Incorrect Video Lenght Recognition - ZP, XP

[ann0_malous]

Windows seems to be misidentifying the lenght of certain movies and so will not play them through correctly, either in MP9 or ZoomPlayer. If I skip around the timeline, different portions of the movie will play, but not from start to finish! If played from the start, the movie will play the reported length, then freeze, the audio stream continuing and video updating sporadically! I believe it is a problem with Windows as this does not occur on my other computer.

Any ideas anyone?

[stephanV]

would be nice if you told anything about the file types you are experiencing this with...

you can pretty much assume that for .mpg files the given lenght is always wrong.

[ann0_malous]

They are .mpg files. But surely the lengths shouldn't be this wrong! 12 mins vs. 2.5 mins in one case!

[stephanV]

Can very well be.

There is no reliable way of detecting the length of an MPG file without parsing the complete file first. Furthermore, a lot of people think they can join mpg files with copy /b, which will indeed work with most parsers, but timestamps will not get updated this way and therefor creates invalid files.

I think how most players try to determine the lenght of an MPG file is something like looking at average bitrate of the first second of the file, and devide the file size with that number.

[ann0_malous]

So, is there a way to fix it? And what is parsing? Why do you think that this problem only occurs on one computer and not the other?

Thanks

[ukb008]

Why, I've frequently seen WMP giving a time figure of 12 hours + for one-and-half hours' mpg video. Gotta live with it, or get real and shun WMP.

Regards.

[stephanV]

So, is there a way to fix it?
Nope, its one of .mpg's flaws.

And what is parsing?
Parsing is just another name for "reading" or "scanning". What I meant was that the only way to know the length of an .mpg is to read it completely first.

Why do you think that this problem only occurs on one computer and not the other?
That I dont know. If you use exactly the same software that of course shouldnt be happening. If you don't then its obvious why. My personal preference for playing .mpg files is VLC player, it can handle most of the files, even if they are a bit dodgy.

[ukb008]

VLC Player's most important advantage is that it does not use directshow. Dump WMP and install VideoLAN Player.

Regards.