How to watch videos in Windows

Playing videos in Windows isn’t complicated but it may not always be straightforward. While it’s simple enough to fire up Windows Media Player in order to view a video file, there’s no guarantee that the application will properly play back the footage – if it does so at all.

A video file’s soundtrack may be audible while the video window remains blank, for instance. On other occasions, Windows Media Player may simply complain that it is unable to play a particular type of file.

This Back To Basics will explain the video-playback tools available in Windows XP, Vista and 7 and explain what to do when you hit playback problems.

Playing media in Windows
As we said, asking Windows to play a video file isn’t difficult – just double-click the file and see what happens. Typically, an application called Windows Media Player (WMP) will launch and duly play the footage.

Similarly, pop a DVD movie disc into the PC’s drive and if it doesn’t play right away, or presents a menu with some playback options, just double-click the appropriate drive letter in Windows Explorer to kick things into action.

The exact layout of the Windows Media Player window depends on the version of the application installed (it has been around in one form or another for well over a decade) but the basic function and operation hasn’t changed.

Look to the foot of the WMP window, for instance, and you will notice buttons that ape the old tape-transport controls of video recorders, such as stop, play, fast forward and rewind.

In the perfect world we could leave it there. However, regular viewers will soon enough be confronted by error messages or a file that demands a different media-player application for playback. What’s the problem? In a word, formats.