Help with old codec (1997)

[davewave]

I came across some old clips I captured in 1997, I can't remember the codec I used to save them. I used video for windows 1.0 to edit them (probably under windows 3.11 or maybe win95).
When I attempt to play them with Irfanview, it says... video not available, cannot find 'vids:rt21' decompressor.
The video size is 320x240, frame rate is 15fps and data rate is 241.9kb/sec (if that helps).
I thought the codec was cinepak codec by radius ver 1.10.0.6, but I have that installed.
Media player doesn't attempt to download a codec, it just displays those stupid patterns.
The 'properties' of the file doesn't give away info either.

Can anybody help?

[BJ_M]

Indeo 2.1 is what that is -- it is a 16bit only program from yesteryear -- but

see what i found:

This is the procedure for converting Indeo 2.1 (fourcc IR21 or RT21) AVI's to a different, usable format on 32-bit Windows operating systems (Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP). On Windows 95, 98, and Me systems, you can do this same procedure, but it's much simpler to just manually install the Indeo 2.1 codec and use VirtualDub, since those OSes are 16-bit compatible.

(P.S: I bet you won't find this anywhere else on the internet!)

type this in Internet Explorer's URL bar
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/multimedia/jumpstart/vfw11e/ODK/
right click WINVIDEO and choose copy to folder (pick your desktop for simplicity)
(for the two steps above you can use an ftp program like WS_FTP instead, which is MUCH faster, but I'm using IE as an example for simplicity)
when you're done downloading go to the WINVIDEO folder and run SETUP. use the default settings
it may ask you to reboot after the installation. you don't need to.
In your start menu programs (all programs if you're not using classic start menu) you will see Video for Windows 1.1
run VidEdit
drag your video file onto the VidEdit window (or go to file, open, then choose your file - note that this is a Windows 3.1 program from the days of DOS, so you will be seeing 8.3 filenames instead of long filenames)
A lot of the menus are very intuitive. It's quite similar to VirtualDub.
If all you want to do is save the video in a different format,
- go to file, save as
- pick a name for your output video file (remember 8 characters max for the filename, a dot, then 3 characters max for extension, and no spaces or special characters like commas. You can rename it later) and a folder to save the file to.
- click on compression options. target should be custom. For Video Compression options pick anything EXCEPT 'no recompression'. I recommend a lossless codec like huffyuv or techsmith if you have it, or full frames (the end result may be a big file, but there won't be any loss of quality - you can recompress/re-edit later with a more modern AVI editor like VirtualDub)
- click on details. if you chose a specific codec this is where you adjust the settings. uncheck 'pad for cd-rom playback' (this was for 1x cd-rom drives back in 1992/93). uncheck 'limit data rate'. (depending on the codec you picked you may or may not have the quality slider - if you do move it all the way to the right to 100% - and you may or may not have the configure box - if you do click on it to adjust other settings to your own liking)
- when you click ok it will convert the file to an avi with a 32-bit-system-usable codec.
- if you used no compression or a lossless codec (in order to have no loss in quality), chances are the file will be pretty big. at that point use VirtualDub to do additional editing/re-encoding.

Notes:
- I had mixed result actually playing back the (original indeo 2.1) file in WinVideo. In some cases I could, but in some I couldn't. In those I could still move the seek bar, or click on the little arrows at the very far right to move through the video though. In all cases however the conversion went without problems and the end file was playable anyway.
- When I tested under Windows 2000 my avi associations were slightly messed up. It didn't happen under XP though. If it does happen, just go to Windows Media Player, tools, options, click on the file types tab, and associate avi with windows media player.
- I recommend keeping the same color depth as the input. To know what the original color depth was, go to Video and click Statistics. Look at the 'Video Format' line. Then click on Video and choose Video format to pick the appropriate color depth (8, 16, or 24 bits)
- Windows 3.1 didn't have uninstalls as we do today. To remove Video for Windows just delete the WINVIDEO folder in your C: drive, and delete the appropriate start menu entries (right click Video for Windows 1.1 in the start menu and choose delete). Windows 3.1 didn't have a registry either, so you don't have to worry about having garbage in your registry.

Personal thoughts:
WinVideo (which was part of the Microsoft Video for Windows suite sold back in 1993) was really a well-written program. It's nice Microsoft just gives it for free now. In some ways I would say modern video editors have similar interfaces. It's a pity Microsoft chose to discontinue such a useful (in my opinion) product in favors of clunky items like Windows Media Encoder or Movie Maker. Thank goodness for (free) VirtualDub!


16 Oct 2004 07:48 am
Posted by anonymous (Guest)

I should mention before I totally forget. This was one of those little things that drove me nuts in the course of my testing and took me hours to isolate. Before using VidEdit, if you have ANY flavor of divx 5, uninstall it first (be SURE to reboot to clear divx from memory cache as well). I don't know why, but some versions (especially the more recent ones) will crash videdit, while others will cause videdit to just exit (without any warning or error message)when you try to save or reach any menu that accesses the codec list. You can always reinstall divx 5 at a later time.

P.S. for experts out there: Could it be because of the use of a "protection" wrapper?
see http://www.virtualdub.org/oldnews (9/25/03 entry)

19 Oct 2004 01:09 pm
Posted by Schatzy (Guest)

Thnak You for your assistance but I am still having a problem.

I down loaded the WINVIDEO files from Microsoft and when I try to run SETUP it comes back with the following message.

"C:\WINDOWSSYSTEM32AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Chose close to terminate the applications."

The Machine I am using is Running Windows XP Pro and is part of a domain. I did log onto the machine as an administrator so that there would be no access problems.

Any suggestions would be greatly appriciated.

19 Oct 2004 09:05 pm
Posted by anonymous (Guest)

I did my testing on Windows XP Professional SP2 and Windows 2000 SP4 (without too many problems). Out of curiosity does your C: drive use NTFS? (that was my original guess for the cause of the problem).
I googled some more and found this knowledge base article from Microsoft which indicates a workaround for your specific problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324767

P.S: Again, uninstall any flavor of DivX 5 and reboot before you run VidEdit. I cannot overemphasize that.

[junkmalle]

Try Intel Indeo 2.1 codec.

[BJ_M]

i also found the codec here http://www.codec-archiv.de/ccIc/intel/ir21.zip

or if link dont work http://www.codec-download.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=61

[davewave]

Thanks for your help, you've saved some classic Harry Enfield clips from the great recycle bin in the sky.