GSpot: Find out the codec required to play a particular media file

Find out the codec required to play a particular media file

Every once in a while a video file won’t play. The reason, very often, is that you don’t have the right codec installed. Simply put, a codec is a bit of software that translates the contents of a video file to something your video player understands. If you don’t have the codec your video needs, it simply won’t play. 

Fortunately, there is a really simple way of determining which codec a video file needs. GSpot is a free app that lets you open a video file and tells you the audio and video codecs used to make it and whether you already have these codecs or need to install them. Once you know the codecs required, all you need to do is point your browser to a good codec download site and download and install the required codec.

Tip: If you create a shortcut to GSpot in your ‘SendTo’ folder, you can right-click on any video file, select  ’Send to’ and then click on GSpot. GSpot will then automatically load and tell you about the video you right clicked on. The whole process is reduced to just two clicks.

Though audio files generally don’t kick up a fuss, if one does refuse to play, you can find out which codec it uses in the same way used for video files. 

Download GSpot [376 Kb]

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