New to BitTorrent and need some Help, I don't know what I am doing

I am very new to using bittorrent (like two hours ago). I just downloaded a T.V. episode and after it was done downloading I opening it to find out that it is only coming up as audio. It says that it is an .avi file but I only get sound on my Windows media player. Am I doing something wrong....do I have to convert the file? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Szsfitz

It's probably a codec issue. You can either download & install a codec pack such as K-lite or download Video Lan (VLC) which is a free media player that plays just about anything. Many swear by Video Lan but personally I use K-lite codec full & use media player classic for watching avi's etc. Media player classic comes as part of K-lite full.

In terms of players, you might also want to try MPlayer. Like VLC, it will play almost any file, without the need to install codecs. It has a bunch of different GUIs, for Mac, Windows and Linux, so it's easy to find one that suits you. You may be best trying VLC and MPlayer first, before installing any codecs (even the ones we've recommended) as they are pretty much fool proof, definitely won't bork your system, and can be easily uninstalled. VLC even comes in a 'portable' edition, which can be run from a USB stick, or a folder on your PC, without being installed.

A codec, in case you didn't know, is a COmpressor/DECompressor, a tool to create and play compressed video formats. Another good codec is the CCCP (community created codec pack). That will let you play any video file you'll download from BT.

If you dig about in the board here, we've debated the virtues of of KLite and CCCP before. My feeling is that, as CCCP is open and community maintained, you can be more confident that you won't have problems with it. KLite does work pretty well though.

Whatever you do, don't download codecs or video players unless you have been recommended them by people (like me and Rich, I hope) you know you can trust. For one thing, its easy to run into conflicts if you install multiple codecs. As some codecs are very hard to uninstall, that could mean that you have to reformat your PC to fix the problem. For another, video software, particularly on sites that offer porn and pirated content, is often used to trick you into installing malware.


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On a seperate note, you really should use a more descriptive heading for help requests. If you use a title that explains as accurately and concisely as possible what the problem you are having is, you'll get a lot more answers. On some forums, that are less friendly and tolerant than FS, you will get very heavily flamed for using an inaccurate heading in a help request.

For this post, you might have been better heading it "Audio only on DLd .avi file when played in Windows Media Player - poster new to BT"

This post has been edited by MichaelKVegfruit: Oct 10 2008, 06:50 PM