INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: LanceVictor on May 07, 2003, 02:44:14 pm

Title: .AVI video?
Post by: LanceVictor on May 07, 2003, 02:44:14 pm

The docs say that MC should handle .avi files but for some reason, I can only hear the audio.  The files I'm trying to play are on this web page:

http://www.amicidellostrozza.it/ninedegreesofbackstageturbulence/video.htm

Any helpl appreciated

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: JimH on May 07, 2003, 03:25:45 pm

Just press the "Playing Now" button.  Two little notes and an orange icon.

You can cause MC to jump there by changing the settings in tools/options/general.

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: TimB on May 07, 2003, 03:46:25 pm

MC9 doesn't show video for the first of these files but neither did Windows Media Player.

-=Tim=-

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: LanceVictor on May 07, 2003, 04:00:51 pm

I can't play any of the files from that site.  I go to Playing Now and see the message:

"Media Center can not display visualizations for this file type..."

Do I have a codec problem or something?

Lance

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: daven on May 07, 2003, 05:07:13 pm

i have a number of avi videos that can be played by quicktime player but not by windows media player or media center.  how do i know what codec these use and are there additional codecs available for mc?

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: sraymond on May 07, 2003, 08:02:15 pm

Download AVICodec from http://avicodec.duby.info/.  It will give you the specifics on the audio and video codecs used.

Scott-

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: Chris Shaw on May 08, 2003, 01:45:06 am

They are DiVX compressed. You can get the latest version on the codec from http://www.divx.com

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: Nikolay on May 08, 2003, 06:38:16 am

Lance,

cjdshaw is absolutely correct. If you can hear audio but can't see video is it's very likely that the file is encoded with DIVX codec. Download it from the link above.

Unfortunately, there is now easy way for us to recognize video codec type. We will work on that and will try to solve it in the next version of MC.

Nikolay

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: Chris Shaw on May 08, 2003, 07:59:41 am

The codec is specified an the FourCC flag. This is four ASCII characters  towards the start of the file which you can usually see with any binary viewer. You can then look up the codec on this page:

http://www.fourcc.org/fcccodec.htm

I don't know much about AVI formatting, but there must be an easy way to extract this flag and display an error like:

Error: This file is compressed with the codec "xxxx" which is not installed.
For more information on this codec and where to get it, click here (http://www.fourcc.org/fcccodec.htm
).

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: Nikolay on May 08, 2003, 08:07:01 am

Thank cjdshaw. I'll take a look at the document. Hopefully, we will be able to improve handling of video codecs in the near future.

Nikolay

Title: Re: .AVI video?
Post by: daven on May 08, 2003, 12:21:51 pm

AVICodec is a very helpful program.  a number of my avi files use the VP3 codec which i found here: http://www.vp3.com/vp3/vfw/software/index.shtml

unfortunately this codec works much better through quicktime than with windows media player.  how do i get media center to play these videos through quicktime?