Cannot split H.264 720P AVI using virtualdub

[frankyloves2sing]

I have just acquired a traveler DV-5000 camcorder which records to SDHC cards. It encodes the video @ 30fps 1280 x 720 H.264 and the audio in ADPCM mono 22k (yuk). The video is pretty good for a camera that cost only £70. My problem is that the AVI files it produces are not editable in virtualdub. I can copy a section of the avi file to a new avi file provided that my selection starts at the beginning of the file, but if I select a portion of the file that starts after the beginning of the file, the new file will not play. I do not understand why. I can edit other types of avi without a problem including 720P divx. It must be something to do with the file itself. I have posted a short clip at the following url:

http://www.sing-by-ear.co.uk/720Ptestfile.avi (4.7MB)

I would be grateful if some you you clever guys on here would download it and see if you can do better than I. I am using ffdshow vfw to decode H.264 in virtualdub. Can I suggest that you select direct stream copy for both audio and video, select the second half of the clip and try to save as a new avi to reproduce my problem.

Thanks in anticipation - Frank

[Baldrick]

Try instead avidemux.

[frankyloves2sing]

Thanks - but I already tried avidemux. The resultant file cannot be played just as with virtualdub. I am hoping that someone will analyse the file I posted. I feel sure the answer lies in there. Maybe with this particulat implementation of H264.

Thanks again.

[poisondeathray]

The problem is h.264 in .avi container is not completely compatible, and horrible for editing. It looks like you cut that clip with virtualdub as well which probably adds more errors.

If you extract the raw streams using yamb, "recontainerize" to mp4 (I used MeGUI's mp4 muxer), then use avidemux to edit, everything should work out. Here is a sample clip of the last 1/2 in .mp4 (I also converted audio to mp3 separately before using the mp4 muxer)

Does your camera output h.264 in the .avi container?

Cheers



avidem.mp4

[Soopafresh]

Cool looking results from that camera. Reminds me of that blue tint that you see in 8mm home movies from the 60s. Just add grain and some scratches.

[frankyloves2sing]

Thanks Poison for your efforts. Yes the camera does output H.264 in an AVI container and yes I did cut the clip with virtualdub. Do you have any other suggestions? I have succesfully used x264 in AVI using Virtualdub to encode. The files produced edit OK so what is different about this one?

Gratefully - Frank.

[poisondeathray]

I'm not sure why this one is so different. mediainfo and avinaptic don't report anything too out of the ordinary.

I can tell you from experience that h.264/x.264 in AVI is not 100% compatible. It is very flaky, but works sometimes. Usually you can direct stream copy using avidemux into an .mp4 container, or .mkv container; but for whatever reason this sample could not, hence the extra steps required

The only other thing I can think of is vdub introduced some errors when cutting - perhaps you didn't cut on keyframes to generate the sample? If not, try again using them on the original video.

[jagabo]

There must be something critical in the very first frame, frame 0. As long as you keep it (you can cut out any other frames) VirtualDub seems to work. For example, I cut out frames 1-49, 100-149, 200-249, and kept the rest (there's a keyframe every 10 frames). Played fine.