Determine Which Codecs You Need to Play a Multimedia (Audio/Video) File

Did you download a movie video recently and later found that the audio or the video part of the movie does not play? This has to do with a missing audio or video Codec. To know which Codec you need to play your favorite video files correctly, you may use one of these tools discussed in this article. These tools help you find out the Codec used in a particular media file, and then download the appropriate Codec from the web.

VideoInspector is a tool designed to provide you with as much information as possible about your video files. With VideoInspector you’ll know why your video files has no sound or refuses to play correctly.

AVIcodec is a very useful tool that helps you identify the codec used by video files. As you may know, most video files have a simple AVI, MPEG etc. extensions, however some of them may require additional codecs like DivX or VCD and others. When trying to run such a file, and you don’t have the proper codec installed, you will get an error message, or may be limited to audio playback only.

GSpot is a tool that provides you with detailed information about the codec used audio and video files. It can tell you whether an AVI file uses DivX or XviD, and which version, what type of MPEG codec is

used (DVD format or not) etc.

CodecInstaller is a Windows program that detects the Audio and Video codecs installed on your system, analyzes files to understand which codecs they require and suggests you to install them.

Apart from the above tools, there are several freeware tools available on the web such asSherlock Codec Detective, InstalledCodec which show the list of Codecs installed in the system.