Newbie MVI File Problem

[pbmc59]

Hi,
A friend burned some files on a CD-R for us, some short videos from a vacation.
The files are MVI files, with the WMP logo on them, and when I click on them to play, I get the following error/message from WMP:

Windows Media Player encountered an unknown error. This can occur when another program or operating system component encounters a problem but does not communicate the nature of the problem to the Player.

C00D11CD: Unknown error
Windows Media Player encountered an unknown error. This can occur when another program or operating system component encounters a problem but does not communicate the nature of the problem to Windows Media Player.

Error ID = 0xC00D11CD, Condition ID = 0x00000000

Also, a couple times trying to view the files in Explorer, my system hung pretty good. Then the drive letter looked real strange, something I never saw before, a different name for it. Had to reboot to get back the original drive letter.
Any ideas? Thanks for your time,
patmac

[redwudz]

If Windows Explorer comes upon a format it can't read, or what it thinks is a corrupted file, it can lock up like that.

I'm not familiar with the format. You might drop one into Gspot 2.70 and see what it says. WMP is not a very versatile player. You could try VLC as it will play about anything.

I would make a copy of one and rename the extension .AVI and see what happens. If it's from a still camera, it could also be a MJPEG or a MOV format. Gspot may tell you.

[pbmc59]

redwuz,
No wonder I'm a newbie. I pulled one of the files into AVIcodec I had from a long time ago, and it's a MJPG file(motion JPG), with a .avi extension. The movie did come from a still camera, as you said. I saw the "MVI" which turns out to be part of the name of the file..duh.
Since it already has a .avi extension, what should I do now?
Maybe I'll download VLC and try that, and still wait for any other ideas from you.
Thanks, and sorry for the a "duh".......

[redwudz]

Try VLC first. The problem with Explorer is not good, though. If it locks up, you may have some messed up files. Usually if it can't read a file, it just calls it unknown. I'm assuming when you mention the 'WMP logo' you mean the file association. You can change that as WMP seems to have a problem with them.

And what do you want to do with these files, besides play them?

SUPER can convert them fairly easily to a different format, as can several other programs.

[pbmc59]

VLC worked. I only wanted to view these files, so it's good. If I ever get time I may try to do something with them in order to send them to family members. Regarding the Explorer thing, I know it's a bit of a side bar here in this forum, I've posted elsewhere about it, and so far only have received suggestions about defragging and running ATF's Cleaner. Thanks for your help.