By : Window Media Player being the only media player from Microsoft is fulfilling its cause flawlessly. You are ready to play a wide variety of audio/video files with default Window’s installation. But new third party media containers are being launched faster than ever. This makes it pretty difficult to support all formats for any media player. You can either choose an alternative media player like VLC, KMplayer or follow this guide to play unsupported files on WMedia Player.
These are some of popular audio/video formats supported by Media Player 12
- Audio Visual Interleave (.avi)
- Moving Pictures Experts Group (.m3u, .mp2, .mp3, .mpeg, .m1v, .mpa, .mpg, .mpe, .mpv2)
- Audio Interchange File Format ( .aif, .aifc, .aiff)
- Audio for Windows (.wav)
- Windows Media Player Skins (.wmz, .wms)
- QuickTime Movie file(.mov)
- MP4 Video file (.mp4, .3g2, .3gp2, .3gp, .m4v, .mp4v,.3gpp)
For more extensive list, please refer here.
So, you have downloaded your favorite video off YouTube (MP4) that you want to play in Media Player or any other files that are not supported by it. To do this you need to install additional software that can either add support in Media Player or play them itself. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this.
- Convert Media to supported formats.
You can convert your audio/video files to other formats that are supported by Media Player. Most of these media converter are fast, effective and free to use. Once you have downloaded the setup, it is easy to install and use. Most of these applications require audio/video files to convert, the formats to convert into, and with a single click you can convert a large number of files.
The most popular ones are Free Video Converter by FreeMake and Any Video Converter.
- Install additional codec packs for Window Media Player (Recommended)
The process of convert media is a tedious task, uses more storage and sometimes quality is lost during conversion. This process reduces one step of media conversion, by enabling Window Media Player to play unsupported audio/video files itself. Codec packs are special software that enhances the media support and playback support for a large number of formats. There are many codec packs available, but here we are discussing free and stable packs. Now your best bet would be to download an all-in-one codec pack that take care of the video and audio support you might need in the future in one installation.
- K-Lite Codec Packs
It comes in a four variety of editions from Basic to Mega, which are free. Initially developed for Kazaa Lite users, the K-Lite Codec Pack lets you play almost every video or audio format you might ever use on the Internet in Windows Media Player.
Head over to codecguide.com and download the Mega version.
Then follow the standard install procedure. Make sure to select Window Media Player in File Association Window and in next frame click Select All Audio and Select All Video.
- Media Player Codec Pack
The Media Player Codec Pack supports almost every compression and file type used by modern video and audio files. This too comes in three flavors, Standard, Lite and Plus. Download this codec pack. You can choose either to do, easy or detailed installation. With detailed mode, you can choose components to install, hardware acceleration, and other settings.
Conclusion
You can increase audio/video support of Windows Media Player by installing free Codec Packs or switch to all in one Media Player like VLC. Although there are many more audio and video players available out there, but Windows Media Player in one the best among them. The quality of audios and videos it offers it ultimately great, and can’t be found in any other tool
