I've had a high-speed connection for several months, and I've never had a problem downloading or playing videos. But a couple of days ago, my media player suddenly crapped out on me. When I attempt to download a video, it takes a long time to connect. When it finally does connect, it won't play, OR it indicates that it's playing, but the picture never materializes.

I do not have any problems playing videos that are already on my hard drive.

I just ran my Spybot (which fixed 55 problems), but that did not affect the media player.

My version of the media player is the one that came with my system which I bought last October.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Try uninstalling it, then reinstall it again. Or try updating it on-line.