Audio and video playback problems can often be caused by NOT having the correct codec installed on your computer, or even the wrong version installed… A codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. The word codec may be a combination of any of the following:
1. Compressor-Decompressor
2. Coder-Decoder
3. Compression/Decompression algorithm
For example, a downloaded movie clip on the internet can be played. There is sound but no video. Or sometimes there is video but no sound. Now when asked the person what codec’s they have on their computer 99% of home users do NOT know… Finding this information can be quite difficult for an average home user.
Here I provide the manual(hard) and automatic(easy) way to determine what video and audio codec is installed.
The manual way of checking installed VIDEO and AUDIO Codecs In Windows.
1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Click on the Sounds and Audio Devices icon.
3. Click on the Hardware tab. Now you’ll see Audio Codecs and Video Codecs on the list.
4. To check installed Video codecs, select Video Codecs and click on Properties button.
5. Click on the Properties tab and you’ll see the whole list of Video Codecs installed.
(To check installed Audio Codecs, on step 4, select Audio Codecs and follow the rest of the steps)
The easier way is to use a small program called SHERLOCK – The Codec Detective. Run it and it’ll list all your Video codecs and Audio codecs on your computer.
SHERLOCK is able to check to see if any of the codec’s were “BROKEN” (will be highlighted in RED….), export the data to a text file for technical support, FAST to run on a PC and did NOT require installing and SMALL enough for download by modem!
This codec detection software definitely has more advantages than the manual way. It gives you the version number of the codec installed, description of the codec, location of the codec driver, last modified date and even the company name so you can search much easier on Google.
SHERLOCK – The Codec Detective is designed for Windows XP Home Edition & Windows XP Professional ONLY. Not sure if it will work on other version of Windows. If you didn’t know, one of the best codec pack out there is called K-Lite Codec Pack. Simply install the codec pack and you can forget about the problem of can’t view movies that’s downloaded from the Internet.
[ Download SHERLOCK - The Codec Detective ]
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Hey it s**ks my windows 98 SE does not even have sound and Audio icon in the conttrol panel……….what should i do………even my Mozilla is not able to download K-lite Codecs …….may be due to my Windows is outdated…………..could u suggest something……………………
There are no sounds in my computer how to intaller.
Im already use sherlock program but after check there is no codec broken were highlight by red but my video and audio not work properly and sound keep missed at some areas and sound seem look like scracthy.I hope u can help me fix it.
(Sorry my english is suck)
me ajude a colocar son automaticamente no meu computado te emploro tem duas semanas que eu tento mas nao tenho exito. obrigado
… topics d’illettré? Le contenu est intéressant, mais toutes ces erreurs de syntaxe fait pensé à une traduction automatique. La moindre des choses avant de faire un tutoriel et de corrigé les fautes.
obviously NOT huh
hey RAYMOND do you know out about” COM surrogate has stopped working” an error on windows vista, installing nero 7 ultra, has this out to do wiv codec’s, or missing ones, cos i cant burn my movies now, or should i say ! it wont copy to disc, it dus the rest, but that ? am realy baffled at this
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