cant play my videos!

[beginner101]

I just got a video camera and it came with software that for some reason will not allow me to play the videos I record, so I downloaded VLC. On VLC, when I try to open the video files, the audio works perfectly, but the visuals don't really work; it's just a few still images that appear, but no moving moving images. So annoying!

I really know nothing about computers and don't know where to start. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Here is some info that may help you to help me:

-I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 Notebook with Windows XP. It's about 4 years old.
-my video camera is a Panasonic HDC-SD9 Full HD with a removable storage card
-my memory card is a Lexar 16GB Full-HD Video Memory Card. It's a 'class 4'.
-the software that my camera came with is HD Writer 2.5E and I can't figure out why it won't play my videos...
-I'm saving the files on an external harddrive and the file formats are: VLC Media Files (.m2ts)
-as previously stated, when I double-click on the file, VLC opens and a still image apears while the video 'plays', but really it's just audio that's working...

Perhaps there is some setting that I could change in VLC? Or, should I convert the files to another format that is more compatible with various media players? (I have HD Writer, Real Player, Windows Media Player...none work!).

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hopefully someone out there can help!

Cheers

[worstusernameever]

Maybe (and this is a mere guess) the files are too high a resolution for your computer to decode all that video data in real time, so you only get some frames. My four year-old PC can't play "HD" video either (at least not smoothly, although it gets most frames). Try testing something recorded at a lower (non-HD) resolution.

[Lotesdelere]

I-I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 Notebook with Windows XP. It's about 4 years old.
-my video camera is a Panasonic HDC-SD9 Full HD with a removable storage card

Dell Inspiron 6000 Notebook = Celeron M 1.4 GHz with 256 MB DDR2 SDRAM and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
Panasonic HDC-SD9 Full HD = 1920*1080 AVCHD @ 17 Mbps

I'm sorry but there is no way that you can play such high resolution video with this CPU in software mode. You need at least a Core2Duo @ 2.6 GHz. And unfortunately, I'm not even sure that your graphics card can handle DXVA. It might be worth a try though.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

try MPC-HC