The most likely cause is that you don't have the right codecs installed to decode the video. Most of the video you find on P2P sites (the stuff that isn't just malware masquerading as video that is) is encoded in either XVid or Divx.

Because Microsoft doesn't like either of these codecs (Xvid is open source and Divx grew from a hacked version of Microsoft's own technology - basically the hackers made it better) the auto codec locator built into WMP conveniently ignores these codecs, and instead returns a cryptic error.

There's a fantastic little tool called AVI Codec which allows you to analyse a video file. It shows you which audio and video codecs the file uses, and whether your system has these installed. It also provides links to the various download sites to help you get codecs you don't have.

Get it here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AVIcodec.htm

Ben C.

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Benjamin Craig
Editor-in-Chief, filmmaking.net

cool thanks

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