AVI files play fine but VirtualDub can't decode audio???

[Oz0851]

I've got two AVI files that are driving me nuts! Both play fine via Windows Media Player but when I try to convert them to DIVX format to play on my Phillips Divx/DVD player via VirtualDub, I get error messages to the effect that VirtualDub can't find the codecs to decode the audio. Stranger still is that Gspot reports the necessary codecs are indeed installed on my system. The quirky audio on one file is reported by Gspot as being "MPEG Layer 2 0x0050" and the other quirky audio is reported as "MPEG Layer 3 0x0055."

I've converted several hundred AVI files using VirtualDub and have never run into this problem before. Any clues as to what I need to install to get VirtualDub to stop choking on these two audio formats? FWIW, I have the latest K-Lite codec pack installed.

[CBC]

You say you are trying to convert .avi files to divx files? Isn't that the same format?
What's the exact message you are getting? I assume that you are not trying to JOIN them together
(append)?

[FulciLives]

Do this for each AVI file:

Load the AVI file into GOLDWAVE and save the audio as a 16-bit 48k 2 channel PCM WAV audio file.

Close GOLDWAVE.

Now use GOLDWAVE (re-open it) or whatever tool you normally use to create a new audio file to be used with the AVI file. I suggest 192kbps CBR MP3 or 192kbps AC-3 etc. I normally go with AC-3 audio and one popular AC-3 encoder (which is freeware) would be ffmpegGUI. For MP3 I use GOLDWAVE although there are other options.

Now open the AVI with AviMux GUI and you should be able to DEMUX the video file. Please note that you can demux the audio file this way but the GOLDWAVE method seems to work best when the audio file is MP2 or MP3.

Now you have a separate AVI file (with video only) and a separate audio file. You can now open the video only AVI file with VirtualDub (I like to use VirtualDubMod myself) and go ahead and re-encode to DivX or whatever. When you are done you can do the muxing of the video and audio with VirtualDub(Mod) or use AviMux GUI.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

You say you are trying to convert .avi files to divx files? Isn't that the same format?
What's the exact message you are getting? I assume that you are not trying to JOIN them together
(append)?

I took it that the AVI was MPEG-4 (meaning it could be XviD or DviX) but that it didn't play "as is" so he was going to re-encode it to a DivX AVI to make it more compatible.

However fixing the audio and remuxing with the original video may be enough to "fix it".

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[CBC]

You say you are trying to convert .avi files to divx files? Isn't that the same format?
What's the exact message you are getting? I assume that you are not trying to JOIN them together
(append)?

I took it that the AVI was MPEG-4 (meaning it could be XviD or DviX) but that it didn't play "as is" so he was going to re-encode it to a DivX AVI to make it more compatible.

However fixing the audio and remuxing with the original video may be enough to "fix it".

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

that was where I was going with it too, thought -wise. Good call.

[edDV]

You say you are trying to convert .avi files to divx files? Isn't that the same format?

avi does not = divx.

divx is one of nearly 100 avi codecs and is non descriptive.

http://www.jmcgowan.com/avi.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Video_Interleave

[CBC]

While technicaly true, most divx and or xivd files that I've come across both have an .avi container.
But anyways, hopefully the OP can get his problem sorted out now.

[Oz0851]

Do this for each AVI file:

Load the AVI file into GOLDWAVE and save the audio as a 16-bit 48k 2 channel PCM WAV audio file.

Close GOLDWAVE.

Now use GOLDWAVE (re-open it) or whatever tool you normally use to create a new audio file to be used with the AVI file. I suggest 192kbps CBR MP3 or 192kbps AC-3 etc. I normally go with AC-3 audio and one popular AC-3 encoder (which is freeware) would be ffmpegGUI. For MP3 I use GOLDWAVE although there are other f

Now open the AVI with AviMux GUI and you should be able to DEMUX the video file. Please note that you can demux the audio file this way but the GOLDWAVE method seems to work best when the audio file is MP2 or MP3.

Now you have a separate AVI file (with video only) and a separate audio file. You can now open the video only AVI file with VirtualDub (I like to use VirtualDubMod myself) and go ahead and re-encode to DivX or whatever. When you are done you can do the muxing of the video and audio with VirtualDub(Mod) or use AviMux GUI.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

I tried a variant of your methodology to no avail. Here's even more craziness when it comes to these two particular files... What I did is to attempt to load the audio from the files into Adobe's Audition 2.0. There is a specific "open audio from video" option in Audition which I have used several times in the past to clean up audio from noisy AVI files. When I tried to do that with these files, I get a "unsupported file format" message. I'm certain that I would get the same results with Goldwave or any other audio editing program. I'm pretty adept at demuxing and remuxing video but my problem remains my machine's seeming inability to demux the audio from either of these files even though it plays the audio just fine.

By the way, there's actually no need to create a "video only" file as you mentioned in your process. Once you have a WAV file you want to mux with an existing video, VirtualDub allows you to substitute that WAV for the existing "source" audio.

[Oz0851]

You say you are trying to convert .avi files to divx files? Isn't that the same format?
What's the exact message you are getting? I assume that you are not trying to JOIN them together
(append)?

I don't know if you are familiar with Divx certified DVD players, but the ones I own are quirky in this respect. If you mix Divx and Xvid files on the same disc, the player plays the videos just fine until it goes from an Xvid encoded file to a Divx encoded file or vice versa. When such transitions are encountered I get a heavily pixellated screen which can only be corrected by momentarily displaying the system menu and then returning to the video. To avoid this annoyance, I opt to create discs which contain videos that are all encoded in either Divx or Xvid format. The two videos that are giving me problems are part of a series, the rest of which were encoded with Xvid and standard 48k/128kbs mp3 audio so I want to convert these two videos to the same video/audio format.

[GMaq]

Hi,
You need to go to free-codecs.com and download the Tsunami Filter pack and then install the Q-Design MPEG-2 Codec ONLY. I had the same 0x0050 problem with AVI's with .mp2 Audio in VDub and this totally fixed the problem. The Tsunami Installer will ask you what Codecs you want to install so make sure you don't install any other Codecs or you could run into trouble.

[FulciLives]

I tried a variant of your methodology to no avail. Here's even more craziness when it comes to these two particular files... What I did is to attempt to load the audio from the files into Adobe's Audition 2.0. There is a specific "open audio from video" option in Audition which I have used several times in the past to clean up audio from noisy AVI files. When I tried to do that with these files, I get a "unsupported file format" message. I'm certain that I would get the same results with Goldwave or any other audio editing program. I'm pretty adept at demuxing and remuxing video but my problem remains my machine's seeming inability to demux the audio from either of these files even though it plays the audio just fine.

By the way, there's actually no need to create a "video only" file as you mentioned in your process. Once you have a WAV file you want to mux with an existing video, VirtualDub allows you to substitute that WAV for the existing "source" audio.

Try it again with GOLDWAVE.

I find that GOLDWAVE has no issues when other audio programs (I've tried both Audacity and SoundForge) do have issues.

GOLDWAVE is a bit "golden" in this way

So to be completely clear ... I have encountered such problem AVI files before. These files would not work with Audacity nor SoundForge but worked A-OK with GOLDWAVE.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[temosis]

try to separate the audio and video and identify which is causing the problem, only thing i can tell is its due to the encoding software that has been used.

[Oz0851]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their advice. I did download the Tsunami codec pack as well as Goldwave, but before I tried either of them, just for the heck of it, I loaded the files into Dr. Divx and tried using it to do the conversion. For reasons I still do not understand, Dr. Divx did not choke on the audio at all and converted both files without a hitch.