Recoding from AVI player

[GJF]

I have a incomplete AVI file that will only play in windows media player or nero showtime. Is there something out there that will let me record as I play the file making a copy that I can load into convertxtodvd to convert to dvd. At present the file will not open in convertxtodvd. I have tried all the avi repair programs I can find and they won't open it either.

[mats.hogberg]

Not even VirtualDub?

/Mats

[GJF]

No tried that and it won't open it.

[jagabo]

Are you sure it's an AVI file? Open with GSpot and check the container.

[GJF]

In GSpot under container it says mp41:MP4v1(iso14496.1:ch13) and under the codec solution test the video button one it says it is not yet capable of attempting to render this type of video when I pressed the ms a/v button the audio could be rendered but the video not.

Isn't there a way of recording from Widows media player or Nero show time as it plays perfectly all the way through those players.

[jagabo]

So you have an MP4 file not an AVI file. Try renaming it whatever.mp4 instead of whatever.avi and see if convertxtodvd will open it.

[GJF]

I was mistaken in thinking it was and AVI file. It does however say mp4 in the file name.

[jagabo]

WMP is good at figuring out what type of file you have. It doesn't assume the filename extension is correct. It looks at the contents of the file and figures out what the file really is.

Most editors look at the extention to determine what type of file you have. If the extension is wrong they can't open the file.

[GJF]

I had a look at the file name again and noticed it ended in .bc! which I have been told it means the file is incomplete, so I removed the bc! and tried loading it into convertxtodvd again and it loaded and converted the whole file. Many thanks for the idea of renaming the file.

On another note I have some files that are really AVI and when I play them on a divx player on my PC they play OK with a slightly wider aspect ratio than 4.3 but not distorted but when I put them through convertxtodvd and play them on my 4.3 TV with no aspect ratio adjustment they come out with the characters looking slightly short and wide. Convertxtodvd identifies them as 4.3 PAL but it doesn't matter what I set the output to PAL, NTSC 4.3 or 16.9 or auto. they still come out slightly shot and wide. It could be that the person that encoded them made a mistake but I was wondering if there is a programme out there where I can correct it.

[jagabo]

PAL DVDs use a 720x576 frame size (the Storage Aspect Ratio or SAR). That frame size is neither 4:3 nor 16:9. But included in the MPEG2 data is a flag that tells the DVD player whether the video should be displayed as 4:3 or 16:9, the Display Aspect Ratio (DAR).

Most AVI files use square pixels and have a Display Aspect Ratio equal to the Storage Aspect Ratio. But some codecs have internal flags indicating the proper DAR. Divx, Xvid, and DV for example.

I don't know ConvertXtoDVD but it may not be doing the correct thing. Many video editing and filtering tools have aspect ratio adjustments. AVISynth, VirtualDub, TMPGEnc Plus, etc. MPEG4Modifier can change the DAR of a Divx/Xvid AVI without reencoding. I dont know if ConvertXtoDVD will pay any attention to the DAR flag though. Many players don't either.

[GJF]

OK thanks again I'll post again if I have any success.