6 Fixes 4k Videos Not Playing on Windows Media Player Legacy

While enjoying your favorite video or movies, suddenly, 4k Videos Not Playing on the Windows Media Player: this problem often occurs on Windows 10, PC, windows 11, and laptops. This happens for various reasons like your media player doesn’t support your MP4 format, your MP4 is corrupted or outdated drivers, etc. However, solving the problem is not too difficult. However, we have taken the following steps in this post to resolve Windows Media Player legacy issues.

How to Fix 4k Videos Not Playing on Windows Media Player Legacy?

Before you attempt the troubleshooting steps, Try restarting your device after closing all Windows Media Player-related processes. If that doesn’t help you, try the rest of the solutions.

Solution 1: Update Codecs

Updating the codec on Windows Media Player allows the application to play and create media files encoded in modern formats, such as the H.265/HEVC codec required for 4k content. It also enables compatibility with third-party video players to play 4k video content, ensuring a seamless playback experience.

• Install Windows Media Player on your device and click on Tools in the menu bar.
• Now, select the Options menu from the drop-down list.
• Then, click the once-a-day option under the Check for Updates menu.

• Click Apply and OK to save all changes. Now, all new updates will be installed automatically.

Now, you can download and install the codecs by visiting this codecs package.

Solution 2: Check Hardware Compatibility

If the computer system is not powerful enough to play 4k video, it can result in slow performance issues. Check your PC hardware compatibility before playing 4k video on Windows Media Player. You can avoid Windows Media Player’s old issues of being unable to play 4K videos and ensure a seamless playback experience.

• Ensure your computer has a 233 MHz processor, at least 100 MB of free hard disk space, 64 MB of RAM, and an active network connection with 28.8 kbps. And if these prerequisites are unmet, you should consider upgrading your system.
• Remove all unnecessary files from your PC system to ensure free RAM space for playing 4K videos.

Solution 3: Update Graphics Drivers

Updating the graphics card often improves video playback and provides better compatibility with newer video codecs and formats used in 4k video. Updated drivers can efficiently decode and render high-resolution content, resulting in a playback experience without the video player’s legacy issues of being able to play 4k video.

• Go to the search menu, type device manager, and then click open to launch it.
• Then, double-click the driver and see if there are any driver updates on your computer, and make a note of them.
• Then, go to the manufacturer’s website and download the driver that matches your computer’s specifications.
• AMD
• INTEL
• NVIDIA

The .exe files on your computer will be downloaded. Double-click the files to install the driver. Moreover, the driver can be updated using the app tool update driver, and this software can also automatically update the old driver and fix other driver-related issues easily.

Solution 4: Enable the Hardware-Acceleration Decoding

When hardware isolation decoding is enabled, the GPU can handle the decoding process more efficiently, ensuring smooth playback of 4k video. Without hardware acceleration, the CPU alone may struggle to decode complex video data, leading to lag, stuttering, or even failure to play video.

• Opened the window media player.
• Touch the Organize menu and click Options.

• In the Options window, go to the Performance tab.
• Under Window Media Player, use Video Smoothing and check the next box.

• Touch Apply and click OK to save the changes.

Solution 5: Check the 4k Video File Integrity

By checking the integrity of 4k video files, you can identify and fix YouTube errors or failure to play downloaded 4k videos due to file structure or data changes. It repairs video files and makes them playable in Windows Media Player.

It ensures that all the necessary components of the video file are intact and in the correct format. This allows the media player to correctly decode the video and play it. There are many tools on the internet to do this.

Solution 6: Lower Video Quality

4k videos are good quality with a resolution of 3840×2160 pixels and require significant processing power and resources to play smoothly. Legacy Windows media players can struggle to handle the high demands of 4k video. This results in playback problems such as freezing or stuttering of the video. And you can try using these tools to reduce the video quality.

• Online video compression tools: Several websites, such as FreeConvert, Clideo, and Kapwing, offer many free online tools for uploading and compressing your video files.
• Video editors: Video editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and iMovie allows you to compress your video files.
• Video converter software: Video converter software like Handbrake and Freemake Video Converter can compress MP4 videos.

Recommended Solution – Fix Windows Error and Boost PC Performance

If you want a solution to fix Windows errors, try the PC Repair Tool. It is a repair tool developed by professionals to solve various PC errors and problems. Here are the problems you can solve with this tool: Application Errors, DLL Errors, Game Errors, Registry Errors, and BSOD Errors.

It can also repair damaged Windows system files and boost PC performance by solving performance-related issues, keeping the system safe from viruses and malware.

Conclusion

If 4k videos are not playing on your Windows media player legacy, this article will help you fix it permanently. In this article, I have mentioned some very easy solutions that have worked for many PC users, and one of them will surely help you. You can also contact us on Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram.