VC-1 inconsistent playback

[ZetaStax]

I have a couple of old videos that I am unwilling to part with but for some reason I'm running into playback issues that I can't understand. I'd like to avoid having to reencod unless absolutely necessary of course.

Both files are ASF/WMV container. The first one:

Video 
ID : 1 
Format : VC-1 
Format profile : Main 
Codec ID : WMV3 
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Video 9 
Codec ID/Hint : WMV3 
Description of the codec : wmv3 
Bit rate : 794 kb/s 
Width : 640 pixels 
Height : 360 pixels 
Display aspect ratio : 16:9 
Frame rate mode : Variable 
Color space : YUV 
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 
Bit depth : 8 bits 
Scan type : Progressive 
Compression mode : Lossy 

Audio 
ID : 2 
Format : WMA 
Format version : Version 2 
Codec ID : 161 
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Audio 
Description of the codec : Windows Media Audio V8 
Duration : 6 min 41 s 
Bit rate : 128 kb/s 
Channel(s) : 2 channels 
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz 
Bit depth : 16 bits 
Stream size : 6.13 MiB (13%)

The second one:

Video 
ID : 2 
Format : VC-1 
Format profile : Advanced@L3 
Codec ID : WVC1 
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft 
Description of the codec : Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile 
Duration : 28 min 6 s 
Bit rate mode : Constant 
Bit rate : 5 744 kb/s 
Width : 1 920 pixels 
Height : 1 080 pixels 
Display aspect ratio : 16:9 
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS 
Color space : YUV 
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 
Bit depth : 8 bits 
Scan type : Progressive 
Compression mode : Lossy 
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.092 
Stream size : 1.13 GiB (95%) 
VideoOrientation : 0 

Audio 
ID : 1 
Format : WMA 
Format profile : Pro 
Codec ID : 162 
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Audio 
Description of the codec : Windows Media Audio 10 Professional - 256 kbps, 44 kHz, 2 channel 16 bit (A/V) 1-pass CBR 
Duration : 28 min 6 s 
Bit rate mode : Constant 
Bit rate : 256 kb/s 
Channel(s) : 2 channels 
Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz 
Bit depth : 16 bits 
Stream size : 51.5 MiB (4%)

My favorite media player is MPC-HC. It it set not to use internal filters for WMV/ASF (splitter), VC-1, and WMV1/2/3 (transform). So it relies on Windows internal codecs, which should be able to decode those streams correctly. The second file plays correctly, but the first one does not. It gets stuck at 00:00.000 on a black frame. If I try to skip in the video I can get one frame but that's it, as if the video was paused.

Now, when I enable MPC-HC internal WMV/ASF splitter, the situation is reversed! It makes no matter what combination I try, I can't get both files to play correctly and it's driving me nuts. I've also tried changing a few settings in LAV Splitter/Decoder (VC-1 timestamps correction on/off, hardware decoding for VC-1 on/off) to no avail. At this point any idea is most welcome...

[flashandpan007]

Please try to remux the files to mkv files using MKVToolNix to a 1:1 copy of it but in MKV Container.

Plase also test MPC-BE with its internal filters, probably it can play the files.

[El Heggunte]

The ASF container sux, period. It's easy for the applications to create b0rked files.
Remuxing the video stream plus reencoding the audio stream is the solution.
The best container container in this case is .AVI, not Matroska.

For the notes: MKVtoolnix cannot open ASF Files. ffmpeg can. The DirectShow Matroska Muxer from MPC-BE's standalone filter package can too. The problem is, WMA in Matroska may cause video corruption during playback

WHEN the ASF file is not very-broken, I mean, when the video has constant frame rate and its timestamps are usable, you can use VirtualDub for a direct stream-copy to a new .AVI file. But if the ASF file is very-broken then you have to try other tools
(AsfBin, SolveigMM ASF Multiplexer, ffmpeg, MEncoder, whatever)
for fixing the ASF indexes before you can remux it through VirtualDub.

Convert the WMA stream to an uncompressed WAV file with Lord_Mulder's wma2wav.exe. Import it in VirtualDub as "audio from other file" and then choose between direct stream copy and reencoding to AC3 or to MP3.

[ZetaStax]

ASF sucks, I agree. But I have to make do with what I have...

I've tried using VirtualDub but in Direct copy mode the 46 MB WMV becomes a 6.6 GB AVI, but I do not believe there is any container other than ASF that can contain VC1 video so that should be expected. AsfBin works... but the beginning of the file appears broken (in VLC only, not a big deal to me but I'm afraid it means trouble). I wanted to check SolveigMM but I am unsure how to use that, there is no frontend oddly.

Edit: My bad, I can totally use ffmpeg to stream copy the video to an AVI container, only needing to reencode the audio which is acceptable in this case, thank you El Heggunte.

[El Heggunte]

I've tried using VirtualDub but in Direct copy mode the 46 MB WMV becomes a 6.6 GB AVI,

Evidently you tried wrong.

but I do not believe there is any container other than ASF that can contain VC1 video so that should be expected.

VC-1 can be stored in Blu-Ray transport stream, to begin with
ASF is just a glorified AVI because of the way it normally deals with video timestamps, which makes it "as unsuitable for B-frames as AVI itself"


In Matroska VC-1 is stored in the so-called «Video-For-Windows compatible mode»

Last but not least, VC-1 can be stored in MP4 fles as well.

Edit: My bad, I can totally use ffmpeg to stream copy the video to an AVI container, only needing to reencode the audio which is acceptable in this case, thank you El Heggunte.

You're welcome