Are you having trouble viewing digital media files? I sure did and went through alot of pain, suffering and frustration not to mention research hours before I found some solutions.
As you may or may not know, all digital media is compressed to make it fit on whatever object you store it on be it a disk or harddrive. This compression format is called a Codec
The problem is that just like your favorite ice cream store, they use about a million different flavors of compression software (Codecs) to do it. Thus the problems we all encounter. And yes we all run into it.
Here are a few solutions you can try:
1. Media Players :
You can use a free ware program to find out what codec decompressor was used on the file. I use a program called AVIcodec ( http://avicodec.duby.info/ ) to figure out what a file uses and as a bonus it also helps you find that code on the net.
2. If its a DivX codec that is needed google DivX and to to their site for help.
3. Use a different media player. I have five media players loaded on my laptop. The best I found is a free media player called VLC media player ( http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ ) It plays some of the difficult files like those ending in .OGG or media that also needs a subtitle file (.sfv file) So far it has played just about any file I have thrown at it.
4. Still stuck? Have a friend try out the file on his computer. If he/she can view it there may be a problem with your media player set up.
5. Shut down any thing going on in the background of your computer like downloads. Video viewing is processor intensive and some computers dont like multi tasking.
Shut down stuff and do a re-start to see if it will play the file you want.
6. It is also possible that with all of the above that the file you are trying to view is damaged. There are programs out there like AVI Medic to fix files but I only do that on very rare files that I cant get anymore.
Its just easier to go get another copy.
7. Last chance effort: Join an Anime forum and post your questions. There are lots of techno geeks out there that are really nice and always willing to help the anime deprived (thats deprived not depraved.....although hentai is kinda fun.....) A great forum site is here: http://downloadanime.org/
You can always email me and I can see what I can do but like a side kick character on your favorite anime show, you may just be out of luck.
UPDATES: For windows media player you can try the Combined Community Codec Pak , it seems to be able to play many more files than before with this installed
http://combined-community-codec-pack.en.softonic.com/
8. For Downloading you will come across several methods. Some sites have the direct file for download. This is rare as the original file can be quite large depending on what it is. MP3 music files sometimes are found this way. For anime, manga, games and desktop themes some form of compression is usually used. RAR and ZIP files are what I am referring to here. Most windows computers use a un-compression software to do this. For RAR files download this program WRAR370.EXE
For ZIP files, many windows based computers have un-zip software installed, if not (you will know because the computer will ask what do you want windows to do?) you will need an un-zip software such as this:
http://www.pc-shareware.com/unzipwiz.htm
The newest method for downloading anime and manga is called Bittorrent. The files are encoded in such a way that they can be shared. In order to download or upload these type of files you need to install the software (most are free shareware) and have a good internet connection. I have used the original Bittorrent software as well as Aureus and both work well. Right now I have switched to Utorrent found here: http://www.utorrent.com/download.php
It was easy to set up and is a fairly small program with a good user interface and help screens.
9. Anti Virus and Spyware: I started out like most people with a purchased antivirus and spyware like Norton Anti-Virus and McAffe but ran into problems, especially using Bittorrent type downloads. I switched to AVG anti-virus and spyware by GRISOFT and they work well with them with the bonus that they are shareware.
AVG can be found here: http://free.grisoft.com/
10. Ringtones!
This was a frustrating thing. I have a motorola E815 with service from Verizon wireless. Verizon has locked out the media functions which means that even if you by the motorola phone tools, you cant edit the onboard media such as ringtones. There is a way however to add your own ringtones. First you need an editor for the song you want to use. Its easier to use songs already in MP3 format but you can rip them with windows media player (makes a WMA file) and then convert them to MP3 with Videolan VLC media player using the wizard. When you have your song use a program like Audacity to edit the song and make a MID file (thats what ringtones are) Audacity can be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
You will also need the LAME encoder plug in for Audacity to handle MP3 files. Click on this box for the lame zip file: Unzip the file and when you open up Audacity, it will ask where the lame file is located. Point it to where you extracted it to. You only need to do this once. This handy guide should help walk you through the steps: MakeYourOwnRingTones
When you have your new ringtone made you email it to your phone as an attachement. For Verizon it was yourphonenumber@vzwpix.com but most carriers should have something like this that you can send email to. When you receive the email you will have the option to save the attachement as a ringtone.
11. System Maintenance:
As most people have discovered, Microsoft Windows ( versions CE ME NT and XP- don't know about Vista) gets bogged down and slow with time. Regular system clean up (start>programs>accessories>system tools> disk cleanup and defragmenter) can help but what really bogs it down is all the junk in the start up menu and registry. Go to the start>programs>startup and turn off anything you dont need by right clicking on it and deleting it. Next you need a registry cleaner. I use JV16 Power Tools by Macecraft. It fixes broken registry and link problems which all serve to bog down your system. You can find it here: http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/files/jv16-1.3.0.195.zip
I hope this was helpful.
Ja, Ganbatte Kudasai! (Do your best and good luck!)
Kato
email: kato.shiroi @ gmail.com (spaces are intentional as I dont want search engines sending me junk)
