Failing to open a WMV file?!

[trodas]

I have like 2000 wmv files on my HDD and I can open and play them all. Using the Windows codecs and FFDshow too (FFDshow ffdshow_rev4043 20111118 - IIRC latest for Win2k SP4).

However recently I encountered two WMV files, that are of high resolution and cannot be opened.

They just won't start playing. If this is because they are so CPU hungry, then I tried to open them in VirtualDub. I like the fccHandler WMV plugin a LOT ( http://gral.y0.pl/~fcchandler/ ). With the latest v2.8 it seems to be absolutely flawless and open all the WMV files I ever encounter... untill now.

Some suxxka produced a 1920x1080 WMV files that this plugin cannot handle at all. The fact that I cannot even play them (and that the sample is very likely a p0rn or some weird kinky sort) is IMHO not a reason for not being able to actually open the file, right?
Plugins should not have a "taste" and open only more interesting stuff.

However there are the sample video (273MB, did not find anything smaller, another example is 300MB...) that cannot be opened, much less played by VirtualDub with the WMV v2.8 fccHandler plugin. Anyone can tell me why and is this fixable? Ulozto.cz show preview of this file w/o a glitch... so the file itself should be video and should be playable / possible to open in VirtuaDub. But upon opening it show just a green video screen with nothing on it. Not cool. BSplayer looks that it is playing, but show only empty screen. Same MediaPlayer Classic. Help?

http://dfiles.eu/files/sasby8i3p
http://ulozto.cz/xhLci92b/not-possible-to-open-vid-wmv
http://fastshare.cz/2240081/not-possible-to-open-vid.wmv
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ge5ce4

Thanks.

[Ai Haibara]

Have you tried opening the videos in Windows Media Player? VLC?

Are you sure the WMVs aren't DRM-protected? You might take them to a different system, and see if they play.

[yoda313]

BSplayer looks that it is playing, but show only empty screen. Same MediaPlayer Classic. Help?

That might be drm as ai haibara has suggested.

mpchc or vlc should play virtually any file.

The other possibility might be that the file is corrupted somehow. If possible get another copy of the file and try again.

And in the future to open just about any video file in virtualdub use the directshowsource option in the open file dialog box. Then it creates a 1kb avs script file and automatically loads the flie into virtualdub. That is assuming its not corrupted and its not drm'd.

[trodas]

Never using Windows Media Player, yet VLC - but I manged it to play using the very same FFDshow settings AND drivers on WinXP. Main machine is Win2k SP4...

So not need to futher test these ideas (corrupted, DRM protected), because the file works. But not on W2k SP4 system. So Windows 2000 have some video size limitation that prevent them opening a 1920x1080 sized vid? And why VirtualDub also failed?

Ah, disabling the support in FFDshow for the VC-1 (WVC1, WMVA) make the video playing. But still that did not help VirtualDub to open it and show it... damn.

Also on Win Vista (Win Media Player 11) it works just fine and playing (tough the clip itself it not probably worth it), yet there we have the problem with VirtualDub now...

[yoda313]

@trodas - regarding virtualdub - have you tried the directshowsource technique I mentioned?

And just out of curiosity why are you still using windows 2000?

And have you tried mpchc on windows 2000? You did not mention trying that program on that computer.

[trodas]

About VirtualDub - yes, directshow works. Also probably will work the ffmpeg plugin... I was just too used to the wmv plugin from fccHandler works fine, that I never imagined it could fail me so badly...

W2k because in WinXP I can't stand being unable to set even the default view for the open/save dialog. I wanted by default it open LIST of files, and it always open THUMBNAILS:



...and no-one can even tell me how could I change that (including hacking the DLL, I can do it, but this is a *MUST*) ...

About mediaplayer - I use version that last support the *.bik decoder library, later versions does not support it, so I stick with this old one. It is irellevant now, as the "not playing" problem are traced to FFDshow settings and failure to play the vid.