VLC problem

[John B. Smith]

I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.

WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

[Newyana2]

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

I had a lot of problems with VLC on XP. I switched to Media
Player Classic, which was fault-free. VLC is fine on Win10.
I don't understand why they keep saying that they support XP.

[John B. Smith]

Post by Newyana2

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

I had a lot of problems with VLC on XP. I switched to Media
Player Classic, which was fault-free. VLC is fine on Win10.
I don't understand why they keep saying that they support XP.

I downloaded free Media Player Classic. It can't play the vid either,
but it tells me I'm missing Lav Splitter Source. That looks like a
free download but also like a bag of worms to get installed on XP
without screwing something else. Maybe I just better go to Win7 if I
think I just gotta play that vid.

I already had to restore XP (twice!) to last Sunday thru my
shennanigans on this subject.

[Newyana2]

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded free Media Player Classic. It can't play the vid either,
but it tells me I'm missing Lav Splitter Source. That looks like a
free download but also like a bag of worms to get installed on XP
without screwing something else. Maybe I just better go to Win7 if I
think I just gotta play that vid.
I already had to restore XP (twice!) to last Sunday thru my
shennanigans on this subject.

Sounds tedious. I've run into similar issues occasionally
with different videos. Once in awhile something has to be
converted, for example. Typically 3dyd can make something
that I can use. But I must confess that I really don't
understand all these various audio and video encodings.

I sometimes try to watch videos on Reddit. I don't see a
download,so I find it in the source code. The I download it and
it plays with no video or sound. Why? Beats me. It doesn't
seem that it needs to be so complicated.

[VanguardLH]

Post by John B. Smith

Post by Newyana2

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

I had a lot of problems with VLC on XP. I switched to Media
Player Classic, which was fault-free. VLC is fine on Win10.
I don't understand why they keep saying that they support XP.

I downloaded free Media Player Classic. It can't play the vid either,
but it tells me I'm missing Lav Splitter Source. That looks like a
free download but also like a bag of worms to get installed on XP
without screwing something else. Maybe I just better go to Win7 if I
think I just gotta play that vid.
I already had to restore XP (twice!) to last Sunday thru my
shennanigans on this subject.

You can get the LAV codec included in the K-Lite Codec Pack. The MPC-HC
player should use the LAV system codec included in every edition of the
K-Lite Codec Pack.

VLC has its own private codec library, so nothing you do to update or
install codecs in the OS will be seen by VLC.

[Paul]

Post by John B. Smith

Post by Newyana2

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

I had a lot of problems with VLC on XP. I switched to Media
Player Classic, which was fault-free. VLC is fine on Win10.
I don't understand why they keep saying that they support XP.

I downloaded free Media Player Classic. It can't play the vid either,
but it tells me I'm missing Lav Splitter Source. That looks like a
free download but also like a bag of worms to get installed on XP
without screwing something else. Maybe I just better go to Win7 if I
think I just gotta play that vid.
I already had to restore XP (twice!) to last Sunday thru my
shennanigans on this subject.

That would be short for LibAV Filters -- Splitter, which
would be a demultiplexer.

With DirectShow playback of content, the software
constructs a filter graph and wires together blocks.
Maybe a mixture of KLite AX files and other codec packs,
with suitable "priority" applied to them (maybe a 9999 filter
is guaranteed to be tasked with playing the file, rather than
some lower priority codec code).

Audio Decoder ---- to speakers
/
movie.mp4 ---- Demux
\
Video Decoder ---- to screen

Tools which rely on FFMPEG to play content, their
video playback can still fail. The difference is,
adding Codec Packs in that case won't help, because
FFMPEG is cross platform, and won't have DirectShow
programmed into it.

The older DirectShow, on Windows,
exposes you to "CODEC Hell", multiple Codec Packs,
each with a priority number assignment and so on. You
can easily "trash" your C: if you don't understand the
control mechanisms for CODEC Hell and what to do.
Maybe videos stop playing and you're madder than hell.
I certainly don't know a thing about that, never
having poured vats of CODECs together for fun or profit.

