Have you ever found yourself trying to open a file in a media player (not necessarily WMP) and it just wouldn't budge? I know I have and it annoys me more than anything to find out that I can't open a file just because it's not compatible with the player. Usually, when I am faced with this kind of problem I go to Google and type "Players that play (file extension e.g. .mpeg/.avi/.mov/.aac etc)".
After going through a vast list of media players, I end up going to the website of VideoLan (VLC). I learned after years of encountering the "file extension not supported" pop-up that if Windows Media Player can't play it, VLC can. This holds true MOST OF THE TIME, but not ALL THE TIME. Technical terms drive me crazy and I am sure that a person who is not tech-savvy would feel lost if presented with a myriad of file extensions. So, below is a short-list of common file extensions for both video and audio files.
The most common video files are the following:
.3g2 3GPP2 Multimedia File
.3gp 3GPP Multimedia File
.asf Advanced Systems Format File
.asx Microsoft ASF Redirector File
.avi Audio Video Interleave File
.flv Flash Video File
.mkv Matroska Video File
.mov Apple QuickTime Movie
.mp4 MPEG-4 Video File
.mpg MPEG Video File
.qt Apple QuickTime Movie
.rm Real Media File
.swf Flash Movie
.vob DVD Video Object File
.wmv Windows Media Video File
The most common audio files are the following:
.aac Advanced Audio Coding File
.aif Audio Interchange File Format
.iff Interchange File Format
.m3u Media Playlist File
.mid MIDI File
.midi MIDI File
.mp3 MP3 Audio File
.mpa MPEG-2 Audio File
.ra Real Audio File
.wav WAVE Audio File
.wma Windows Media Audio File
source: http://www.fileinfo.com/common.php
Windows Media Player supports certain multimedia formats. Most of the common formats can be played in the Media Player. Click on the link for a detailed list and description of the file formats supported and not supported by Windows Media Player.
Like I said earlier, most of the files that cannot be read by Windows Media Player can be read by VLC. Click on the link for a detailed list of files supported by VLC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player#Format_support
