Windows Media Player 12 – No MP4 Support

Forums Operating Systems Windows Server 2008 R2 Applications Compatibility Windows Media Player 12 – No MP4 Support

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    • #43954

      On my Win7 Ultimate PC I can view MP4 videos. I have just installed Win2008R2 on my laptop & activated the desktop experience. When I try to view the MP4 video, Media Player says it doesn’t have the right codec. It does show the MP4 properties ok. Yet I can view the same video on an umodified Win7 PC. I can view WMV files no problem, so I know media player does work.

      Anybody else noticed this. Is there a workaround, i.e. installing the same codecs as Win7, not installing OEM codecs?

    • #50258

      try vlc or k-lite codec

    • #60077
      Anonymous

        try vlc or k-lite codec

      • #50259

        I did a little more digging & found that on my Windows 7 PC I have these 3 dlls from Microsoft that are not on the Win2008 R2 PC:

        msmpeg2adec.dll
        msmpeg2enc.dll
        msmpeg2vdec.dll

        Strange that Microsoft ship these on Win7 but not on Win2008R2. Why bother to make Media player different? I doubt you can just copy & register them to make these codecs work. I checked in Media Player on Win7 & these dll’s appear under “MPEG/DVD” filters, but are missing on Win2008R2.

        The version number for these dlls is 6.1.7140.0 as opposed to 6.1.7600.16385 for most other dlls. I haven’t installed any other software (not even Windows Live) on the Win7 PC, so I know these dll’s didn’t come from anywhere else.

      • #60078
        Anonymous

          I did a little more digging & found that on my Windows 7 PC I have these 3 dlls from Microsoft that are not on the Win2008 R2 PC:

          msmpeg2adec.dll
          msmpeg2enc.dll
          msmpeg2vdec.dll

          Strange that Microsoft ship these on Win7 but not on Win2008R2. Why bother to make Media player different? I doubt you can just copy & register them to make these codecs work. I checked in Media Player on Win7 & these dll’s appear under “MPEG/DVD” filters, but are missing on Win2008R2.

          The version number for these dlls is 6.1.7140.0 as opposed to 6.1.7600.16385 for most other dlls. I haven’t installed any other software (not even Windows Live) on the Win7 PC, so I know these dll’s didn’t come from anywhere else.

        • #50260

          The above-mentioned DLL are not related to MPEG-4/ISO container format, judging from their name (even though MPEG-2 video streams may be contained in MP4 files in some rare cases). I suppose there are some other files in Win7 that allow MP4 demuxing and appropriate decoders.

          But instead of looking for the certain files from the Win7 I would strongly recommend you to choose 3rd-party solutions:
          For demuxing there is nothing better than Haali splitter.
          For decoding MPEG-related formats (and some other stuff) the best choise is ffdshow (except maybe some rare cases).
          For playback I would recommend MPC-HC. In terms of video playback it’s way better than Windows Media Player (no, really!).
          And if you’re too lazy to install and configure all this stuff separately, you can install so-called “codec pack” instead that will do all the dirty work themself giving you a complete ready-to-go video playback solution without any fuss. One of the best codec-packs is K-Lite Full (use its default settings during installation).

        • #60079
          Anonymous

            The above-mentioned DLL are not related to MPEG-4/ISO container format, judging from their name (even though MPEG-2 video streams may be contained in MP4 files in some rare cases). I suppose there are some other files in Win7 that allow MP4 demuxing and appropriate decoders.

            But instead of looking for the certain files from the Win7 I would strongly recommend you to choose 3rd-party solutions:
            For demuxing there is nothing better than Haali splitter.
            For decoding MPEG-related formats (and some other stuff) the best choise is ffdshow (except maybe some rare cases).
            For playback I would recommend MPC-HC. In terms of video playback it’s way better than Windows Media Player (no, really!).
            And if you’re too lazy to install and configure all this stuff separately, you can install so-called “codec pack” instead that will do all the dirty work themself giving you a complete ready-to-go video playback solution without any fuss. One of the best codec-packs is K-Lite Full (use its default settings during installation).

          • #50261
          • #60080
            Anonymous
            • #50262

              I wasn’t asking for solutions on how to playback mp4 files with non-Windows software – I know there are lots of 3rd party solutions, such as VLC player. I thought the whole point of this forum was to get Win2008R2 to work as a desktop solution using Microsoft software as if it was Windows 7, hence my post to point out that there is an unexpected discrepancy with Media Player 12.

            • #60081
              Anonymous

                I wasn’t asking for solutions on how to playback mp4 files with non-Windows software – I know there are lots of 3rd party solutions, such as VLC player. I thought the whole point of this forum was to get Win2008R2 to work as a desktop solution using Microsoft software as if it was Windows 7, hence my post to point out that there is an unexpected discrepancy with Media Player 12.

