What the file info means and how to use it

[KMJvet]

I have an avi file that plays fine on VLS, crashes Quicktime upon opening and plays, but poorly, in my Philips 642. I wanted to try to recode it somehow so the Philips 642 will like and play the file better.

Below is what the info box said. I need guidance on a tutorial or something where I can learn what all these numbers mean to decipher this in hopes I could then figure out what about it the 642 doesn't like and try to recode it some way. I just randomly chose avi divx and that resulted in a file Quicktime would play, although it played the 60 minute show in about 20 seconds???

VIDEO: [05XD] 720-576, 24bpp 25.000 fps 3630.8 kbps (443.2 kbyte/s) audiocodec: framecopy (format=55 chans=2 rate 48000 bits=0 bps-16000 sample-1)

Sorry if this is too basic a question....I just had no idea what even to search on to get an idea where to start.

thanks

[miksu]

I had ad few "funny" AVIs having same behavior. I know they were more than an hour in length, and QT played only something from beginning, few minutes at best. Your files seem to have correct ("TV-specsed") video format. Audio is slightly weird, bits=0, should be 16, I guess, or maybe it's internal presentation? And it shouldn't affect video playback.

Problem lies propably in way your AVI is encoded. VLC plays those usually ok, since it doesn't seem to be too picky on correct headers etc. Unfortunately, QT wants correct file headers etc, as your Philips is likely to do. They don't want to do it "zombie". There are applications for PC for fixing AVI-files, that could help. AVI-DIVX is rather "loose" (container) format, and encoders vary in quality and useability. Or even more, result may not be useable at all

So, I suggest, try to fix it with purpose-built pc-application. Those don't exist on Mac, since AVI-containet is not a Mac-thing. Try to gain access for your friends PC, or Virtual PC is speedy enough for these things too. Whichever is easier to access and convenient. AVI-fixers you can find from Tools-section of this forum. It's usually problem with headers, interleaving, something like that.

You can propably fix its faults with proper software and there isn't even need to re-encode (bad thing, for quality). Just fix and reburn/copy back. Takes also less time, and there's no guarantee re-encoding would help at all! Or you could see weird glitches and problems.

[KMJvet]

Thanks. I do have Virtual PC so I can try that out. I will post again as to my success. I very much appreciate your suggestions of what to try.

[KMJvet]

I tried this with DivFix. It told me no errors. So, it's good to know how to do this, it doesn't appear to be the issue with this file? I watched in my computer since VLC was okay with it. I suppose with each and every file, it's something different that can be wrong. I'm glad I have one more thing to try.