HD AVI files not accessible on X3

[Peem]

On the spur of the moment I bought a cheap little Medion [Aldi] HD digital camera which offers five options for recording - 720P60, 1080P, OVGA, WVGA and HD. They all produce .AVI files which play OK on my laptop but when loaded into VSX3 I get the message ‘file not accessible’. The rudimentary ArcSoft program provided with the camera [and now on my laptop] handles the files OK. Checking out the file properties produces the attached window which is not a great help. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to go from here to make them usable on X3?
Thanks, Peter

[Ken Berry]

Unfortunately, there are a million -- well, over 800! -- formats which use the .avi wrapper extension. And even more unfortunately, the Windows window you copied adds very little information about what we are actually dealing with. I realise, though, that you probably can't open them in VS since its format is not recognised.

But have you tried simply changing the extension from avi to, say, .mov (in the first place) or just mpg if that does not work.

What you have is obviously an mpeg-4 highly compressed file, and in fact VS X2 andX3 can handle 1280 x 720p, but usually with either the .mov or .mpg -- though sometimes the mts or mp4 -- extensions. Try those and get back to us if nothing works.

If the 1080P format is in fact 1080/30 fps, then VS should be able to handle this straight out of the camera... But if it is 1080P/60, it can't.

[Peem]

Thanks Ken,
Before I tried your suggestions I right clicked on one of the offending files and selected the option ‘media info’ which then gave me the option of ‘go to website of codec’ which took me to videoLAN.org. It offered the option of a download for x264 which I did, eventually opening theBZ2 file after downloading ‘uniextract161.exe’. I then made copies of the 1080P file in all the formats you suggested. The MP4 and MOV files appeared in the little window that precedes loading, where you can alter the order before they hit the timeline, but then produced a message about ‘file format mismatch’. I was only able to get the MPG and MTS formats to load and these only show video when played in the clip mode but no video is visible in the project mode. Audio is OK in both clip and project mode. It always baffles me that, with VS, something can play OK in the clip mode, but not as part of the project. Also, I am never sure whether VS realises that new codecs have been downloaded.

I would appreciate any further input anyone might have.

Thanks, Peter.

[Peem]

I have just realised I can now include a snip of the properties according to VS

[Peem]

Hi,
I have had no success in sorting this problem. Video still shows only in clip mode, not in project. Have downloaded latest DirectX [30/11/10] from tinyurl. Gspot says I have codec installed. Have tried VS project properties as either MPEG or AVI after renaming file extensions to all suggested earlier.
Any other suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks, Peter.

[Peem]

Hi,
I have some more to submit in the hope that someone might explain its signifigance to me. On revisiting Gspot I realised there were some more steps available and have attached some screen shots after clicking on button 3 . What does it mean and what might be a solution?
Peter
PS Forum seems to allow only 1 attachment. Sentence in bottom window extends beyond and I tried unsuccessfully to include another shot of remainder.
If anyone predicts a benefit in continuing this tack I will persist but I don't knowwher I should be heading.