Weird .wmv file that plays incorrectly in Mplayer & VLC (plays fine in MPC & WMP)

[Irakli]

This is the file I am talking about (http://machinima.com/film/download&id=26175) (it is free animated comedy, so no rule 6 violation here).

The file's true resolution is 768x432. Both Windows Media Player and Media Player Classic (correctly) report it as 768x432 and play it without a problem.

Both MPlayer and VLC, however, report that resolution is 320x240. More interestingly, when it comes to playback, both MPlayer and VLC behave as if the file is indeed 320x240: the picture is blurry and displayed with wrong AR.

Can anyone test this file please and/or suggest what causes this problem?

[jshumate]

Very good of you to provide a link and explanation to avoid misunderstanding.

This doesn't help you much, but in my experience VLC is a very poor choice for WMV playing. I have unfortunately found that little beats Windows Media Player when it comes to playing WMV files. I don't use MPlayer, but again, I've seen VLC lock up my PC when trying to play some WMV files, so I just use Windows Media Player all the time for those files.
Your file's resolution is larger than standard definition and VLC always gives me problems on any sort of high def WMV file. MPlayer may have similar issues with WMV high def files.

[SeeMoreDigital]

That particular .WMV file actually contains "four" different audio/video streams. Each audio/video stream has been encoded at different resolutions and bitrates.

The first three streams have been encoded at a resolution of 320x240. The fourth stream has been encoded at a resolution of 768x432.


Cheers

[Reimar]

The first three streams have been encoded at a resolution of 320x240. The fourth stream has been encoded at a resolution of 768x432.


And e.g. mplayer -demuxer lavf file.wmv will select the highest resolution one by default (not sure if that is by accident) and you can switch between the video streams at runtime with the '_' key (will result in a few corrupted frames until the next keyframe). MPlayer has code to select the highest-quality stream by default but that seems to only work correctly when streaming via mms://, not for local files.

[Irakli]

Thanks for replies!

@ jshumate
Thanks for the information. I guess WMV still remains too proprietary, meaning that Microsoft can potentially design 'better' decoder because they know every aspect of (their) format.

@ SeeMoreDigital
That's interesting. What tool did you use to determine this?

@ Reimar
Thanks for suggestion! I tried lavf splitter and it worked very well for video (i.e. 768x432 stream is displayed). Unfortunately, I can't hear any audio when I select lafv.


I have another small question. Is it possible to re-mux this video to get rid of unwanted video streams?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Thanks for replies!@ SeeMoreDigital
That's interesting. What tool did you use to determine this?
Windows Media Stream Editor...

[Reimar]

Thanks for suggestion! I tried lavf splitter and it worked very well for video (i.e. 768x432 stream is displayed). Unfortunately, I can't hear any audio when I select lafv.


Weird, audio works for me, too, though I am using latest SVN MPlayer on a linux 64 bit system, so who knows what exactly makes the difference :-)

[Irakli]

Windows Media Stream Editor...
Thanks.

Weird, audio works for me, too, though I am using latest SVN MPlayer on a linux 64 bit system, so who knows what exactly makes the difference :-)
Yeah, I think I will try different versions of MPlayer. Currently I am using svn MPlayer r26450 with SMplayer frontend on WinXP.

[rvm]

Currently I am using svn MPlayer r26450 with SMplayer frontend on WinXP.

Beware, currently smplayer doesn't handle well changing the demuxer. You may lose the sound. It's not a problem in mplayer but a problem in smplayer that I'll try to fix in a future version.

Edit: I think this is now fixed in smplayer svn r1280

[Irakli]

Beware, currently smplayer doesn't handle well changing the demuxer. You may lose the sound. It's not a problem in mplayer but a problem in smplayer that I'll try to fix in a future version.

Thanks for this information! I will try to pass the command directly to MPlayer.