This evening, I was trying to play a bittorrent of (insert_random_video_here) on Windows XP, and Windows Media Player 10 puked on the file. It wouldn't give me any clue as to why it wouldn't play, wouldn't let me view the file's properties, nothing.
I had to open the file in filesnoop to find out that it is was encoded in XviD, and I just needed to install the latest codecs. But after getting the codec, the video would play, but without any sound. Again, no clue from Windows Media Player as to the cause, no detailed info about the file or codecs anywhere in the app.
Finally just copied the file over to my linux box, ran mplayer on the command line, and pow, the video plays on the framebuffer just fine. Nice.
And the bonus is that mplayer listed exactly what codecs it was using (which was AC3 for the audio).
I like mplayer.