When you operate tools from the command line,
sometimes they print out things which hint at the
source of a problem like a black rectangle instead
of seeing video. If you operate the tool purely
graphically, you may not see that information.

If a step were to be missing, that would give the black screen.
For some CODECs there are multiple "profiles", and maybe "high"
is missing from a really old one. If the Demux was absent, then
both sound and video would be gone. For the failure below,
a DirectShow error message might be suppressed
(if in non-command-line environment).

Audio Decoder ---- to speakers
/
movie.mp4 ---- Demux
\
---- to (black) screen

Paul

[VanguardLH]

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

You could try installing the K-Lite codec pack; however, those install
codecs that are global that any player could use. As I recall, VLC has
its own private codec library (libvlc.dll, libvlccore.dll). That is,
VLC is self-contained and uses its own bundled codecs. To get a new or
fixed codec to use in VLC, you have to get a new version of VLC.

I thought 3.0.21 was the latest VLC version. Maybe you need an old VLC
version to use on an old OS version. They state:

Windows requirements
VLC runs on all versions of Windows, from Windows XP SP3 to the last
version of Windows 11.

K-Lite comes with its own Media Player (in the Basic, and up, editions).
That's the one Newyana2 mentions. See if that one works.

https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
(I get the Full edition.)

MP4 is the container, not how the video was encoded. While VLC can play
lots of encoded videos inside an .mp4 file, that it is an .mp4 file
doesn't guarantee a coder was used that VLC understands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4_file_format

You have an old version of VLC on your WinXP host. See if you can get a
later version. According to their web site, the latest version also
runs on WinXP. It is possible a later version of a program requires a
later version of Microsoft's run-time libraries, like a later version of
msvcrt.dll, which may not be available back in Windows XP.

https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/1dgz6iz/vlc_media_player_3021_does_not_run_on_windows_xp/
(Oh look, there's Newyana2 under his old Mayayana nym.)

That guy found he had to back off to 3.0.20 of VLC to get it working on
Windows XP.

[John B. Smith]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

You could try installing the K-Lite codec pack; however, those install
codecs that are global that any player could use. As I recall, VLC has
its own private codec library (libvlc.dll, libvlccore.dll). That is,
VLC is self-contained and uses its own bundled codecs. To get a new or
fixed codec to use in VLC, you have to get a new version of VLC.
I thought 3.0.21 was the latest VLC version. Maybe you need an old VLC
Windows requirements
VLC runs on all versions of Windows, from Windows XP SP3 to the last
version of Windows 11.
K-Lite comes with its own Media Player (in the Basic, and up, editions).
That's the one Newyana2 mentions. See if that one works.
https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
(I get the Full edition.)
MP4 is the container, not how the video was encoded. While VLC can play
lots of encoded videos inside an .mp4 file, that it is an .mp4 file
doesn't guarantee a coder was used that VLC understands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4_file_format
You have an old version of VLC on your WinXP host. See if you can get a
later version. According to their web site, the latest version also
runs on WinXP. It is possible a later version of a program requires a
later version of Microsoft's run-time libraries, like a later version of
msvcrt.dll, which may not be available back in Windows XP.
https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/1dgz6iz/vlc_media_player_3021_does_not_run_on_windows_xp/
(Oh look, there's Newyana2 under his old Mayayana nym.)
That guy found he had to back off to 3.0.20 of VLC to get it working on
Windows XP.

I did get 3.0,20 onto XP VLC - no help, runs with no picture.