              • #50263
                Arris
                Moderator

                  @joepublic wrote:

                  I wasn’t asking for solutions on how to playback mp4 files with non-Windows software

                  Have you tried the Windows 7 Codecs installer by AsciiWolf which are just the needed files, extracted from a Windows 7 DVD? It looks like you overlooked that reply. 😉

                • #60082
                  Anonymous

                    @joepublic wrote:

                    I wasn’t asking for solutions on how to playback mp4 files with non-Windows software

                    Have you tried the Windows 7 Codecs installer by AsciiWolf which are just the needed files, extracted from a Windows 7 DVD? It looks like you overlooked that reply. 😉

                  • #50264

                    I was having the same issue. I ran the installer and am still getting the following error message for MP4 files. I am running the standard version (installed just last weekend) with no additional codecs or players installed. I verified that the additional files were installed in both windows directories referenced by the install script.

                    Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file

                  • #60083
                    Anonymous

                      I was having the same issue. I ran the installer and am still getting the following error message for MP4 files. I am running the standard version (installed just last weekend) with no additional codecs or players installed. I verified that the additional files were installed in both windows directories referenced by the install script.

                      Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file

                    • #50265

                      Thanks for letting me know that trying out these extra dll’s doesn’t work.

                      I tried to install the Windows Media Feature Pack to see if it helped, but it wouldn’t install. Maybe it could be hacked to help install some of the missing components such as DVD maker. See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=968211. It is interesting to note that this document seems to say that the MPEG2, MPEG4 & H.264 codecs are part of core Windows (i.e. they are present in Windows 7 N which doesn’t have Media Player).

                    • #60084
                      Anonymous

                        Thanks for letting me know that trying out these extra dll’s doesn’t work.

                        I tried to install the Windows Media Feature Pack to see if it helped, but it wouldn’t install. Maybe it could be hacked to help install some of the missing components such as DVD maker. See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=968211. It is interesting to note that this document seems to say that the MPEG2, MPEG4 & H.264 codecs are part of core Windows (i.e. they are present in Windows 7 N which doesn’t have Media Player).

                      • #50266

                        Hi,

                        @joepublic wrote:

                        I did a little more digging & found that on my Windows 7 PC I have these 3 dlls from Microsoft that are not on the Win2008 R2 PC:

                        msmpeg2adec.dll
                        msmpeg2enc.dll
                        msmpeg2vdec.dll

                        Strange that Microsoft ship these on Win7 but not on Win2008R2. Why bother to make Media player different? I doubt you can just copy & register them to make these codecs work. I checked in Media Player on Win7 & these dll’s appear under “MPEG/DVD” filters, but are missing on Win2008R2.

                        The version number for these dlls is 6.1.7140.0 as opposed to 6.1.7600.16385 for most other dlls. I haven’t installed any other software (not even Windows Live) on the Win7 PC, so I know these dll’s didn’t come from anywhere else.

                        Those files are just the tip of the iceberg.
                        I spent an afternoon with my nose stuck deep into the W7 and W2K8S R2 registries and came to the conclusion that short of forcing a full install of WMP12 on W2K8S R2 no porting over of files and regkeys from W7 is going to cut it.
                        Just one look at the hidden winxs folder is enough for one to give up on the entire idea…

                        So, while I haven’t actually delved into it, I think mounting the install WIM and searching for the WMP install routine could be a step in the right direction.
                        It may still need some extra stuff from DirectX to get it kicking though provided the setup would run correctly on the OS which I very much doubt…

                        I vaguely recall a similar situation with W2K3S R2 but getting that to work was pretty easy compared to this one….

                        Cheers, 😉

                        $

                      • #60085
                        Anonymous

                          Hi,

                          @joepublic wrote:

                          I did a little more digging & found that on my Windows 7 PC I have these 3 dlls from Microsoft that are not on the Win2008 R2 PC:

                          msmpeg2adec.dll
                          msmpeg2enc.dll
                          msmpeg2vdec.dll

                          Strange that Microsoft ship these on Win7 but not on Win2008R2. Why bother to make Media player different? I doubt you can just copy & register them to make these codecs work. I checked in Media Player on Win7 & these dll’s appear under “MPEG/DVD” filters, but are missing on Win2008R2.

                          The version number for these dlls is 6.1.7140.0 as opposed to 6.1.7600.16385 for most other dlls. I haven’t installed any other software (not even Windows Live) on the Win7 PC, so I know these dll’s didn’t come from anywhere else.

                          Those files are just the tip of the iceberg.
                          I spent an afternoon with my nose stuck deep into the W7 and W2K8S R2 registries and came to the conclusion that short of forcing a full install of WMP12 on W2K8S R2 no porting over of files and regkeys from W7 is going to cut it.
                          Just one look at the hidden winxs folder is enough for one to give up on the entire idea…

                          So, while I haven’t actually delved into it, I think mounting the install WIM and searching for the WMP install routine could be a step in the right direction.
                          It may still need some extra stuff from DirectX to get it kicking though provided the setup would run correctly on the OS which I very much doubt…

                          I vaguely recall a similar situation with W2K3S R2 but getting that to work was pretty easy compared to this one….

                          Cheers, 😉

                          $

                        • #50267

                          Have you tried FFDshow?

                        • #60086
                          Anonymous

                            Have you tried FFDshow?

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