Viewing 2.7k or 4k video on a system that doesn't support it

[Mojavehigh]

I recently bought a GoPro camera and have recorded 2.7k and 4.k videos (required for timelapses). Neither my desktop nor my laptop support videos with that high a resolution. I do plan to upgrade (or buy new) my PC to 4k.

Trying to view a 2.7k or 4k video on my PC crashes it completely. I view them in Windows Media Player. I have to manually hold the power button to turn it off and then restart.

I do everything I can to avoid viewing them. I usually immediately convert the videos to lower resolution. But sometimes I mistakenly run a video and... crash!

Is there any way I can prevent that from happening without just being more vigilant? Is there a video app that will automatically downgrade the resolution to what my system can handle?

Thanks!

 

[Colif]

does this help? http://video-editors-studio.over-blog.com/2014/12/downscaling-gopro-hero4-4k-to-1080p.html

 

[Solandri]

Actually, pretty much all video apps should be able to downscale the video for display - it's how you can play a 1080p video in a window which is smaller than 1080p.

Likely, your problem is that you've got old codecs installed which were made back in the days when 1080p was the largest video size. Nearly all video players like WMP don't really play the video, they just call the appropriate codec installed on Windows to play it. So trying a different player won't help - you gotta replace your codecs. I've had good luck with both K-Lite and CCCP. (Pick one, don't try to install both.)

http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
http://www.cccp-project.net/

The one exception is VLC media player. It doesn't use Windows' codecs, it decodes videos using its own built-in codecs. So it's a good go-to video player when the codecs on your PC are acting screwy because you've installed a dozen different ones and created messy conflicts.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html