[VanguardLH]

Post by John B. Smith

Post by VanguardLH

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

You could try installing the K-Lite codec pack; however, those install
codecs that are global that any player could use. As I recall, VLC has
its own private codec library (libvlc.dll, libvlccore.dll). That is,
VLC is self-contained and uses its own bundled codecs. To get a new or
fixed codec to use in VLC, you have to get a new version of VLC.
I thought 3.0.21 was the latest VLC version. Maybe you need an old VLC
Windows requirements
VLC runs on all versions of Windows, from Windows XP SP3 to the last
version of Windows 11.
K-Lite comes with its own Media Player (in the Basic, and up, editions).
That's the one Newyana2 mentions. See if that one works.
https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
(I get the Full edition.)
MP4 is the container, not how the video was encoded. While VLC can play
lots of encoded videos inside an .mp4 file, that it is an .mp4 file
doesn't guarantee a coder was used that VLC understands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4_file_format
You have an old version of VLC on your WinXP host. See if you can get a
later version. According to their web site, the latest version also
runs on WinXP. It is possible a later version of a program requires a
later version of Microsoft's run-time libraries, like a later version of
msvcrt.dll, which may not be available back in Windows XP.
https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/1dgz6iz/vlc_media_player_3021_does_not_run_on_windows_xp/
(Oh look, there's Newyana2 under his old Mayayana nym.)
That guy found he had to back off to 3.0.20 of VLC to get it working on
Windows XP.

I did get 3.0,20 onto XP VLC - no help, runs with no picture.

In VLC, go to the Tools -> Codec Information menu. That tells you how
the video was encoded. H.264 is popular, but VLC uses their own x264
lib for decoding.

https://wiki.videolan.org/Category:X264/

You can try to reduce the advanced features of VLC, like go to Tools ->
Preferences -> Video. By the way, is the Video option enabled there?
At that preferences list, disable "Accelerated video output", and
retest. If that option is missing, go to the Input/Codecs tab, and try
the other acceleration setting, like Disabled. See:

https://videoconverter.wondershare.com/vlc/flv-not-displaying-video-vlc-media-player.html
https://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_HowTo/Hardware_acceleration/

Like with using the GPU to accelerate the CPU, the video driver may have
poor code that a program uses for GPU acceleration. Some folks run
across the problem with web browsers that incorporate acceleration, so
the cure is to disable their GPU acceleration. VLC's acceleration uses
hardware decoding via GPU. No idea what video card or controller you
are using, but it could lack the decoding power to use hardware
decoding, or the video driver doesn't work reliably or at all when
programs attempt to use GPU acceleration. VLC is dumb in telling the
video card/controller to do it, anyway. Turn it off, and check if the
problem remains. Besides the global acceleration setting, you can also
set Preferences to Advanced (show all), scroll down to Video -> Output
modules section, and pick a module. There are acceleration options
there, too.

Could be VLC's automatic selections are wrong. Windows XP didn't have
DX11, but did have DX9. Under Tools -> Preferences -> Video -> Output
modules, check if automatic is selected for the output module. Instead
try DX3D9, or OpenGL.

Is this a movie ripped from a disc? A lot of ripped movies don't have
proper frame sync.

Does the MPC-HD player work that has already been mentioned?

[VanguardLH]

Post by VanguardLH
Is this a movie ripped from a disc? A lot of ripped movies don't have
proper frame sync.

Another problem is an incomplete rip. Or a file download was
incomplete. Are you playing the same .mp4 file under WinXP and Win7
(i.e., in some other partition than for the OS partition, or on a
network drive)?

[g***@aol.com]

Post by VanguardLH

Post by VanguardLH
Is this a movie ripped from a disc? A lot of ripped movies don't have
proper frame sync.

Another problem is an incomplete rip. Or a file download was
incomplete. Are you playing the same .mp4 file under WinXP and Win7
(i.e., in some other partition than for the OS partition, or on a
network drive)?

VLC usually plays everything for me. If it won't I load the file into
one of my video editors and see if that can make sense of it. If it
does I export a WMV or something everyone can play.

