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[Stevr]

Moving back to Media Center 16 for now. The last two versions of Media Center 17 will not play .avi files. They play fine in version 16. On one computer they will play only if I set the playback of video to Windows Merit based, but my other computer will not play them at all on any setting. They play fine in Windows Media Player and VLC. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[glynor]

Can you provide us with an example AVI file that doesn't work?  If you don't have a good upload site to use (especially since MegaUpload is down now), Dropbox provides 2GB of free online storage which you can easily use for this purpose.

Almost certainly is due to a weirdo compression in the AVI file.  Probably Indeo would be my guess.

[Stevr]

I have nowhere to upload them. However, I can say that they played just fine in the original beta versions of Media Center 17. Only the last beta and this final version do they error out. They now error out with a "failure to connect to video decoder to source/splitter" message. They still play fine in Media Center 16.

[CountryBumkin]

I have an ftp site you could use to transfer the file(s). Just PM me and I'll give you and Glynor the address/password - if interested.
I don't want to publish the link and password publicly.

Or try one of the other free file transfer sites - whatever is easier.

[glynor]

I have an ftp site you could use to transfer the file(s).

I have one too, actually, but using a free upload service would probably be easier.

Either way, if you can get us a file somehow, we can give it to Matt (and Nev and whomever) and it'll get it fixed.  To be clear, MC is playing all AVIs I have in my library, but they're all fairly uniform (XviD with MP3 or AC3 audio and sometimes subs muxed in).

[glynor]

Oh, actually I just found a few.

Any AVI file that lists a "Windows Media Audio" codec (like WMAudio2, for example) in the [Compression] field in MC won't play.
Cinepak (cvid) files also don't play.

They are very few and far between in my library (less than 5 out of 5k AVI files), but the OP is right, they were fairly common a while back.

[glynor]

I just got the copy of the video that Stevr provided to me.  I can confirm that this video file, in additon to the the few examples I listed above, do NOT work in MC 17 anymore using the current build, with either ROST or ROHQ selected.  It gives a "Failed to connect video decoder to source splitter error".  The same file works in basically all the other players I've tried (MPC-HC, VLC Player, and even Quicktime X on a Mac).

Here's a link to the file:
http://glynor.com/temp/bad_AVIs/CIMG0018.AVI

Here is the Media Info dump from that file:

Code: [Select]

General
Complete name                    : \\psf\Home\Desktop\CIMG0018.AVI
Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
File size                        : 3.59 MiB
Duration                         : 14s 391ms
Overall bit rate                 : 2 094 Kbps
Mastered date                    : 2005/08/19/ 20:13  
Writing application              : CASIO EX-Z750                
Writing library                  : QVMI

Video
ID                               : 0
Format                           : MPEG-4 Visual
Codec ID                         : M4S2
Codec ID/Hint                    : Microsoft
Duration                         : 14s 348ms
Bit rate                         : 1 996 Kbps
Width                            : 640 pixels
Height                           : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 4:3
Frame rate                       : 29.970 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.217
Stream size                      : 3.41 MiB (95%)

Audio
ID                               : 1
Format                           : ADPCM
Codec ID                         : 11
Codec ID/Hint                    : Intel
Duration                         : 14s 391ms
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 88.2 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 1 channel
Sampling rate                    : 22.05 KHz
Bit depth                        : 4 bits
Stream size                      : 156 KiB (4%)
Interleave, duration             : 46 ms (1.38 video frame)
So, in this case it is Microsoft MPEG-4 (M4S2) compressed video with ADPCM audio.

Like I said in my previous post, I also found a few other AVIs with less-common compression codecs that aren't working, including Cinepak and Windows Media codecs.

[glynor]

PS.  Cute dogs, by the way.

[JohnT]

Thanks for the sample file.  I can repro it here - it shouldn't take too long to get a fix implemented.

