avi playing and conversion issue

[NMeins]

Hi there,

I was consolidating my cloud photo and video storage recently and came across some older *.avi files that I have coded with some unknown application and codec about 10 years ago. Some file information from Mediacoder is listed below.

These files don't play properly under Linux Mint (tried vlc and some other players) and most windows players I tried. The file always opens without any error message and starts playing, but video is unrecognizable and audio is also distorted.

I noticed that Windows Media Player still plays these files without problems, all other software though does not. A couple of converters I tried like VLC, Winff and Mediacoder all failed to properly convert the files but gave no error message.

Can anyone point me to a possible solution?

General
Complete name                       : E:\Videos\Video Juni 2011.avi
Format                                   : AVI
Format/Info                             : Audio Video Interleave
Commercial name                     : DVCPRO
Format profile                           : OpenDML
File size                                : 5.01 GiB
Duration                                 : 24 min 49 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 28.9 Mb/s
Recorded date                            : 2011-06-06 08:45:27.000

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : DV
Commercial name                          : DVCPRO
Duration                                 : 24 min 49 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 24.4 Mb/s
Encoded bit rate                         : 28.8 Mb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Standard                                 : PAL
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Bottom Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 2.355
Time code of first frame                 : 00:24:53;20
Time code source                         : Subcode time code
Stream size                              : 4.99 GiB (100%)

Audio #1
ID                                       : 0-0
Format                                   : PCM
Muxing mode                              : DV
Muxing mode, more info                   : Muxed in Video #1
Duration                                 : 24 min 49 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 768 kb/s
Encoded bit rate                         : 0 b/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 32.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 12 bits
Stream size                              : 136 MiB (3%)
Encoded stream size                      : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Audio #2
ID                                       : 0-1
Format                                   : PCM
Muxing mode                              : DV
Muxing mode, more info                   : Muxed in Video #1
Duration                                 : 24 min 49 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 768 kb/s
Encoded bit rate                         : 0 b/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 32.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 12 bits
Stream size                              : 136 MiB (3%)
Encoded stream size                      : 0.00 Byte (0%)

[johnmeyer]

It is just standard DV video, the most common video format twenty years ago. I don't have Windows 10, but perhaps they no longer include that codec. You need to find a good DV codec (MainConcept, the German company, used to have a really good one) and install it.

[LigH.de]

Recommendable free software: Cedocida DV Codec for editing (VirtualDub2 should possibly support it internally), and LAV Filters should allow playback

[Alwyn]

Convert DVCPRO DV files (DV25 format??) to standard DV-AVI files with DVDate

It will change the Codec ID and the CodecID/Hint (MediaInfo terms) from DV25 to Sony, and you'll then be able to play them universally and also open them in your NLE.

1. Install DVDate
2. Open the file
3. Video>Change the codec
4. Choose the top option: Microsoft DVSD, OK
5. Answer Qui
6. Wait for the conversion (should not take long); file name will appear in white in left window.

Only caveat: there is no change to the filename but file timestamp will change and Mediainfo will show the codec change to DVSD/Sony; I therefore suggest you do this conversion on copies of your originals until you are happy it's working OK.

[NMeins]

Hi,
thanks for the tip to look for older codecs. I tried VirtualDub64 today which seams to be able to open and recode the files. The software is from 2013.

[ProWo]

FFmpeg can handle dvvideo. You can try it with my clever FFmpeg-GUI.

[LigH.de]

VirtualDub2 is recent and uses a more or less recent ffmpeg import module. Does it work too?