[Paul]

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

You can try it in FFMPEG, in one of the versions that work on WinXP.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180102224237/https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/static/

ffmpeg-3.3.3-win32-static.zip 43590056 07-Aug-2017 21:09 # WinXP user

When versions around 4.x.x first came out, they were missing some DLLs.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200708235238/https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/static/

# Other OSes, 4.x.x release versions

The Zeranoe site eventually closed down, and Gyan offers files for Windows users.
This is definitely not going to run on WinXP, but Win7 might work.

https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/packages/ffmpeg-6.1.1-full_build.7z

Name: ffmpeg-6.1.1-full_build.7z
Size: 50,475,147 bytes (48 MiB)
SHA256: B13DE924F9E752D2BA5A54C40EC0B595BB4EBAB677A184308D7A819DCFA58BE1

Unpack the file using a copy of 7ZIP. On W10/W11, they placed a
libarchive? or similar, that adds the ability to unpack .7z right
in the OS. Obviously they're never going to backport that to Win7.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Zip

That gives

Name: ffmpeg.exe
Size: 135,416,832 bytes (129 MiB)
SHA256: 2E00E43AEB1929D19763ED3CA1E226B3BC81CB50F6B0B04709F1EE504657E2C5

Name: ffplay.exe
Size: 135,245,824 bytes (128 MiB)
SHA256: E30281CBDCC86D3558F52052EF447BD210728C120FFEA3A0AC2ADD56C6C145FF

Name: ffprobe.exe
Size: 135,283,200 bytes (129 MiB)
SHA256: 201FB44DFA973B303D7A254F44ACA3680F282BBAD732ACE68F64B06E3B2C3E41

Those happen to be 64-bit executables.
All of Gyans are 64-bit.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201020054959/https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/

file ffmpeg.exe

ffmpeg.exe: PE32+ executable (console) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
^^^^^

Put the mystery.mp4 in the same folder as your unpacked EXE files.

In a command prompt, CD to the folder where the four files are now located.

C:
cd /d C:\users\username\Downloads\FFMPEG
ffprobe mystery.mp4
ffplay mystery.mp4

FFProbe tells you the CODECs for audio and video.

FFPlay demonstrates your copy of FFMPEG is modern enough to play the file.

Now, if you go back to WinXP, and do this using 3.3.3 ,
perhaps FFProbe will complain it can't do something, hinting
at the problem. VLC is likely to use ffmpeg or libav as a
library for such playback. None of this is even remotely related
to the state or existence of your KLite CODEC pack :-)

Using the ffmpeg program, you can transcode to a format better
suited to usage on Windows XP. You could use Windows 7 x64 to transcode
and make content for Windows XP.

The following example you would run on Windows 7, could be
like this. This is an overly ornate example. The file should
be bigger than the original .mp4. There are likely much simpler
recipes to make something useful. This is two pass conversion,
two commands, and can have slightly better quality. It makes
no assumptions about your video card (command is un-accelerated).
The output is similar to a file on a DVD (without encryption).

ffmpeg -i some.mp4 -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 4:3 -g 12 -b:v 3900k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 1835008 -pass 1 -y NUL
ffmpeg -i some.mp4 -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 4:3 -g 12 -b:v 3900k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 1835008 -pass 2 output.vob

Doing them unaccelerated is slow. You will grow into the
usage of better commands. Google has examples of
other kinds of conversions. This is a fully accelerated
single pass conversion. Using a GTX1050 or GTX1080 video SIP.
An example like this might take me six minutes.

ffmpeg -hwaccel nvdec -i "fedora.mkv" -y -acodec aac -vcodec h264_nvenc -crf 23 "output2.mp4"

The DVD format example, is more likely to play :-) On WinXP. For some set of conditions.

*******

There are other tools for drag and drop conversion that
are simpler than this. They've already made some profile choices
for you. Like in my example, there are elements of the DVD profile
for the MPEG2 (VOB) produced. The bufsize for example, is the size of the
RAM chip on a typical DVD player hardware device. None of that has
any meaning for on-demand playback from a hard drive. It's just to
show the level of complexity of FFMPEG examples. There are professionals
on the Internet (convert videos commercially every day), who can whip
up examples 5x more complicated than that.

*******

When you have playback problems, if you provide the URL of a vid,
it makes it easier for us to work on it. This isn't always possible
of course, but sometimes we might have more concrete examples.

