michaelg
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mpeg video no longer displays
MPEG VERSION OF "GOODTIMES" VIDEO FROM WIN95 CDROM NO LONGER DISPLAYS ON SCREEN.
Original installation of WIN95 (OSR2) included an MPEG subfolder of VIDEOS, with MPEG version of "GoodTimes" and some 50's clip... No problem playing them. Tried again more recently, and this time I get the audio but no video. There is a blue square where the video picture should be. Plus some screen interference and a thin vertical line of extraneous video running parallel to the video window. Music sounds fine.
I've tried reinstalling the "Multimedia" components (8 of them in all) via the CD-ROM installation disk: no change. Checked the video drivers section in the configuration chart - it lists a whole lot of compression codecs, Cinepak to Indeo, but no MPEG. Tried to find an MPEG driver to reinstall, but can't locate anything remotely ressembling one from the name. Tried the help.txt files in WIN95 folder, no help on this one..
Anyone have a suggestion? Other than unistalling WIN95 and starting all over again... Would be appreciated, many thanks to anyone who knows the driver... Michael G.
Original installation of WIN95 (OSR2) included an MPEG subfolder of VIDEOS, with MPEG version of "GoodTimes" and some 50's clip... No problem playing them. Tried again more recently, and this time I get the audio but no video. There is a blue square where the video picture should be. Plus some screen interference and a thin vertical line of extraneous video running parallel to the video window. Music sounds fine.
I've tried reinstalling the "Multimedia" components (8 of them in all) via the CD-ROM installation disk: no change. Checked the video drivers section in the configuration chart - it lists a whole lot of compression codecs, Cinepak to Indeo, but no MPEG. Tried to find an MPEG driver to reinstall, but can't locate anything remotely ressembling one from the name. Tried the help.txt files in WIN95 folder, no help on this one..
Anyone have a suggestion? Other than unistalling WIN95 and starting all over again... Would be appreciated, many thanks to anyone who knows the driver... Michael G.
ASKER
Smeebud: Thanks for the reference to the Microsoft site - it could be useful. Unfortunately, not in this case. In response to a question re MPEG drivers, there is this reply: "Win 95 does not include an MPEG driver for Media Player. However, there are third party products you can use to view MPEG files in Win 95."
Maybe this applies to earlier releases of Win95. Mine definitely loaded and played the MPEG movies on the installation CD. No other software on the hard drive at that time. Can't figure out what happened to that "nonexistent" driver. Looked under properties of multimedia devices, and ACTIVEX driver is loaded, no conflicts. I think that's the driver used to play the MPEG files, but not sure.... Anybody else have a clue? Thanks, mg.
Maybe this applies to earlier releases of Win95. Mine definitely loaded and played the MPEG movies on the installation CD. No other software on the hard drive at that time. Can't figure out what happened to that "nonexistent" driver. Looked under properties of multimedia devices, and ACTIVEX driver is loaded, no conflicts. I think that's the driver used to play the MPEG files, but not sure.... Anybody else have a clue? Thanks, mg.
Go to your My computer icon, open and choose view, oprtions then files types and see if you still have a association for .avi. Should be associated with Mplayer.exe.
You've probably already done that but let me know please.
You've probably already done that but let me know please.
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Thanks rodcwahr and smeebud... Sorry for delay in responding to your suggestions, both much appreciated. I've been abroad for some time in an Italian village, no TV, no computer, no radio, rarely a newspaper in sight, lots of mountains and fields and sea, certainly no MPEG problems to worry about.... Anyway, problem is now solved, sort of. It's not the file association. Movie clip AVI and Movie clip MPEG are both associated with RUNDLL32, not with MPLAYER, but this association seems correct in this (OSR2) release of Win95. Following rodcwahr's suggestion, I went to the DIRECTX folder and clicked on "restore display drivers". This restored the generic S3 Virge driver that Win95 likes to pick if left on its own to select the video card installed. When I did this, MPEG worked again. However, I lost features this way because I have an STB 3D Powergraph card installed, which indeed uses the S3 chip, but has a "vision control panel" of its own... So, I reinstalled the STB Win95 driver, got my features back, and again lost MPEG. So I guess it has to do with the driver for the card, and I guess that means info from the manufacturer. Contacted my manufacturer Dell, but they couldn't help. (A separate issue, I know, but has anyone else had as much trouble with Dell tech service as I have? they are useless! I've spent 6 and a half months already trying to get a very basic configuration problem ironed out, even wrote to Michael Dell - who ignored it too... Sorry, another story...) Thanks again for the tips. Hope you get this. Michael G.
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Microsoft Multimedia Display Troubleshooter (There is Much More *Than* TroubleShooting) http://www.microsoft.com/support/tshoot/mmdisplay.htm