WMV Videos Giving Audio, but no Video

Hey Guys,

Sometime in the last few weeks I noticed that all of a sudden, WMV files don't play right. MPEGs still play fine. AVIs, etc, all these formats are playing perfectly, both streaming and from the disk. However, WMV files have perfectly good audiop, and show prgress and all else to indicate playback, but give me no video at all, just a black square, a slightly different color than the normal background black.

This is occuring on ALL WMV files. Streaming, played from disk/disc, even files I already had downloaded that worked perfectly before. It occurs even if I try and use an alternate player program. Always audio, no video.

The files ARE intact, as best I can tell. Codec anylyzers say they're valid, and verify that I have the right codecs already installed, and the files show a thumbnail image from their content properly when I'm in Windows Explorer. The files also come from many, many sources, so the source can't be the problem.

 

What operating system? What version of WMP?

 

Ah, silly me, I should have thought of that.

Windows XP Professional SP2
Windows Media Player 10.00.00.4019

For what it's worth, I was using this version of media player before the problems began.

 

Have you been playing around with Power Point? That's all I could find on it.

Microsoft. Who knows something there might fix it.

Only other reference was to older versions of WMP.

If it is a recent problem you could try a system restore.

 

Don't use Powerpoint at all. Didn't evewn install it when I added Office.

Tried re-installing codecs from Microsoft's site, but that doesn't seem to work either.

As for System Restore, I keep that pain in the butt offline. It causes more problems than it can fix, in my opinion. Too much of a safe haven for persistent malware that could have otherwise been easily removed.

 

Maybe a full uninstallation and reinstallation of WMP might help, if you havent tried it yet

 

Well, Windows Media Player can't really be uninstalled, but I tried rolling it back to the prior version, and I still get the same error.

Now, it occurs to me that I installed updated video drivers on this laptop from the Sony site (they make the laptop), but nothing else has shown any wierd new behavior, and I don't think the video issue corresponded with that, either. I also tried reinstalling the original drivers, with no success prior to coming here.

 

OK, I found the fix, and wanted to share.

I found a reference after more extensive searching online to another person who had this sort of issue. Hi solution was to open WMP, go to Tools > Options > Advanced, and disable the "Use Video Mixing Renderer" option.

This worked, but the video would crap out again and go back to the same black screen after a few seconds. What I finally found worked in my case was to leae the Renderer enabled, check the "Use Overlays" box, and apply. Then close the player, reopen it, and disable the "Use Overalays" option, leaving the renderer enabled. This got the video running just as it should again.

 

Thanx for the feed back Sidecutter. Good stuff.

 

No problem. I hope the information can help someone else, and glad I cound contribute some tidbit to the knowledge gathered here.