wmv3 codec

[Thanatoast]

okay, so i have these avi files that read as avi's, yet when i play them, i get an error in vlc saying something akin to "wmv3 codec, can't read". i did a little research and found that ffmpeg may be able to help me in my mission to play these files, but i am unclear as to how. do i have to re-encode them? i really don't even know what ffmpeg does. can anyone help? thank you.

 

[Makosuke]

I thought wmv3 was an old WMV codec (aren't they up to 9 now?), so I would've expected VLC to play it, but anyway:

The easiest way to play Windows Video (WMV) is, surprise surprise, with Windows Media Player. Download the latest version from Microsoft (you can find it on VersionTracker.com too), install, and play. It should work fine.

ffmpeg can convert some older versions of WMV to other formats (mpeg or some avi codecs), but it's rather difficult to use. You can find it on VersionTracker as well, and it comes with complete installation instructions (not easy--you need to install several freeware tools along with it to get it to work). Once you've got in installed, you'll have to figure out how to convert your video file to another format, which isn't all that easy, either.

Unless you desperately need it in another useable format, I highly recommend just using the WMV player to watch it.

 

[Thanatoast]

thanks for the reply. and you're right, you'd figure microsoft would support it's own format, but no such luck. i downloaded the latest version, yet get a "file format invalid" error. grrr.

this is the message from vlc:

main: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `WMV3'.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.

 

[MrMacMan]

I too have looked for such a solution...

Like microsoft supporting their own codecs with their own program!

haha!

What a joke that was!


So yes, MPlayer, VLC, Quicktime, Windows Media Player will not play these just so people know.

I have no idea how to open them... I even have ffmpeg too...

 

[MisterMe]

thanks for the reply. and you're right, you'd figure microsoft would support it's own format, but no such luck. i downloaded the latest version, yet get a "file format invalid" error. grrr.

this is the message from vlc:

main: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `WMV3'.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.

I have never seen a non-Mac format from Microsoft that had more that three characters in the extension. What makes you think that "WMV3" is a Microsoft format?

 

[Makosuke]

I have never seen a non-Mac format from Microsoft that had more that three characters in the extension. What makes you think that "WMV3" is a Microsoft format?

I assume that's not the file extension, that's the fourcc (format code) for the video format of the file. Same as "divx", "3ivx", "iv50" and many others.

Here's a thought; is it an .avi file, rather than a .wmv file? That's likely, since VLC said it has a fourcc (which I don't remember WMV files having). If so, then it's not exactly what you'd call valid; so far as I know WMV files are a different container format than AVI, and the WMV video codecs were never intended to be used in AVI containers.

Meaning, of course, that PC programs used to dealing with funky, nonstandard, semi-broken media formats created by whatever monkeys seem to do so much video encoding on Windows, can probably read the file and figure out what to do with the video stream. But, programs that expect something a bit more standard don't know what to do with it.

If it is labeled .avi, there's at least a chance it could just be mis-labled, causing the WiMP not to recognize it; I've seen this happen with other formats, where PC users re-name them with an .avi just so they'll open with some favorite program when they double click (.dat files often get mis-named .mpg for the same reason). Change it to .wmv and see if the Media Player can handle it.

If not, maybe it really is an AVI, and your best bet is to try and extract the video stream for playing with something that recognizes it, though I can't tell you how to do that.