Question : No picture or sound on this vido clip file

I downloaded a vidoe clip file and i go to play it under media player on XP and it just runs with a black screen and no sound.  Is something wrong with the file or my computer or is it just a bad file.

Answer : No picture or sound on this vido clip file

Ahhhhh you have fallen victim to the underhanded prank some @#$%@ is pulling on kazaa and other file sharing programs.
when you play the video in windows media player, if you lok down at the bottom does it say "connecting", then "attempting to download correct codec" ?
if not, you have the codec installed and everything is fine, its playing the video you download, just as it was recorded. The only problem is... there really is nothing there, its fake.


To ad to Kesipyc's cuggestion, http://www.doom9.org/software.htm  is a solid and safe site to get ffdshow and just about any other codec you need. Becareful downloading and installing everything you can find though, some codec packs can conflict with other codecs you have, and you can end up with green pictures and upside down pictures and all kinds of crazy stuff.
but ffdshow is very safe and works great.
BTW codec is what your video player uses to read the video file. divx and xvid codecs have the  extension .avi just like a normal avi file but will not work in your player (most people use windows media player)  until you install the divx or xvid codec.