Codec for Playing AVI Files on Your Computer

I was trying to play some marketing training videos the other night and ran into some trouble with the avi video files that I had download from my friend Colin McDougal’s website www.veo20.com.

The problem I was having was the TechSmith codec was missing.

Codec stands for compressor/decompressor. It is a bit of software that is installed on your computer and is used when with your video, audio or image software.

Many videos for your computer are produced as screen captures with Camtasia screen capturing software.

But you may find, as I did, that when you play an avi file that you will only hear the audio and not be able to see the video images.

There are many different types of codecs and not every computer has them installed. So you may have to go out and search for the one’s you may need. 

Unfortunately, it is not always so easy.

You might get lucky and get an error message when you start the avi in Windows Media player or some other software. And hopefully the error message will give you a clue as to which one you may need.

If you are not getting an error message search in Google on terms like “video won’t play on avi file.”

I would start with the TechSmith site and look for their codec in under the downloads tab.

Below is a video that you may find helpful or you may just want to download the TechSmith Codec for avi files from this site.