Microsoft MPEG-1 (50) Codec Missing
I am getting a Microsoft MPEG-1(50) codec missing error while playing mp3 files in Windows Media Player. I had just recently upgraded the media player and thought it will play the mp3 files as before. But somehow the problem lies with internal codec. It is not playing simple audio files. There is one more audio player installed in my system. That works quiet well with all mp3 files. Where can I find proper codecs for the same.
Microsoft MPEG-1 (50) Codec
I had this same problem trying to play mp3's on a fresh install of Vista. "Microsoft MPEG-1 (50)" missing error and had hopeless redirection from WMP codec servers. Here's what you need to do if you get this problem; firstly, don't use Windows media player.
Install the free AC3 Filter 1.45b
2,744 KB
nicely bundled audio filters and codecs ... FUN!
Sourceforge & mirrors
And secondly, use a decent media player please:
off the top of my head, here are three ...
VLC (highly recommend this one for all media)
Video Lan.org free download
Winamp (Still going strong)
Winamp.com free download
or even
iTunes (if you like that sort of thing)
iTunes 7.something
Rock on and enjoy my son, crank it to 11, because your eardrums wont last forever
re : Microsoft MPEG-1 (50) Codec
I have the same problem with certain MP3s. I also have the obnoxiously obstinate Vista running-platform. Do you use Vista? On an old version of WMP in the XP-platform, the files play just as they should. These particular files won't play in the Vista-platform WMP, though. Yet, they do play in the iPod, irFan, and WinAmp. As you said, the plugin referral site doesn't even have the codex. I've been attempting to discover where the "50" might actually be online. If I find out anything, I'll post it.
Re: Microsoft MPEG-1 (50) Codec Missing
Changing the file extensions worked perfectly. I had actually tried to convert the file with a file converter the first time and nothing happened. No error messages, but no music played either. Could someone explain to my WHY this works?
Re: Microsoft MPEG-1 (50) Codec Missing
Maybe this is related, maybe it's not, but I figure I'd post this fix anyways. I had been tinkering around in the registry to fix some MP3 problems in another program (which I did solve), but it seemed to have messed up WMP's MP3 support for me. I'm using an older version of WMP and I'm on XP, but I was getting the same error messages (including the redirection to the website that had no codecs available). Don't worry about the first instruction that has you downloading WMP11, you may not even need to do that. Just check if you have the l3codecp.acm file first. If you do, check for the two registry entries listed on the page. If they don't exist, just create them (right click -> New -> String Value). Once I created these values, WMP was back to normal. If you don't have the l3codecp.acm file, I'd suggest probably following the last set of instructions that seems to allow you to individually extract that file as opposed to doing a full reinstall of WMP11.
Re: Microsoft MPEG-1 (50) Codec Missing
WMP cannot recognize what format it is since it has a .mp3 extension. It should be using the already available mpeg codec for differrent extensions(.avi, .mpg, .mpeg, etc.). MP2 is the audio version of DVD format mpeg2 video/audio.