OT: Microsoft Media Player weird problem

Barry W. Hull wrote on 6/30/2013, 7:48 AM

I have a rendered MP4 file, 3.6 gigs, took about 18 hours to render.

I Received an error when I tried to play it with Microsoft Media Player, “Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file”.

Just for grins I tried to play it with QuickTime, and it played. Weird, I thought.

So I copied the file to another computer, and on that computer, it played on Windows Media Player, no problem.

So I did all the “stuff” I could find to repair Media Player, but no luck, the file still won’t play. Other files will play, but not this one. Media Player seems to be OK, no issues I can find, except for this one file.

If the file didn't play on any computers, I would accept that the file is corrupted, but it plays just fine on another computer.

Any suggestions?

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 6/30/2013, 7:57 AM

Which output template did you use? There are countless variables when creating an mp4.

Also, how fast is your processor and how much RAM do you have? And how do you plan to distribute this mp4? Online? On Facebook or YouTube? As part of another project?

There are optimized mp4 settings for every use.

OldSmoke wrote on 6/30/2013, 8:59 AM

The OP's question is why the file plays on one computer with Media Player and not on another also with Media Player and that doesn't have anything to do with how it is rendered. I wonder however if the OS on both are the same, Win7, Vista or a mix of 32 and 64bit. It could also be a partition problem, FAT32 vs NTFS as it is a rather large file.

Barry W. Hull wrote on 6/30/2013, 10:06 AM

Both systems are Win7, 64bit, both have plenty of memory, using Vegas 12.

Strange that the file plays on one system and not on the other, hoping there might be one of those "been there, seen that" solutions.

Also, other files just as large, some even larger, play on the "bad" computer. I'm only having an issue with this particular file on a particular computer.

I'll probably just re-render and hope that solves the issue, but that takes about 18 hours and is just a hope, frustrating.

OldSmoke wrote on 6/30/2013, 10:34 AM

Have you tried copying the file to a different drive? It can well be a bad block issue too; you might have been able to write into that block but now the drive cant read that block.

Gary James wrote on 6/30/2013, 12:09 PM

Have you installed any Codec Packs on the problematic PC that may be interfering with your normal Codecs?

Also, have you tried the free Media Player Classic. This is an open source version of what appears to be the Windows Media Player from Win XP; but with lots of extra features.

B.Verlik wrote on 6/30/2013, 12:53 PM

Have you tried playing another file over 2 GBs on the suspect WMP?

dxdy wrote on 6/30/2013, 1:07 PM

I would re-render the first five minutes of it and see if it plays.

Then I would do a bigger chunk...

Barry W. Hull wrote on 6/30/2013, 1:12 PM

Thanks for those suggestions. None of them worked, except... the open source Media Player. With the classic Media Player, no issues whatsoever.

Very odd, this file is "identical" to 100 other files, same effects, just different footage. This one particular file simply won't play on Media Player on my "Vegas" computer.

It has now played on two other computers, but not my main Vegas computer. However, it does play using Quick Time.

Another bit of info... this is actually the second time I've rendered this file, the first render plays just fine. I needed to add some additional text (something I have included in every file), but for some reason this render won't play using Media Player.