Windows Media Player: MPG playback bar moves faster than video plays

[Grunberg]

When I play an MPEG2 video in Windows Media Player, the playback bar (the bar on the bottom of the Player that moves as the video plays) moves faster than the video plays. This means that the video is still playing when the bar stops, and I can't jump to different parts of the video using the playback bar because it just doesn't stay in sync.

This isn't a new problem; this has always been like this. Does anyone know why, and whether it can be fixed? I prefer these videos be in MPEG format.

Thanks in advance!

[guns1inger]

Any mpg file, or just some ?

Sounds like the index is wrong in some of your mpeg files. Try mpeg-streamclip to fix discontinuity errors. If you have VideoRedo, try the Quick Stream Fix option.

[Grunberg]

So far, just MPEG2 video files.

[guns1inger]

Windows Media PLayer is not the best player for mpeg-2 files. It does not have it's own mpeg-2 decoder, and frankly, I don't trust it even with an external decoder.

Try Media Player Classic, which is a single executable (so no install) and comes with it's own mpeg-2 decoder built-in.

If it plays the files ok, then most likely the problem is not with the files, but with either the mpeg-2 decoder that WMP is using, or WMP itself.

[Grunberg]

The video plays the same in Media Player Classic.

In specific, the scenario is this:
1) I grab a sample FLV, covert it using Super.
2) I tried converting it to MPG2, but the playback bar finishes before the video does.
3) Alternately, I convert it to WMV, and the playback bar stays in sync with the video.
4) After trying to use MPEG Video Wizard (for example) to encode it to MPEG, step 2 happens again.