*sigh* Problem with Windows Media/Realplayer

[MasterDias]

Alright, I have a rather annoying problem.

Windows Media Player freezes the computer up fairly frequently when I run video files. Sometimes the sound will run, but the video often locks the computer up and I can't get a response from any of the other devices so I have to reboot.

Realplayer also has a similar problem ever since I upgraded to the latest version. And the video files that I do get to run on it are a bit on the shaky side.

So, does anyone have any solutions?
These two players have proven to be a pain recently...

[Arnobius]

Alright, I have a rather annoying problem.

Windows Media Player freezes the computer up fairly frequently when I run video files. Sometimes the sound will run, but the video often locks the computer up and I can't get a response from any of the other devices so I have to reboot.

Realplayer also has a similar problem ever since I upgraded to the latest version. And the video files that I do get to run on it are a bit on the shaky side.

So, does anyone have any solutions?
These two players have proven to be a pain recently...

Had the same problem-- still do actually-- mainly when I try to run .avi (divx) files on WMP.

May be a problem with conflicts I suspect

[Mithrandir]

Are the movies that don't work recent aquisitions, or ones that worked before?

[MasterDias]

The movie files, both WMV and RM, worked fine before.

The Realmedia files originally worked fine on Real One Player. Once I upgraded to Realplayer 10.5, they started having the problems. When I downgraded back to Real One Player, I found that many of the files that had worked fine before no longer worked at all and gave me a message that they required the upgrade.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

if those dont work... possibly try an alternative? winamp (http://www.winamp.com) works well, VLC (http://www.videolan.org) is probably the best IMO... for the WMV that is

I think RM files you NEED RealPlayer, am I correct? I know WMVs work on winamp for sure

[Yokuo]

Alright. I had the same problem, and now I dont use either of those programs. Go to Google, and search for Media Player Classic. MPC is a program that plays all the formats supported by WMP, Winamp, Quicktime, and Realplayer.

Search for Media Player Classic in Google. Download it and make it your default for all movie formats (I use Winamp for music still). But, this program eliminates the use for WMP, which DOES lock up...

So, try that program, and get back to me!

[Kaligraphic]

I use Media Player Classic and the Realplayer Alternative codec. Works a dream.

[Yokuo]

*smacks head* I forgot about the RP Alt. Codec... You need that too.

[MasterDias]

I already tried MPC with the Realplayer Alt. Codec actually and the RM files that don't work gave me the error message, "File compression not supported. Cannot locate the required decoder."

MPC might fix the WMP hangup problem however, I'm not sure. I'll play around with it later and see.

Also, I tried a DivX movie player thing, and it ran the video on the RM files but the sound was completely missing. It's a bit strange...