Playing video with IrfanView

Does anyone here have a good grasp of how IV plays video files please?
There are 4 settings: 2 options in the main IV window, under
Options|Properties|Video/Sound.
1) Use external player (IV_Player PlugIn required!)
2) Use internal video/sound player

And if you click the Options icon in the 'Irfanview Multimedia Player'
window (only accessible while a video file is open), then there are
also 2 options:
Play videos/sounds through:
A) MCI interface
B) Microsoft Media Player interface (recommended)

So that makes 4 possible combinations.

But I sometimes get very odd results if Media Player is chosen (i.e.
combination 1B or 2B). With *some* WMV files, it plays only the audio,
no video. Yet WMP 10 does play video and audio on those same files!

I have the WMV plug-in installed, because under Help|Installed Plugins
there is an entry VIDEO.DLL near the bottom which includes WMV. But is
this to handle WMP? And is WMP the 'external player'? What exactly
then is the 'internal player', and the 'MCI interface'?

Also, all my videos are now opening with their left sides cut off.
Maximising and restoring the window size fixes that, but plainly there
is something wrong here!

Any comments gratefully received please. It would also be interesting
to know which of those settings 4 is used by others.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:
> Does anyone here have a good grasp of how IV plays video files please?
> There are 4 settings: 2 options in the main IV window, under
> Options|Properties|Video/Sound.
> 1) Use external player (IV_Player PlugIn required!)
> 2) Use internal video/sound player
>
> And if you click the Options icon in the 'Irfanview Multimedia Player'
> window (only accessible while a video file is open), then there are
> also 2 options:
> Play videos/sounds through:
> A) MCI interface
> B) Microsoft Media Player interface (recommended)
>
> So that makes 4 possible combinations.
>
> But I sometimes get very odd results if Media Player is chosen (i.e.
> combination 1B or 2B). With *some* WMV files, it plays only the audio,
> no video. Yet WMP 10 does play video and audio on those same files!
>
> I have the WMV plug-in installed, because under Help|Installed Plugins
> there is an entry VIDEO.DLL near the bottom which includes WMV. But is
> this to handle WMP? And is WMP the 'external player'? What exactly
> then is the 'internal player', and the 'MCI interface'?
>
> Also, all my videos are now opening with their left sides cut off.
> Maximising and restoring the window size fixes that, but plainly there
> is something wrong here!
>
> Any comments gratefully received please. It would also be interesting
> to know which of those settings 4 is used by others.
>
Irfanview uses plugins to play videos. In addition, the OS uses codecs
to decode the video compression scheme used. You MUST have current
codecs to match what was recorded to play back the video. Keep plugins
updated with each Irfanview version, and keep your OS codecs updated often.