AVI file not accessible ?

[EllieW]

I'm trying to load an avi video ... which was created from an online webinar I did (the online room uses a program called - Conference Recording Service) - which creates an avi file.

I try to bring it into VSPro 4 but it tells me - "xxx file is inaccessible" followed by the message "This file cannot be added to the project due to unknown file format or not enough memory or copyright".

I can play this file in Windows Media Player ...

I thought VS works with avi files??

I'm a bit baffled ??

[Ken Berry]

The problem is that there are over 800 different video formats which use .avi as their extension. In other words, it is merely a wrapper extension (apart from 'pure' uncompressed .avi). The latter creates huge files -- 65 GB per hour of video. But .avi's can also be at the other end of the spectrum and be highly compressed -- such as DivX or XVid, which are mpeg-4 but still call themselves .avi.

So the difficulty will be in finding out exactly which flavour of video yours has... Normally, we would get you to right click on a file inside Video Studio, but that is impossible here. So you will need to Google for, and download, a free program called GSpot. Then when it is installed, browse to one of your videos in GSpot, which will then tell you exactly which codec was used to produce the video.

[EllieW]

Thanks for getting back to me!

Downloaded GSpot - went to file - this is what it tells me

On the left side it says
Size: 193 MB (197,779 KB / 202,526,186 bytes)

Container
File Length Correct
AVI v1.0
Video: 119 MB (61.92%)
Audio: 68.9 MB (35.72%)
AVI Overhead: 4.57 MB (2.37%)

User Data/Metadata
[JUNK] odmldmlh
[ISFT] Lavf52.64.2

Audio
Codec 0x0050 (MPEG (MP1/MP2))
Info 22050Hz 128 kb/s (1 chnl)
Stat Codec(s) Installed

On right side it says
Codec H264 Name H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
Status Codec(s) are Installed

So .... If I am understanding correctly .. the codecs are installed for this ??

[Ken Berry]

Your understanding is correct. Moreover, the H.264 should indeed be on your computer -- although heaven knows there are already enough variants of those!!

Where exactly is the file you are trying to load? Is it on your hard drive?

One other thing you might try is change the extension from .avi to .mpg and try that. You could also try the extensions .mp4 and .mts...

[EllieW]

Changed to .mpg and .mts - Message was - contains no video data
Changed to .mp4 - Message - xvidcore.dll not found
Changed to .wmv - It loaded but nothing was there and message in the preview said - Video not available - cannot find 'vids:H264' decompressor"

Now - I'm even more baffled!

[Ken Berry]

I wonder if it is indeed a DivX video...? You could try loading the XVid codec which does the same job. Just do a Google search for it. Or if you don't have it, go to the DivX.com site and download the free version of their codec...

I would not have bothered with renaming it .wmv since that is a format developed specially by Microsoft to be a competitor to mpeg-4. Moreover, it uses totally different algorithms...

[EllieW]

I'm curious about the "decompressor" message ... because I just went and checked that software in the conference room and by default it is set to decompress at 20% ??

I'm now going to do the search for the codec ....

[skier-hughes]

I wonder if they uae some high frame rate which makes it a non standard mpeg4 which vs can't use?

[teknisyan]

The error "xxx file is inaccessible" and "This file cannot be added to the project due to unknown file format or not enough memory or copyright" could be from the program that captured the video, this may be a security feature of the program that only allows you to play the video and not edit it or reproduce it.

If you have other video editing program, you can try and see if you can open the file.

[EllieW]

If you have other video editing program, you can try and see if you can open the file.

I am able to open it in Camtasia Studio ??

[Ron P.]

Camtasia Studio uses the TechSmith codec. I've found VS to be a little stubborn at times with AVI files produced by it. You may need to use a third party conversion program, like Super, by erightsoft.com to convert it to something VS will handle. You could also try producing a video file from Camtasia Studio and see if you can then insert that into VS.

[EllieW]

Yes ... thinking I need to use Camtasia to create a file .... I can create to wmv ... would that be the best file to convert to?

Thanks...