Thu 30 Nov 2006
Man vs. Microsoft (the latest round)
Fresh off a satisfactory beginning at creating little home videos and posting them on YouTube, and with a small Xmas budget for self-gifting, I upgraded from Sony Vegas Studio 4 to Vegas Studio Platinum 7.
With the software upgrade came an instructional DVD. However, the DVD would not play in the PC. Windows Media Player had appointed itself the default player for DVD’s, but its error message said the necessary codec was not installed. Does that sound as weird to you as it does to me?
Microsoft graciously linked to a page with the necessary codec listed for sale. Well, thanks for the convenience, but this is the internet, so I went out looking for something both legal and free. Checked Google, checked Wikipedia, checked Softpedia, Tucows, and Sourceforge. Found a recommended codec and installed it, then rebooted. Still didn’t work. The only difference was that the error message changed. Something about the screen resolution and/or color.
OK, let’s assume Windows Media Player just isn’t going to work.
Pat went to bed. I kept searching, this time for a freeware media player. Settled on VideoLAN - VLC media player. Installed it, rebooted. Picture was good. Sound was garbled.
Then, recalled that CD’s burned lately in the Plextor drive were having the same kind of sound problem on playback, but only when played back in that drive. One more time, went looking. At the Plextor site, found and downloaded a firmware update 1.09 dated June 2006 for the PX-712A and installed it over version 1.07.
Rebooted. Loaded the Sony DVD again. Called up VLC and pressed play. And it played perfectly.
Boy, that felt good…
David said,
Thu 30 Nov 2006 at 13:26
Pat had the better solution … go to bed. Glad that you were able to resolve your problem. Isn’t technology fun????