Videos won't play on PC

[themagician8]

After awhile I noticed when I copy/Cut and pasted videos from my S7 Edge to my PC they were corrupt.
They played back going from choppy, to slow motion, pixelated, green screen, etc.
Thought it was because I was saving them to my SD card which wasn't exactly top notch.
($20. 64 gig flea market card.) Figured maybe it went bad, even tough it had been working fine for a long time.
So I switched cards to a new one.
Still didn't work. Then someone on another forum asked if they played OK if I saved them directly to the phone. I switched settings to save to phone... and they don't!
They play FINE on the phone, upload and play fine on Facebook, play fine from my cloud-based Google gallery... but when I transfer them to my PC... totally screwed up!
On the forum someone said something about changing settings on my PC, and I tried, but it didn't seem to solve it. Forgot exactly where I went to change those settings now.
Also I just updated my phone to the new 7.0 Nougat OS. Thought that might change it... but nope.
Photos seem to be fine all around. But it seems that now I have a fantastic video camera on my phone that I can't save videos from!
Anybody got any ideas what I can do?
Thanks!

 

[SpookDroid]

How are you transferring the videos to your computer? If via USB, can you try doing so via WiFi or Bluetooth? Does the same thing happen? What about file sizes? Once you copy the video to your computer, is the file size the same in your PC as it is in your phone? Have you tried it in a different computer?

 

[themagician8]

How are you transferring the videos to your computer? If via USB, can you try doing so via WiFi or Bluetooth? Does the same thing happen? What about file sizes? Once you copy the video to your computer, is the file size the same in your PC as it is in your phone? Have you tried it in a different computer?

Yeah USB.
Never tried wifi or Bluetooth, not sure how.
Never checked file sizes and don't own a different PC. But the main thing is....
The way I transfer video files to my PC is the same way I've been doing it for years... with every android I've ever owned.
Even this one.
Why is it screwing up now?

 

[SpookDroid]

Might be the driver or the connection or the cable... That's why I suggested doing it via other means. You can try to download SideSync and do the transfer also via USB or WiFi with that program. Or if your computer has Bluetooth, just select the video, select SHARE, and select BT (and your computer).

 

[themagician8]

OK, So I tried Sidesync and 3 other USB cables, on all 3 USB ports my laptop has.
Still plays messed up on PC.
And as I said, they play just fine on my phone, Facebook, Google Gallery, etc.
Which leads me to believe it's possibly a problem with the playback on the PC.
And like I said before, another forum suggested some settings in Windows which I tried, didn't work, and forgot where they were or where that forum was.
I'm not trying to sound unappreciative, because I really do respect and appreciate your time and effort...
But I'm not really looking for a "work around" per se. I'm trying to get it to work like it did before, and always has worked before. You mentioned "drivers". Could somehow a Windows update mess up some sort of drivers?
If so, what can I do to fix that?
Thanks again SO much for your time and effort sir.
I'm just trying to restore tings the way they were.

UPDATE: After experimenting a bit, noticed that videos playback badly with WMP, Quicktime and VLC media player.. but playback sort of OK with Windows Media Player Classic.
(Audio skips a few times but video is OK.)
I have NO idea what this means, but just thought I'd add it.

 

[Alanhd]

What settings are you using to record the videos, have you tried record in just HD and test that.

 

[themagician8]

Yep. That's it!
Just 5 min. before I read your post, I read another forum talking about graphics cards, resolution, etc.
So I dropped the resolution on my phone down to FHD.
They playback fine now.
Now I'm pretty sure I always had the setting on my phone for super-duper high quality UHD cuz I have a 4KTV. So I don't know why they stopped playing at that resolution. But at least now I know that all my vids of my grandkids etc. won't be lost.
Dunno what happened. Would love it if I could save them in 4K. But this will work I guess for now.
hanks SO much guys!

 

[SpookDroid]

Well, at least now you know the reason! Thanks Alan for also pointing in the right direction!

 

[Alanhd]

You can always record in UHD, save a copy then Re-encode to a lower resolution to watch play on your computer if Hard drive space is not a problem, but encoding is pretty intensive for processors.