AviSynth "avisource couldn't locate a decompressor"

[johnnyfever]

I recently found a reddit post of a guy doing some incredible work restoring old 8mm family movies. Last year I converted about 80 of my dad's old movies to mp4 using a Wolverine movie digitizer. I was pleased with the results, but after seeing the conversions this guy on reddit was getting as well as others that I've since found I'm thinking I can probably do a lot better. While I've never used AviSynth directly I've been aware of what it does for years. One of the guys doing really nice conversions has a website here: http://www.super-8.be/s8_Eindex.htm where he says his AviSynth script is on doom9. Unfortunately their forums seem to be down. In the meantime I thought I'd play around with AviSynth just to make sure I could get it to work. Using the AviSynth getting started wiki I tried some simple things on an existing movie on my computer:

AviSource("I:\test.avi")
ReduceBy2

I can't even get past the first line though without an error:

AviSource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc xvid

I also tried it on one of my mp4's converted to .avi and got the same error, but for h264 codec.

It's been a LONG time since the days where I've had to install codecs individually or by package, but does this mean I need to install specific codecs? I installed what I thought was the divx codec from divx.com last night, but it didn't change anything. I still get the error.

How do I fix this?

[LMotlow]

AVi is a container, not a codec, and AVI can contain many codecs inclujding MJPEG and VXid.. if your AVI is encoded h264, use FFMS2 or LSMASH.

[jagabo]

AviSource requires VFW decoders. You want the Xvid Codec. Or x264vfw for h.264. Or use a different source filter.

[johnnyfever]

AVi is a container, not a codec, and AVI can contain many codecs inclujding MJPEG and VXid.. if your AVI is encoded h264, use FFMS2 or LSMASH.

Yeah I realize that. It's been years since I've even thought about installing video codecs. I had just assumed that there would be SOME codecs on my computer, but it looks like with modern media players you don't have to install individual codecs like you did years ago. I just installed xvid again from another source and the older avi worked with the script.

For the h264 codec I installed it from https://www.mediaplayercodecpack.com/ but when I use the script on my mp4 converted to avi all that happens is WMP opens, I get a message saying Opening media and the the player closes after a few seconds.

Any idea what could be causing that?

[johnnyfever]

AviSource requires VFW decoders. ... Or x264vfw for h.264. Or use a different source filter.

I tried installing that h264 codec from sourceforge, but the player still closes after a few seconds of not playing anything. The script works fine using a video with the older divx codec.

[johnnyfever]

I got the problem with the h264 codec figured out. When I tried running the script in VirtualDub it was reporting that I didn't have the audio codec installed. I didn't know there was an audio stream because the cameras used to record these 8mm movies weren't capable of recording audio! For some reason the Wolverine movie digitizer was creating an audio stream when it created the movies. I guess the makers decided it's easier to just create an audio stream in case one exists rather than figuring out if a given movie actually had audio....

So, after stripping audio stream out with ffmpeg the video will now open in VirtualDub or MPC. All other players seem to have various problems with the script (but not the actual video). I don't really care about that though.

[jagabo]

h.264 in AVI can be problematic. Just use another source filter like ffVideoSource() or LSmashVideoSource() and open your MP4 files directly.

[hello_hello]

I still use ffdshow. You might have to run it's VFW decoder configuration after it's installed to enable the codec you need, but the installer lets you deselect everything except for the VFW interface, which appears to mean you don't have to install the DirectShow stuff if you don't need it.

Although it'd be better to use LSmash or FFMS2 instead of Avisource, as jagabo suggested.