Paul

[c***@nycap.rr.com]

Post by Paul

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

You can try it in FFMPEG, in one of the versions that work on WinXP.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180102224237/https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/static/
ffmpeg-3.3.3-win32-static.zip 43590056 07-Aug-2017 21:09 # WinXP user
When versions around 4.x.x first came out, they were missing some DLLs.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200708235238/https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/static/
# Other OSes, 4.x.x release versions
The Zeranoe site eventually closed down, and Gyan offers files for Windows users.
This is definitely not going to run on WinXP, but Win7 might work.
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/packages/ffmpeg-6.1.1-full_build.7z
Name: ffmpeg-6.1.1-full_build.7z
Size: 50,475,147 bytes (48 MiB)
SHA256: B13DE924F9E752D2BA5A54C40EC0B595BB4EBAB677A184308D7A819DCFA58BE1
Unpack the file using a copy of 7ZIP. On W10/W11, they placed a
libarchive? or similar, that adds the ability to unpack .7z right
in the OS. Obviously they're never going to backport that to Win7.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Zip
That gives
Name: ffmpeg.exe
Size: 135,416,832 bytes (129 MiB)
SHA256: 2E00E43AEB1929D19763ED3CA1E226B3BC81CB50F6B0B04709F1EE504657E2C5
Name: ffplay.exe
Size: 135,245,824 bytes (128 MiB)
SHA256: E30281CBDCC86D3558F52052EF447BD210728C120FFEA3A0AC2ADD56C6C145FF
Name: ffprobe.exe
Size: 135,283,200 bytes (129 MiB)
SHA256: 201FB44DFA973B303D7A254F44ACA3680F282BBAD732ACE68F64B06E3B2C3E41
Those happen to be 64-bit executables.
All of Gyans are 64-bit.
https://web.archive.org/web/20201020054959/https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/
file ffmpeg.exe
ffmpeg.exe: PE32+ executable (console) x86-64 (stripped to external PDB), for MS Windows
^^^^^
Put the mystery.mp4 in the same folder as your unpacked EXE files.
In a command prompt, CD to the folder where the four files are now located.
cd /d C:\users\username\Downloads\FFMPEG
ffprobe mystery.mp4
ffplay mystery.mp4
FFProbe tells you the CODECs for audio and video.
FFPlay demonstrates your copy of FFMPEG is modern enough to play the file.
Now, if you go back to WinXP, and do this using 3.3.3 ,
perhaps FFProbe will complain it can't do something, hinting
at the problem. VLC is likely to use ffmpeg or libav as a
library for such playback. None of this is even remotely related
to the state or existence of your KLite CODEC pack :-)
Using the ffmpeg program, you can transcode to a format better
suited to usage on Windows XP. You could use Windows 7 x64 to transcode
and make content for Windows XP.
The following example you would run on Windows 7, could be
like this. This is an overly ornate example. The file should
be bigger than the original .mp4. There are likely much simpler
recipes to make something useful. This is two pass conversion,
two commands, and can have slightly better quality. It makes
no assumptions about your video card (command is un-accelerated).
The output is similar to a file on a DVD (without encryption).
ffmpeg -i some.mp4 -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 4:3 -g 12 -b:v 3900k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 1835008 -pass 1 -y NUL
ffmpeg -i some.mp4 -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 4:3 -g 12 -b:v 3900k -maxrate 8000000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 1835008 -pass 2 output.vob
Doing them unaccelerated is slow. You will grow into the
usage of better commands. Google has examples of
other kinds of conversions. This is a fully accelerated
single pass conversion. Using a GTX1050 or GTX1080 video SIP.
An example like this might take me six minutes.
ffmpeg -hwaccel nvdec -i "fedora.mkv" -y -acodec aac -vcodec h264_nvenc -crf 23 "output2.mp4"
The DVD format example, is more likely to play :-) On WinXP. For some set of conditions.
*******
There are other tools for drag and drop conversion that
are simpler than this. They've already made some profile choices
for you. Like in my example, there are elements of the DVD profile
for the MPEG2 (VOB) produced. The bufsize for example, is the size of the
RAM chip on a typical DVD player hardware device. None of that has
any meaning for on-demand playback from a hard drive. It's just to
show the level of complexity of FFMPEG examples. There are professionals
on the Internet (convert videos commercially every day), who can whip
up examples 5x more complicated than that.
*******
When you have playback problems, if you provide the URL of a vid,
it makes it easier for us to work on it. This isn't always possible
of course, but sometimes we might have more concrete examples.
Paul

