codec problems (I think)

I've been wrestling with this for over a month now. Therefore, the background on may question may run long, bear with me.

About three years ago, I began ripping DVD video, to use in Virtual D.J. As I had done with audio many years before, I looked for a compression I could live with. I thought I'd found one, when I discovered a blog on the VDJ forums. I used #1DVD ripper, with a 3ivx codec, rendering files to .avi. These files are between 1/2 to 1/3 the size of non-compressed .vob files, and look(ed) and sounded great, to me. About 8 months and many conversations (online and offline) later, I changed my mind and changed my ripping to .vob, via smartripper. I rename my .vob files to .mpg, so I can preview them in Windows Media Player (all my machines have XP home). My .avi files all preview in Media Player flawlessly as well.

I began with VDJ 3.4, and all my files would play just fine. When I upgraded to 4.3, I began to have problems with my .avi files. These problems have continued as I've upgraded to 5.0 (rev. 6). If the VDJ codec for .avi is configured for "video", my files load fine, but .avi files only play audio, but do not show video (blank screen). When I switch the VDJ codec to "windows video", when I load one of these .avi files, the program FREEZES on me for between 30 seconds and over 5 minutes!, but then will load the track and play it just fine, audio and video. If something is playing in the opposite deck when I load, the playback continues flawlessly on it, but my control screen is frozen, and my controls are useless, until VDJ decides to "relent" and load my file.

Fixes I've tried:

1) My original 3ivx codec was a "free" one, and I believe I had seen a message once or twice about it expiring in Windows, so I found a trial version of the latest release and downloaded it. I will gladly pay for this codec if it's what I need to make these files work smoothly. I installed it last night, and... no improvement or change.

Ideally, I would love to get my 1000 or so files to work, versus converting or the labor intensive task of digging the discs back out and starting over. But I'm stuck at the moment in accomplishing this.

So, I've looked at other options:

2) I found and struck up conversation with the blogger whose settings I used 3 years ago, and he's switched to .vob as well, based on compatibility issues. He recommended xilisoft's Video Converter 3, which will batch convert my .avi files to .mpg. I downloaded a trial version (limit of 5 minutes per file, which is fine since most music videos are shorter than that) last night. So far, I can't get it to work.

3) There's a free program called Super that appears to be the swiss army knife of video files. I've used it for a few things, and have been happy with the results. Last night, as I threw in the towel on this mess (around 5 a.m.) I tried to batch convert 26 .avi files overnight. This morning I had around 8(!) .mpg files, all of which have audio glitches, and last less than 10 seconds each, but they'll play in VDJ for those 10 seconds.

Any help or advice is welcome.

Hey Steve, I'll try to give a bit of insight, since I've been working on the video for my software quite a bit lately...

Almost every software I've seen, is using Microsoft's VMR (Video Mixing Renderer) for playback. Theres new stuff for Vista, but I won't go into that here.

Most software producers, do not specify a Codec for playback, they let the VMR decide which is best for the task. The VMR then searches, and finds what it thinks is the best.

For example, on my development machine, it thinks Nero's Codec for rendering VOBs is the best. I have other Codecs that can render VOBs, but it chooses that one every time.

It sucks, as do most VOB renderer's -- VOB is not a good playback format on a computer, if you know how the renderer's work. Mpg is a much better format for video playback, as the Codecs are much more refined, much as MP3 audio decoders work much better than some WAV decoders.

I also put AVI Codecs in the same category. They don't seek well, and sometimes the audio gets out of sync with the video.

Also note, that if you read above, even changing the extension of a VOB to mpg, will result in the VOB Codec doing the work. The renderer knows enough to look at the file, and not the extension.

Mpg's playback flawlessly on all my test systems, no matter which Codec is being used, and CPU utilization is minimal.


On my new Vista test machine, playback of mpg's results in about 3% CPU, going to multiple monitors at the same time :)

Rick:

I appreciate your assistance in this matter. Would having one of the .avi files in question be useful to you? I have over a thousand of them. They SOUND great!

Steve,

If they play fine in Windows Media, then there is no problem with your files.

You have to look further at that point... ;)

(*side note to Dan, Can you allow *.rar files as they compress better thanks)



better grab a hold of gspot portable and test your avi file to see if you have the codec loaded

this little beauty works a treat to see if you are running the correct codec or not on the system you have the avi file

anyway dont miss out as it could go off

Thank you very much for this, I will give it a try.