Computers are not perfect and sudden problems can arise, for no apparent reason. For example, when you open a video online or stored on your PC, you may not see it or see it but you cannot hear the audio.
Video problems and, above all, those relating to computer audio are quite common on Windows PCs because it is enough to change a setting or install the wrong program that sounds are no longer heard or videos open incorrectly.
The most frequent video problems are related to the support of multimedia files other than the normal standards that Windows, by default, does not support.
For online videos there may be problems with the settings of the browser in use or with the plugins sometimes necessary for some streaming multimedia content.
It is more complicated to understand what happened in the event that the PC remains silent and without sound, the cause of which could be related to the driver of the sound card or to which wrong option in the Control Panel.
1) If a video on PC is not seen or not seen well
If there are problems in seeing particular videos or films on the computer, codecs that give support for the reproduction of certain particular formats such as MKV, FLV or even some AVI are very probably missing.
To be sure to watch any type of video on your computer, including DVDs, you only need to install a complete video and audio codec package called KLite which allows you to watch videos and movies with Windows Media Player .
Much more simply, just download and use the VLC Media Player program capable, by itself, of playing any video on your computer.
Those who want to use Windows Media Player to watch videos on Windows, in the event of errors inside the program, can run the WMPRepair tool, developed to correct errors and restore the functioning of WMP.
For online videos, on the other hand, there is no need to install any additional codecs or software, if not a modern browser such as Chrome and Adobe's Flash Player which is still a necessary plugin for many streaming video sites.
In the event that, even with the codecs installed, the videos are not seen well, they stutter or slow down, then there is a hardware problem for the PC.
The first thing to do is to verify that you have installed the correct and updated video drivers.
You can check the status of the drivers from Control Panel -> Device Manager to find the video card and see what it is.
Then try to download the driver from the manufacturer's website and reinstall it to see if it fixes it.
In another article, we saw how to download and install updated AMD or NVIDIA video card drivers.
On older computers, for the problem of videos that are seen in jerks or in slow motion it may be sufficient to disable hardware acceleration to optimize the videos.
Finally, note that Blu-ray DVDs on Windows can be played, on a PC that has the suitable player, only using an external program such as the free PotPlayer or the commercial Cyberlink PowerDVD.
2) If you don't hear sound or stutter
To solve audio problems it is necessary, first of all, to check if the driver is working and active.
From the Control Panel -> Device Manager, expand the line relating to the audio controller and double-click on the detected drivers, to see if it is written that they work correctly.
READ THEN: How to update / install sound card driver (Realtek)
On the desktop, next to the clock, you should see the audio icon which, if clicked, allows you to increase or decrease the volume.
In Windows 8 click on Mixer to check, in all the different volumes, that the " mute " option is not active.
Right-clicking on the audio icon and opening the volume control options to verify that the line that says "all devices ..." is selected.
Right-click once more on the audio icon near the clock and this time open Playback Devices (or open Audio from the Control Panel ).
Select the speakers as default and try them.
From here, in case the problem is bad audio with distorted sounds, click on Speakers and then on Properties, go to " Advanced features " and disable all the improvements.
If nothing is found, go to the Control Panel (in category view) and, under System, open find and solve problems .
Under Hardware and Sound, click the " Troubleshoot audio playback problems " line and follow the wizard.
Alternatively, you can also try Microsoft's automatic Fix it related to audio playback problems on your computer.
Continuing with the ways to solve audio problems on your PC, you should also check that the Windows Audio service is not, for some strange reason, disabled or blocked.
From the Start> Run menu (Windows 7 and 10) or Windows Search (Windows 8.1 and 10), type Services.msc and press enter to open the service manager.
Look for " Windows audio ", click on it and restart it making sure it is set to Automatic .
In the case of stuttering audio, it can be solved according to the program used.
On VLC just increase the cache.
To change the buffer cache size, click on the VLC Media menu and then on " open network stream ".
In the lower right part of the screen, put the check on Show other options and increase the number in the Cache field, which by default is set to 300 ms, up to 500 ms or half a second.
Now you should be able to stream a movie without your voice stuttering.
On Windows Media Player, on the other hand, the read buffer must be increased.
To increase the reading buffer in Windows 7 Media Player or in WMP 11, you have to go to the tools menu and then press on Options.
If you don't see the menu bar, you have to right click on the high bar, in the same row where " Multimedia catalog " is written.
From the options, go to the performance tab and set the buffer to 10 seconds (the default is 5 seconds).
