Windows Media Player

To play DVDs in Windows Media Player you need a MPEG-2 decoder that is capable of decoding DVD video and is also compatible with WMP. The K-Lite Codec Pack contains a compatible decoder for Windows XP/Vista/7.

On Windows 8 and 8.1 you can only plays DVDs in WMP if you install the Media Center add-on from Microsoft. This is not a matter of missing codecs, so you can't solve it by installing any codecs! Microsoft has intentially disabled this functionality until you upgrade your Windows license.

Windows 10 doesn't not provide any DVD playback ability in WMP, and this can't be fixed by installing additional codecs.

DVD playback will work normally on any version of Windows in other players, such as Media Player Classic and VLC.

If one or more of the following filters is installed on your computer, then disable or uninstall them:

- Matrix Mixer
- Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher
- DC-DSP

Slow response when seeking certain WMV videos is another common problem. That is not caused by specific codecs, but is due to limitations of the Windows Media container format. A solution could be to remux the video into another container format, such as Matroska (.mkv). A free tool for that is MkvToolnix.

This is a generic error message that WMP displays when it fails to play a DVD. Ignore the remark about display settings and resolution. Those usually have nothing to do with the actual cause of the problem.

This error message is usually displayed when there is no MPEG-2 video decoder installed that is compatible with WMP. Another cause can be a buggy or old graphics driver.

The K-Lite Codec Pack contains a compatible decoder. Make sure you have that enabled during installation of the pack.

Windows comes bundled with decoders for several video formats, including H.264 and Xvid. These decoders from Microsoft are used by default by most DirectShow applications, including Windows Media Player and Media Center.

If you prefer using LAV Video decoder, ffdshow, or some other third party decoder, then you can use Codec Tweak Tool to adjust the preferred decoder settings in Windows 7/8/10. This tool is included with the K-Lite Codec Pack and is also available as a standalone application.

The K-Lite Codec Pack already automatically adjusts the preferred codecs settings for the most common video formats. It uses specials settings to make Windows select the decoder based on the filter merit. This is similar to how things work on older Windows versions.

However, the preferred decoder settings only have effect when WMP uses DirectShow for playback. In many cases it actually uses a different type of codec from Microsoft, namely Media Foundation. It does that for example for AVI, MP4, M4V, MOV, M2TS, and WMV files. On Windows 10 also for MKV files.

There are several ways to make WMP use DirectShow instead of Media Foundation:

• Rename your file. Give it a file extension for which Media Foundation isn't used.
  For example .video instead of .mkv
  Or .mpv4 instead of .mp4
• Disable Media Foundation with the Codec Tweak Tool. This is not recommended, because some application and games require Media Foundation for video playback. Unlike WMP, those are not capable of falling back to using DirectShow.
• Disable decoders from Microsoft with the Codec Tweak Tool. Also not recommended.

This is a bug in your graphics driver. Updating the driver usually fixes this problem.

Possible workarounds:
Codec Tweak Tool > Various Tweaks > disable DXVA hardware acceleration
Codec Tweak Tool > Win7DSFilterTweaker > MS Codec Tweaks > Disable the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder

On Windows 7/8:
Codec Tweak Tool > Win7DSFilterTweaker > MS Codec Tweaks > Disable Media Foundation

On Windows 10:
Codec Tweak Tool > Win7DSFilterTweaker > Media Foundation > Disable for .ts

On Windows 7/8:
Codec Tweak Tool > Win7DSFilterTweaker > MS Codec Tweaks > Disable Media Foundation

On Windows 10:
Codec Tweak Tool > Win7DSFilterTweaker > Media Foundation > Disable for .m2ts

Codec Tweak Tool > Win7DSFilterTweaker > MS Codec Tweaks > Disable the Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder

This is a bug in WMP. It may happen with any file type that WMP does not support natively.

There are two workarounds:

1. Play the file by clicking on it in Windows Explorer instead of opening it through the WMP library.
2. Add the file to a playlist in the library. When played from a playlist, the duration of the file is shown correctly and seeking works normally. Note that with a playlist we mean an actual saved playlist, not the Now Playing list of WMP.

Install the latest version of the K-Lite Codec Pack. If you already have the latest version, then try re-installing it, because other software can sometimes break things.

Test if playback works with the MPC-HC player from K-Lite, or with the GraphStudioNext tool from K-Lite (Full/Mega only). If those work it means the codecs are working correctly. If those also fail it might mean you have a damaged file. Check with the MediaInfo tool to see if that recognizes it as a valid file.

WMP uses Media Foundation codecs from Microsoft by default for playback of several audio and video file formats. The codecs from Microsoft are for example used for MP4 and MOV files. On Windows 10 also for MKV files. These codecs have some limitations, and don't support all types of audio and video that these file can contain.

There are two ways to bypass the codecs from Microsoft and use the better codecs from K-Lite:

1. Rename your video file to have the extension .video instead of for example .mp4
2. Use our Codec Tweak Tools to perform the following adjustments:
   * Disable Media Foundation for the file extension that you are having problems with
   * Set the preferred video decoder to "Use merit" (this is already done by default for some formats)
   * Set the preferred audio decoder to "LAV Audio" (this is usually not needed)

Visit our forum if you need help!

See above for a solution.

If you are using Windows 10, then you can acquire some extra codecs for WMP through the Windows Store.

HEVC / H.265:

Download [free version] (requires a GPU capable of decoding HEVC)
Download [$1] (for other systems)

VP9:

Download

Aomedia AV1:

Download

MPEG-2:

Download