HomeAs the default media player in Windows operating system, Windows Media Player is widely used to view videos, listen to music files and streaming audio such as Internet radio. It creates a library from your music, videos, pictures and recorded TV. Recently, a common issue has often troubled many guys:
Both Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker will not play .mpeg files. The error shows "Windows Media Player has stopped working". -----Bigsagal
I have some MPEG movie files. They played just fine in Win 7, but now both WMP and Windows Movies & TV will not play them. What can I do to see them again? Thank you! -----Therealsimpsons
Why Windows Media Player refuse to play MPEG files? In this article, we aim to work out possible solutions to help you play MPEG with Windows Media Player smoothly.
File types supported by Windows Media Player
The following table lists the multimedia file types that are supported by different versions of Windows Media Player.
| File extension | Windows Media Player 12 | Windows Media Player 11 | Windows Media Player 10 | Windows Media Player 9 Series | Windows Media Player for Windows XP | Windows Media Player 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Media formats (.asf, .wma, .wmv, .wm) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Windows Media Metafiles (.asx, .wax, .wvx, .wmx) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Windows Media Metafiles (.wpl) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
| Microsoft Digital Video Recording (.dvr-ms) |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
N
|
| Windows Media Download Package (.wmd) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Audio Visual Interleave (.avi) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Moving Pictures Experts Group (.mpg, .mpeg, .m1v, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .mpe, .m3u) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Musical Instrument Digital Interface (.mid, .midi, .rmi) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Audio Interchange File Format (.aif, .aifc, .aiff) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Sun Microsystems and NeXT (.au, .snd) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Audio for Windows (.wav) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| CD Audio Track (.cda) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Indeo Video Technology (.ivf) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
N
|
Y
|
Y
|
| Windows Media Player Skins (.wmz, .wms) |
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
| QuickTime Movie file (.mov) |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
| MP4 Audio file (.m4a) |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
| MP4 Video file (.mp4, .m4v, .mp4v, .3g2, .3gp2, .3gp, .3gpp) |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
| Windows audio file (.aac, .adt, .adts) |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
| MPEG-2 TS Video file (.m2ts) |
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
From this table, we note that MPEG files can be accepted by all versions of Windows Media Player. Let's see the detailed information about Windows Media Player supported MPEG file types:
Files that use .mpg or .mpeg extensions typically are MPEG-1 system streams that contain MPEG-1-encoded video and MPEG-1 Layer II (MP2)-encoded audio. However, MPEG-1 system streams do not exclusively use the .mpg and .mpeg extensions. MPEG-2 program streams also frequently use .mpg and .mpeg file extensions, but they contain MPEG-2-encoded video.
Because Microsoft Windows operating systems provide only an MPEG-1 video decoder, Windows Media Player cannot play MPEG-2 program streams without an additional MPEG-2 video decoder (also known as a DVD decoder pack) installed.
So, if your MPEG file does not play on Windows Media Player, it may be encoded with the MPEG-2 standard. Next part will show three solutions to fix the MPEG and Windows Media Player incompatibility issues. Check them out.
Solution 1: Install A Codec Pack
1. Windows Media Player codec packs that give Media Player the capability to play both MPEG-2 and MP4 files include Media Player Codec Pack 3.9, Windows Essentials Media Codec Pack and K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. You can also download DVDdecoder plug-ins for Windows Media Player, which can be used to play MPEG-2 files, on the Windows website for a fee.
2. Click the setup file when it appears in the “Downloads” window of your web browser. If the “Downloads” window doesn’t come up, navigate to the “Downloads” folder on your hard drive, which can be found at “Start>Computer> Local Disk(C: )>Users>[username]>Downloads,” replacing “[username]” with the name of the user that was signed into the computer when the codec pack was downloaded. Double-click the setup file for the codec pack in the downloads folder.
3. Follow the on-screen setup to unpack the Windows Media Player codecs from the codec pack. On the first screen of the codec pack setup, choose “Easy Installation” and then agree to the license agreement. The codecs install to the computer, and are automatically added to Windows media Player.
4. Launch Windows Media Player. Go to “File>Open,” go to the folder where the MPEG video that you want to play is located, and double-click the video file to open in Windows Media Player. Once the codec pack is installed, the files should play like any other video file.
Solution 2: Use VLC Media Player
VLC is a free program that will allow you to play DVDs and other type of media files including MPEG. Download VLC Media player in your web browser and then install it step by step. After installation, you can try VLC to play MPEG files at your will.
Download website: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
Solution 3: Convert MPEG to Windows Media Player fully compatible format
For those who are stuck in VLC media player, or not interested in downloading a codex bundle either, here is the the third choice, which ensures you to play MPEG files on Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker.
Actually, what's need is just a common video converter like Pavtube Video Converter (best video converter review), which is an all-in-one video converter, editor, player tool that lets you effortlessly encode MPEG, WMV, MOV, FLV, TiVo, VOB, AVI, MKV to Windows Media Player playable WMV format. Plus, this video converter includes optimized presets for popular devices like Galaxy Note 8, iPhone 8, iPad, Samsung TV, etc. with perfect audio and video synchronization.
To get the best video playback effect of MPEG video on Windows Media Player, you can flexibly adjust the output video codec, bit rate, frame rate, resolution and audio codec, bit rate, sample rate and channles to make them more fit with Windows Media Player.
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If you are a Mac user, you can turn to Pavtube Video Converter for Mac (macOS High Sierra included) to convert MPEG to Windows Media Player on Mac OS X.
Step by Step to Convert MPEG for playback in Windows Media Player
Step 1: Add MPEG video files
Launch the video converter and click "File" > "Add Video/Audio" or "Add from folder" to browse your computer hard disc and load the MPEG video files you want to convert to the software.
Step 2. Select WMV as output format
Click "Format" bar drop-down list, for outputting a high quality WMV format for playing with Windows Media Player, simply click “Common Video” or “”HD Video” and select “WMV".
Step 3: Adjust output profile settings
To get a decent output video quality as you want, you can also click “Settings” icon to and enter “Profile Settings” panel to adjust video size, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channels.
Step 4: Start the final MPEG to Windows Media Player conversion
After all settings, go back to the main window and click “Convert” to begin converting MPEG to WMV for Windows Media Player.
When the conversion is completed, hit the "Open Output Folder" on the main interface to pop out the folder with the converted files. Then feel free to play any video on Windows Media Player without any problems.
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