Windows Media Player 10 Video Playback - Disable Video Acceleration if Having Problems

SUMMARY: Disable video acceleration techniques if Windows Media Player 10 cannot play movies.

If you are having problems playing digital video with Windows Media Player 10, especially if you are running an older or custom-built computer, your machine may not be able to display video using all possible video acceleration techniques. Turning off video acceleration may allow your machine to display video correctly.

1. Press CONTROL-1 to switch to Full Mode if you are in Skin Mode.

2. If the menu bar isn't visible, press CONTROL-M to turn it on.

3. Choose "Tools" - "Options".

4. When the "Options" multi-tabbed dialog box appears, select "Performance".

5. Underneath "Video acceleration", move the slider from "Full" down to "None". You may wish to try somewhere in the middle first.

6. Click "OK" to close the dialog box.

After making the change, try playing video again. If it works, tweak the bar a little to the right till it fails and then tweak it one option to the left. Likewise, if the video fails, continue to tweak the bar to the left.