Can I Play DAV/H.264 Files on Windows Media Player

What is your most preferable media player on Windows? For most people, what they would like to choose is Windows Media Player which is lightweight and convenient in providing all kinds of multimedia playback solutions with high loading speed and accuracy. If you only need to play the common digital files on Windows Media Player, you can find the most appropriate solutions on it. However, if you have the further need to play some uncommonly used videos or audios; it can be a tricky issue for you to deal with you to play movies on Windows Media Player, such as DAV or H.264 files. It will be very worthwhile for you to stop here because I will show you more useful information on how to play DAV file on Windows Media Player.

Part 1: Can I Play DAV/H.264 Files on Windows Media Player

Simply put, DAV files are created by DVR365 digital video recorders such as DSD304, DSD308 or DSD316 DVR. DAV files are saved in an encrypted format.

H.264 is a new generation digital video compression format and it is one of the ITU-T video codec technology standards named after the H.26x series. Developed by ITU-T's VCEG (Video Coding Experts Group) and ISO/IEC MPEG (Moving Picture Coding Expert Group) Joint Video Team (JVT), H.264 is well known as a digital video coding standard. The standard was originally derived from the development of a project called ITU-T called H.26L. H.264 is one of the ITU-T standards named after the H.26x series, and AVC is the name of the ISO/IEC MPEG side.

Part 2: Install DAV/H.264 Codec on Windows Media Player

Why Windows Media Player can’t play DAV/H.264 files? The reasons for this playback failure mainly are due to the incorrect installation of the proper media players. Besides, the following aspects can also result in such a failure:

What’s more, the most possible reasons that Windows Media Player can’t play DAV/H.264 files would be the lack of DAV/H.264 codecs. In order to play DAV/H.264 files properly, Windows Media Player must contain the specific file codec so that the player can recognize and decode/encode the files in the order. Therefore, if this is the reason that has resulted in the DAV/H.264 playback failure on Windows Media Player, then what you need to download and install the DAV/H.264 codec for WMP.

Here you can take a try on H264encoder which is a handy tool for encoding video files. Users can use H264encoder to convert any video file into MP4, 3GP, F4V, AVI and other formats to suit different devices and needs. This DAV/H.264 codec is compatible with PCM audio channel. More importantly, by downloading and installing this codec, you can easily obtain various file formats: FLV, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and HTTP, RTSP, UDP network protocol. The instruction is also quite simple.

Once the DAV/H.264 files have been transcoded to other WMP-compatible formats, then you can try to restart Window s Media Player once again to check whether this solution works.

Part 3: Convert DAV/H.264 to Windows Media Player Format

If you are not familiar with downloading and installing DAV/H.264 codec, then you can turn to another more efficient way to fix this problem. You can convert DAV/H.264 to Windows Media Player compatible formats, such as AVI, MPEG, MP4 and so on. But in order to obtain a new Windows Media Player compatible format, here what you must obtain is a piece of DAV/H.264 video converting software. Then, you can’t miss Leawo Video Converter. As one of the most comprehensive and all-inclusive video converter, it can be able to convert multimedia files among more than 180 formats, including AVI, MOV, FLV, MPEG, DAV, H.264, DivX and so on. It retains the 100% original quality of the content. Before converting, you can also set the multimedia files based on your preferences under its editing panel. If you prefer to obtain the slideshow, Leawo Video Converter can also be capable of converting photos to slideshow with ease and customized features. For the details, you can refer to the following steps.

Step 1: Download Leawo Video Converter and install it on your computer.

   

Step 2: Load the DAV/H.264 file. Click on the “Add Video” icon to import the file or just drag the file directly to the main menu. Then you can see it immediately on the list.

Step 3: Select the output format. Open drop-down box beside the green icon "Convert" to choose "Change" to enter the "Profile" panel, then choose "AVI" as the output format. Here you can also choose other formats based on your own needs.

Step 4: Set the output video format parameters. You can just open the drop-down box to click "Edit" instead of "Change" in the main menu. It includes "Video Codec", "Bite Rates", "Resolution", "Frame Rate" and "Aspect Ratio".

Step 5: Start converting DAV/H.264 to AVI format. Click the big green icon "Convert" to start converting DAV/H.264 to AVI format. Before it starts, you need to confirm the "Save to" route. Then just click "Convert" to start. Finally, you just need to wait and the conversion process will be completed in several minutes.

When the conversion process has been completed, then you can drag the AVI file to Windows Media Player for further playing.

Part 4: Best Free DAV/H.264 Player Alternative

If you prefer an additional way to solve the problem that Windows Media Player can’t play DAV/H.264 files, adopting another media player as the WMP alternative will a wise option for you. What is the best alternative you can turn to? Leawo Blu-ray Player is the one that you should not miss. As a 100% free and 6-in-1 media player software, Leawo Blu-ray Player is able to provide the most comprehensive solutions for all media playback you need including 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, CD, HD (4K), MPEG, WMV, DAV, H.264, DivX and so on. Leawo Blu-ray Player provides you extraordinary movie playback and cinema-like experience due to its advanced image and audio processing technology. If you desire to obtain the personalized settings according to your preference and all the settings, then you can refer to Leawo Blu-ray Player’s bonus editing features.

Here is a video guide on how to use Leawo Free Blu-ray Player:

Part 5: Comparison between Windows Media Player and Leawo Blu-ray Player

Since Windows Media Player and Leawo Blu-ray Player all have their own edges, which media player should you choose? Actually it depends on your own needs, if you only have the basic playing needs, then Windows Media Player will meet your needs easily, while if you would like to open some complex or uncommon digital files, then Leawo Blu-ray Player will be more suitable. You can refer to the following comparison features.

Just as mentioned above, Both VLC and Leawo Blu-ray Player can be your good options to solve the problem of how to play TS files on Windows. But there are some differences lying between VLC and Leawo Blu-ray Player. Next, a general comparison between both of them in playing TS files will be listed here.

1. More smooth and more compatible. Leawo Blu-ray Player is much simpler and smoother in playing all kinds of multimedia contents. While Windows Media Player is also easy to be handled for many primary users, it lacks the function to be compatible with more complicated formats.

2. Additional media support. Leawo Blu-ray Player can easily decrypt the discs with region codes, while Windows Media Player can only play these disc contents which are free of commercial protection.

3. 4K compatibility. In an advanced term, Leawo Blu-ray Player can be able to provide 4K content solutions with ease, however, WMP can only meet users’ basic playback requirements. In recent years, Leawo Blu-ray Player has been regarded as the best 4K DVD player in the past years.

4. Customizing features. With Leawo Blu-ray Player, you are allowed to set various parameters related to the video, audio or subtitles of the media files you are playing. But WMP is quite limited in offering customization features for the multimedia contents.