Unrecognized .avi file

[dvm8600]

All afternoon I've been trying to encode an .avi file on my Macbook without any progress. The problem is that every application (D-vision, Visualhub and ffmpegX) cannot encode the file.

-Moreover, the .avi file works fine when using VLC but there's no sound when using it in Quicktime Pro.
-Perian is installed
-ffmpegX states in its encoding report: Unsupported codec (id=86021) for input stream #0.1

Mediainfo report:

*** MediaInfo Mac // Plain text file report

General / Container Stream # 1
Total Video Streams for this File -> 1
Total Audio Streams for this File -> 1
Video Codecs Used -> XviD
Audio Codecs Used -> DTS
File Format -> AVI
Play Time -> 3h 9mn
Total File Size -> 8.73 GiB
Total Stream BitRate -> 6 594 Kbps
Copyright (Tag) -> SBC XviD @ 5100Kbps + DTSHD 1536kb/s
Encoded with -> VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release)
Encoding Library -> VirtualDub build 24469/release
Video Stream # 1
Codec (Human Name) -> MPEG-4 Visual
Codec (FourCC) -> XVID
Codec Profile -> Streaming Video@L1
Frame Width -> 1 280 pixels
Frame Height -> 544 pixels
Frame Rate -> 23.976 fps
Total Frames -> 272688
Display Aspect Ratio -> 2.35
Scan Type -> Progressive
Colorimetry -> 4:2:0
Codec Settings (Summary) -> BVOP / Packed Bitstream
Codec Settings (Packet BitStream) -> Yes
QF (like Gordian Knot) -> 0.304
Codec Settings (BVOP) -> Yes
Codec Settings (QPel) -> No
Codec Settings (GMC) -> No warppoints
Codec Settings (Matrix) -> Default
Video Stream Length -> 3h 9mn 33s 373ms
Video Stream BitRate -> 5 077 Kbps
Bit Depth -> 24 bits
Video Stream Size -> 6.72 GiB (77%)
Video Encoder -> XviD0046
Audio Stream # 1

Codec -> DTS
Codec (FourCC) -> 2001
Audio Stream BitRate -> 1 536 Kbps
Audio Stream BitRate Mode -> CBR
Number of Audio Channels -> 6
Audio Channel's Positions -> Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling Rate -> 48.0 KHz
Bit Depth -> 24 bits
Audio Stream Size -> 2.00 GiB (23%)

Feel free to ask for any additional info; I hope someone could help me.

[jpschuck]

Audio Codec is DTS which is not recognized by most apps.

1/ Convert the video track (if needed) with any app (use the "no sound" setting or equivalent for the audio track).
2/ Use VLC transcode wizard to convert the audio track to a PCM (uncompressed integer) .wav file.
3/ Use any audio app to convert this .wav file to .mp3
4/ Use D-Vision to multiplex audio and video

[dvm8600]

Thanks for the help. I managed part 1-3. However, for some reason I cannot drag the movie file onto D-vision. In other words, nothing happens when I drag it onto D-vision.

Also I'd like to know how I could maintain the best possible quality since it seems to deteriorate greatly when converting the video track with ffmpegx.

Many thanks!

[jpschuck]

(I'm assuming you want to produce a DIVX/MP3/.avi file ; if it's not the case, give us details about what type of file you want to produce).

a/ I suppose you are doing something wrong as AVI Multiplexing in D-Vision normally doesn't use drag and drop. You must go to the "Tools" panel and select the "Add audio" function ("audio tools" section). You will then be asked to browse for a video and and audio file.

b/ Considering your second question : actually, as your input file is already in divx video, you don't have to convert it. Just use the passtrough option under the "video" tab in ffmpegx (with no sound in the "audio" tab). This will copy the video track in a new .avi file, without conversion, and drop the audio track.
There is a similar function in D-Vision ("miscellaneous tools" > ".avi and .mpg transcode" > "copy/extract" > "extract video track")

[dvm8600]

Im gonna have another look. Merci beaucoup, jpschuck!

[dvm8600]

Audio Codec is DTS which is not recognized by most apps.

2/ Use VLC transcode wizard to convert the audio track to a PCM (uncompressed integer) .wav file.
3/ Use any audio app to convert this .wav file to .mp3

I have the uncompressed integer .wav file and did it with VLC exactly how you told me. However, when trying to convert it to mp3, the applications crash when starting to convert. I tried various apps such as Switch and Max but they all crash. Any clue why this happens?

[jpschuck]

What happens if you open this .wav file with VLC ? and with Quicktime ? If one of them is able to read the file, try to obtain additionnal informations about it (command-i) and givez us the result.

[dvm8600]

Opens in both quicktime and VLC

Quicktime:
16-bit Integer (Little Endian), 5.1 (L R C LFE Ls Rs), 48,000 kHz

and

General / Container Stream # 1
Total Audio Streams for this File -> 1
Audio Codecs Used -> Extensible
File Format -> Wave
Play Time -> 3h 9mn
Total File Size -> 6.10 GiB
Total Stream BitRate -> 4 608 Kbps
Audio Stream # 1
Codec -> FFFE
Codec (FourCC) -> FFFE
Audio Stream BitRate -> 4 608 Kbps
Number of Audio Channels -> 6
Sampling Rate -> 48.0 KHz
Bit Depth -> 16 bits

[jpschuck]

This is a 5.1 .wav. Max and Switch probably doesn't support conversion for such files.

If you have Quicktime Pro, use it to export the file to a Stereo .wav that you can use in switch/max. You can also use directly ffmpegX to convert the 5.1 .wav to a stereo .mp3 file (uncheck "encode video", check "encode audio", check "invert stream mapping").

[dvm8600]

edit - never mind.

[dvm8600]

Jpschuck, it seems that only a little more than 1 hour of the 3 hours video's audio is demuxed in VLC. Do you have a clue why that is?

[jpschuck]

First of all, and before reading my other suggestions, you may have a look on Perian which claims to enable some DTS support in Quicktime.

Now if Perian doesn't work, let's try to demux your file properly with other methods.
Your original .avi file may be broken for some reason (it's just a guess). Try to repair it using the repair/rebuild function with D-Vision/ffmpegX, but I'm not even sure that this will work for an .avi with DTS audio.

As an alternative you can try to demux the audio track from the original file to a .wav file with mplayer ; but this requires terminal usage.

Converting the audio track to PCM .wav with mplayer[/b] (note that this is a very useful command as it works with any file recognized by mplayerl)
0/ Install Mplayer OSX or (better) Mplayer Extended
1/ Locate Mplayer on your HD
2/ Right-click (or control-click) on the application and choose "show package content"
3/ Go to Contents > Resources > External Binaries
4/ Choose the right mplayer for your platform (mplayer is the universal version ; mplayer_intel is for Intel based Macs ; mplayer_ppc for G4 or G5 : mplayer_noaltivec for G3)
5/ Right-click (or control-click) once more on the element and choose "show package content"
6/ This time, go to Contents > MacOS ; you will see the mplayer binary that we will use for the conversion.
7/ Open a terminal window and drop on it the mplayer binary that you found step 6
8/ Drop the video file you want to convert
9/ Type "-ao pcm -vo null" folllowed by a space
10/ Your final command should look something like this

 /Users/jpschuck/Desktop/video.avi -ao pcm -vo null

(-vo null disables video output, -ao pcm enables uncompressed PCM .wav conversion)
11/ Hit return and wait for the conversion to end
12/ The converted audio track is in your home folder ; append .wav to the filename if needed