Audio and Video

How do I preview a media file?

I don't recommend you use Kazaa to preview a media file. If it works for you, that's great, but there are a lot of people who have problems with it.

To preview a file, wait until you have downloaded at least 500 KB of the file (for big files, such as movies of couple of Megabyte is better). Then pause the download.

Option 1:
Copy the file to another directory. (Like My Documents) Then change the extension to the correct one (.mp3 .avi .mpg etc.). Then play it in Windows Media Player (or another player). For some movie files this will not work. If so, try option 2.

Option 2:
Open your partial downloaded movie with VideoLAN or AVI Preview. You don't even need to copy or rename it. Just open the .dat file.
VideoLAN
AVI Preview

Why can’t I preview a certain media file?

There are two main reasons for this:
- Some media files cannot be previewed because of their nature. MP3 and MPEG should play, AVI does not always work. See the topic above for some players that can play incomplete AVI files.
- The file is in use. Watching or playing the file while it downloads isn't possible. If you tried playing it in the KaZaA theatre before you tried another videoplayer, it might also be in use. Close KaZaA and try again.

I hear no sound when I play a video file.

You don't have the Codec you need to play that type of video. There is a codec for each different system of encoding sound or video files.

Read the topic "Which codecs do I need to install ?" below on this page.

I have problems playing a video file.

You don't have the Codec you need to play that type of video. There is a codec for each different system of encoding sound or video files.

Read the topic "Which codecs do I need to install ?" below on this page.

When I preview an audio/video file, it contains some parts of other audio/video files that I have downloaded, but the file is correct when completed downloading

When you delete a file, only the pointer (in the file allocation table or FAT) to that file is removed to make the space the file used become free. The actual data stays on your disk until it is overwritten by another file.
When KaZaA creates a .dat file (partial download), it claims a bit of free space on your harddrive for this file. The data will be downloaded into that claimed space, overwriting the old data. When you preview your partial download, it thus can contain some old data from another file (which was not yet overwritten, because your download is not complete yet).

Which codecs do I need to install ?

1) Nimo Codec Pack (Audio, DivX, MPEG-2, VOB, 3ivx) (Instructions below)
2) XviD

How to install the Nimo Codec Pack (Normal version)

Download Nimo Codec Pack for playback and encoding support for the most commonly used video formats. It is recommended to install the XviD codec separately.

These instructions are based on version 5.0 build 8 of Nimo Codec Pack.
Only install the following things (de-select everything else!):

- Video Codecs > DivX 5.02
- Video Codecs > Microsoft MPEG-4
- Video Codecs > 3ivx 3.5 codec
- Audio Codecs > Select them all
- Directshow filters > VOB directshow filters
- Directshow filters > LAME MP3 directshow
- Directshow filters > Subtitle picture decoder
- Directshow filters > Ogg Vorbis directshow
- Directshow filters > Fraunhofer MPEG-2 Vob filters A/V
- Directshow filters > DivX antifreeze 0.4
- Directshow filters > AC3 audio decoder
- Directshow filters > MPEG layer-2 audio decoder

How to find out what codecs are used by a movie?

You can find that out with the AVIcodec or Gspot program.