Yep, ran into some problems with MediaPlayer 8 and The Playa on XP. I was trying to watch Enemy at The Gates DivX, which was using a special AC3 sound codec. Found an old copy of Media player 6.4.x ...
Microsoft published a new support page with details about codec support in the Windows Media Player app. As it turns out, the company is removing AC-3 Dolby Digital support in Windows 11 version 24H2.
One of my users has a JVC camcorder. It records .MOD files that are not playable by default by Media Player 9 or 11. As a test I downloaded VLC. It does not play them either. But a tip on the Internet ...