wmp11 dvd playback is off center

[james438]

I seldom use windows media player, but recently I was playing some smallville episodes and the video was stretched horizontally somewhat and the right side was cut off. I tried googling for the answer and all I could find were others with the same problem, but no solutions listed. Any ideas? I would be happy with just about any suggestion for how to fix wmp11 even if they do not work. The ideas might point me in the right direction.

[djr33]

I'm sure this depends on the format of the video itself. This doesn't occur with every video, right? Just this particular file or set of files?

It might help to update (if possible) and try to install any relevant codecs. It's rare that it will play at all without the right codec, but that might be the reason it's not functioning properly.

It's also possible that the file itself is just encoded incorrectly.

Why not try another player? A nice free one that plays most formats is VLC.

[james438]

This was indeed a codec problem. I downloaded the k-lite codec pack (http://www.codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_basic.htm) pack. In order to get it to work I hit advanced setup --> selected all video codecs --> unset "reset all settings to their defaults" --> checked windows media player for associations --> selected all video file associations and left the audio codec selections blank --> selected "next" in regards to thumbnail options --> and went with the defaults settings on the remaining options.

After all of that wmp11 plays the dvd correctly.

I almost always use vlc 1.1.4 for playing videos, but every once in a great while I want to have another player for testing purposes to test whether a file is corrupt or whether the video player I was using was not operating the way that it should.