.avi playback on WMP

[maryfs]

So - I am a very happy camper using WinDV to download Mini-DV tapes(thanks to your good advice) and have about 50 hours archived on a HD. Sometimes the first one or two clips would not play back on WMP but virtually all the rest did so I did not worry. Those tapes were made on a Canon Optura 40 and on my old Sony workhorse. In 2006 I bought a Canon GL2 and the tapes I am working on now were made on that camera. I made a spot check of the downloaded clips and a whole lot of them won't play on WMP, enough to make me worry - although many others do!! Any ideas about what this is all about? I thought that WMP was the default player for .avi video clips!
Thanks again for your help,
Mary

[Bob]

Did you get an error message when you tried to play those clips in Windows Media Player? If so, what did it say.

Have you tried to use one of those clips that wouldn't play in a Premiere Elements project? I'd like to know whether you can import the clip into Premiere Elements and place it successfully on a timeline and play it from there.

[maryfs]

Bob - Just checked out your ideas. I DO get an Error screen that says: Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.

Per your suggestion, I imported half a dozen clips that don't play in WMP into Adobe Premiere Elements 10 and lo! The video plays fine BUT the audio is muffled and jerky, broken up. Aha! So I put the tape back in my Sony Walkman GV-D1000 and plugged it into the TV and - the audio track in fact IS corrupted. The sound gets intermittently interrupted and it's pretty much throughout this tape which is the third hour of a 2008 trip we took to Kenya. The first two hours that I have downloaded have some clips that don't play but most do. I know that several tapes from later in the trip play just fine since a few years ago I strung some footage of the migration and the Maasai together for an intro to my husband's slide show - everything plays fine on those tapes.

So is there anything I can do to repair this kind of corruption? Either with downloadable software or by sending it someplace to get repaired? Or is my only option to use the video footage and fill in audio some other way - narration, music, whatever. Bummer. I might expect some corruption by the end of a trip to a dry, dusty place but not in the first couple of days in an area that was neither dry nor particularly dusty. I used nothing but Sony DVM60 Excellence grade tapes in the Canon GL2 on the entire trip.

Any thoughts about how this might have happened or what I can do next will be much appreciated.
Mary

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Mary,

Any chance you could post a short clip with the audio problem so we can try to guess as to what the problem may be? There are many things that can cause audio problems, starting with a bad tape or bad microphone connection. Chances of fixing the audio on that tape is probably not very likely but until we hear what it sounds like it is hard to say for sure.

[maryfs]

I can do that, Chuck. But how? Do I just copy and paste into this space? I am not a spring chicken who grew up with computers.....
Mary

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Mary,

When you Post a Reply you will see a "upload attachment" tab a little down the page below the submit button. See the screen shots below. There is a limit to the size but we only need a small sample, maybe 10 - 15 seconds.

attachment1.jpg

attachment2.jpg

[maryfs]

Whoops! I tried to send a 44 MB clip that runs briefly then closes. It tried and tried to send then gave me a message that an .avi extension is not allowed.

Is 44MB too large? Hard to tell how many seconds long these clips that just close so fast are. OR what can I do if I can't attach an .avi file?
Mary

[Ron]

Try it again, Mary.

[maryfs]

Tried again - maybe it's going to get through? I will be busy tomorrow but will check back in ASAP after that.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Played OK for me in Win Media Player. I can hear some very clear camera shutter clicks although the speech is muffled because, I assume, the speaker is both speaking quietly and is not in full range of the microphone.

Here is a screenshot of the media info output.

Media Info.JPG

[Chuck Engels]

Was breaking up a little for me but agree with what John says above. The camera shutter sounds are very clear so the person speaking was not in clear range of the microphone. I am afraid that if you amplify that enough to hear there would also be a lot of noise that would be amplified as well. I guess it depends on how much time you would want to spend trying to clean it up, could take many, many hours of work.

[maryfs]

So am I hearing from both of you that the clip PLAYED in full? Did NOT shut down with that error message? I am sure the audio was muffled for the reasons both of you mention. Those still photographers always mess up our soundtracks....probably my husband in this case. So why are low quality audio tracks causing WMP to just shut down for me? I am not interested in spending hours on cleanup or repair efforts for sure - but would like to be able to run through some of the video footage and PURGE before loading a bunch into Adobe Premiere for editing.

John - I don't know this MediaArea.net software but I looked it up. Should I download the program to check whether my info for this clip is the same as yours? Might there be a clue if it is not? Sorry to be such an amateur - but I am and we live remotely north of Yellowstone so I have no idea where to get savvy local help from someone who knows BOTH PCs AND video.
Mary

[Chuck Engels]

I played the clip in VLC Media Player, much more reliable in my opinion. I haven't used WMP in years due to various issues.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Mary, I played the clip in WMP and it was fine. That software (Mediainfo) can be very useful and it is FREE (love that word!):-

http://download.cnet.com/MediaInfo/3000 ... 13046.html

[maryfs]

I saw that VLC Media Player out there on the web and will give that a try, Chuck. And I will check out the MediaInfo download as well. Thanks so much to both of you.
Mary