What codec do I need to play Google Video avis?

[DRP]

I thought I had every codec under the sun to be able to play every type of video to be found anywhere on the internet then I download a few vids from Google Video in avi format and MPC won't decode the video for some strange reason.

AviCodec tells me the codec required is OpenDivx v4 and the fourCC is 'divx'. Obviously I have XviD installed and it's set to be the decoder for fourCCs DIVX, DX50 & mp4v as well as XviD of course. So what's going on? Why won't XviD decode this?

[Baldrick]

does it work fine in vlc? and try identify with gspot or mediainfo also, same info?

[celtic_druid]

Google I believe encode using libavcodec MPEG-4. They just use divx as the fourCC for compatibility. Both Xvid and VLC should handle it fine.

[DRP]

Thanks for the help guys. ffdshow will decode it fine and it plays perfectly well in MPC using that filter but for other reasons I would prefer to not have to rely on ffdshow. I prefer to only use ffdshow for the bare minimum and in my case that means FLV1 only otherwise I find ffdshow to be one of those programs that tends to take over everything. I don't understand why XviD isn't picking up this Google Video (and all other Google Video) avis.

I tried VLC last week as part of my efforts to get FLV playback support working but I don't like it and would much prefer to stay with MPC instead. Just for references sake, the specific video I'm having issues with is this one

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4970924175821685579&q=squirrel+launch

- the avi version obviously, but the same issue is had with all Google Video avis I've downloaded.

My XviD version is the CVS that comes packaged up with the latest v2.37b of AutoGK and my MPC version is the celtic_druid CVS mplayerc.rev611-2.2kxp

I would post up a GSpot analysis but I can't get GSpot to export anything. I keep using the export option but it just won't create a file anywhere I can find.

[DRP]

My copy of GSpot absolutely refuses point blank to export anything, so the best I can do is a screenshot:

[celtic_druid]

For Xvid you would need to change the fourCC from "divx" to "DIVX".

[DRP]

Believe it or not I had actually already thought of that. I have been changing the fourCC willy nilly all over the place using the AVI FourCC Changer program in the tools section of this site but it makes no difference. One thing I have noticed is when opened in GSpot it says "Compatibility Note: Has Google Data Chunk" highlighted in yellow in the container window.

I'm wondering if Google somehow try to gently corrupt their videos with junk data in the header somehow to confuse players or filters that aren't designed to ignore it?

I should point out that I have no issues whatsoever with any other kind of video file I've come across. And I play everything with MPC, so this isn't some newbie problem with too many codec packs installed resulting in DLL-hell. I have no codec "packs" installed at all apart from ffdshow for FLV1 support if you count that as a codec pack. Even then, everything in ffdshow is disabled apart from FLV1 support.

[celtic_druid]

In order to properly change the fourCC I found that you had to remux, which takes care of the googlde data chunk.

[DRP]

Ahh, okay. Now I need help with demux/remuxing AVI files. I know how to do it with MPEGs and I even know how to get the audio stream out of an AVI with VDub and I think I even know how to put it back together again, but how do I extract just the video stream from an AVI?

[DRP]

I figured it out using this guide: http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/FLV_to_AVI_Conversion_Guide_page4.html

And it works. You sir, are a dead-set legend! Shame it's such a performance. Demuxing, changing fourCC, remuxing again. Maybe I'll just do my best to avoid GoogleVideo as much as humanly possible in future.

Thanks again.

[celtic_druid]

No need to demux, remux, etc. You can do it all in one go. Open with VDubMod, setting the fourCC to DIVX and then resave. Basically one step.

[DRP]

Uh, sorry if I sound a bit thick, but where is the option to manually assign the fourCC code you want in VDub with a Direct Stream Copy (no re-encoding)?

Cheers

[celtic_druid]

In the extended open options.

[DRP]

Cool. Gotcha. Thanks for that.