Files Needed To Display Video Are Not Installed

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jshrop6004

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Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2013 10:37 pm
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Files Needed To Display Video Are Not Installed

#1

Post by jshrop6004 » Sun Sep 18, 2022 3:45 pm

Hi all, as noted above getting the dreaded "Files Needed To Display Video Are Not Installed" error message for a few weeks. First the specs:

Home built in 2014 HTPC running W7 & WMC7
2 HD Homerun dual tuners
Not hooked up to external tuner since move to a new house 4 years ago, it is display only
Running 2 xbox 360's as extenders in living & bedroom

So for 8 years this setup has performed flawlessly for recording OTA and watching movies ripped from DVD.
Went through all the bumps with the guides like everybody else and have been using paid EPG123 since the free guide expired.

Don't record much in the summer so this issue could go back several months but not sure. It plays live TV fine and records programs fine, it just throws the error when you try to play a recorded program or ripped movie.

What I have done so far:

First off I have changed nothing on the PC and have it set not to update(yeah I know but its worked for 8 years;)

Read a lot about the error, so first thing was to disable media center sounds, that had no result.

Secondly made sure that windows sound was set to stereo and WMC sound was set to 5.1, again no joy.

Thirdly tried the exercise of turning off the pc then the tv and then vice versa to try to pinpoint an HDMI endpoint error and that also resulted in no change.

Lastly I grabbed VLC Player off the net. It played the ripped movies perfectly but would not play any of the WMC recorded files so in my mind that points to a WMC problem and not a sound or display (hardware) problem.

Any ideas or anything I have missed?

Thanks,

Joel S.

mercalia

Posts: 168
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 5:39 pm
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#2

Post by mercalia » Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:02 pm

I take it Windows Media Player wont play them also? The only thing I can suggest is to re install W7MC. I always keep a backup image of the system just for things like this so I can reinstall back to a known good system, I have done this many tomes. You obviously cannot do that? One other suggestion, make a backup image of what you have, then is to install a codec pac like from K-Lite from codecguide.com to try an force things back to work., it is intended for Media center and windows media player to suppliment what they can do, unlike VLC which has its own codecs. I only have this installed to handle blue ray H264/5 rips by the way and works well. if it doesnt do the trick you can always install the image of your current system you just made? Once you have got it all right make a backup image for the future.

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