Video playback from the PC has become commonplace in most cases, either online through the Internet, or in a more local way. For this we use certain applications in Windows that allow us to perform these treatments.
We currently have a good amount of these programs, some more advanced and complete than others. For example, Movies and TV only allows us to play certain video formats, but they are not all like that. That is why if we encounter problems to reproduce certain unsupported video content, we will have to use another video player, third-party codecs, or convert the file.
Therefore, if we are going to watch a certain video directly from Movies and TV and when trying to open the file, we get the error that the format is not compatible, let's see what to do. Undoubtedly one of the most used solutions worldwide, is to use a third-party solution, since, for example, the aforementioned Windows 10 app only supports formats such as MOV, AVI or MP4. Thus, one of the most interesting alternatives that we can use right now is the popular VLC that you can download from here .
Third-party media players such as VLC, a good alternative
This is the option by which the majority of users opt for the entire globe. One of the main reasons for this is that this software is capable of playing almost all file formats of both video and audio. Thus, this makes it a powerful alternative to media players in general. Therefore, we find the video format that we are at that time, we can be almost sure that VLC will accept it. This is something we cannot say about many others.
At the same time, we can say that this is a program that puts a huge amount of different options for customization, both in terms of appearance and functionality. For example, this is a program that has its own conversion function between files, something that can help us in this case. We say this because if we want, for example, to use a player that is not this but does not support a format, VLC helps us convert it. To do this we just have to open the file in question, and place ourselves in the "Medium / Convert" menu.
Then we can add the files we want to deal with, even several at the same time, and then select the output format that we will use in this case. Thanks to the enormous compatibility of this program, here we can work with most of the current formats.
Similarly, another proposal of this type developed by third parties outside Microsoft and Windows, is the MPV program , a software that you can download from this link . This is another powerful video player for Windows, Linux, macOS and Android users that is characterized by its simplicity of use. While VLC is full of menus and options, MPV is more functional, since it focuses on what you have to do, play multimedia content.
To all this we must add the fact that, in addition to being compatible with the vast majority of current formats, it is a portable application. That means we can use it directly from a USB key on any computer, which simplifies things. Thus, to play any video from this program that we propose, we no longer have to drag the corresponding file to its interface.
What is a video codec and how to use it in Windows
First of all, we must be clear that when we talk about the codecs in the reproduction of videos, we refer to a type of software that decodes the file itself. This is how we can see on the screen and listen to the speakers, both images and audio in the best way. That is why if the device lacks the appropriate codec for a particular video, it will not load or play.
Therefore, the most appropriate solution in this case will be to download and install third-party video codecs in Windows to avoid this problem. At this point, the best we can do is take advantage of the tool called K-Lite Codec Pack. This is one of the most popular video codec packages for years that you can download from here .
It also provides support for a huge number of multimedia file formats. For example, these codecs will help us to add support for certain formats to Windows Media, for example. However, these will not be valid for the aforementioned Movies and TV that we talked about before. Thus, the first thing we must do is download and install the K-Lite Codec Pack as if it were a conventional program.
