I have an xvid file that I tried playing on my HTPC; it is actually in my shared folder on another computer. When I went to the file, I right-clicked and chose Open with, and chose PowerDVD. PowerDVD started up, and then did nothing. I tried several times with the same result. So then I tried opening with Windows Media Player. This time it said that WMP encountered an “unknown error”. I thought, for whatever reason, that maybe the problem was because I was trying to stream over the network…but knowing all along that it should work. So I copied the file to my hard drive on my HTPC. After it was finished, I tried opening the file with PowerDVD again. PowerDVD started up, the screen turned black like it was going to start playing and then reverted back to the PowerDVD start-up screen. Then I tried with WMP again, and it started playing (but since I have yet to get WMP to fill the entire screen I stopped it). So I copied the file to my SageTV folder and started SageTV. I went to Videos and selected the file and it played fine with no problems on SageTV. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? I’m actually using Cyberlink’s video decoders in Sage. My son’s computer actually had this same problem this afternoon when I tried playing a different file. I tried playing it with PowerDVD on his computer with the file on a different computer; same result as above. So then I copied it to his Shared Video folder and opened up Media Center. I went to My Videos and chose the file; when it started playing the screen went black, but I could hear the sound. Weird. Both of these files play fine with PowerDVD on the computer which they originally existed. The PowerDVD version on that computer is older than the versions on my son’s PC and my HTPC.
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