Did Paul's test with ffmpeg in Win7 - runs mystery file successfully
and spits out codecs required. Also I stupidly erased the ffmpeg I had
downloaded for xp, I THOUGHT I'd found one that ran the file but
without a picture. So started over and found
ffmpeg-3.0-win32-static-7z
https://www.videohelp.com/software/ffmpeg/old-versions

From XP, I loaded a screen pic of ffprobe on postimage.(well I had to
move to Win7 to post it, they make things so convenient, those
webmasters who want outlaw xp.)
Loading Image...
ffplay does run it but with messed up picture.

I think Van is right, this is a rip from an old dvd. It's porn. I'm
not ashamed of watching, at my age I'll use whatever works. But I
hesitate to post the url for it here and open god knows what kind of
bag of worms, legal and social.

[Paul]

Post by c***@nycap.rr.com
Did Paul's test with ffmpeg in Win7 - runs mystery file successfully
and spits out codecs required. Also I stupidly erased the ffmpeg I had
downloaded for xp, I THOUGHT I'd found one that ran the file but
without a picture. So started over and found
ffmpeg-3.0-win32-static-7z
https://www.videohelp.com/software/ffmpeg/old-versions
From XP, I loaded a screen pic of ffprobe on postimage.(well I had to
move to Win7 to post it, they make things so convenient, those
webmasters who want outlaw xp.)
https://i.postimg.cc/PqrDV3Sn/ffmpeg-probe-mystery.png
ffplay does run it but with messed up picture.
I think Van is right, this is a rip from an old dvd. It's porn. I'm
not ashamed of watching, at my age I'll use whatever works. But I
hesitate to post the url for it here and open god knows what kind of
bag of worms, legal and social.

I might have picked FFMPEG 3.3.3 for WinXP, because I think
I spotted version 4 files (4.x.x) coming out at that point,
and there were a couple DLLs missing so it would not run
on WinXP. The DLL situation may have been corrected, but
there might still have been some problem with 4.x.x and WinXP.
My WinXP machine died, and that was the end of WinXP for me.
I can still run it in a VM, but that's not the best for
total compatibility testing (graphics issues).

The strings that FFMPEG dumps out at the beginning, show
what libraries it was compiled against. When you get
a prepared item from one of the sites, it has encoded in it,
the biases of the person doing the build. You would check
the library list, to see if any of the items mentioned here
happened to be included. Someone seems to think the Gyan build
has a bit more in it (but generally 64-bit only, and the WinXP
64-bit build isn't all that common out in the wild and is
something like Win2003 instead?).

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffmpeg/comments/ocao2v/trying_to_convert_a_video_with_av1_taking_several/?rdt=61531

The mini-versions included with some other tools, may be
mainly mux-demux packages, rather than fully featured ones.
That's why one executable can be 100MB, another only 10MB.
Since the build flags allow turning off stuff, you can
make a smaller ("useless") one if you want :-)

I think you could continue to work on your video, and
it might not be "corrupted" in the conventional sense,
just a hard-to-parse version.

Another format (as an example), is "RAW", which is just
pixmaps without much in the way of compression. I treat FFMPEG
as a sort of "reference", and even it can't play its own output
properly :-)

Some formats, such as AVI2 OpenDML, suffer from
not enough info in the standard someone wrote. It was badly
in need of a reference implementation, so that people could
use the C code as a reference instead.

That's why my opinion is that "video is a bitch". A time sink
when it doesn't work.

Paul

[Brian Gregory]

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

Is the PC powerful enough?

