what are codecs and drivers and how do they work.?

Question

usually i download a song and try and play it in media player and it says cannot play this file media player does not support the codec used to compres the file.need help on how to get the codecs and drivers needed for playing everything!please dont give me technical details on what it stands for and where it came frm cuase ii already know that

Answer 1

Codecs are COmpressors and DECompressors. (See the capital letters?) Different programs use different ways to compress, and therefore decompress, files.

Download GSpot. This will aid you in identifying which codecs are required to play your files.

You might like to download K-Lite codec pack, too. It's the one that I use, and I've had no problems playing files using it.

Answer 2

First if you don't have WMP 10 then I would suggest getting that.

But you can find offical codecs on the microsoft site and they usually come with the download.

Answer 3

I think you might need a different program to play the file. 2 other programs that may play it are realplayer 10 or quicktime 7 both of which are free.

Answer 4

if you have xp go here http://www.free-codecs.com/ and download xp codec pack and run it it has all the codecs you`ll need codecs are for viewing certain media files ie mpeg 1,2,4, divx, xvid etc if you have other windows download the pack below xp pack