I have an avi file (and yes it is an avi, not a misnamed wmv or asf) that plays fine in WMP, but the video will not play in BSplayer (the audio plays fine in BSplayer though). When I analyze the avi with GSpot v2.1 (available at
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ ), it reports the codec as S-Mpeg 4 version 2 (the 4CC is mp42) which if I'm not mistaken is the second version of Microsoft's MPEG-4 codec. It also reports that the codec is present and installed on my system. The audio is PCM which accounts for why it is played back fine.
I tried to convert the file with TMPGenc but it would not open (due to lack of proper codec). I found a codec available for download at
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/mpeg4codec.html so I installed it and from that point, TMPGenc could open it and reencode to mpeg. BSplayer still could not render the video, however. If anyone can point me to a specific codec (or hey, it could even be a setting in BSplayer I have set wrong) please let me know. And I'm uncomfortable using Nimo's codec pack, so please don't suggest that :)
Just so you know, I'm using the latest build of BSplayer (0.86 build 493) on Windows 2000 SP3. If you need to know more about my system, just ask.
VCDmonger