From time to time, we get emails from folks who are having problems playing our videos. For those people, I've put together this short guide to troubleshooting. So before emailing customer support, read this over first:
REBOOT BEFORE YOU TROUBLESHOOT
I have seen the strangest problems go away after a simple reboot. So before you pull your hair out trying to figure out what's wrong, REBOOT your computer. Don't just log off and back on again. Actually SHUT DOWN your system and restart it.
ONLINE THEATER
We STRONGLY recommend that you watch your lessons in your Web Browser using our ONLINE THEATER. This is the best and most compatible method. It works exactly like YouTube. In fact, it's the same technology... so if you can watch videos on YouTube, you should be able to watch them using our Online Theater.
If the Online Theater does NOT work then look to see if you can watch video on YouTube. If you can't watch YouTube videos, then you need to update the software on your system or you have some other kind of pre-existing problem. Download and install the latest Adobe Flash player. Basically if NEITHER our videos NOR YouTube videos work, then it's a problem on YOUR computer.
If YouTube works OK, but our videos won't play, then it could be a problem we need to look into for you. Contact customer service in this case.
DOWNLOADED VIDEOS
If you've downloaded your courses to your PC using, and some of the videos work but others don't the problem is USUALLY caused by a problem with the download. Perhaps the video file was corrupted, or something happened during the download to cause the video to not transfer perfectly to your PC. Sometimes the video won't play at all. Sometimes you can hear the audio, but you can't see any video. Sometimes the video starts but freeze (or blacks out) and the audio continues. Here's what you should do:
First, try downloading the course again. In most cases, this will fix the problem - especially if it was just a bad download that caused the problem in the first place.
Also, we've found that the default Windows Media Player that comes with Windows is not very good. We STRONGLY recommend that you download a better video player. We really, REALLY recommend the VLC PLAYER. It's FREE and it works amazingly.
RECEIVED A CD IN THE MAIL
If you received a CD in the mail and the NOTHING works, try browsing the CD in your Windows Explorer (or Computer) browser. If you don't see any files on the CD, you might have a bad disc. Contact us and we'll send you another one. Of course, it goes without saying that if your CD is physically damaged in ANY way, don't put it in your drive. Contact us for a replacement immediately.
The video files on the CD are EXACTLY the same as the files that you can download from our web site. If you double-click on them, but the videos aren't playing, see the "DOWNLOADED VIDEOS" help above. You may need to upgrade your video player.
EVERYONE
If you've tried everything above and STILL have problems, contact us. We'll do our best to get you up and running... but every computer is different, so we need as much information from you as we can get.
There are also a VERY HELPFUL set of WALKTHRU TUTORIALS on our web site that will take you STEP BY STEP through installing and watching your lessons. I recommend you read those pages as well.