MPEG - Issues (Codec, Copyright etc.)

Hi,

I have a problem. I have been given an MPEG video by my employer. However, we are finding that it will not play on any machine other than the one it was created on.

This is what really CONCERNS me. When I try to open it Media Player, Media Player goes off to the internet and looks for something called a CODEC SERVER. What on Earth is it doing? What is a codec & what is this codec server? Windows Media Player then tells me that the file is not of a recognised format, which is rubbish.

What is going on here?

OK. After some searching - here's what I think.

My Media Player needs some information (this CODEC - a plugin of somekind) in order to play it, so it goes off looking for it.

The machine which created it has this & all our other machines don't.

Is this right?

A CODEC is COmpression/DECompression. It contains the information needed to code/decode an mpeg file.

Thanks Mr. Stoned Coder.

one of the more common codecs is the DivX codec, which you can get at www.DivX.com.

otherwise, run a search on www.download.com for the codec that its looking for.

Yeah, you probably need DivX or MPEG4(2?, lost count) codec. To get the MPEG4(2) codec just download some sort of software DVD player and install it... then uninstall it if you wish. The codecs usually remain.

Funny how microsoft has a codec server but refuses to put any popular codecs on it

If not I could take a look and see exactly which codec iit uses.

Divx is mpeg 4 only(ie. not 2).

Thanks guys. I was getting all upset when I wrote my first post because I couldn't understand why media player was trying to connect to external machines in order to play my file. I understand now.

ah yes, i remember now. DivX was a reverse engineering of MPEG4 and MPEG2 is what is used for DVD's.