Can't play divx movies

[a2ross]

Have a movie with .divx.avi file extension but can't play.

Have played around with all normal video extensions on the file but always same result.

In any players that I have, I get a still frame with sound in the background. After some time, there may be one second or so of video movement then stops again.

Have downloaded the latest version of Div x and followed all trouble shooting tips.

Have the latest version of windows media player, still no go.

Any suggestions please.

Arthur.

 

[cdogg]

What version of DIVX codec did you recently install? Can you try it on another system? Can you play other DIVX files? Depending on how you answer these questions, you may want to look into other applications besides Windows Media Player.

You may find what you're looking for out here:

http://www.vcdhelp.com

 

[evildoughboi]

if you have downloaded this movie, either the person you got it from got a bad movie, or probably sum bytes got lost here and there. most likely its a bad movie; however, u can use other progs to make it viewable. i have had some of those movies before, buh only some of them can be fixed. good luck!

 

[a2ross]

Got it going for the moment.

Adjusted the "hardware acceleration" settings (or whatever they are) through display settings and now can play the movie. Bit pixellish but definitely viewable.

Too many real things to worry about to play with this one at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Arthur.

 

[dakota81]

What processor do you have in your computer? Different ways that divx files are compressed can cause slowdown on slower computers. I've seen 200meg divx files play normally on a Pentium II 200MHz laptop, yet another 150meg divx file has massive slowdowns on the laptop and going up to a K6-3 450MHz still can't play the video well.

 

[a2ross]

I have a 900 MHz AMD processor with 500 MB of RAM and a 32MB Video card.

You'd think it should handle a simple video OK wouldn't you?

 

[cdogg]

It shouldn't have any problems. If lowering hardware acceleration seems to help, then the DIVX codec isn't the problem. What OS do you have (Win98, WinME, etc)? Is the problem only with AVI files? What about MPEG's? What resolution settings are you using (16-bit color, 1024x768)?

 

[Guest_imported]

Don't use the default Media player to play DIVX movies, instead do a start-run-MPLAYER2

It looks the same, but it's an older version that should work better than the one in the quick launch bar.

 

[a2ross]

Tried the MPLAYER2. No difference.

In answer to the previous question. I'm running Win98 as an operating system. Display settings are 16 bit colour and 800 x 600 resolution.

Haven't had problems with previous video formats. Not quite sure what this one originally came as 'cause I've renamed the extension on more than one occasion. I think it originally ended .divx.avi I know the .divx. part was definitely there.

I also had problems playing a vcd from a disc that I had been given. One of the discs seems dodgy as I can't get any response from it now. Since reducing the hardware acceleration settings I can now play the whole of that vcd movie although the picture quality seems reduced.

Don't stress over it as it's not a major requirement. Just thought there might be a simple solution. Happy for any other suggestions.

Thanks for the help so far.

Arthur.

 

[dakota81]

If you have a program that can, try opening the file in a text editor and reply with what codec was used to encode the movie. Beware, most text editors cannot handle large files (i.e. Notepad, Wordpad, DOS Edit to name a few).

I have heard there are problems with early versions of the divx codec, maybe that is the problem. A utility like

http://www.virtualdub.com

will allow you to re-encode the file with a different codec.

 

[dakota81]

Oh, forgot to say what to look for in the file - in the first line, there is a string that says:

vidsxxxx

whatever is in place of the xxxx defines what codec was used.

Examples:

vidsdiv3 - divx v3 codec
vidsdiv4 - divx v4 codec
vidsmp43 - an early divx codec

 

[ANFPS26]

You might want to read this FAQ about that 512 MB of RAM you are running on Win98;

faq615-1638 "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....."

 

[FatesWebb]

smrpatch.zip found out there on the net might help. it is a common codec used for avi divx files.

 

[dakota81]

Oh yeah, also for anyone else out there, Real Player has a much better codec library that it downloads from, for unknown video files that program is very good at getting the proper codec, then once it's automatically downloaded and set up, you can then open the video file in any media player of your choice.

 

[a2ross]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Sorry for the late reply.

I had to reinstall everything recently when my hard disk started playing up. Now that everything is back the way it used to be, all works fine. (Isn't that always the way?)

I did find that all things being equal, pulling the RAM back from 512 to 256 seemed to help things a little.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll keep them filed in case the problem comes back.

 

[jexster]

Well i read that fact about the ram it says over 700 and something so a2ross slap that ram back in it is pointless to remove it.I can even safly say it wont hurt it as that was what i was running quite some time before i got a new system.

 

[a2ross]

Thanks jexter.

Hopefully I will be running XP by the end of the week so I won't have the problem.