Help!

[sam_gamgee]

Okay, so luvxander, being the amazing and cool guy that he is, is letting me borrow one(!) of his external harddrives, which has season 2 of "Atlantis" and season 9 of SG-1 on it.

But three of the SGA episodes and most of the SG-1 episodes won't play. It has something to do with the fact that they're MPEG videos (though it doesn't say what type in the properties). When I try to open them in RealPlayer (the default player), it says that I need to get a "Microsoft DirectShow compatable MPEG-2 decoder".

Does anyone who's had more experience downloading episodes know what this is and where/how I can get it? I'd prefer either free or in some sort of limited trial.

Or, I'd be happy with even just some way that I can get these things to play.

Comments

[ktnb]

RealPlayer for MPEGs? Eeek! I would highly, highly recommend downloading VLC player. It's a tiny program, totally free, and I use it to play .avi and .mpg files and haven't had a problem yet.

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

Well, that's what the default came up as when I opened up the harddrive to see what was what and all that.

But I will definitely look into that, thanks!

[nakedwesley.livejournal.com]

Most likely RealPlayer is set as the default for similar files on your computer, rather than the files themselves being set to default that way.

I agree with ktnb I don't have any problems with VLC. Once you have the program loaded you can probably right click on a file and select 'open with VLC' or you can open VLC and search for files that way too. It's quite handy and has saved me from tearing my hair out in frustration many times.

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

I got it and did a *quick* test (basically opened a file) and it seems like it works.

[nakedwesley.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there's a screencapping feature on it too, so you can cap whatever you're watching. (If only I'd known about it all those years of watching Angel and wishing for decent Wesley pics.) All you do is right click and select...*goes to see what it's called*...snapshot. For me, it sends the caps to 'my pictures' under 'my documents'. I've been known to get carried away with it. *ahem*

Have you decided about Moonlight Rising yet? Victoria (the girl who's got the bungalow) was wondering if you were coming or not. I really really want you to go!! So just say yes and get it over with. We can work out the details later. *g*

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

Ooh. You shouldn't have told me that. Next thing we know - my harddrive will be filled with caps of Joe's mouth and Mitch Pileggi lounge in the captain's chair. *bg*

I think I have decided. I'm gonna go and I'm going to see if I can buy Cassie's ticket. Pricey, but at the same time, "ooh, shiny!" How much is the bungalow again?

And is your cell phone # still the same? I've tried calling you, but the message is a little different.