Well, I remembered sometime ago when I downloaded a movie that was in MP4 format. Although the file was playable in Windows Media Player, no video will show up and the time line will continue to go on.

I instantly remembered the time when I could not play .avi files without downloading the Divx codec. (Codec means Compress/Decompress) A Codec will allow you play files that have been compressed in a certain format that the codec was made for. This is just a simple explanation.

Well, I decided to venture in searching for the proper codec that will allow me to play my MP4 file. On the windows help page, there were numerous paid third party plug-ins that will do so. Being the typical me, I continue on searching for a free solution.

I stumbled upon numerous codec pack that will save me time for installing them one by one for each video format. The codec pack that is worth mentioning is K-Lite Codec Pack.

Here is the website description for the codec:

“K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codecs are required to encode and/or decode (play) audio and video. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play 99% of all the movies that you download from the internet.?

The full version is over 18MB and can be quite a pain downloading from a dial up computer. However, you can opt for the two other versions which are standard and basic which it’s name implies have less codec support.

I would recommend that you install the full pack if you have enough resources on your computer. To make sure that you are able to view the MP4 video that you have downloaded, tick the mp4 support during installation as it is not selected by default. I untick the windows media player classic installation as I think it is redundant.

Click here to go to the page to download the K-Lite Codec Pack.

Well, I hope this will be able to help you with playing your Mp4 files on your computer.

Till next time, take care…

Benny Ong