I’ve tried to play some video clips on my computer, only to receive errors of “COOD109B” and “COOD 1197.” I have tried every way I know how, including using Microsoft and Google, and downloading suggested programs to remedy these problems, to no avail.
– Mindy Johnson
A: Welcome to the bewildering and most extremely irritating world of coder-decoder software – better known as codecs. As any Web session searching for video clips dramatizes, the Internet teems with video posted by everybody from a kindergarten class in Kankakee, Ill., to 20th Century Fox.
But using them isn’t always as simple as downloading a file and clicking on an icon, even though Windows displays the file with that distinctive multicolored circle that represents the Media Player built into the operating system.
The problem of downloaded video playing error messages instead of movies exists because the holders of patents on many popular video formats, Microsoft included, add software to the clips that checks to see if a bit of software called a codec for that file type has been acquired. No codec, no cinema.
Of course it’s also true that downloading huge video files can create corrupted copies on one’s hard drive, causing trouble as well.
In fact, given the wild and woolly environment of Web movies, bad files are common. But most of the glitches like those you describe are due to the lack of a required codec on your computer.
Perhaps the most common codec culprit is the once widely used Indeo codec created by Intel Corp. to handle file clips on the first generations of Pentium PCs. Many video clips in the commonly used .avi format were created with Indeo links while more recent .avi files depend upon codecs provided in Windows. You can buy the Indeo Codec by going to www.ligos.com/indeo or learn more about it by using Indeo as a search term.
It’s safe to assume there are thousands of video clips out there created before Indeo was replaced, and so the $14.95 download is probably worth the freight.
Another source of codec chaos is the huge number of files created in the popular Divx format that uses its own codec. Divx files use the .avi format, and so Windows creates Media Player icons for them even though they won’t play. Instead you need to acquire the free Divx player at www.divx.com. Downloaders of video clips find they can make a great many rejected .avi clips play by using the Divx player, and they also find that sometimes one can use a $20 program called Divx Converter to fix files in other formats that are corrupted and won’t play in Windows.
I know this is confusing, but if you download the free Divx player and read about the phenomenon on the website, this codec crisis will become clearer.