[Alex B]

Regarding old avi files, here are three files from 1995-2001 that do not play:

Code: [Select]

General
Complete name                    : S:\Old_OS\W95\C_drive\WIN\HELP\SCROLL.AVI
Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
Format settings                  : rec
File size                        : 1.44 MiB
Duration                         : 24s 800ms
Overall bit rate                 : 487 Kbps
vedt                             :


Video
ID                               : 0
Format                           : RLE
Format/Info                      : Run-length encoding
Codec ID                         : 0x00000001
Codec ID/Info                    : Run length encoded 8bpp RGB image
Duration                         : 24s 800ms
Bit rate                         : 288 Kbps
Width                            : 346 pixels
Height                           : 251 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 1.378
Frame rate                       : 10.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.332
Stream size                      : 875 KiB (59%)

Audio
ID                               : 1
Format                           : PCM
Format settings, Sign            : Unsigned
Codec ID                         : 1
Duration                         : 21s 229ms
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 88.2 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 1 channel
Sampling rate                    : 11.025 KHz
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Stream size                      : 229 KiB (15%)
Interleave, duration             : 117 ms (1.17 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration     : 700 ms

Code: [Select]

General
Complete name                    : S:\OldOS\W98\D_drive\Install\cdsample\videos\open.avi
Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
Format settings                  : rec
File size                        : 12.8 MiB
Duration                         : 53s 267ms
Overall bit rate                 : 2 012 Kbps
Comment                          : Compressed with Adobe Premiere 4.2 / Settings: Interleave = 1 / Requested Data Rate = 300 / Recompress = Off /  / Keyframes: every 15 frames / Still Optimize ON /  / Fields = Full Frame /

Video
ID                               : 0
Format                           : Indeo 4
Codec ID                         : IV41
Codec ID/Info                    : Intel Indeo Video 4.1
Duration                         : 53s 267ms
Bit rate                         : 1 825 Kbps
Width                            : 320 pixels
Height                           : 240 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 4:3
Frame rate                       : 15.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 1.584
Stream size                      : 11.6 MiB (91%)

Audio
ID                               : 1
Format                           : PCM
Format settings, Sign            : Unsigned
Codec ID                         : 1
Duration                         : 53s 267ms
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 176.4 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 1 channel
Sampling rate                    : 22.05 KHz
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Stream size                      : 1.12 MiB (9%)
Interleave, duration             : 67 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration     : 733 ms

Code: [Select]

General
Complete name                    : C:\WINDOWS\clock.avi
Format                           : AVI
Format/Info                      : Audio Video Interleave
File size                        : 81.0 KiB
Duration                         : 12s 0ms
Overall bit rate                 : 55.3 Kbps

Video
ID                               : 0
Format                           : RLE
Format/Info                      : Run-length encoding
Codec ID                         : 0x00000001
Codec ID/Info                    : Run length encoded 8bpp RGB image
Duration                         : 12s 0ms
Bit rate                         : 43.6 Kbps
Width                            : 321 pixels
Height                           : 321 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 1.000
Frame rate                       : 1.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.423
Stream size                      : 63.8 KiB (79%)
Title                            : CLOCK.avi Video #1

Audio
ID                               : 1
Format                           : Truespeech
Codec ID                         : 22
Codec ID/Hint                    : DSP Group
Duration                         : 11s 996ms
Bit rate                         : 8 536 bps
Channel(s)                       : 1 channel
Sampling rate                    : 8 000 Hz
Bit depth                        : 1 bit
Stream size                      : 12.5 KiB (15%)
Interleave, duration             : 12000 ms (12.00 video frames)
Title                            : Microsoft Waveform: 12TONEt2.WAV
The files: https://rapidshare.com/files/4104964367/old_avis.7z (12 MB)

[Hendrik]

It may be quite simply a oversight.

Cinepak, MS-RLE and also WMA are codecs that are default off in LAV Video/Audio because the Microsoft decoders usually do a better job.
However, RO isn't designed to fallback to a system decoder if its decoder isn't working, and i don't think they coded exceptions for these old codecs.

IV41 is another matter, and not supported by LAV 0.44, but will be in the upcoming version.

Anyhow, i told John to just activate the codecs via LAVs runtime config. As an alternative he can just throw the MS decoder at them.

If you find any other old codecs that are not yet working, please let me know, maybe i just haven't added them to LAV Video because i never heard of them.

PS:
glynors file actually was a bug, that specific FourCC had a copy/paste issue in it.

[Stevr]

Do you guys have any word on when older .avi's will begin working in Media Center 17. Thanks.

[glynor]

Do you guys have any word on when older .avi's will begin working in Media Center 17. Thanks.

They already fixed a bunch of them in the betas.

Yours in particular were being broken by something else on nev's side of the equation.  He is fixing it, but it won't be corrected until a new version of LAV comes out and then MC implements it.

That shouldn't take forever, but not quite yet.

I've been testing your sample file against the new betas.