Can't Change Audio Tracks in Videos Played with WMP or WMC

I have a new HP dv97007 notebook running vista.

When I play videos with two audio tracks with Windows Media Player and/or Center I can't find how to change the audio tracks. In older versions of WMP you could choose between the two tracks. In the most recent version I can't find how to do so. If I use another player like VLC it allows me to choose what track to play.

Am I missing something in the new controls or does the newer version not allow you to changer tracks? Do you need a WMP plugin of some sort to do so?

Any help would be apppreciated.

Thanks

 

I know WMP 11 doesn't allow me to change subtitles but it allows me to switch audio tracks, you have to have classic menus enabled and go to play, then Audio and Language tracks.

 

Thanks Calvin, but I tried that. When I go there I only get one choice - Defaults. When I click it - Default Language Settings come up. It doesn't give me any menu to access or change tracks just the language.

If I use VLC Player it has a menu that allows the choice of tracks. Unfortunately the quality of of the video is significantly less than WMP.

 

You could try installing a codec pack like CCCP, and use Media Player Classic, that should solve all your problems.

 

Just install klite media pack. It will install every codecs + media player classic

 

I'm not a fan of Klite, it doesn't install media codecs properly. It installs many codecs that can cause conflicts with each other, and up until the last few releases, used the illegal alpha of CoreAVC. Outdated, illegal software? Doesn't sound good to me.

 

Thanks for everyones' responses.

I did some research and determined that Windows Media Player 11 (WMP) doesn't allow for choosing between different audio tracks. The only solution I found was to install a 3rd party plugin - Morgan Stream Switcher. It apparently will give WMP the ability to choose between different audio tracks. Unfortunately this program is only designed for WMP 9. I am running Windows Vista with WMP 11. I didn't think it wise to install it on my new machine. I did find one person who did install it with WMP 11 and had no problems. He didn't say what operating system he was running.

A number of people recomended Media Player Classic (MPC). I installed it and it worked fine.

The reason I wanted to use Windows Media Player and Center is they give the highest quality of video reproduction. The picture and colors were significantly brighter and clearer than on MPC and VLC. MPC was significantly better than VLC and Zoom Players.

If anyone knows another 3rd party plugin for WMP that is an alternative to Morgan Stream Switcher and runs with Vista and WMP 11, I would appreciate hearing about it. Otherwise, I will just use MPC for my videos with multiple audio tracks.

 

Well, if anything, now you're seeing the video as it should be. Some video players mess with the video and you don't get what you truly expect, either too bright/washed out or too dull/dark. With MPC you get all the stuff you were intended to get, not much if any post processing.

 

Does anyone know of another 3rd party plugin for WMP that is an alternative to Morgan Stream Switcher and runs with Vista and WMP 11?

Any help from a audio/visual skilled individual would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

I know it´s been some months now, but I have exactly the same problem and I´ve got exactly to the same conclusion that WMP can´t play video files with multiple audio tracks in Vista. I actually tried the Morgan Stream Switcher but makes the WMP crash.

Something worth mentioning is that with my old XP computer, the switching in WMP was made by the DivX plug-in and not the player itself, but in Vista this does not happen at all. Curious thou, if you open the files with the DivX player, it recognizes perfectly the two audio streams.

So, I wonder if you already found any walkaround that you can recommend. Thanks!

 

I was having this problem with a Red Dwarf avi, it played audio track 1 in media player classic(would let me choose track 1 or 2). Windows media player11 was playing both at the same time with no option to choose one or the other.

Solution:
-Open up the FFDshow audio decoder configuration (vista; start>search>FFDshow audio decoder config)

-On the left hand side select stream switcher then on the right put a check to enable.

Close/reopen WMP, you should be able to select the audio track(s) from "play" then "language and audio tracks" option.

hope this helps someone, gl.

 

My English's possible. You can change Audio tracks in videos karaoke with wmp (windowmedia player all version 9,10,11). After setup WMC (window media classic) you go to: Start/All Programs/K-Lite Codec Pack/configuration/ffdshow audio decoder/Codecs/ on right MP3 and MP1,MP2 defaut by libmad, you change to disable. Now you're interesting karaoke videos on your computer with window media player.

 

Thank you. That was most helpful.

BTW, you may need to enable ffdshow audio decoding for your specific audio track codec - in the same ffdshow audio decoder config go to Codecs on the left pane and see if appropriate codec is not disabled, in my case MP3 was disabled and to be able to switch tracks in my mp3 coded dual-soundtrack movie I had to select one of the options in the fall-down menu there instead of "disabled".