If other OSs allow it to play on the same PC then perhaps the GPU
drivers you are using on XP are not giving XP access to the hardware
acceleration features of the GPU needed to make playback on this
hardware feasible?

[Paul]

Post by Brian Gregory

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

Is the PC powerful enough?
If other OSs allow it to play on the same PC then perhaps the GPU drivers you are using on XP are not giving XP access to the hardware acceleration features of the GPU needed to make playback on this hardware feasible?

If the video really is AV1, hardware support here starts (NVDEC table)
at RTX2050 or so. And that hardware is way way past getting a WinXP driver.
That might be W10/W11 only by now. Never would have got a W7 driver.
My GTX1080 (rather old now), it only got one older driver, and RTX2050
would not even have got that much.

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-and-decode-gpu-support-matrix-new

For a format such as what the OP proposes, the best thing is likely
transcoding to something else. That's if any tool can be found to
parse that version. You might have to look somewhere in the file,
for a string indicating what tool made the video, in order to read
it properly.

Paul

[VanguardLH]

Post by Paul
For a format such as what the OP proposes, the best thing is likely
transcoding to something else. That's if any tool can be found to
parse that version. You might have to look somewhere in the file,
for a string indicating what tool made the video, in order to read
it properly.

The OP said the video was ripped from a movie/video CD. Quite often
those tools are crap. He probably has an .mp4 container with
not-so-good encoding within, like missing frames or syncs. Maybe a
different ripper would help along with specifying a different output
format (container) and encoding.

[Brian Gregory]

Post by Paul
If the video really is AV1, hardware support here starts (NVDEC table)
at RTX2050 or so. And that hardware is way way past getting a WinXP driver.
That might be W10/W11 only by now. Never would have got a W7 driver.
My GTX1080 (rather old now), it only got one older driver, and RTX2050
would not even have got that much.

Who mentioned AV1?

The most likely video codec used in an MP4 file is probably H.264 aka AVC.

But there are many other possibilities.

[Paul]

Post by Brian Gregory

Post by Paul
If the video really is AV1, hardware support here starts (NVDEC table)
at RTX2050 or so. And that hardware is way way past getting a WinXP driver.
That might be W10/W11 only by now. Never would have got a W7 driver.
My GTX1080 (rather old now), it only got one older driver, and RTX2050
would not even have got that much.

Who mentioned AV1?
The most likely video codec used in an MP4 file is probably H.264 aka AVC.
But there are many other possibilities.

Up-thread a bit. OPs sample.

https://i.postimg.cc/PqrDV3Sn/ffmpeg-probe-mystery.png

The string there ("AV01"), only appears once in this article, so I can't
be sure that is it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1

It is possible, that "av01" is the fourcc code (marker in a packet
inside the video).

https://www.reddit.com/r/AV1/comments/1csz9wt/av1_vs_av01/

Paul

[j***@astraweb.com]

Post by Brian Gregory

Post by John B. Smith
I downloaded an .mp4 video in Win7(64bit) played it back in VLC media
player successfully. Later I tried to play the vid when booted in
WinXP(32bit), it said it contained no video. I found that my Win7 VLC
was version 3.0.20, and in XP its VLC was 2.2.4.
WinXP,s VLC allowed itself to be updated to the latest, 3.0.20. It now
no longer complains about 'no video' but plays the vid (after a bunch
of jumping around) with no picture displayed.
Anyone know what my problem is?

Is the PC powerful enough?

Good Question.

Years ago, i had the same problem with large and high bitrate videos on an XP machine.

John Smith, rewrite the mp4 to about 1/4 it's original size (halving the current native resolution
should do this) Set your bitrate to no more than 2000 kbps. try it again after downsizing.

Also, or otherwise, try closing all guest apps on your xp machine and run it, so that all the available
XP power will go to vlc.

jim

Post by Brian Gregory
If other OSs allow it to play on the same PC then perhaps the GPU
drivers you are using on XP are not giving XP access to the hardware
acceleration features of the GPU needed to make playback on this
hardware feasible?