Help with corrupt video files

[GerberMultiT00l]

Hello all,

I have a problem. A number of my .AVI files appear to be corrupted. I play them using windows media player version 6.4 on a windows XP pro machine. I also have a number of codecs installed.

What happens is that sections of these files appear to be getting corrupt somehow. When I go to play them media player hits a bad spot and then skips back to the beginning of the clip. This is annoying as heck. I have to use the time advance tab to move past the bad sections. Sometimes I miss out on large sections of the file.

One person told me to delete all video codecs and only install FFDshow. This should correct the skipping problem.

Question #1) I open the list of codecs (video codec properties / properties), select a codec I want to get rid of, then hit the REMOVE button. They appear to be gone until I open the properties window again. They all come back!!! How do I remove them???

Question #2) In your opinion will FFDshow do the trick as the other gentleman suggested?

Question #3) Does anyone have a clue why my files are being corrupted like this?

Thanks,

Gerb

[dani82]

never heard of a corrupted video re-starting to the beginning (but that's just me), they usually just play through or stop

i'd heard too many codec can affect the performance of a pc, or was it too codec programs (not sure)


1. add/remove programs, that's all i can say (literally)

2. anything possible; better to have 1 program for codecs, that a bunch of separate ones

3. i'd once defrag my HD, big mistake, corrupted alot of videos


have you done anything recently, that may have cause this to happen?

[Nick]

Not really got a satisfactory answer to your questions but I do have something that may help with corrupted AVI's.

If you open the AVI in VDubMod, set the processing option in the Video menu to Direct Stream Copy, then resave yor AVI from the file menu, it often helps with AVI's that won't play through.

Although it cannot retrieve lost data, doing this does reconstruct the avi format. So it is only the odd frame here and there that is faulty, it should at least play through, albeit with periodic picture distortion.

HTH
Nick

[GerberMultiT00l]

Thank you Nick. I've been searching for information about how to fix .AVI files for a long time with no luck. A google search typically brings up 100's of options to buy some crappy software that does nothing but split or join video.

I'm looking for a tool that can analyse an .AVI file and make the necessary repairs. I haven't had much luck with DIVFIX lately. It always craps out with a 131 error or something like that. If a program has to cut out a few corrupt frames from my files to make them playable then so be it. A majority of the clip will still be intact.

Gerb

[GerberMultiT00l]

Dani82,

You want to hear something even wierder. Windows media player always skips back to the beginning of the flick when it hits a bad spot. When I use any other player VLC, DIVX, Nero they will either play through bad sections (with some distortion and sound out of sync) or they CRASH!!! DIVX Player 2.6 seems to play through bad spots more gracefully but also crashes the most.


I installed the K-lite CODEC pack. It puts all kinds of codecs on the machine and I'm not sure what is compatible with what.... Right now FFDSHOW is doing the decoding.

I thought this may have been a problem with why the files were coming in corrupt but I don't think I have ever defragmented this hard drive. It's just a 200gig drive I use archive data. It only holds .AVI files larger than about 500meg. One single partition.

I heard something in the past about partitions above 137gig in windows XP (no service packs) but I don't seem to have problems.

Gerb