Is there a program that views a movie and tells you what codecs it needs?

Answer 1

Look for a program called "G Spot". It will analyze an avi file I know, I use it all the time.

Answer 2

No problem. Try the free Media Info (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en). I first heard of the problem through ghacks.net. Here is their article on Media Info (http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/08/find-out-which-codec-is-missing-for-playback/)

"Find out which codec is missing for playback"

It happens sometimes that you download a video clip from the internet and have troubles playing that movie on your computer. This problem is most of the time codec related, one indication would be a black screen or no sound after hitting play. One solution, which is not that perfect, would be to install a so called codec pack and hope that the coded that is needed for playback is included in that pack.

A drawback is that you install many codecs that you do not need and that could interfere with codecs already installed on your system. A more elegant approach would be to scan the media file to find out which codes have been used to encode the file. One freeware that is able to do this is Media Info.

Media Info loads the media file and scans it for codes that are needed to playback the file. It displays extensive information about audio and video streams, the bitrate used to encode the movie and the names of the codec(s). A great feature is a link to the website of the codec used where it is possible to download it and a link to a video player website that is able to play the file without downloading the codec seperately.