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[Attila]

Hi all,
I've downloaded a number of alleged .avi files that simply don't play and I'm wondering if they're just corrupted or junk or if I'm missing something.

$file .avi gives me this: .avi: data
mplayer shows this: Selected video codec: [qdv] vfm: dshow (Sony Digital Video (DV))
and then plays garbage with no sound. I've got all the libdv's and qdv.dll.
Funnily enough one of these files had the comment "excellent" with 2 green "!"s. Before I bin it I just want to make sure that I'm not missing some component in order to play it.
Thanks for the help.
Jonathan

[wuischke]

Hi Jonathan!

Could you please try to play the files with VLC Media Player (videolan.org/vlc)? VLC uses its own codes so that it should play the file in the most cases.

Saludos

[Attila]

Hi Wuischke,
Thanks for the tip but no joy. vlc won't play it either:
jdkaye@Attila:~$ vlc
VLC media player 0.8.4a Janus
[00000259] main interface error: option dvdnav-caching does not exist
[00000253] main playlist: nothing to play
Salut (Catalan) Saludos (Spanish)
Jonathan

[billfromtampa]

I couldn't say what problem you are having, but I also recently downloaded some .avi files that seemd corrupted, would not play using mplayer or vlc or totem. I burned the files on a CD and tried to play them under windows xp -- most of these "unplayable files" apparently were made using DRM software (microsofts digital rights management) and windows media player offered to "upgrade" itself to include DRM features and to try to get a "license" for me to view these files.  One of the files (when trying to playback with windows media player) opened a website requesting my email address in return for a license.

I don't know if any linux video playback software handles DRM features, and I don't know if I would WANT to get a "license" anyway...

YMMV, this may have NOTHING to do with your .avi problem.

[wuischke]

You did download wmv-files named as avi.
Try to avoid them at any means and better don't acquire any licences...