital Caviar Black 750 GB SATA III 7200 RPM
    PSU
    Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W
    Case
    NZXT GAMMA Classic Series
    Cooling
    Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
    Keyboard
    i-rocks RF-6570
    Mouse
    i-rocks RF-7550A
    Internet Speed
    17Mbps
Or download VLC.

Or go to the app store and install the media center app.

Yes it is one of the new "features" of Windows 8 where they removed mpeg 4 playback for your convenience...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7/8
Ah, so they removed the .mp4 codec(s) from Windows 8? That would explain it. Thanks for the replies, and I'll try installing the codec packs and/or the media center app when I boot up Win 8 again shortly. I'll post the results.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
Yes it is one of the new "features" of Windows 8 where they removed mpeg 4 playback for your convenience...

LOL
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    7/8/ubuntu/Linux Deepin
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Still no joy. I installed the Media Center "Feature Upgrade", which didn't help, then the Shark Codec package and still no joy. Something is screwed up and I'm wondering if a re-install would fix it. When it tries to play an .mp4 file, the window will resize to the proper resolution size but it will not display video. Hitting the stop button will cause Media Player to hang, requiring it to be killed via Task Manager.

The preview thumbnails in Explorer seem to work for all the .mp4 files, showing the first frame from the clip properly.

I'm going to install one of the third party players and see if they will work.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
Still no joy. I installed the Media Center "Feature Upgrade", which didn't help, then the Shark Codec package and still no joy. Something is screwed up and I'm wondering if a re-install would fix it. When it tries to play an .mp4 file, the window will resize to the proper resolution size but it will not display video. Hitting the stop button will cause Media Player to hang, requiring it to be killed via Task Manager.

The preview thumbnails in Explorer seem to work for all the .mp4 files, showing the first frame from the clip properly.

I'm going to install one of the third party players and see if they will work.

Can you provide a link to a generally available .mp4 file that won't play for you?

I'd be willing to see whether it works with my Win8 X64 RP installation. I don't recall installing any video codec packages, but I seem to have the Media Player.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Window 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    homebuilt
    CPU
    I7-3930k
    Motherboard
    Asus P9X79 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Gskill DDR3-2133
    Graphics Card(s)
    eVGA GTX 680
    Sound Card
    Soundblaster Zx
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Asus PA246Q
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    Corsair Force GT 120GB
    WD Cavair Black 1.5TB
    PSU
    PC Power & cooling Silencer 750
    Case
    Silverstone FT02B-W
    Cooling
    Noctua NH-D14 w/ PWM fans
    Keyboard
    cheap Logitech USB wired
    Mouse
    old 5 button Microsoft USB optical
    Internet Speed
    6Mb cable
Can you provide a link to a generally available .mp4 file that won't play for you?

I'd be willing to see whether it works with my Win8 X64 RP installation. I don't recall installing any video codec packages, but I seem to have the Media Player.

No I don't right off hand. The files are AVC video in the .mp4 container. If you can find one with AVC somewhere, you can try it out. The ones I have are 100s of MB at the smallest, way too big.

I think something about this is just screwed up with the Win8 install on this system, and I'm trying to dig around deeper and see if I can figure out what's wrong. Win7 here plays them all just fine, and did straight out of the box with no additional codecs or video players installed.

I'm tempted to re-install it from scratch and see if the problem still occurs, but I'm going to dig around some more before I do that.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
Have you updated/installed the "real" video drivers for your video card?

Codecs often use hardware acceleration for video playback (one reason it can be hard to screen capture) and the drivers that ship with 8 are very bare bones...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7/8
I completely uninstalled all video drivers, and now Media Player will indeed play the AVC .mp4 video files (jerky and crap poor performance, of course).

I had installed Catalyst 12.4. I uninstalled that completely, and that left the "engineering sample" driver that came with Win8 installed. Still wouldn't play. Then I uninstalled that, leaving the basic video, and now it plays.

I'm going to try installing Catalyst 12.4 on top of this without the "engineering sample" driver in between and see if that works.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
Yep, it's the hardware acceleration. There's some interaction between whatever changed in Win8 and my hardware and the AMD drivers. I got to playing around and noticed that some Youtube videos wouldn't play as well, displaying a green screen and hanging IE.

There was no difference in installing the AMD 12.4 drivers directly on top of the bare basic video driver vs the included "engineering sample" driver.

The only thing I haven't tried is some older AMD drivers, but I've got a hunch that wouldn't help or would probably be worse. AMD has obsoleted this Radeon 4200 chipset, so I fear this won't get fixed for the final release of Win 8 and the only thing is to just get a new video card.

Thanks to all who replied.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
Please help! I can't play any of these newfangled mp4 video clips! I downloaded all the code packages and only ended up with some might nasty spyware, and think I even may have come down with a Virus! Then I downloaded some free antivirus and it was really a VIRUS! Please help an old man before he takes the old dirt nap.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows NT 4.0
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    IBM
    CPU
    386
    Motherboard
    Carillac
    Memory
    Yes
    Graphics Card(s)
    Full House
    Browser
    No
    Antivirus
    Yes
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