4K videos won't play on Microsoft Media Player
"I've discovered that 4K videos recorded with my GH4 won't play on Microsoft Media Player. I'm referring to videos straight out of the camera without any editing."
Can Windows Media Player play 4K videos?
A member from dpreview wrote: 4K videos play smoothly on all current-generation Intel chips using Windows Media Player on Windows 8.1; this includes Atom processors and Celeron on up. How do I know? I tested this on just about every laptop, desktop and Windows tablet on display at BestBuy using 4K 100Mbps+ XAVC S videos on my usb stick. I regularly play and edit 4K video on my $249 Asus laptop with a Celeron processor with no problem (ignoring loooong rendering times). And, no, that is not my main computer :).
Why 4K video won't played on Windows Media Player?
Although Windows Media Player running on Windows 8.1 supports to play 4K video files. However, only 4K video file that are included in Windows Media Player supported formats list can be played on it.
Video formats: AVI ,WMV, ASF, MPG, MPEG, MOV, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3P2, 3GPP, 3GP2, M2TS,
Audio formats: WMA, MP2, MP3, AIFF, WAV, M4A, AAC
Convert 4K video to Windows Media Player
Therefore, if the 4K video recorded by your camera or camcorder are in XAVC S, H.265/HEVC or Prores codec, you will definitely fail to open them with Windows Media Player. To fix the format compatible issue, what you need is actually a powerful 4K video converter application. Here, we will recommend a simple to use tool with nice interface called Pavtube Video Converter, which has wide range support for 4K videos downloaded from online video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon, eyc or recorded by Sony/Canon/Panasonic/Samsung/JVC/BlackMagic/Red One/ DJI with the codec of H.264, XAVC S, H.265/HEVC or Prores to Windows Media Player supported playable formats listed above.
Compress 4K video for smooth playback
Sometimes, you may find the 4K video plays back very choppy in Windows Media Player, this is due to the immense processing power required to play 4K video files. To play 4K video more smoothly on Windows Media Player, you can either compress 4K video to 1080p or trim unwanted parts from the 4K video files to leave only your wanted parts.
How to Convert and Compress 4K Video for Windows Media Player?
Step 1: Input 4K video files to the program.
Launch the program on your computer, click "File" menu and select "Add Video/Audio" or "Add from folder" to import 4K video files to the application.
Step 2: Specify output profile format.
Go to the format list by clicking the format bar close to the "Settings" button and choose Windows Media Player supported formats like ASF, ASX, AVI, WAV, WMA, WAX, WM, WMV, WXM, etc.
Step 3: Compress 4K to 1080p.
Open "Profile Settings" window, click "Size(pix)" to select 1920*1080 as the final resolution for output video.
Step 4: Trim 4K video files.
Open "Video Editor" window and switch to the "Trim" tab, you can drag the slider bars to include the segment you want to remain, click the left square bracket to set start point, and click the right square bracket to set end point when previewing the video or directly input specific values to "Start" and "End" box.
Step 5: Start to convert 4K video to Windows Media Player.
After all the settings is completed, hit right-bottom "Convert" button to start to convert 4K video to Windows Media Player supported file formats.
After the conversion, hit the "Open Output Folder" on the main interface to pop out the folder with the converted files. Then feel free to play 4K video on Windows Media Player with no problems.
